Chapter 15: Encounter with Bandits on the Road

The group ran up to a street stall selling fried pastries.

“Give me five,” Xiaojiu said, pulling out the copper coins she had earned from her last trip to town. “How much is one?”

“Two wen each,” the vendor replied with a cheerful smile.

Xiaojiu counted out ten wen and handed them over.

Zhao Hu immediately pulled out his own coins. “Village Chief, I have money. I can pay for mine.”

Xiaojiu split the pastries among them and said, “Save your money for marrying a wife in the future.”

“Oh…”

Zhao Hu didn’t really understand what marrying a wife was for, but everyone in the village did it. If you didn’t marry, like Liu Dazhu, people would say you were useless. So in Zhao Hu’s mind, getting a wife was very important—only then could you be considered a useful person.

The group wandered from one end of the street to the other, buying quite a few things.

Eventually, their hands were so full they couldn’t carry any more, and they decided it was time to head back to the village.

They returned to the inn, climbed into the ox cart, and Tian the hunter got the oxen ready and took the reins. As he drove the cart, the kids sat in the back, chattering away excitedly about the lively sights in town while inspecting their purchases.

The ox cart had been moving for about an hour, and the sun was starting to set. The road was growing quieter with hardly any people around.

Then, at the exact same spot, from the same woods as before, four or five fierce-looking men suddenly burst out, brandishing broadswords.

“Stop right there!” they shouted at Tian the hunter and the kids on the cart.

Tian quickly shoved the kids back into the cart and stood protectively in front of it. “What do you think you’re doing, attacking people in broad daylight?”

One of the thugs raised his blade and sneered, “What do you think we’re doing? You see this blade? Hand over the money, nice and easy!”

Tian said hurriedly, “We’re just poor country folk here for market day. We don’t have much money—spent it all already. Everything’s on the cart. I’ll hand it over.”

But before he could move, one of the men kicked him to the side.

“Don’t try to play dumb. We were watching from the inn. We saw you sell a wild boar at the restaurant. Hand over the money!”

Seeing Tian kicked aside like that, Xiaojiu was furious.

“You’re looking for death?” Her eyes darkened as she stared at them.

The thugs were surprised that the kids weren’t scared at all.

“Hand over the money, or we’ll sell you all to the slave traders!” the scar-faced man threatened.

Zhao Hu sneered, “Tch, we’re not giving it to you! Come over here if you’ve got the guts. I’ll beat you till you cry for your mommy!”

“Yeah, come try it if you dare! Your grandpa’s right here, not scared at all!”

None of the kids were afraid.

Xiaojiu wasn’t scared because she trusted her own strength—she had defeated humans with abilities before, let alone ordinary ones without any powers.

The other kids weren’t scared because they believed in their village chief. In their eyes, someone who could punch a wild boar to death was invincible. No one could beat the village chief.

Tian was sweating bullets when he saw the kids jumping out of the cart and talking back to the thugs.

“Village Chief, I’ll hold them off here. You kids run!” He got back up and tried to stand between Xiaojiu and the bandits.

The scar-faced thug saw that Tian had gotten up again and raised his foot to kick him away a second time.

But just as his foot lifted, he suddenly felt it caught by a small hand.

And then—he flew.

Yes, flew.

He saw blue skies and white clouds, the people below growing smaller, birds flapping past him…

……

Indeed, the moment he kicked out, Xiaojiu grabbed his foot and flung him high into the air.

Everyone below looked up in shock as the man who’d just been strutting on the ground was suddenly soaring through the air. After a long moment, he finally fell—landing in the tallest tree nearby, stuck on a branch.

The bandits who had been so arrogant just moments ago now had trembling hands, barely able to hold onto their blades.

“This is a monster.”

“This must be a monster!”

Xiaojiu slowly walked closer to the group. “I just want to ask—are you guys bandits?”

