Chapter 281: Conflict
Editor: Atlas Studios
Before Mu Yangling reached the rented house, she heard an arrogant voice shout, “You better reciprocate while I’m talking to you nicely. To tell you the truth, you have to sell us this sheep even if you don’t want to.”
The villagers were all smiling as they watched, and they were all thirty feet away from the person who had spoken.
If the person who spoke was not Hu Cai, they might have helped cheer or something. Since it was Hu Cai, forget it. If they could step on him, they would definitely not use their hands.
Hu Cai was from this village. When his mother was young, she became someone else’s mistress. Hu Cai was the child that his mother had schemed to give birth to. Although he did not manage to become recognized legitimately in the end, his mother still received a lot of benefits.
After buying 100 acres of land in the village, he had been living off the rent every year. After more than 20 years, he had actually saved a lot of money which he used to buy more land in turn. Now, Hu Cai was the largest landowner in the village.
However, no one looked up to him, let alone his mother.
This kid had caused a lot of trouble in the village since he was young. The villagers were always eager to see him make a fool of himself.
Hu Cai had some business acumen. He heard that someone from the village had herded over a flock of rather energetic grassland sheep. Coincidentally, he had been craving for this recently. Thinking that mutton was twice as expensive as pork outside, Hu Cai had an idea.
He felt that if he could buy all the sheep and sell them, he would probably be able to earn twice as much.
Hence, Hu Cai gathered all the thugs he hired and came.
The five of them surrounded the fence as they demanded Zhang Wu sell the sheep to them.
Zhang Wu was not a fool. One look and he knew that Hu Cai did not come with good intentions. Indeed, Hu Cai offered to pay two taels of silver for a sheep, regardless of size.
Zhang Wu chuckled. Two taels of silver? Miss Mu could sell the sheep for four taels of silver each in Three Springs County. Here, the price was reduced by half?
Hence, Zhang Wu ran back and took out a broadsword from Mu Yangling’s bag. He laid it across his chest and glared at Hu Cai aggressively.
Otherwise, by the time Zhang Liu returned, the sheep would have long been forcibly bought by him.
This broadsword not only frightened the villagers, but also Hu Cai.
Hu Cai was stunned for a moment before he became even angrier. Standing on tiptoes on a rock, he tried to suppress the other party with his aura. He shouted at Zhang Wu, “You better know what’s good for you…”
The excited villagers were eagerly watching with shining eyes.
However, before they could get all excited, Zhang Liu returned. When he saw so many people surrounding the fence, he knew that something had happened. However, the precious books that Mu Yangling had bought were also very important. So, he carried the things back to the house and placed them on the brick bed first. Before he could see the situation clearly, he picked up a long bench in the house and ran out. He stood side by side with Zhang Wu and shouted, “Let’s see who dares to cause trouble!”
The rock under Hu Cai’s feet was small and uneven to begin with. With Zhang Liu’s roar, he fell straight down. It was only because the thugs behind him caught him quickly that he did not lose face.
However, this weakened Hu Cai’s aura. Meanwhile, Zhang Wu became even more confident because of his brother’s arrival. With this change in events, Hu Cai could only try to threaten Zhang Wu and his brother verbally.
Zhang Liu saw that Hu Cai was getting more and more impatient. Seeing as the other party’s five thugs were tall and strong, the two brothers were probably not even comparable to one of their arms.
Zhang Liu could only sneak out to look for Mu Yangling as support. He was lucky to bump into her as soon as he ran out.
Mu Yangling easily saw Hu Cai strutting around with his five men, since he was the only one blocking the entrance of the fence. Opposite him stood Zhang Wu, who was holding a knife. Although the villagers were surrounding them, they were all standing around the courtyard or fence. From Mu Yangling’s point of view, the entire village was on Zhang Wu’s side and opposing Hu Cai.
It seemed that Hu Cai’s reputation in the village was indeed not good. Otherwise, the villagers would not have opposed him so blatantly without giving him any face.
The villagers were the first to notice Mu Yangling and the others walking over. Then, they focused their attention on Zhang Wu, who was staring at Hu Cai.
When Zhang Wu saw Mu Yangling and the others, he relaxed and tightened his grip on the saber.
Only Hu Cai, who was still clamoring, did not notice anything amiss.
Mu Yangling walked behind him and patted his shoulder gently.
Hu Cai angrily reached out to pat the hand on his shoulder. Turning around, he shouted, “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
When he saw Mu Yangling, he was stunned for a moment. Then, his eyes lit up as he stared at Mu Yangling’s face and drooled. “When did such an exquisite young lady appear in the village?”
Mu Yangling’s originally smiling face instantly darkened. She looked up and carefully sized up Hu Cai before asking, “Are you teasing me?”
The onlookers wanted to cover their eyes. ‘Girl, isn’t that obvious?’
When Xiuhong heard that her venerable and adorable cousin had been teased, she rushed up with a howl and kicked Hu Cai’s crotch.
Hu Cai originally wanted to laugh evilly and say, “If you become my woman, I guarantee that you’ll have a good life.” However, before he could say anything, he suffered a heavy blow at a crucial part. As he let out a scream, he fell to the ground while clutching his crotch and clamping his legs. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t say a word.
Having been eating meat every meal with the Mu family and had been doing farm work in the past two years, Xiuhong’s strength had been steadily increasing. In addition, Mu Yangling had taught her the ’18 Self-Defense Techniques for Women’ from time to time, so her kick was ruthless and accurate.
Not only were the onlookers stunned, but even Mu Yangling was stunned.
However, Hu Cai’s thugs were unfazed. One of them went to help Hu Cai up, and the two of them rushed towards Xiuhong and Mu Yangling, wanting to capture them and let Hu Cai deal with them.
Mu Yangling’s expression did not look good. It was one thing to force her to buy and sell, but it was another to tease a woman like that. From the looks of it, this was not the first time Hu Cai had done this.
Mu Yangling stopped the thug from grabbing Xiuhong’s hand with one hand. With just a slight twist, the thug howled and dislocated his wrist.
Clearly dissatisfied, Mu Yangling vented her anger on the thug and kicked his leg. When he knelt down, she twisted back and dislocated his entire arm. With a kick to his butt, she sent him flying.
The other thug who charged at her ended up in an even worse state. Before he could reach her, he was sent flying by Mu Yangling’s kick. At that time, Mu Yangling was at her angriest, so she used 30% of her strength in that kick and that man was sent flying. Seeing as he even spat out a mouthful of blood, he probably injured his internal organs.
The remaining two panicked and rushed forward with their clubs. Before the villagers could recover from the shock of Hu Cai being kicked down there, Hu Cai’s four thugs were lying on the ground.
The thug who went to help Hu Cai opened his mouth wide and looked at his brother, who was lying on the ground and could not get up. Then, he looked down at Hu Cai, who was covered in cold sweat and in so much pain that he could not speak. He stood up decisively and ran towards Mu Yangling. Mu Yangling was about to kick him again when the other party fell to the ground with a plop. With a tilt of his head, he fainted.
Even though she was still angry, Mu Yangling could not help but laugh out loud. She lowered her head and asked Hu Cai, who had calmed down a little, “How is it? Does it feel good? Do you want to kick me again?”
Hu Cai clamped his legs. Retracting the smile on her face, Mu Yangling asked with a dark expression, “Were you teasing me just now?”