Chapter 155 Who Does He Look Like?
"How can you be so despicable as to bully an elderly person? Have you no shame?"
Lu Jinlan cursed under his breath, then quickly took a deep breath and leaped several meters into the air with a soaring leap. Once on the overpass, he kicked each of the two men.
Although she didn't use her full strength, her martial arts skills improved day by day, and a casual move from her was enough to make someone suffer.
The two men were kicked in the chest and immediately felt a dull pain. They cried out "Ouch!" and gasped for breath, their grip slipping as they slid down the slope.
There were still quite a few people below, and they were instantly overwhelmed, which triggered a chain reaction.
There were fewer people on one side and more on the other, one side was lighter than the other, and then the people who were setting up the frame started to fight. Everyone was pushing and shoving, throwing punches and kicks, so the wooden frame was never stable.
As the two people slid down, they dragged a group of others down with them. The already swaying wooden frame became even more unstable and began to tilt towards the side with more people.
Everyone quickly moved to balance the wooden frame, and Lu Jinlan grabbed the frame with her backhand and quickly changed position.
In her panic, she looked up and saw Lu Jinzhao suspended in mid-air, one hand gripping the horizontal bar of the wooden frame, the other reaching for a small cloth bag swaying in the wind above the frame.
Because the wooden frame was tilted, Lu Jinzhao had no foothold and swayed back and forth like a rag doll. She relied entirely on her hands to grip the frame tightly and lift herself up.
Seeing the danger, Lu Jinlan said worriedly, "Mother! Be careful!"
Lu Jinzhao gritted her teeth and uttered a few words through gritted teeth, "It's alright, Mother can handle it!"
She could hold on, but the crossbar couldn't. With a crack, the wooden bar broke, and Lu Jinzhao plummeted to the ground.
Lu Jinlan reached out but missed, so she immediately ripped off a red ribbon decorating the shelf and threw it down, shouting, "Mother! Catch!"
Lu Jinzhao was still unsure whether he could maintain his balance before landing, as he grabbed the red silk. Xiang Ruzhen and Yan Wuxin immediately stepped forward and used their strong arms to support Lu Jinzhao, helping him avoid the spikes and land safely.
Lu Jinlan had just breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Lu Jinzhao urgently shout from below, "Quick, grab the cloth bag!"
At this point, someone had already climbed to the top and was struggling to untie it.
Lu Jinlan forcefully tore off a cloth bag, which landed gracefully on the ground. This was the first cloth bag to be taken down in the entire event.
Several people had already taken cloth bags and started climbing down, grabbing whatever they could find.
Lu Jinzhao quickly took the one from Lu Jinlan's hand, "Give this to me. You young people are on your feet, go and snatch it from someone else."
Lu Jinlan was taken aback. "Mother, I am the Emperor."
She meant that it was wrong for the emperor to rob ordinary people.
Lu Jinzhao thought she was going to say that she was the emperor and had to give way to her, so she immediately said confidently, "So what if I'm the emperor? I'm your mother."
Lu Jinlan smiled speechlessly and jumped onto the wooden frame with Xiang Ruzhen and Yan Wuxin.
The three of them rose and fell simultaneously, like three powerful female eagles soaring through the air.
Everyone felt a dark shadow flash overhead, and upon closer inspection, they realized that the person was already above them.
"Wow! Impressive skills!" A gasp rippled through the crowd.
The three of them continued upwards until they reached the top of the scaffold, where they saw five or six people fighting over a cloth bag. Two of them were the boat women who had spoken to Lu Jinlan and Xiang Ruzhen earlier.
Those women were all strong women who made a living by physical labor; they were incredibly powerful and would act recklessly when they got anxious.
The crossbars on the ladder were kicked off one after another, and the three people, seeing that things were going badly, hurriedly broke up the fight.
Lu Jinlan: "Look, everyone's just having fun, it's just for enjoyment, why take it so seriously?"
The two boatwomen, one named Gu Feng and the other Zhou Hong, both had fiery tempers.
Upon hearing this, they all shouted, "You've brought your mother on stage, and you still say you're not taking it seriously?"
"A mother and daughter going at it together, is that what you call playing around?"
Lu Jinlan has never succeeded in mediating fights; every time she tries to mediate, she ends up becoming the victim of a terrible injustice.
