Wang Mazi’s real name was Wang Ergou. He was a native of Lotus Flower Village. When he was about eight or nine years old, he had herpes. He and his family didn’t pay much attention to it. He left a face full of pockmarks after scratching it. That was how he got Wang Mazi’s nickname. [T/N: Mazi is the Chinese word for pockmarks.]
Wang Mazi was almost thirty years old this year. He was still single to this day. Firstly, his family was poor, the kind of poor that didn’t have a next meal. When his parents were still alive, he didn’t have a good life, and after they passed away, he was even more miserable. Secondly, he wasn’t very smart. He couldn’t be said to be mentally retarded, but he was stupid and easily fooled. A few years ago, an outsider gave him a wife, and he gave her a betrothal gift. But his wife ran away.
Ever since then, he did not dare to talk about his wife anymore. He lived alone in a daze. Sometimes, when the villagers saw him, they would pity him and help him out. However, everyone was poor and could not care about him most of the time.
It was only when the Yu family hired workers and called him over to work that he finally could have three meals a day.
Wang Mazi was ugly, but he was strong. Without the help of the bamboo pole, he dragged Guo Xianyue ashore alone.
When Du Jinhua saw her daughter being saved by an old man with a pockmarked face, her vision darkened and she wished she could faint on the spot!
Initially, she had despised Zhao Heng for being a poor scholar and wondered what kind of bad luck her daughter had to fall into his hands. Now that she saw Wang Mazi, she realized how lucky she was to be able to marry Zhao Heng!
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Du Jinhua regretted it so much that her intestines turned green. If she had known that the person who saved her was Wang Mazi, she wouldn’t have called the villagers over no matter what. At most, Wang Mazi would argue with her. She wouldn’t admit it even if she died. Without other witnesses, this matter wouldn’t count!
But… the entire village came because of her shouts!
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Guo Dayou squeezed through the crowd and walked over.
Coincidentally, Wang Mazi placed Guo Xianyue on the grass. When Guo Dayou saw that his daughter had been touched by a bumpkin, he was furious. He grabbed Wang Mazi and punched him!
“Stop!” the village headman shouted.
Yu Song quickly grabbed Guo Dayou’s arm.
Guo Dayou was furious. “Little Song, let go! How dare this bastard touch my daughter! I’ll beat him to death!”
Although Yu Song didn’t hate Guo Xianyue, he hated this uncle the most. He said angrily, “Don’t be unreasonable. He was the one who saved Cousin Yue when she fell into the water!”
Guo Dayou choked. His gaze swept across the villagers present. Everyone had the same expression. Guo Dayou felt like a bolt from the blue had flashed across his head. He grabbed Yu Song’s collar and said angrily, “Your cousin fell into the water. Are you just going to watch from the side and let an outsider save her?!”
“I just came too!” Yu Song said innocently.
“When we came, your daughter had already sunk. If not for Wang Mazi, she would have drowned long ago!” Aunt Zhang said earnestly.
“That’s right, that’s right.” Everyone nodded. When they arrived, the first people they saw were Zhao Heng and his sister. They didn’t know that Guo Xianyue had also fallen into the water, okay? If Wang Mazi hadn’t gone into the water to save her first, they might have already turned around and left. Tomorrow, Guo Xianyue’s corpse will be floating on the water.
Guo Dayou said angrily, “Maybe he pushed my daughter into the water!”
Wang Mazi puffed out his chest and said, “I, I didn’t!”
Aunt Bai pressed a few times on Guo Xianyue’s chest, and Guo Xianyue spat out a few mouthfuls of water.
“How strange. She’s wearing Ah Wan’s clothes,” Cui Hua muttered softly.
“No wonder I thought it looked familiar,” Little Chen said.
Yu Feng frowned.
At this moment, Guo Xianyue spat out another mouthful of water and finally regained some consciousness.
Guo Dayou did not pay attention to his daughter’s clothes. He only held his daughter in his arms and asked her what had happened.
Guo Xianyue opened her mouth in a daze.
Du Jinhua saw that the situation was bad and quietly got up. She was about to tiptoe away when Guo Dayou grabbed her hair.
“Stupid woman!”
Crackle! Guo Dayou slapped Du Jinhua’s face, causing her to stagger and fall to the ground.