A rather scrawny-looking man immediately threw away his knife and said, trembling, “We’re not bandits! We were just, just joking with you! We’re not here to rob anyone—we’re good people!”

“Yes, yes, yes, we’re good people!” The others quickly chimed in.

Xiaojiu felt these people were treating her like a fool. She grabbed the scrawny man, gave him a swing, and—same posture, same arc—tossed him up onto the same tree as the others.

The rest of the group instantly dropped to their knees. “Spare us, Auntie! Please spare us!”

Xiaojiu looked at them and asked again, “Are you bandits?”

The group immediately spilled everything like beans: “We’re really not bandits! We usually just collect protection fees on the street. Today, we just happened to see you selling a wild boar and buying things left and right, so we figured you had a lot of money on you. That’s the only reason we had any bad ideas. We really don’t normally do bandit stuff!”

If they had known this little girl was so powerful, they would’ve just stuck to collecting protection fees honestly. Why did they have to get greedy and try something stupid like robbery? And now, they were already wiped out on their first attempt.

“Then hand over the money,” A’dou threatened. “You guys must have collected quite a lot in protection fees. Hand it over, or I’ll have our village chief toss you into the sky, and you won’t come down for days.”

Xiaojiu looked at A’dou approvingly—what promise! No wonder he was one of her villagers.

Zhao Hu saw the village chief’s approving gaze toward A’dou.

He immediately picked up a large knife from the ground. “Hand over the money, or I’ll chop off your hands and feet!”

Tieniu also quickly picked up a knife. “Hand over the money, or this grandpa’s blade is going to see blood!”

Xiaojiu: Why are these two kids so ruthless?

The group was dumbfounded.

Wait a minute—why do these lines sound so familiar?

Why do they sound… like robbers?

The kneeling group thought: Did fake bandits just run into real ones?

Xiaojiu saw they were still silent. “Not handing it over?”

“We’ll give it! We’ll give it!” The group immediately pulled out their silver.

Xiaojiu counted it. Not much. Altogether, just over fifty taels.

“That’s it?”

“We’re just the small fry. We don’t carry that much money.”

“The big stash is all with the boss. We only get a little cut each time.”

“This is everything we’ve got.”

“Yes, all the money we collect usually goes to the boss. We just get some scraps.”

Seeing Xiaojiu starting to get angry, they immediately sold out their boss without hesitation.

“Where’s your boss?” Xiaojiu asked.

They pointed to the tallest tree. “Up there.”

Xiaojiu: Miscalculation. I don’t know any lightness skill. I can only throw people. So what now?

A’dou looked up at the man in the tree and asked, “Village Chief, can our new martial arts teacher fly that high?”

Oh, right.

Let’s go find Masked Man.

Xiaojiu asked Hunter Tian, “Do you have any rope? Tie them all up and drag them back to the village to help build houses.”

Hunter Tian was still stunned. Hearing this brought him back to his senses. “Oh, yes, yes—I have some on the ox cart. I’ll go get it.”

With that, he quickly retrieved the rope used for tying up hunted animals from the cart.

Hunter Tian tied up the group of people who were acting so arrogant just moments ago and fastened them to the back of the ox cart so they had to walk behind it.

Seeing that it was getting late, they hurried to head back to the village.

This happened to be the time when the villagers were coming back from the fields.

As soon as Hunter Tian drove the cart into the village, the villagers saw a whole string of people tied up behind the cart.

Everyone was full of curiosity and crowded around.

“Hunter Tian, where’s the village chief?” Zhao Dalang asked.

Xiaojiu poked her head out. “Right here.”

Zhao Hu: Definitely not my biological daughter. Dad didn’t even care if I lived or died.

The villagers were relieved to see the village chief was safe.

They all began talking at once, asking about the people tied up like criminals.

“Village Chief, who are these people?”

“Yeah, why are they all tied up?”

“They even have knives! Village Chief, you’re not hurt, are you?”