Xia Mian turned around and saw the child huddled in a corner of the sofa, trembling with fear, with a pair of clear big eyes looking at her anxiously. Xia Mian suddenly couldn't move her legs.
She walked over and hugged the child and said, "Don't be afraid, baby, your aunt is here."
The child shivered in her arms.
Xia Mian just remembered that the child must have injuries on his body after being beaten, so she quickly let him go and checked carefully. She saw a red spot on the child's forearm, and then looked at the broken cup on the ground. What was there to understand? The child dropped the cup because the water was too hot.
She picked him up carefully and couldn't help but feel a lump in her nose. She couldn't even feel the weight of a child of four or five years old.
When she walked into the bathroom, she kicked something and felt a sharp pain in her calf that went straight to the top of her head. Xia Mian couldn't help but let out a hiss and stood still.
It took me a long time to recover, and when I looked down I saw that it was the aluminum basin that the child had just used to wash clothes.
The child obviously knew what was going on. He was so frightened that his whole body stiffened. The hands around her neck loosened in fear and twisted together nervously. His voice trembled slightly, "Auntie."
Xia Mian was almost made to cry by his yelling. She immediately hugged him tightly and stroked his back again and again. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. It's not your fault that I didn't look at the road."
"It's amazing that the baby can wash clothes."
The child still didn't relax until Xia Mian washed the red areas with cold water, held him in his arms and applied toothpaste on him to prevent blisters. When he noticed the little body hesitated for a moment, he tentatively leaned towards Xia Mian.
That cautious dependence made Xia Mian sad. If it weren't for her, how miserable would this child be...
Having said that, this dream is too real. It feels good to deal with the beast, but I really can't let go of this child.
Xia Mian always felt like he had overlooked something, but couldn't remember it for a moment.
Forget it, let’s ignore it for now. Let’s take it one step at a time and hurry up to help the kid clean up.
Xia Mian lifted up the vest that was so dirty that the color couldn't be seen, and immediately clenched his back teeth: I really didn't hit it lightly just now!
The child's skinny little body was covered with shocking bruises.
Xia Mian's eyes were sore. She took a clean and soft towel, wet it, and carefully wiped the child's arms and face. But when it came to other places, she didn't know where to start. It is no exaggeration to say that there was really no intact place on the child's body.
Xia Mian stood up suddenly, her thumb unconsciously pressing on the base of her index finger, and the joint made a "click" sound. She didn't know how long it would take before she woke up from the dream, and hoped that it would support her in beating up that black-hearted woman again.
The moment Xia Mian took a step, the familiar pain attacked the top of his head again. Xia Mian looked down at the aluminum basin that he kicked for the second time and realized what he had overlooked: Can the pain in a dream be so real?
Just as she thought of this, her head suddenly started to hurt, and some memories that did not belong to her flooded into her mind. That was the sixteen years of Zhang Yufeng's aunt's life.
What was going on? Xia Meng hadn't figured out whether this was a dream or reality when he heard Huang Xiaojuan sobbing through the small window connected to the bathroom:
"They say it's hard to be a stepmother. That kid is always sloppy. I treated him like my own child and took care of him. Who would have thought that after just two scoldings, his aunt would beat me up like this..."
Her legs felt tight, and Xia Mian looked down, only to see the child's small hands tightly tugging at her pants, his mouth pursed nervously, his big eyes filled with worry and fear.
Xiao Feng knew how powerful his stepmother was. He was worried that his aunt would be scolded. He was even more afraid that after his aunt left, his stepmother would get even more angry and beat him. It would hurt so much that he would not be able to stand up.
Children who should be carefree seem to live in perpetual fear.
Looking at those eyes, Xia Mian temporarily ignored the confusion in her mind. She leaned over and held the child's face, looking into his eyes seriously and said, "Don't be afraid, baby, your aunt will not ignore you."
Not sure whether it was a dream or reality, she would take the matter seriously and at least leave a way out for the child.
There was a slight light in the child's eyes. He looked at Xia Mian and whispered, "I'm not a baby. My name is Xiao Feng. My mother gave me that name."
"Well, Baobao is a nickname, and Xiaofeng is my real name." Xia Mian reached out and threw away the tattered vest, and asked, "Let's change clothes. Where are your clothes?"
Xiao Feng pointed to the aluminum basin next to him and saw two pieces of clothes soaking in it, the color of which was unclear. They were a vest and an adult's shorts. These were the only clothes the child had for changing.
Xia Mian couldn't help but press her index finger again, making a soft sound, and asked softly, "Do you have anything else to wear? Where are your things?"
The child pointed to a small room facing north.
The layout of the family housing complex in the early years was not reasonable. It had three bedrooms and a living room in an area of more than 80 square meters. The living room was the largest area, followed by the two bedrooms, and the north-facing room was extremely small.
Even though she had prepared herself mentally, Xia Mian's tears instantly fell after she opened the door...
Xiao Feng panicked, "Auntie..."
"It's okay, it's okay." Xia Mian leaned over and hugged him, unable to hold back her sobs. "Don't be afraid, baby. Auntie will definitely protect you!"
Xia Mian wiped her eyes, stood up, picked up the phone on the chest of drawers and dialed 110...
