Chapter 3 Sixty Strokes

"Mommy, there's something flying in the sky!" A little child suddenly raised his chubby hand, pointed at me, and shouted.

The woman next to the little child casually slapped the child, saying, "Don't talk nonsense."

I chuckled; the truth is always hard to believe. But… the next second, my face turned green… because that thing flying in the sky… was me!

And I... am falling rapidly...

"Help! Help me!... Someone save me... God..." I screamed at the top of my lungs, completely losing control.

Ten meters... nine meters... eight meters... seven meters... I'm about to land.

Directly below me, there was a group of people dressed in strange clothes. They must have heard my call, because they all looked up at me at the same time.

Unexpectedly, I came across a very familiar face.

Narrow, phoenix-shaped eyes, fair skin, a straight nose, thin lips...

“Whoosh… Aman! Aman…” I was slightly taken aback, then shouted excitedly, opened my arms and landed straight in front of him.

"Protect the Prime Minister!" someone suddenly shouted sternly.

Chaos immediately erupted below. A group of people dressed as guards gripped their gleaming weapons tightly, their faces full of vigilance.

"Aman...Aman..." I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, steeled my resolve, and cut off my head.

"Bang!" Instead of falling into a warm and comfortable embrace as I expected, my spine went numb for a moment.

"Roar... Roar..." A somewhat familiar sound rang in his ears; a somewhat familiar scent filled his nostrils...

Opening my eyes, what I saw was a long nose with two nostrils... and two large ears.

With a groan, I finally recognized that familiar voice and smell... Pig! I'd fallen into a pigsty... When I was little, Ah Man and I used to clean the pigsty together...

I struggled several times with both hands and feet, but the sharp pain in my spine made me unable to move. I looked around and saw Aman standing less than twenty meters in front of the pigsty, on a street.

What a disastrous landing!

"Fengxiao, what just fell down?" Aman, riding on horseback, turned around and asked a man in blue beside him.

"Aman..." I groaned and struggled to crawl out of the pigsty.

"How dare you! Who has the audacity to address the Prime Minister by his name!" A general with a grim face stepped forward, sword in hand.

I was stunned. What was going on? Aman, dressed in purple robes, sat on his horse, coldly looking down at me.

"Ah... Man?" I asked softly, still oblivious to the danger, filled with utter confusion.

"Take him away and give him twenty lashes." Without looking at me again, Aman reined in his horse and turned to walk past me.

I froze instantly, then jumped up, ignoring the pain in my body, and grabbed his reins. "Aman, you heartless bastard! You're pretending not to know me! Don't you remember who you used to clean the pigsty with?"

He looked down at me coldly, then raised his sleeve to cover his mouth and nose.

Seeing him like this, I looked down and glanced at myself. The smell of stinky tofu, the smell of a pigsty, the smell of sweat... In short, the smell on my body was quite a sight.

"Fifty strokes of the cane." He spoke softly, his thin lips barely moving.

Immediately, someone stepped forward and grabbed me tightly.

"Aman! Aman! You bastard! I gave you all the savings I'd accumulated over the past ten years, I even told you my bank password! You have no conscience!"

"Your Excellency, do you really not recognize this woman?" Finally, someone voiced their dissent.

I looked gratefully at the man in blue who had spoken. He was the same man that Aman had just called Fengxiao. He was wearing a wide-sleeved blue robe, was very thin, and had a pale face, so he didn't seem to be in good health.

"Sixty strokes of the cane." The calm voice carried an undeniable authority.

I was dumbfounded.

The sickly-looking man in blue coughed lightly, shrugged, and indicated that he couldn't help.

So I was dragged down, and no matter how much I struggled and used every trick in the book, I still couldn't escape.

"Hmm, so pathetic. I wonder where you came from, a refugee who dared to offend the Prime Minister. Sixty strokes of the cane are too lenient!" The executioner was ruthless, not only torturing my body but also mercilessly destroying my dignity...

