The village head was at a loss for what to do after seeing Lin Cuiying's appearance.

Lin Cuiying's acting was so realistic that everyone in the courtyard and those who came with the village head felt almost as if they were experiencing the same thing.

Lin Cuiying was seen slumped on the ground, her muddy coarse cloth skirt sweeping up the dust.

Her sobs were laced with a trembling, buzzing sound, and her thin shoulders shook like a candle flickering in the wind. "Everyone...look at my arm..."

She abruptly pulled up her tattered, patched sleeve, revealing bruises and spiderweb-like scabs bursting from her pale skin.

The little finger was twisted unnaturally, and there were dark brown blood clots embedded in the nail.

"Last night, my mother-in-law hit me with a fire poker." Her throat bobbed twice, and she suddenly coughed violently, curling up like a shrimp.

Then, trembling, she pulled out the marriage certificate; the yellowed paper was still stained with two hot tears as it was spread out on the muddy ground.

“Uncle Village Head,” Lin Cuiying handed over the marriage certificate, “they sold me for five taels of silver, and they’re planning to sell Daya and Xiaoya to Zhang Ergou as well…”

As soon as these words were spoken, the crowd of onlookers outside the courtyard erupted into chaos, like a haystack being scorched by a spark.

"This is outrageous!" A desperate scream suddenly erupted outside the fence.

The Sun family's daughter-in-law, clutching a wooden spoon used for feeding pigs, squeezed through the courtyard gate, spitting as she spoke, "Selling a widow for five taels of silver and having to throw in two maids? The Wang family's ancestral graves must be smoking black smoke to have raised such a bunch of beasts!"

Old Zhao, carrying a hoe, kicked over the bamboo basket beside the millstone, his copper-bell eyes bloodshot: "Everyone for miles around knows Zhang Ergou is a scoundrel..."

"Bullshit!" Zhang Ergou's eyes rolled back as the rope tightened around his neck, and he spat blood onto the ground. "I paid with real money..."

A clod of dirt landed precisely on his front tooth. A woman with a blue headscarf emerged from the crowd; it was Aunt Li, who had delivered Lin Cuiying's two babies.

She grabbed a winnowing basket from the wall and started slamming it on Granny Wang: "Back then, Cuiying had a difficult childbirth that lasted three days and three nights, and you wouldn't even give her the money you'd owe a midwife!"

"What a tragedy!" A sigh drifted from the crowd.

Aunt Li's hands trembled as she gripped the empty winnowing basket. "During the sweltering summer months, I didn't even have a sip of brown sugar water while in postpartum confinement. I was so hungry I had to bite my nails to stave off hunger..."

Suddenly, Sun's daughter-in-law squatted down, lifted Lin Cuiying's skirt, and gasped: "That scar on her calf..."

A dozen or so new and old whip marks were interspersed on the swollen flesh, the longest of which was half an arm's length.

The men watching turned their heads away, and several young wives covered their mouths and began to sob.

"Mother!" The murmurs in the crowd were suddenly ripped apart by a child's cry.

Two little figures with crookedly tied pigtails burst out like cannonballs.

Daya lost her left straw sandal while running, and her toes, covered in chicken droppings, dragged crooked marks on the muddy ground.

The little girl's face was covered in tears and snot, and her yellowed, patched jacket had been torn open by the fence.

"Don't sell Mother! Don't sell us!" Daya threw herself into Lin Cuiying's arms, clutching her mother's clothes tightly.

The little girl trembled and could barely speak, her cool nose rubbing against Lin Cuiying's neck: "Grandma pricked...pricked my sister with a needle...said we...we were freeloaders..."

Aunt Li suddenly rushed over and pulled at the little girl's trouser leg. The dense needle marks on the child's calf caused a second wave of commotion in the crowd.

Sun's daughter-in-law grabbed a pig-feeding spoon and hurled it at Wang Pozi, yelling, "You old hag! Why didn't the Thunder God strike you dead?!"

Lin Cuiying's trembling was a hundred times more genuine than her earlier feigned trembling.

She dug her fingers deep into her two daughters' shoulder blades, swallowing the metallic taste of blood mixed with her tears.

The burn scar on Da Ya's neck was left from when she was pushed into the stove on New Year's Eve last year—that day, Wang Fugui said that widows were unlucky and wouldn't be allowed to sit at the table for the New Year's Eve dinner.

"Uncle Village Head." She suddenly turned to the old village head, still holding the child; the three frail figures swayed like reeds in the wind. "We three can't make ends meet anymore."

The village head slammed his pipe heavily against the millstone, sending sparks flying onto Zhang Ergou's nose.

He turned and stared into Granny Wang's cloudy eyes, "Return the five taels of betrothal money, and take the marriage certificate to the county government to have it voided."

Zhang Ergou let out a hissing sound like a duck being strangled, blood-stained saliva dripping down the rope: "Retreat! I'll retreat! I don't want the bride price anymore."

The village head turned to look at Lin Cuiying, "What are you going to do?"

Lin Cuiying pinched her palms, forcing out two pools of tears, and nodded according to the system's prompts.

Zhang Ergou suddenly pounced like a stray dog ​​whose tail had been stepped on, yelling, "Quick! Untie me!"

The pig-feeding spoon from the Sun family's daughter-in-law flew past his ear, denting the mud wall: "If you howl again, I'll put you in the pigpen to be bred!"

The village headman lifted his pipe, and the two young men reluctantly cut the hemp rope.

Zhang Ergou staggered and jumped up, rushing towards the courtyard gate. The patched jacket at the back of his waist was lifted by the wind, revealing half of his buttocks. When he passed by Granny Wang, he slapped her across the face.

"Go to hell, you jinx!"

The group of men who had come with Zhang Ergou scrambled out of the fence, only to be chased and bitten by some stray dog.

A few rascals stepped on the pumpkins that were rolling all over the ground and fell into a heap. Their tattered straw sandals, covered in chicken droppings, swung and swayed on the branches of a tree.

"You despicable bastards!" Aunt Li grabbed a washing mallet and hurled it at the back of their heads. The mallet grazed Zhang Ergou's bald forehead as it flew past. "Watch out, the King of Hell might rip your tongues out tonight!"

The crowd parted to make way for them, and the children who were watching the spectacle spat at them, hurling rotten vegetable leaves and pebbles at the hooligans, who then fled in terror.

Zhang Ergou limped along, clutching his bleeding crotch, the tattered cloth at his lower back revealing bruised buttocks as he ran.

When Sun's daughter-in-law helped Lin Cuiying and the two young maids up, she asked the question that had been bothering her, "Sister Lin, how did you manage to subdue all these rascals?"

Upon hearing this, everyone present, except for Granny Wang and Madam Liu, looked at Lin Cuiying with surprise.

Of course, she couldn't directly describe the process, so Lin Cuiying explained it according to the system's instructions.

Around the time Zhang Ergou brought his men over, Lin Cuiying refused to cooperate. Seeing the hornet's nest in the tree, she took advantage of their inattention and poked it open.

She quickly took the two little girls and hid inside the house, while the rest of them were stung by wasps.

After the wasps dispersed, Lin Cuiying came out of the house and tied up the people.

Before Lin Cuiying could finish speaking, Liu suddenly sprang out from behind the woodpile, her face swollen like a pig's head with two bee stings stuck to it. "Bullshit! It's clearly this bitch..."

Before Liu could finish speaking, the village headman broke his pipe. "Wang Liu, you should go see a doctor in your current condition."

Liu wanted to say something more, but Granny Wang gave her a series of winks.