Saving The Wife
Quick notes:
Dalang, eldest son = Li Mo
Erlang, second son = Li Yan
Sanlang, third son = Li Shu
Dàge, elder brother.
At night, the mountain breeze was particularly cold. Li Man shuddered while desperate to say something.
The village chief, seated under the tree, saw that the Li family was taking too long to show up. The crowd’s lingering whispers to hang Li Man lwere getting louder and louder. After having two smokes, he got up and said: “Wu San, according to what the old ones said, hang this woman and, when night falls, bury her in the mountains.” He looked at her some evilness flashing in his eyes.
“Yes.” Wu San was looking forward to this. At once, he took out the hemp rope on his waist and walked towards Li Man.
When Wu San went to drag her over, to everyone’s surprise, she tried to not appear angry and added some words that people couldn’t make sense of.
“What are you going to do?” All of Li Man’s hair stood on end. This man looked wretched and vicious, totally not a good person!
Wu San didn’t understand her words, but he understood the look on her face. He only thought of how this young beauty seemed even more alluring when scared. It’s a pity to just hang her like this but… Using some martial arts, he could press some acupoints to fake her death and then, taking advantage of when no one’s around, he could bring her back to life once again. This little lady might just be his!
Li Man saw the list in his eyes and shouted “Go away! Don’t touch me!”
There was a loud cheering within the crowd “HANG HER! HANG THIS BITCH!”
Wu San was also very straightforward. He deftly put the rope around Li Man’s neck and used both hands to exert all his strength.
Li Man only felt her breathing constrict and the extremely painful sensation brought by the gruff of the tightly strapped rope around her neck.
Is she going to die again?
This is ridiculous! To die two times on the same day! Wasn’t the car accident enough!? Does she really need to go through this again!?
“Stop!”
Just as the villagers waited for Li Man to hang, a resounding voice passed over the crowd. A tall, sturdy, man rushed straight for the locust tree. He got a hold of Wu San and immediately overturned him. The two young men behind him followed by kicking and punching the fallen Wu San.
The villagers were confused, the village chief hastily came over.
“Erlang, Sanlang, what hell!? Quickly stay your hand!”
“Stop fighting.” Commanded Li Mo, after taking down the rope around Li Man’s neck and watching her faintly wake up.
Li Yan and Li Shu stopped.
However, Wu San started to roll on the ground, wailing like ghosts and howling like wolves, making an unreasonable scene. “Chief! You! You have to take responsibility for this! They brothers bully people! They just came and beat me up like that! How can you permit this!? ”
“You were the one asking for a beating!” Li Shu couldn’t help fiercely trampling Wu San’s buttocks again. “The son of a bitch who dares to mess with someone else’s wife, doing nothing but court death!”
“Li Shu!”
The village chief was thick-skinned and brazenly shouted again to make fight stop. He then shifted his sight to look at Li Mo with displeased eyes.
“Dalang, is that what happened?”
Li Mo did not answer the words of the village chief, but neatly untied the rope tied on Li Man’s body, took her into his arms and turned away.
The village chief had an extremely ugly expression on and wanted to block his path. Just then, the Li family’s Erlang, Li Yan, sounded “This was all caused by that bastard, Wu San.”
The village chief was left in an embarrassing situation as Dalang left with the woman in his arms, not giving him any face, as a way out, he turned to Erlang and asked “What the hell happened?”
Li Yan glanced fiercely at Wu San. As soon as he turned to confront the village chief he noticed the villagers standing around to watch, and thus, started to make an account of what happened.
“It happens that, that was the woman bought by my Dàge. Chief, you also know that our family’s situation is not easy. It is even harder for us, brothers, to bring home a wife. This time we got a wife, so we, naturally, have to handle things properly. Yesterday, Dàge took her and Xiao Wuzi and went up the mountain to give my deceased parents a grave and let them know about the happy occasion. Who could have imagined that Dàge would carelessly let a branch pierce his foot and become unable to walk? Xiao Wuzi couldn’t carry him on his back, so he let her come back to find me and Sanlang. But she is an outsider, so, obviously, she isn’t familiar with the mountains and got lost. We looked for her day and night, then heard that she was tied up here by Wu San.”
Everyone who listened, unconsciously nodded. Shenmeigou village is surrounded by mountains. If you are not familiar with the surroundings, is is indeed very easy to get lost! Therefore, if the women brought here don’t have any outside help in the mountains, their escape will only result in death.
“What happened?” The village chief also looked towards Wu San. “What did you do?”
Wu San finally got up from the ground, feigning innocence. “I really didn’t lie to you. The woman ran we she saw us. If she wanted to save people, why not take us to the ones that need saving, instead of start running away scared? Also, there was a parcel in her body, full of silver pieces and dry food. If she isn’t running away, then she is doing what!?”
“What about the parcel?” asked the chief.
The Li brothers stared at him. Wu San was lost for words. Because of his greed, he had long ago secretly stashed the parcel away. At this time, he wouldn’t be able to get away with it.
“Humph!” the village chief saw him saying nothing an coldly snorted. “Dalang and his brothers were finally able to buy a wife with great difficulty and I almost let you kill her off. I’ll get back back at you later, get lost!”
“Slow down.” Li Yan coldly said. “Chief, my wife is very weak. She was tied and beaten up by you lot and almost got strangled. I really don’t know what to do about this at all. And you are going to just let things go like this? If by chance she died, us brothers would have no wife to speak of and all those years of saved money would also have gone down the drain! Chief, as the village head you have to properly handle this matter.”
As if to extort money, Wu San hurriedly said “Chief, you can’t put all the blame on me! At the time, these stupid dogs were also onto her, trying to hang her. Furthermore, you also made a speech in that direction!”
“SHUT UP!” the village chief disregarded his face and coldly commanded in a loud voice.
“Wu San, this is your fault! You and the stupid dogs get half of your money out, I don’t have any on me. Erlang, ah, buy some tonic for your wife to make up for it, ok?”
Li Yan nodded, Li Shu looked at Wu San. “I let you off lightly this time.”
Wu San is extremely depressed. To the women, who don’t have much, to pay half the money is certainly a loss, but they didn’t dare to disobey the orders of the village chief.
Besides, there’s also the Li family’s Third Master, Li Shu, looking at them with red eyes. Afraid of getting beaten up by him, they resigned themselves to their bad luck and decided to withdraw, quickly slipping away.
The other villagers saw that the show was over, each and all of them sulkily dispersing.
The village chief glanced at Li Yan and Li Shu and spoke in a dignified manner. “Was that woman really bought by your dàge?”
“Un!” the brothers nodded.
The chief did not believe, but only said “Then go at once, to handle this matter without delay, ok? Delaying may bring more unexpected trouble.” So he spoke and left, right away with his hands clasped behind his back.
Li Yan and Li Shu looked at each other and spoke no more as they hurried home.