"Prime Minister? Ah! Be gentle!" I bit my lip, cold sweat dripping down my forehead.

"Speaking of the Prime Minister, who in the world doesn't know him!" The executioner was so proud that he became even more excited and used even more force in his hands.

"Ah!" I screamed, "Hmm... even more powerful than the emperor...?" I gritted my teeth and painfully squeezed out the words. I was already in so much pain, it would be a shame not to dig out some useful information.

"How dare you say such treasonous things?!" The executioner was astonished. "But nowadays even the emperor has to rely on my prime minister's protection, otherwise, would we have been able to move the capital to Xuchang?" The executioner became smug again, wondering if that great prime minister was really that great. It seemed to be the source of his power. Whenever "his prime minister" was mentioned, the force in his hand would increase tenfold.

Sixty strokes of the cane—a bloody lesson that led me to this painful conclusion.

I really did time travel.

I was thrown roughly onto the street and curled up in a ball.

"Buzz buzz buzz..." Even flies are bullying me, this is truly an unparalleled depravity.

I glared at the swarming fly, then suddenly raised my hand and swatted it dead! I was furious. I resented that heartless and callous face. Even if I had mistaken someone for someone else, he could have simply smiled and told me, "Miss, you've mistaken me for someone else." Was that so hard to say?

I was still resentful, I was still resentful of Zhang Xiaohua, the daughter of Uncle Zhang next door. What kind of person would transmigrate and end up connected with the imperial court? I did, and I even got involved with the current prime minister! But... I was almost beaten half to death. What chivalry, tender feelings, or epic love stories are I talking about now!

This is absolutely misleading and corrupting!

The blazing sun overhead reminded me that it was a scorching summer, while my worn-out down jacket told me that I belonged to the type whose body and soul traveled together...

I struggled to take off my down jacket in a contorted position, feeling drenched in sweat and my stomach rumbling.

As I raised my hand, I suddenly realized that I was still holding a bag of stinky tofu. I quickly opened the bag and began to wolf it down.

Fortunately, I was physically strong enough that sixty strokes of the cane wouldn't have crippled me.

In short, I'm like an unkillable cockroach! You think you can kill me? No way! I've survived twenty years as an orphan, how could I possibly fail after this little time-travel? I'll make sure you have your way!

While eating stinky tofu, I silently shouted out some grand pronouncements in my heart.

Suddenly, I felt someone staring at me, and it made me feel really uneasy.

I looked up and glared back, but then I was slightly taken aback. Looking at me was a little beggar, and standing next to him was an old beggar. Both of them were staring at me, or more accurately, at the stinky tofu in my hand.

My heart began to tremble. Looking at their emaciated appearance, they must have been starving. I looked down at the few remaining stinky tofu pieces in my hand and considered whether I should share some with them.

"Dad, this brother is so pitiful..." After a while, the little beggar spoke up, "How about we share some of our lunch with him?"

Ugh, I'm spitting blood! How do I resemble an older brother? While I may not be a stunning beauty, how do I, Pei Xiao, look like an "older brother"? At least when I was little, my smile charmed the entire orphanage. Which new father or mother wasn't willing to adopt me because of my adorable smile… even though they were ultimately returned…

Because of the sixty strokes I just received, I'm not very agile. Looking down at myself, I still look like a woman in the ways I should! It's just that it's a little hard to see because it's hidden under my big black T-shirt!

"Dad, this brother must be starving. Look at his eyes, they're all green, and he's eating such stinky stuff... Oh, and he's been beaten up..." The little beggar looked at the old beggar with a pleading expression.

The old beggar looked down at the meager amount of food in the broken bowl in his hand, sighed, and nodded.

“These years of fighting have been tough on us,” he said, pulling the little beggar down to sit beside me. He divided the dry rations he had begged from his broken bowl into three portions and pushed one portion toward me.