Chen Liejiu has been very busy recently.

Since Xu Huaiqian went to the bank and talked to Manager Wu about a series of bank reform methods, Manager Wu reorganized the bank, making it busy instead of the lazy routine before.

Chen Liejiu was entrusted with an important task and assigned a lot of work.

He ran between the countryside and the county every day, and his legs were almost broken. Of course, he made a lot of money.

Chen Liejiu estimated that what he earned in the past half month was almost equal to what he earned in the previous half year.

Sure enough, after he finished the bank’s account this day, he settled 1,200 wen, which is one tael and two coins of silver.

It was equal to what he earned in the past two or three months.

Thinking that all this money was earned by Xu Huaiqian for him, he was not stingy. He took the money, turned around and went into the medicine shop, and bought bird’s nest.

The family had almost finished eating.

 These days, he saw Xu Huaiqian taking medicine every day. Not only did his complexion improve, but he also coughed less at night. He even looked more energetic and less haggard.

It proves that these things are useful, so they can’t be stopped.

But this time he learned his lesson and said to the medicine boy who was giving him bird’s nest: “Why don’t you give me some more red dates and wolfberries? I will often come to your clinic to buy them in the future. Last time I spent more than 30 taels of silver in your clinic, and you packed it for me. Do you remember it?”

“I remember.” The medicine boy nodded. There are not many people in Mishan County who can take out more than 30 taels of silver to buy medicine at one go, let alone a maverick like Chen Liejiu. It’s hard for him to forget it.

 “Just remember to give me some,” Chen Liejiu imitated Xu Huaiqian’s way of talking to the medicine boy, “I will come to your clinic every month to buy a lot of medicine. If you don’t give me some, I can only go to other pharmacies.”

He had been collecting debts for many years. He had no other skills, but he was shameless. He just stuck to the medicine boy and talked about how hard it was to earn money and how miserable his husband was.

The medicine boy had no choice but to scoop him two bowls of red dates and one bowl of wolfberries.

“It’s really useful.” After leaving the clinic with the bird’s nest, Chen Liejiu looked at the red dates and wolfberries in his arms and curled his lips.

He just tried it, but he didn’t expect it to work. It seems that he has another trick to spend money in the future.

Finally, he remembered that Xu Huaiqian had been writing these two days, and the words on the front and back of the paper were filled. He used this method to buy two rolls of paper, for one hundred and eighty wen, which was twenty wen cheaper.

In the end, he had twenty wen left, but he didn’t save them. He took them to the butcher shop to buy a pound of meat and some bones before returning home with a full load.

 Before entering the house, he was still thinking whether they should eat braised pork or drink bone soup tonight.

The bone he bought last time was boiled by Xu Huaiqian until it was milky white. It tasted better than meat and he would not get tired of it even after drinking it for several days.

As a result, as soon as he entered the yard, he saw that the box where his younger sister hatched chicks was overturned on the ground. The eggs were broken, and there was some egg liquid on the torn quilt.

In the house, Xu Huaiqian and Wang Wanwan were each holding an egg and rolling it on his younger sister’s face. His younger sister’s face was half swollen and she was grimacing in pain.

“What’s happened?” He walked into the house, put down his things, and asked.

 Xu Huaiqian wanted to explain, but Chen Xiaomei, who was already full of anger, saw Chen Liejiu as if she had seen her backbone. She immediately threw herself at his legs and started to cry: “Brother! Chen Guijia’s family hit me!”

“Her family’s Sanzhu stole my eggs for hatching chicks and broke them, so I bit him, and she slapped me hard. It hurt so much!”

Her tears kept falling like beads, and with her face now half swollen, she looked very pitiful.

Xu Huaiqian, who had just applied the egg to her face, was surprised. He asked her why she didn’t cry even though it hurt so much, and it turned out that she was holding it in for a long time.

Chen Liejiu’s brows tightened as he listened. When she finished crying, he squatted down to wipe the tears from her face, touched her swollen half face, and comforted her: “Don’t cry, brother will find a way to get him back.”