Everyone was dumbfounded. What was going on?
Guo Dayou kicked Du Jinhua. “Stupid woman! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Aunt said angrily, “Guo Dayou, are you crazy! No matter how unhappy you are, you can’t vent your anger on your wife!”
Yu Feng and Yu Song hurried forward to hug Guo Dayou.
No one knew that Guo Dayou had learned the truth about what Du Jinhua had done. Just like Aunt, they thought that he was unhappy that Wang Mazi had touched Guo Xianyue’s body and was venting his anger on Du Jinhua.
Guo Dayou was furious. The Yu brothers could not stop him. He kicked Du Jinhua a few more times, causing her to be on the verge of death. In the end, Shuanzi and Hunter also took action. With the strength of the four of them, they managed to tie Guo Dayou up.
After four people “fell into the water” in a row, the village headman felt that something was amiss. Guo Xianyue had fainted again, so it was not convenient for him to ask. The village headman called Zhao Heng, Zhao Baomei, and Wang Mazi to his house and carefully asked them about the sequence of events in front of the villagers.
It turned out that Zhao Heng was the first to notice that someone had fallen into the water.
When Du Jinhua shouted “Ah Wan fell into the water”, he happened to be nearby. He didn’t know what he was thinking, but his mind went blank. When he came back to his senses, he was already standing by the fish pond. Of course, he did not say that he was going for Ah Wan. He only said that he heard the sound of someone falling into the water, so he rushed to save her.
Zhao Baomei did not hear Du Jinhua’s cry. She was chasing after her brother. However, even she did not understand why she suddenly slipped and fell into the fish pond. Zhao Heng, who was already halfway there, could only turn back to save her.
Wang Mazi’s side was much stranger.
“I, I, I was sleeping. When I woke up, I was… in the water.” He stuttered a little when he was nervous.
According to him, he did not see anyone fall into the water or hear any commotion. He had wandered to the fish pond in his sleep.
Others might not believe this, but Wang Mazi was a fool and would not lie. Besides, there was no other explanation. He couldn’t have asked someone to put him in the fish pond. What kind of expert was that person? Their village didn’t have such a powerful person!
Everyone could not help but sigh at Wang Mazi’s luck with women. He casually sleepwalked and actually picked up a beautiful girl.
… .
The incident between Guo Xianyue and Wang Mazi caused an uproar in the village, but Yu Wan knew nothing about it. She was squatting in a vegetable field near the bamboo forest and picking wild chives one by one.
The stem of the chive was green after fermentation and could be used as the mother liquid of the black stinky tofu. However, it was not the most fertile season for chives yet. She had to pick the big ones.
Yu Wan plucked for an hour until her back was sore and her legs were numb. She stood up and stretched. Most of her box had been filled. The last batch of stinky tofu should be enough. It was still early. Why not dig some spring bamboo shoots?
Yu Wan packed her tools, carried the basket, and walked towards the bamboo forest.
When she passed by a few clusters of flowers, Yu Wan discovered a type of red fruit that she had eaten when she was young—March Bubble. The stem was covered in small thorns, and if she was not careful, it would easily prick her hand. Therefore, it was also called Thorny Bubble, and its scientific name was raspberry.
When the raspberries turned red or purple, they could be eaten. They were sweet and delicious with a slight sour taste. Yu Wan liked them very much. Unfortunately, most of the raspberries were still yellow. Yu Wan searched for half a day and only found half yellow and half red.
Yu Wan began to dig for spring bamboo shoots in the forest.
Spring bamboo shoots would be unearthed, and it was easier to find than winter bamboo shoots. Moreover, spring bamboo shoots that were unearthed before April were all early spring bamboo shoots. The chances of them becoming bamboos were small, and they could all be picked. Therefore, after a while, Yu Wan’s basket became heavy.
Yu Wan went to the stream to wash her hands and found a broken piece of wood that she had never seen before. The earthquake must have shaken this big fellow off the mountaintop. There were large patches of wood ears and some plump mushrooms on the broken wood.
The basket could no longer fit so Yu Wan opened the cloth bag hanging on her waist and plucked the fungus and mushrooms.
“If only there was a pheasant.”
