27 Chapter 27
◎Soft persimmon◎
When the two children came back, their hair was a mess, their clothes were torn, and their faces were bruised and swollen from being beaten. They looked very miserable.
The second brother Jiang Jinglin's cheeks were a little swollen, there was a large bruise under his right eye, and there was a cut at the corner of his mouth. The blood had spread to his chin and dried to form a dark red scab. The third brother Jiang Jingfeng looked better, but there were also several scratches on his face, one of which was deeper and was still bleeding slightly.
Jiang Jingyun looked at his two brothers with wounds on their faces and felt very distressed: "How did they get into this state?"
As he said this, he went into the house to look for medicated oil for injuries. Ever since the last time Xiao Muyan was injured and had no medicine to use, he bought some commonly used medicines for injuries and kept them at home just in case. At this time, he took out the medicated oil from the cabinet and walked in front of his two younger brothers, "Let me see, where are you injured?"
Afraid that his brothers would catch a cold, he deliberately moved two braziers in front of them before he began to pull off his brothers' clothes. When he lifted up the clothes, he found that their bodies were also covered with bruises, especially Jiang Jinglin, whose arms were red, swollen and purple, and he cried out in pain when he was lightly touched.
Jiang Jingyun touched it gently and felt relieved when he found that the bones were fine. He looked at his two brothers who were grimacing in pain, feeling distressed and angry. He asked while giving them medicine: "Which bastard did this to hit a child so hard?"
"It was Li Dahu and the others!" Jiang Jinglin was already in great pain, and he was so angry when his brother asked him about it that he didn't care about the pain anymore. "They are a group of people who block our way home every day, calling us bastards without parents, and saying... and saying..."
"What else did they say?" He was a little surprised. His two younger brothers were usually well-behaved. Even his second younger brother Jiang Jinglin, who didn't like studying, went to school and completed his homework every day and never caused trouble outside. What did these people say to make him so angry that he ended up fighting?
Jiang Jinglin was unwilling to say anything, he turned around and sat aside angrily.
Jiang Jingyun looked at his third brother Jiang Jingfeng, raised his chin and said, "You go ahead and say it."
"..." The third brother glanced at his second brother, hesitating and not daring to speak.
"What? You can't tell me?" Jiang Jingyun raised his eyebrows in surprise. Usually, the third brother was the first to rush to complain.
"No...it's just that what they said was too harsh...they said..." Jiang Jingfeng spoke hesitantly and didn't get to the point for a long time.
"Don't say that!" Jiang Jinglin, who was pretending to be a puffer fish next to him, turned around and shouted loudly, scaring Jiang Jingfeng so much that he dared not speak.
Jiang Jingyun laughed angrily and touched Jiang Jinglin's hairy head: "Why are you so overbearing? It's fine if you're being upset and don't want to say it, but you don't allow your brother to say it?"
The second brother shook his head, trying to shake off the hand that was pressing on his head, and said angrily: "What those people said was all nonsense, there's nothing good to hear!"
"Oh, what did you say?" Jiang Jingyun coaxed him in a low voice, "Tell me, I want to know too."
Jiang Jingfeng stood there with his lips pursed, feeling aggrieved and angry. It was his second brother who stood in front of the fight today, so he didn't get beaten much. But he didn't want to hide it from his eldest brother and secretly glanced at his second brother's face. Seeing that he was coaxed by his eldest brother and no longer glared at people with a stern face, he quickly finished his words: "They scolded us for squandering the hard-earned labor of our neighbors, buying food at low prices and reselling it at high prices to make dirty money, and looking down on people just because we have some money in our pockets. They also scolded my eldest brother for being unfilial and ungrateful, and that sooner or later they would abandon us! They also said that when that time comes, they will capture our little sister..." Looking at his eldest brother's increasingly ugly face, Jiang Jingfeng's voice became lower and lower, and he didn't dare to say anything more.
After a long silence, Jiang Jingyun calmed down a little and asked, "Whose family is Li Dahu from? The Li family at the entrance of the village? Who else?"
"And Zheng Tieniu, Wang Xiaoer..." The third brother counted on his fingers the people who bullied them today.
Many of them were the children from the families that caused trouble at the entrance of the village last time. The more Jiang Jingyun listened, the angrier he became. It seemed that his previous actions were too kind, making people think that he was a soft persimmon that could be pinched by anyone who passed by.