Lu Jinlan was speechless. "That was my mother's own idea. I tried to persuade her not to go, but she wouldn't listen!"
Just as they were struggling, there was another loud crash. The four men's feet lurched as the fragile wooden frame split open from the middle. As they pulled on it, the inertia caused them to fall backward at the same time.
Seeing that things were not going well, Lu Jinlan quickly used both hands and feet to forcibly bring the broken wooden frame back together.
Gu Feng was careless and fell down, still clutching a broken piece of wood in his hand. This fall must have splattered his brains.
"Old Gu!" Zhou Hong immediately lunged forward upside down, trying to grab Gu Feng, but she failed to catch him and fell down as well.
The situation was critical, and the three of them barely had time to discuss anything. They simply exchanged glances and cooperated in perfect unison.
Lu Jinlan and Xiang Ruzhen each pulled a red ribbon and flew down to save the person.
Yan Wuxin quickly steadied the elevated structure, shouting, "It's going to collapse! Get off! Are you crazy?"
The person who had just attacked was terrified, but now that he had recovered, he fled as if his life depended on it.
In the chaos, someone shouted, "Cloth bag!"
Yan Wuxin retorted angrily, "What time is it and you're still concerned about whether it's a cloth bag or not? I think you've got a problem with your head!"
She tried her best to stabilize the wooden frame that was about to collapse at any moment. Looking down, she saw that Lu Jinlan and Xiang Ruzhen had each tied the person they had rescued to their bodies, having kicked and broken countless wooden planks along the way.
Wood chips flew everywhere, and everyone was so frightened that they scattered and thought the four people were not going to make it.
The weight on her body suddenly increased, and with no foothold in mid-air, she could no longer stop her rapid descent. Lu Jinlan quickly shouted, "Ruzhen! Clap hands!"
Xiang Ruzhen understood immediately, and the two of them simultaneously raised their palms to meet the attack. Propelled by the force of the opponent's palms, they flipped backward and landed safely. All four of them were unharmed.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief; Gu Feng and Zhou Hong were so frightened that their legs went weak.
The two men, realizing their earlier rudeness, were filled with shame and immediately knelt down, saying, "My two benefactors..."
Before the two could speak, Lu Jinlan and Xiang Ruzhen interrupted, "Get up! You mustn't!"
Xiang Ruzhen: "Your knees are worth their weight in gold. This is no small matter, not worth kneeling for. Please get up."
The two hurriedly said, "We won't get up. We were very rude to you two earlier..."
Before he could finish speaking, Yan Wuxin's loud shout came from mid-air: "Get up, all of you!"
Then, with a loud bang, the wooden frame collapsed. Fortunately, most of the people had managed to get down, or were piled on top of each other two or three meters down, and none were seriously injured.
"No misfortune?"
Lu Jinlan and Xiang Ruzhen rushed over, while Yan Wuxin waved from a nearby tree, "Ahem, I'm here!"
She jumped down from the tree, brushing the wood shavings off her clothes. Pulling out seven or eight cloth bags from her bosom, she laughed, “Sisters, we didn’t spend all that time up there for nothing! We’ve been busy all day, we can’t just leave empty-handed. Let’s each take one and bring home a handsome man.”
The two of them each took a piece, and Xiang Ruzhen hurriedly asked, "What about the rest?"
Yan Wuxin tossed one to Lu Jinlan, who glanced at everyone who had fallen to the ground groaning, then looked back at Gu Feng and Zhou Hong who had followed, and gave one to each of them.
Then she shouted, "Whoever grabs it gets to keep it!" and threw it out, scattering it among the crowd, who immediately swarmed forward.
The group ignored them and immediately went to write.
Writing was not a test for the three of them, or even for Lu Jinzhao; rather, it was an excellent opportunity to showcase their calligraphy skills.
The three wrote down the names of Xiang Da, Lu Er, and Yan San respectively. Looking back, they saw that Gu Feng and Zhou Hong were still struggling with their pens.
The two characters "Gu Feng" were so simple, but she traced them left and right for a long time before finally managing to write them down.
Zhou Hong's case is even more difficult. Her name has many strokes, she didn't receive much formal education as a child, and she still holds a pen in the same way she holds chopsticks.
Lu Jinlan glanced at it, "Are you drawing?"