Mushroom and wood ear chicken stew were very delicious and had high nutritional value. They were most suitable for the little fellows. Just as this thought flashed through his mind, there was a commotion in the east.
Yu Wan’s hand that was holding the cloth bag paused. “Could it be that a pheasant really came?”
Yu Wan, who had never encountered danger in the forest and had only picked up little snow foxes, pheasants, and wild rabbits, naturally did not think that there was any danger in this area. However, when she found the source of the commotion, she realized that it was a black bear.
Yu Wan’s scalp went numb.
She had been to the bamboo forest many times, and she had basically wandered around the vicinity. According to her observation of the terrain and the wild feces along the way, there shouldn’t be dire beasts. Could it be because of the earthquake that the dire beasts’ original residence was destroyed? Now, they were starting to search for their nest again?
Although the black bear’s vision was not good, its ears and nose were exceptionally sensitive. It sensed Yu Wan’s existence.
The black bear rarely took the initiative to attack people, but the ferocious beast was greatly frightened during the earthquake and became abnormally sensitive. Yu Wan’s appearance made it feel danger.
It attacked Yu Wan.
Yu Wan did not think that she could defeat an adult black bear. She could not even climb a tree. Just as she was thinking about how to escape, a green figure suddenly flew over and kicked the black bear’s head.
The black bear was kicked into the bushes and turned to run.
Yu Wan heaved a sigh of relief, but before she could finish heaving a sigh of relief, it was stuck in her throat. “It’s you?”
Yu Zigui walked over with his sword on his back and looked at her calmly. “Why? Are you surprised to see me? Do you think Yan Jiuchao’s guards killed me?”
Yu Wan said indifferently, “How could the number one swordsman in the martial world be killed so easily? However, you should be injured, right?”
“It’s enough to deal with you.”
It was a tacit agreement.
Yu Wan thought to herself, To be able to make you stay in seclusion for so many days, you must be seriously injured. If I’m smarter, I might have a chance to turn the tables.
Yu Zigui pressed his dagger against Yu Wan’s neck. “I advise you not to think too much. Even if you can only move one finger, you’re not my match.”
Yu Wan’s expression did not change. “What do you want?”
Yu Zigui said, “The brocade pouch.”
Yu Wan was so angry that she laughed. “What must I do to make you believe that the brocade pouch is really not in my hands? I don’t even know what it looks like, whether it’s black or white, whether it’s big or small. Why are you always pestering me?! Aren’t you afraid that you’ll waste your time on me and miss out on the brocade pouch’s true destination?”
Yu Zigui said expressionlessly, “The brocade pouch is in your hands.”
This person!
Yu Zigui continued, “Don’t think that you can rest easy just because the Thousand Possibilities Pavilion has been destroyed. Before a third person finds out about you, you better obediently take out the brocade pouch. Otherwise, Yan Jiuchao won’t be able to protect you.”
Yu Wan retorted, “How do you know he can’t protect me?”
Yu Zigui looked at Yu Wan deeply with a hint of mockery. “It seems like you still don’t know…”
Yu Wan’s expression froze as the words he didn’t finish that day flashed across her mind.
Yu Zigui’s following voice gradually overlapped with that night. The difference was that he also said the words that Yan Jiuchao had interrupted.
Yu Wan suddenly clenched her fists.
“That’s why he’s unreliable. Don’t get yourself into trouble again.”
As soon as Yu Zigui finished speaking, Yu Wan’s shovel came down on his face.
Yu Zigui did not expect Yu Wan to have such a reaction. He was caught off guard and actually injured his arm with Yu Wan’s shovel.
Yu Wan ran!
Yu Zigui tapped his toe and used his qinggong to land in front of Yu Wan, blocking her path.
Yu Wan turned around and ran towards the north of the forest. Yu Zigui used his qinggong to stop her again.
Yu Wan changed her route to the south. Yu Zigui was about to use his qinggong again when he suddenly thought of something. His eyes trembled. “You can’t go there!”
Unfortunately, it was too late. Yu Wan had already missed her step.
The earthquake had changed the original terrain. No one would have expected that under the mottled weeds was a bottomless cliff.
Yu Zigui had just walked past when he saw a bamboo rat fall.
Yu Zigui reached out to grab Yu Wan, but he didn’t even manage to grab a piece of her sleeve.