He calmed down and said softly to his two younger brothers, "I know about the matter and I will deal with it. Don't worry, I will definitely seek justice for you. But next time you encounter something like this, don't be impulsive and rush forward alone. If you can't win, run back and tell the adults to let us help. Don't be impulsive, understand?"
The younger brothers nodded obediently, and Jiang Jingyun touched their heads with satisfaction. Such well-behaved children suffered all this for nothing. If the tiger doesn't show its power, people will think I'm a sick cat.
He carefully applied medicine to the two of them and sent them to Xiao Muyan's house next door. He asked big brother Xiao, whose injuries had almost healed, to help take care of them. Jiang Jingyun turned around and went to his uncle's house. His little sister was still there and hadn't been brought back yet. If he didn't go there now, she would probably cry again.
As for uncle's family, Jiang Jinglin and his partner had not come to pick up my younger sister yet. Just when he was planning to send her back by himself and take a look at what was going on today, he saw Jiang Jingyun walking towards him in anger.
The aunt looked at Jiang Jingyun with a cold face and felt a little strange. Her nephew was usually as soft as dough and easy to talk to. Today was the first time she saw him so angry. She asked, "Jingyun is here, why are you so angry? Who offended you?"
Jiang Jingyun told the story of how Jiang Jinglin and his brother were beaten and the rumors in the village. After hearing this, the others were furious, especially the eldest aunt, who gritted her teeth in hatred: "These bastards, they have nothing better to do than bully a few children all day long!"
"We can't just let this go like this. I have to go find them and settle the score!" Jiang Jingyun was filled with rage, and he had to find these people to vent his anger today.
"I'll go too." Brother Jiang spoke first.
"Wait, I'll go too." Brother Jiang also said.
"We're going together. Do you really think we're easy to bully?" Uncle Jiang was also furious and his face turned red. He turned around and told Brother Jiang, "Go and invite the village chief to come over. I want to ask, are all the Jiang clan members dead? Why would they allow these outsiders to bully us like this?"
"Okay." Brother Jiang responded and ran out first, followed by Jiang Jingyun and others.
The aunt was afraid that the men would be too embarrassed to speak and would suffer a loss in words, so she asked her daughter-in-law and Xiao Ya to take care of the younger sister at home, and then she hurriedly followed them out.
Several people walked towards the entrance of the village in a menacing manner. When they arrived at a house, they broke straight in and dragged the people out without saying a word. After a while, amid the continuous shouts of fear from the crowd, they threw all the fighting people under a big tree at the entrance of the village. Behind them were a group of parents who did not know what was going on and villagers who came to join in the fun.
Old Man Li chased after them and saw them rudely pushing his child. He frowned and asked in dissatisfaction, "What are you doing?"
Jiang Jingyun snorted coldly, pointing at Li Dahu and the others, "What are you doing? You should ask your eldest son, what have they done to my brothers?"
Old man Li looked at Li Dahu and saw that his eyes were erratic and he dared not look directly at him. He knew in his heart that his child must have made the mistake first, but he still said, "It's inevitable for children to bump into each other occasionally when playing. Why are you so angry?"
Jiang Jingyun was furious when he saw the other party say such shameless words. He pointed at the people who were obviously several years older than Jiang Jinglin and the others and said, "They are older than me, and you call them children?"
Brother Jiang grabbed Li Dahu by the collar and responded with a fake smile, "You like to play, right? Why don't we let the brothers play with you?"
The second cousin usually did a lot of heavy farm work, and he was already tall and strong. Now that his family was well off and he was not deprived of food, he grew even stronger. Standing there, he was like a wall, full of oppression. Li Dahu and his men were trembling with fear. Zheng Tieniu, the most cowardly among them, was so scared that he peed himself. He howled and shouted, "It's none of my fault. It was Li Dahu who instigated me! Mom, save me!"
Li Dahu was furious when he saw that Zheng Tieniu had completely wiped out all his resources. He glared at him angrily and said, "You were the one who told us those things, and you were the one who came up with the idea. Don't even think about denying it!"
