"Why did you stop the carriage?"
"They're going to kill me! Please, sir, have mercy and save me!" Yang Meiqin cried out when the man in the carriage asked her a question. She looked pitiful, as if she had suffered a great injustice, completely losing her previous fierceness.
"You're spouting nonsense!" Li was furious and stepped forward to hit Yang Meiqin, but was stopped by the coachman.
Wang Dafu narrowed his eyes and looked at the woman in front of him. She had a slender waist, a beautiful face, and especially captivating eyes.
At this moment, Yang Meiqin's clothes were somewhat disheveled, with a section of her red undergarment showing at the neckline. Her hair was messy, and she was crying with tears streaming down her face, making her all the more pitiful.
"Master, please save me! This woman is going to beat me to death!" Yang Meiqin, who had spent years working among men, naturally understood the pity in the man's eyes. Taking advantage of the situation, she grabbed Wang Dafu's clothes and knelt on the ground, crying pitifully.
Wang Dafu felt compassion and quickly helped Yang Meiqin up. The young woman looked so pitiful with tears streaming down her face. As a wealthy man, Wang Dafu naturally wanted to do more good deeds.
"Young lady, don't worry, with me here, I will make sure no one bullies you."
Madam Li quickly explained, "Sir, don't be fooled by her. She's a prostitute, trying to set you up with a honey trap."
Wang Dafu gave the coachman a look, and the coachman rudely shoved Li Shi: "Get out of here, get out of here, or I'll take you to the yamen. You bullied the young lady, and my husband and I witnessed it with our own eyes, and we can all be witnesses."
Upon hearing the word "government office," Li immediately cowered. The person before her was undoubtedly wealthy and powerful, and likely not someone to be trifled with. She decided it was best to leave obediently.
Before leaving, he glared fiercely at Yang Meiqin, thinking that the bitch had probably caught a big fish.
Seeing Li walk away, Yang Meiqin weakly got up, rubbed her forehead, pretended to be very dizzy, and then lost her balance and fainted to the ground.
"Oh no, what happened? She's fainted! Quickly, lift her onto the carriage and get a doctor." Wang Dafu looked extremely anxious when he saw the beautiful woman in front of him faint. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was an incredibly kind-hearted person.
The coachman watched calmly as Wang Dafu carried Yang Meiqin onto the carriage; he was used to this kind of thing.
Although Wang Dafu was rich, he was also a womanizer, especially fond of going out to hunt for women. Women like Yang Meiqin, with her methods, were exactly to Wang Dafu's liking.
...
Back home, Gu Nanjiao didn't rest either. She carried several wooden buckets and went to catch bullfrogs with Lu's mother and younger sister.
By evening, the three of them had cleaned the bullfrogs very efficiently.
Lu Xiaomei's technique was swift and skillful. The little girl, who was not even ten years old, swiftly removed the skin and internal organs from the bullfrog with a knife. Gu Nanjiao was dumbfounded: "Little sister, I didn't expect you to be so skillful with a knife."
Lu Xiaomei said proudly, "That's right. Although I'm a girl, I'm not good at embroidering with a needle, but I'm quite adept at handling a knife."
Gu Nanjiao smiled knowingly: "Okay, from now on, we'll leave the task of killing chickens and ducks in our house to you."
"Pshaw, I won't do that unless I'm the first person you think of when there's something delicious."
"Then you'll definitely be the first one."
Lu's mother wasn't idle either; she gathered firewood and started a fire.
He prepared the seasonings, scallions, ginger, and garlic for the bullfrog and watched Gu Nanjiao cook it.
Gu Nanjiao ladled the cooked spicy bullfrog into a large bowl and casually said, "Mother, Yanzhao has gone to the academy, so it's just the three of us making bullfrog. I'm afraid we won't have enough manpower. How about you call your cousins over to help tomorrow? We'll pay them."
Mrs. Lu readily agreed: "Okay, I'll go ask tomorrow."
It's not a busy season now. The crops that need to be planted in the fields have already been planted, and we're just waiting for the autumn harvest. It's a good time to find someone to help us.
The next morning, Gu Nanjiao and her two companions arrived at the county market and set up their stall in the same spot.
Since the morning market had just ended, there were only a few people scattered around the market, but most of them had come to their stalls.
Just like yesterday, they set out bullfrogs, braised offal, and spicy strips.
Halfway through the sale, the same energetic young man from yesterday came rushing over with a food box. He wiped the sweat from his brow, pushed his way through the crowd, and shouted:
"Young lady, give me three jin of yesterday's garlic bullfrog, three jin of pork offal, and one jin of those spicy strips."
Before Gu Nanjiao could speak, someone in the crowd expressed their dissatisfaction:
"Go, go, go, get in line."
"Exactly, didn't you see we've been queuing for ages?"
The young man nodded sheepishly, "Sorry, sorry."
Gu Nanjiao nodded apologetically to the deliveryman, signaling him to join the queue. There was no other way; there had to be a first-come, first-served system.
"Here you go, welcome to come again next time." Gu Nanjiao handed the packaged spicy bullfrog to the customer with a polite attitude.
"Phew, it's finally my turn." The young man grinned, revealing a set of bright white teeth.
Gu Nanjiao smiled and said, "Young man, is it three catties of garlic-flavored bullfrog, three catties of offal, and one catty of spicy strips?"
"Yes."
Gu Nanjiao picked up the oil paper to pack it up when she suddenly heard a noisy commotion, which included vicious curses. Lu's mother tugged at Gu Nanjiao's sleeve and turned around to look.
Several officers in uniform, wielding thick sticks, kept smashing the stalls next to them, cursing as they did so: "We're cleaning the streets! We've already said no stalls allowed, and you still did. We'll smash them!"
"Sir, small businesses don't make money. If this is ruined, how are we ordinary people supposed to live?" the old woman selling shoes cried out.
Gu Nanjiao took a deep breath: "Oh no, we've run into ancient city management officers."
After exchanging a glance with Lu's mother and Lu Xiaomei, the three of them acted in perfect unison. In the blink of an eye, Gu Nanjiao grabbed two wooden basins filled with bullfrogs and ran off, while Lu's mother carried a wooden basin filled with pig offal and a support frame, and Lu Xiaomei picked up a knife and a wooden basket from the side, following closely behind.
"Hey, what are you running for? Stop right there!" A city guard (ancient city management officer) brandished his wooden stick and shouted at the three people who had run away, while his companions were about to give chase.
When they're in a good mood, they'll let these street vendors run around; when they're in a bad mood, they'll vandalize their stalls or even beat and verbally abuse them.
The young man standing next to him was immediately dumbfounded. Did he think he wouldn't be able to buy garlic bullfrog and pork offal again today? Wouldn't he be scolded to death by his father when he got home?
His master had finally resigned from his official post and returned to his hometown, wanting to taste the local delicacies. He finally found some delicious food, but missed it twice. Thinking about the scolding he would receive, the young man glared fiercely at the market supervisors in their uniforms: "It's all your fault, otherwise I would have bought it."
One of the supervisors raised his stick and swung it heavily at the young man, saying menacingly, "Get out of the way, don't block the way."
The young man grabbed it with one hand, twisted it forcefully with his five fingers, and the thick stick immediately cracked.
The market inspector screamed, clutching his arm and kicking back a few steps, his voice hoarse and desperate: "My hand, my hand is broken."
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