Zhou Hong gave an awkward smile. "Hehe, you flatter me, Mr. Lu. Could you help me remember how to write the character 'Hong' again?"
Before Lu Jinlan could speak, Gu Feng said, "Look how stupid you are, a worm plus a laborer. When your mother named you, she insisted on having a scholar come up with a name for you, saying that there was a rainbow in the sky when you were born, so the name 'Rainbow' would be good, with a majestic aura. What do you mean by 'Rainbow'? You were born a worm, and a worm that does hard labor at that."
The two grew up together, and Zhou Hong was already used to such teasing.
She glared at Gu Feng and forcefully wrote her name on the paper: Zhou Chonggong.
The ten men who had taken the cloth bundles handed over the papers. Master Liu read them one by one. At first, he was very pleased, but the more he read, the more his brows furrowed.
Saying that we should choose five people to go to the back for tea is a bit of a waste of tea.
She chose Lu Jinzhao, Lu Jinlan, Xiang Ruzhen, and Yan Wuxin, and finally, after much deliberation, chose Zhou Hong's calligraphy, which was considered ugly, after considering Gu Feng's and Zhou Hong's works.
The five women were invited to the back hall for tea, while Master Liu busied himself settling the group of unsuccessful candidates. The five women then sat down on their own, waiting for someone to come and invite them.
Lu Jinzhao used a handkerchief to wipe the dust off the faces of the three of them one by one. "I'll go ask them for a basin of water. Look at you all, you're covered in dust. People who don't know us would think we're that ugly."
As she was speaking, a male servant hurried over, "Excuse me, which one of you is Master Lu?"
Lu Jinlan raised her hand. "I'm here."
Lu Jinzhao immediately slapped her hand away, saying, "They're looking for me."
The servant smiled and said, "In order, first, we'll invite Hero Lu, then Hero Xiang, Hero Lu the Second, Hero Yan the Third, and finally Hero Zhou."
Zhou Hong quickly put down the hot tea she had been gulping down, saying, "I'm not a hero, I'm just a boatman."
The servant smiled and said, "Then lastly it's Master Zhou's turn."
Lu Jinzhao said, "Let Master Zhou go first. We need to wash up first. Could you please bring us a basin of water?"
Zhou Hong had no objections and immediately followed them to the room next door.
The three of them had just quickly washed their faces when Zhou Hong came out, very quickly.
Everyone was taken aback and asked curiously, "Why did you start talking about something so quickly?"
Zhou Hong said speechlessly, "Don't even mention it. The eldest young master doesn't speak like a human being. The first thing I heard him say when he came in was something like, 'Enjoy life while you can.'"
Lu Jinlan laughed and said, "They just like poetry and want to compose poems with you."
Yan Wuxin said from the side, "Haven't you heard this poem before? It's the Emperor's poem, very famous."
Zhou Hong frowned and waved her hands repeatedly, "Who cares? Anyway, I didn't understand. What 'Enjoy yourself'? I thought she was talking about the badgers in the mountains. I just replied that if you want the badgers, you have to go to the caves, and then he asked me to come out."
"Sigh." Zhou Hong sighed, "It's all for nothing. I'll go get some soil samples and help you get a few more, so we won't lose out."
The group quickly replied with smiles, "Thank you, but we don't need it."
Just then, the male servant came to invite Lu Jinzhao over.
As soon as Lu Jinzhao left, the three of them exchanged glances. Lu Jinlan urged, "Let's go and hear what my mother has to say to them."
The three moved swiftly and stealthily to hide outside the window, peeking out to see Lu Jinzhao just entering the room.
Liu Sibao quickly stood up and said, "Greetings, Hero Lu."
Lu Jinzhao was stunned, staring blankly at him, seemingly forgetting to reply.
Si Bao touched her flushed cheeks. "Did Si Bao's ugly appearance frighten you?"
Lu Jinzhao shook his head slightly, "No, it's just that you look very much like my late husband, Young Master Sibao. I was momentarily stunned. I apologize for my rudeness and offense."
A bunch of question marks simultaneously popped into the minds of the three of them.
Xiang Ruzhen looked at Lu Jinlan in surprise and asked, "Why don't I see any resemblance between Young Master Si Bao and your father? Could it be that he looks like your father when he was young?"
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Author's Note: Thank you everyone for coming today. Thank you for the nutrient solution and all the donations. I'm bowing deeply!
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