"It's none of my son's business, let him go!" Zheng Lu, who was standing by, looked at her youngest son and shouted, feeling extremely distressed. She screamed and rushed over to grab the second brother Jiang's face, but was kicked away by her aunt, who had been staring at her for a long time. She said with disdain, "You didn't care about other people's lives when you were gossiping about them, but now you feel sorry for your own child."
Zheng Lu was kicked to the ground by her aunt, her hair and clothes were disheveled, and her voice was as sharp as a broken gong: "Don't go too far!"
"Bah!" The eldest aunt put her hands on her hips, raised her eyebrows, pointed at Zheng Lu and cursed, "It was obviously you who bullied others first, and you still put on a pitiful look for everyone to see. The actors in the building can't sing as well as you. You are really shameless!"
"You! I'll tear your mouth apart!" Seeing that she couldn't win the argument, Zheng Lu shouted and was about to go up and fight with her aunt.
"I wonder who dares to touch my mother!" Seeing that his mother was about to be beaten, Brother Jiang quickly protected her behind him.
As the two were in a stalemate, a hoarse and low voice came from behind, "Stop it!"
It turned out that Brother Jiang had invited the village chief over. The old man was leaning on a cane, looking at the noisy scene with an extremely grim expression, "What are you doing!"
Jiang Jingyun bowed slightly to the village chief and said in a cold voice: "The Jiang family has never offended anyone, and the younger generation in the family has always been well-behaved and sensible. Today, someone provoked trouble for no reason and beat my two younger brothers. I hope the village chief will do justice!"
When Madam Zheng Lu heard Jiang Jingyun putting all the blame on them, she shouted unconvincedly, "You bastards who have no parents to teach you, how do you know it wasn't your child who caused trouble first?"
"Bitch, your whole family is bastards. I don't know where they came from!" The aunt-in-law was not to be outdone.
"Shut up!" The village chief poked the ground with his cane, raised his voice a few notches, and looked at the villagers who were watching the fight. "Did you see what happened when they were fighting?"
Everyone was whispering, but no one came forward to testify.
Zheng Lu looked at her aunt smugly and continued to provoke: "Maybe your child was the first to be beaten, otherwise why did they only beat your child and not others?"
The Jiang family was so angry that they wanted to take action directly, but were stopped by Jiang Jingyun. Although beating these people up could make them vent their anger, if they did so, they would become the unreasonable party in front of everyone even if they were right.
During the stalemate, a child who had been watching the whole thing stood up and said loudly, "I saw it. It was Li Dahu and his gang who started to curse. Later, they couldn't win over Jiang Jinglin and the other two, so they took advantage of their numbers and started to attack directly!"
When Zheng Lu heard someone actually stood up, and it was a young boy, she immediately glared at him and threatened him with her teeth bared: "What did you see? What nonsense are you talking about here, a little brat?!"
He was so scared that he hid behind his parents, sticking his head out and insisting: "I saw it, you were the ones who bullied me first!"
"You are still so arrogant when bullying others. Is there any law left?"
"It's just bullying because there's no adult in the family..."
"What a sin..."
Jiang Jingyun looked at the village chief, and his meaning was clear.
The village chief thought about it and made a decision: "Since you guys were at fault first, I will punish you to kneel in the village ancestral temple for a night and reflect on your mistakes. Each family must pay the Jiang family money to pay for the medicine and apologize. Do you have any objections?"
When they heard that they not only had to apologize but also pay compensation, the families who had been watching from the sidelines stopped pretending to be dead and shouted loudly: "Why? The person is not dead, why do you want us to apologize and pay compensation!"
"Money is more important than life!"
Jiang Jingyun looked at the group of people and sneered: "Okay, you want money but not life, right? Then let's report to the police and let the county magistrate come to judge the case for us. The criminal law states that those who maliciously injure others shall be flogged forty times. I want to see how many lives you have!"
Several people were frightened when they heard that they had to report to the police, and Zheng Lu turned pale and collapsed to the ground.
He didn't dare to make any more trouble and just accepted the punishment and left in disgrace.
In this situation, Jiang Jingyun no longer cared about their superficial apology. He planned to secretly take his elder and second brothers with him in a few days to put sacks on those people and beat them up to vent his anger.
When I was about to leave, I heard Zheng Lu muttering in dissatisfaction behind me: "I didn't spread the word first, why blame us? It's all that bitch's fault..."
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