Chapter Ten – Snatching the Flower

Having made up his mind, Qingfeng marched into the crowd with the imposing air of a one-man army holding back a thousand. He raised both hands high and shouted, “Everyone stop looking—I know where Lin Furong is!”

“Ah?!”

“What?!”

The men searching in the river froze.

The gossiping women on shore stopped their chatter.

Even Lin Furong’s mother stopped sobbing.

Everyone turned to stare at Qingfeng in unison—including the girl who had just been tearfully confiding in him.

“Young man, what did you just say?” the elder leading the group was the first to respond, questioning Qingfeng.

“I said, I know where Lin Furong is.”

“You know where she is? And who exactly are you?”

“Who I am isn’t important,” Qingfeng replied. “What matters is that I rescued Lin Furong yesterday.”

“Then where is she now?” Lin Furong’s mother asked.

“She’s currently staying at a hunter’s house up in the mountains.”

“At a hunter’s house in the mountains?” Everyone looked at each other, clearly not expecting the matter to suddenly involve a mountain hunter.

Qingfeng raised his hands again to quiet the growing murmur and explained, “I rescued Lin Furong in the mountains. She had already passed out when I found her, and I didn’t know where she lived, so I brought her to the hunter’s house to stay the night.”

“She spent the night at the hunter’s house!”

“…That hunter is a man, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and I heard he’s a bachelor…”

“Well, that’s it then. She spent the night alone in a bachelor’s house.”

The crowd once again burst into noisy discussion—especially the gossiping women, who spoke with extra relish.

Just then, from the back of the crowd, a thin, sallow-faced man with a crooked mouth and a pockmarked face burst out. He ran to Lin Furong’s mother and shouted at the top of his lungs:

“Hey, Lin family! Your daughter ran off to stay with a hunter?! I’m telling you right now—if you still want me to marry your daughter, don’t even think about asking for two sacks of rice! She’s not worth that anymore!”

“What did you just say, Wang Lao Wai?!” Lin Furong’s mother trembled all over with fury.

“What did I say? I said your daughter’s not worth the price anymore! I may be a widower, but I won’t have people pointing fingers at me behind my back! First, she runs off with that Meng brat, and now she’s living with a hunter? I haven’t even married her yet and I’ve already been cuckolded!”

“Bullshit!” A frail-looking man in his forties suddenly charged out of the crowd and punched Wang Lao Wai squarely to the ground.

The crowd gasped in shock. Lin Furong’s mother rushed forward to hold the man back. “Husband!”

“You—you can’t just spout that kind of crap!” the man panted heavily, his arm gripped by his wife but still burning with anger. He pointed at Wang Lao Wai and shouted, “My daughter was rescued and brought to the hunter’s home—she didn’t go there on her own!”

“That’s right!” Qingfeng echoed. “You all better not go around slandering Lin Furong! I rescued her because she was trying to take her own life—not because she ran off to the hunter’s house!”

He sighed deeply. “Ah, poor Lin Furong. I suppose I’ll be a good man to the end—since I saved her, I might as well help her find a new path in life.”

With that, he pulled out a bar of gold from his robe and handed it to Lin Furong’s mother. “You’re her mother, right? Will this be enough for the bride price?”

“Ah!”

“AH!”

“AAAAH!”

The villagers all gasped, their eyes going wide like copper bells. The gossiping women, mouths full of sunflower seeds, were so shocked that some bit their tongues and winced in pain.

Lin Furong’s mother, already in her later years, had never seen gold before—let alone such a large bar of it.

She stood dumbfounded, mouth agape, eyes locked on the golden brick.

It was Lin Furong’s father who reacted first. More steady by nature, he understood immediately that this young man was proposing marriage.

“You… you want to marry my daughter?” he asked Qingfeng.