Find a way?

Then when will it be?

 “She also scolded me, calling me a jinx, and her scolding was so ugly,” Chen Xiaomei, who just wanted to take revenge on the spot, seemed to be afraid that the fire was not strong enough. She glanced at Xu Huaiqian and sobbed, “She also made second brother vomit blood!”

“Really!” She took out the handkerchief that she had taken from Xu Huaiqian at some point, “Second brother hasn’t vomited blood for a long time! He coughed for a long time today! Look, there are blood streaks on the handkerchief!”

“Cough cough cough cough–” She made Xu Huaiqian feel ashamed and coughed awkwardly twice. He didn’t vomit blood in anger. It was obvious that he didn’t want to get involved with Chen Guijia’s nonsense and pretended to be sick to scare her away. After she said that, the fake seemed to come true.

After Chen Liejiu looked at the bloody handkerchief that Chen Xiaomei gave him, he glanced at Xu Huaiqian who was coughing. He frowned, said nothing more, picked up the axe by the door, and went out.

 “…Don’t be impulsive!” Xu Huaiqian was afraid that he would get angry and do something irrational. He stopped coughing and reminded him.

Chen Liejiu raised his hand behind his back: “It’s okay, I know my limits.”

After Chen Guijia returned home, she was scared when she thought of Xu Huaiqian who coughed up blood and said he was dying.

Chen Liejiu finally got a sickly boy home as a brought in husband. If something happened to him, wouldn’t he fight her to death?

She stood at the door of her house in a panic for an entire afternoon. She didn’t see Wang Wanwan go out of the yard to look for someone, nor did she hear any noise from the Chen family. She thought that maybe nothing happened, and that sickly boy was just scaring her.

Only then did she feel relieved and went back to her room to do housework, cursing. She was so worried that she didn’t do anything for an entire afternoon.

 In the evening, the mother and son, who had forgotten about this matter long ago, sat under the porch, picking vegetables, and played with mud in the yard, looking very warm.

Just then, Chen Liejiu came over with a shiny axe and greeted her with a smile: “Aunt Gui, are you busy?”

When Chen Guijia’s family saw Chen Liejiu, they dropped the vegetables they picked in their hands in fear. They couldn’t help but speak in a somewhat frightened voice: “Lie… Liejiu, why are you here?”

“It’s okay, Aunt Gui,” Chen Liejiu wiped the axe with the rag on Chen Guijia’s fence, and comforted her, “I want to talk to your Sanzhu about something, it has nothing to do with you, don’t be afraid.”

As he said that, he smiled and waved to Chen Sanzhu who was playing with mud in the yard happily: “Sanzhu, come here, I have something to tell you.”

What is it that he wants to talk about that he brought an axe, isn’t he going to chop her Sanzhu?

 The Xiangwu family just had a quarrel, and now Chen Liejiu came with an axe. Chen Guijiajia couldn’t help but think about it.

When she thought that their Sanzhu would be chopped into pieces by Chen Liejiu like chopping wood, blood gushing out, she was so scared that she was shaking all over, but she still suppressed her fear and called Sanzhu to her side: “Zhuzi, don’t go to him, come to mother.”

Chen Sanzhu looked at Chen Liejiu and then at his mother, hesitating about who to go to. At this time, Chen Liejiu picked up the knife and made a chopping motion on the fence: “This is Aunt Gui’s fault, I just want to talk to your Sanzhu, but you don’t want to. Have you forgotten that I am a bully? I am unreasonable in doing things…”

Before he finished his words, Chen Guijia saw that the knife he used to chop the fence was like chopping her son’s neck. It stung her so much that she immediately rushed to Chen Sanzhu with weak hands and feet, hugged him, and begged for mercy: “I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong, please forgive us…”

It was all her fault that she was so proud that she forgot that Chen Liejiu was a bully who dared to fight wolves. How could they, a small family, dare to provoke the bully’s kid!

