Chapter 19: The Scarred Man’s Past

Cuihua’s crossed chicken-eyes lit up as she frantically jabbed her own chicken neck.
“Cluck cluck cluck! Cluck cluck cluck! Cluck cluck cluck!”

“I’ll learn, Master! I’ll learn! I want to become the most badass chicken under heaven!”

Seeing that Cuihua agreed, Xiaojiu stopped making promises.

After all, she was just spouting nonsense. She simply wanted to see if a chicken would turn into a bird after learning qinggong.

Xiaojiu brought the still-dreaming Cuihua to the foot of the back mountain.

The scar-faced man and the others nearly wet their pants when they saw that terrifying little girl again.

They swung their hoes like mad, terrified that if they slowed down, they’d be launched into the sky again.

Xiaojiu was quite satisfied to see them working hard.

As soon as Zhao Hu saw the village chief arrive, he ran over eagerly.
“Chief! I’m keeping an eye on them, making sure they don’t slack off!”

He looked like he was begging to be praised.

But just as he finished speaking, Zhao Hu noticed a strange odor coming from the village chief. He hesitated. Sniffed again. Yep—definitely a stink.

Did the chief accidentally soil herself? Not impossible—she was still just a kid, after all.

Zhao Hu began contemplating how to gently and politely bring this up.

Seeing Zhao Hu’s hesitant expression, Xiaojiu asked,
“Something on your mind?”

“Chief, when I was five, I wet the bed too,” Zhao Hu said.

“And?” Xiaojiu was puzzled. Why was he telling her this? Was wetting the bed at five something to brag about?

Seeing no reaction, Zhao Hu pushed on,
“Chief, you’re still little. It’s normal to lose control sometimes.”

Xiaojiu was starting to get annoyed.
“If you don’t say what you want right now, I’ll have your father come over.”

Zhao Hu steeled himself.
“Chief, you’re young. It’s fine even if you couldn’t hold it and had an accident. I peed the bed when I was a kid too!”

Xiaojiu sniffed herself. A strong smell of luosifen.

No wonder Zhao Hu thought she had an “accident.”

“It’s the smell of food,” Xiaojiu explained.

Zhao Hu gave her a “I get it, I get it” kind of pervy look, as if saying,
“You can make up whatever excuse you want, Chief. I won’t tell anyone.”

Xiaojiu threatened,
“Do you want to experience what it’s like to fly freely through the air again?”

Terrified that she might actually hurl him into the sky, Zhao Hu immediately said,
“Chief! My mom’s calling me home for lunch—I’ll be off now! Take your time looking around!”

And with that, he made a run for it.

“Wait,” Xiaojiu called out.

Zhao Hu nearly burst into tears.
“Chief, I really was wrong!”

Xiaojiu said,
“Go tell the village kids: tomorrow at dawn, gather at the foot of the back mountain. Master Yan is going to start teaching us martial arts.”

“For real?! We’re starting martial arts training tomorrow?” Zhao Hu was thrilled.
“I’ll go tell everyone right now!”

He sped off to carry out his mission.

Xiaojiu turned her attention back to the fake bandits. She wanted to chat about the nearby town—after all, the villagers seldom went there and knew very little about it.

The scar-faced man and the others saw the little girl walking toward them.

In their minds, they were screaming:
“No! Don’t come over here!”

Xiaojiu ignored whatever they were thinking and smiled what she believed was a warm, friendly smile.

But in the eyes of the former bandits, that was nothing short of a creepy, sinister grin.

The scarred man stammered,
“L-Little Ancestor… d-d-do you need something?”

“What did you guys do in town before?” Xiaojiu asked curiously. These guys looked fierce and carried big blades. No way should they be this cowardly.

“We’re just a bunch of street punks from town,” the scar-faced man said with a bitter look.

“Then how did you get a knife?”

“We found it on a corpse,” he replied.

“And what about the scar on your face?”

“I did it to myself,” the scar-faced man mumbled evasively.

“Still not telling the truth?” Xiaojiu’s tone turned threatening.

The scrawny man, seeing that the scar-faced man refused to speak, hurriedly chimed in, afraid of angering this little lady ancestor.

He quickly explained on the scar-faced man’s behalf, “The wound on his face was caused by someone in his own family.”

Xiaojiu’s eyes lit up—this was going to be juicy. She sat down on a wooden stump nearby and gestured for the scrawny man to continue.

The scrawny man noticed both Xiaojiu and the pheasant staring at him intently, waiting for more, and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to pour his heart out. He sat down beside the wooden stump and began to recount:

“My young master is actually a legitimate son of the Lin family in the capital. When the madam was still alive, the master treated both her and my young master very well, always putting the madam first. But when my young master was six, the madam passed away from illness. Right after the funeral, the master remarried immediately, bringing in his cousin as his new wife under the pretense of ‘taking care of the child.’”

“Wasn’t your master already having an affair with that cousin before your madam died?” a sudden voice startled everyone.

Xiaojiu looked up—good grief, they were surrounded. All the villagers had gathered around, stopping their work to listen in. The speaker was none other than Old Lady Xu.

When the scrawny man fell silent, Old Lady Xu urged him, “What, done already? Keep talking!”

“How did you know?” the scrawny man asked, surprised. He hadn’t even gotten to that part yet.

“Of course! Your madam just died, and your master marries someone else right away? If they weren’t having an affair already, I’d be the first not to believe it,” Old Lady Xu scoffed.

“Exactly,” the scrawny man said, righteously indignant. “Even before marrying my madam, the master was already secretly involved with his cousin. Not long after the wedding, he arranged for her to live in a private residence outside the capital.”

“And then?” urged another old lady, Granny Ma.

“After the madam died, they didn’t bother pretending anymore. They took over all of her dowry, and even had her maiden family thrown in prison. Madam’s maid, Cui’er, overheard the truth and feared for my young master’s life. She tried to escape with him in the middle of the night but was eventually found by the master’s men. Cui’er was beaten to death protecting my young master. He got that scar on his face from them too. In the end, he jumped off a cliff with me to escape, and that’s how we ended up hiding in Qingshan Town.”

“Pah! What a pair of filthy dogs,” Old Lady Xu spat angrily.

“Exactly! Heartless beasts, animals in human skin! Even a tiger won’t eat its own cubs—what they did was worse than animals.”

“Who knows, maybe your madam didn’t even die of illness at all. Probably murdered by that shameless pair! Just waiting for her to die so they could seize her fortune and bring that cousin in as the new mistress.”

The villagers all nodded in agreement at this speculation.

Xiaojiu turned to the scar-faced man. “You never thought about getting revenge?”

The scar-faced man gave a bitter laugh. “Revenge? And how would I even do that—go to the capital just to get myself killed?”

Of course he had thought of revenge. But back then, he and his servant were only six and five years old. Just surviving was hard enough. When they first got to Qingshan Town, they had to fight beggars for scraps to stay alive. As they got older, they started following others around collecting protection fees just to get by.

Revenge? With his current identity, he couldn’t even get close to those two monsters. He’d probably be caught by their people before he even got near the capital.