Chen Liejiu took back his hand on the fence and smiled: “What you said is right, what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m wrong, I’m wrong,” Chen Guijiajia said hurriedly, “I shouldn’t indulge the child and take Xiaomei’s things at will. I shouldn’t slap Xiaomei when she was fighting with Sanzhu.”

Instantly, many details of the daytime in the Chen family yard flashed through Chen Guijia’s mind. She knew that Chen Liejiu was here to find trouble for Chen Xiaomei. She didn’t have the clamorous posture of the daytime. She raised her hand and slapped Chen Sanzhu: “I told you to be obedient and not touch other people’s things at will. I told you to be obedient and not take other people’s eggs and smash them. I told you to be obedient and not make fun of others. You can’t make fun of others for whatever they want to do!”

Chen Guijia was really afraid of Chen Liejiu. She still remembered that when Chen Liejiu came back from fighting the wolves, he glanced at her, as if he wanted to kill her. She was really afraid that Chen Liejiu would get confused and not distinguish between humans and wolves, and pick up an axe to chop their family!

So when she beat Chen Sanzhu, she really beat him! The kind of beating to death! 

“…Ah…Wuwuwuwu…Mom…Stop beating me…It hurts…Mom…Wuwuwuwu…”

Chen Sanzhu had never been beaten since he was a child, not to mention that his mother beat him so hard that it hurt him. Soon, Chen Sanzhu’s pig-like wailing sound came from Chen Guijia’s yard. It was particularly loud when every household was making dinner.

The neighbors all looked out, wondering why Chen Guijia, who usually loved her children so much, could bear to beat her children today?

Chen Liejiu stood outside the fence with a chopping knife, thinking about Chen Xiaomei’s swollen and bruised face, and Xu Huaiqian’s bloodshot handkerchief, watching with relish.

He didn’t feel sorry for Chen Sanzhu at all.

If a mother can’t teach her child, there will always be someone who will teach him for her. It’s better to let her teach him now than to be taught by others in the future.

 Thinking of this, he said in surprise: “Why is Aunt Gui educating her child for no reason? I just came to ask Sanzhu if he knows what happened to the wound on my little sister’s face.”

Hearing Chen Sanzhu’s wailing, Chen Guijia felt uncomfortable. It hurts the mother to beat her son, but if she doesn’t beat him, it will be Chen Liejiu’s turn, and both of them will die!

Hearing Chen Liejiu’s words, she shuddered. She ignored her son’s wailing, lifted his face, and slapped him a few times in the face. Seeing his little face swell up instantly, she looked at Chen Liejiu with a distressed face: “… Liejiu,… do you think this is okay?”

“Aunt Gui is educating her child and asking me what to do?” Chen Liejiu didn’t admit that he asked her to beat him, “Since Aunt Gui doesn’t know what happened to my sister’s face, then she should know why my husband vomited blood, right?”

“Mr. Xu vomited blood probably because of my child, he was disobedient,” Chen Guijia’s heart ached when she heard it. If she knew that Chen Liejiu would blackmail her family, she would slap herself in the face. Why did she provoke the people of Chen Liejiu’s family? “It’s all because of me, as a mother, who didn’t educate him well. I’ll catch a chicken for you and take it back to nourish Mr. Xu’s body.”

When Chen Guijia caught the chicken, her heart was bleeding. These chickens were old hens that she had raised for many years. Not only did they lay eggs frequently, but they also had a lot of chicken fat. They could be sold for hundreds of copper coins in the city!

She lost all this. The head of the family knew, but he didn’t know how to teach her a lesson!

Chen Guijia was angry and afraid, but she still honestly caught the chicken and gave it to Chen Liejiu.

Xu Huaiqian and Chen Xiaomei didn’t know what happened in Chen Guijia’s yard. They only knew that not long after Chen Liejiu went out, the sound of chickens and dogs beating children came from the next yard.

 Amid Chen Sanzhu’s crying, Chen Liejiu brought back a big, fat hen, threw it in the yard, and smiled at them with a relaxed look: “Solved, stew chicken tonight!”