After hanging up the phone, she returned to the guest room and found a soft T-shirt from her original suitcase. She came out and put it on the child, and at the same time, she found a few biscuits in the kitchen and handed them to him.
Xiao Feng touched the clean clothes on his body, pursed his lips and looked a little happy. Seeing Xia Mian holding the biscuits, he was startled and said timidly, "This is for my brother."
Xia Mian stuffed the biscuits into his hands and said, "From today on, you don't have a brother anymore. Whatever you want is yours!"
Holding him, she sat on the sofa and said, "Eat it obediently and wait for your aunt to come back."
Xia Mian pinched the base of her fingers one by one, and the joints made loud cracking sounds. She didn't believe Xia if she didn't beat Huang Xiaoxia up today so that her parents wouldn't recognize her!
The staff quarters of the 19th Bureau of Huagang are very large, with more than a dozen buildings and thirty or forty units, housing at least several thousand people. It is now lunchtime, and the area is bustling with people coming and going.
Huang Xiaojuan usually had a good reputation and was quite popular in the compound. Now, she sat on a stone bench, sobbing. "You all know that kid. He's always naughty and messy, so filthy and dirty. Who in the compound wants to play with him? I want him to be a good person, but am I wrong to discipline him?"
"She also said that it was her sister's child and I was not qualified to discipline him." Huang Xiaojuan seemed to have been betrayed and cried even more sadly, "She actually attacked me directly." As she spoke, she showed several red marks on her arm. Xia Mian did not hold back when she hit him, and now all the marks were swollen.
"Old Zhang from our family was thinking about the old relationship. He thought that the parents of his ex-sister-in-law's family were gone, and the little girl was so pitiful and no one wanted her. The conditions in the city were better, and if he took her in, she would be able to go to a good school and get into a good university like her sister. But he didn't expect..."
As he spoke, he began to sob, looking like a poor man who had been let down.
Someone finished the rest of her sentence for her, "What an ungrateful person! If it really was a stepmother, she wouldn't care at all. Disciplining a child is such a hassle, who would want to do that?"
The old man from the unit next door shook his head and sighed, "It seems like if the top beam is crooked, the bottom beam will be crooked too, and it all starts with the roots. No wonder you said that child is hard to discipline."
The old neighbor across the street tapped her cane angrily and echoed, "Isn't it? Look at that girl, she's like a Bull Demon King every day. Ever since she came, I don't dare let my grandson go out to play."
Huang Xiaojuan's close friend also sighed, "Being a stepmother is indeed difficult, but you're too kind. She's Lao Zhang's ex-sister-in-law. Seriously speaking, she's not even related by blood. Her own relatives don't want her. Why did you bother to take her in?!"
Huang Xiaojuan was about to show off her kindness when she heard a clear female voice with a strong nasal tone and a hostile tone, "Looking for trouble? Didn't you trick me into coming to the city just to get the savings and property my mother left me?"
When everyone turned around, they saw the "Bull Demon King" they had just discussed walking towards them aggressively, with his red hair standing up arrogantly and his eyes red, as if he had suffered a greater injustice than Huang Xiaojuan.
Before anyone had time to digest the meaning of her words, she strode up to Huang Xiaojuan and asked coldly, "What did you just say? The child is naughty, sloppy, and disobedient?"
Huang Xiaojuan had felt a little guilty when she heard her talk about the savings, but now that she only mentioned the child, she immediately became confident and said, "Isn't it?"
With the intention of showing everyone how arrogant and domineering Xia Mian was, her tone was provocative, "You're sloppy and dirty all day long, and you don't listen at all. Your brother-in-law is his biological father, but he doesn't care. I...ah!"
Huang Xiaojuan didn't finish her words when Xia Mian kicked her in the stomach and angrily asked, "Why is he so dirty? Have you ever washed his clothes? You let a child under five years old wash his own clothes. How can he be clean?"
Thinking of the child washing his own clothes, Xia Mian's eyes reddened again. She leaned over, grabbed Huang Xiaojuan by the collar, and punched her in the stomach. "The kids in the yard don't want to play with him? Have you ever let him out? The only two clothes he has are his dad's vests!"
She turned around and asked the neighbors, "Has anyone seen him running out wearing normal children's clothes? No matter how naughty the child is, how can an adult not wash his face properly? This is in the city, and the child doesn't go out, so how did he get so dirty?!"
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. This was indeed not the case. The child was always dirty and timid, which was annoying to look at, so no one wanted to pay attention to him.
Xia Mian thought of that small, dark room that looked like a pigsty again, and the wild power in her body could no longer be suppressed. She held Huang Xiaojuan down, sobbing and beating her, "How dare you call him naughty and discipline him? You came back from going out and asked the child to pour you some hot water, and he accidentally hit the cup because he burned his hand, and you beat him to death!"
The more she talked, the more uncomfortable she became. Xia Mian roared with red eyes, "Your son is as fat as a ball, while our child is just skin and bones! How dare you say you discipline him!"
Huang Xiaojuan was so stunned by the kick in the stomach that she lost her voice. Only now did she scream, holding her head and dodging left and right. "You, you lunatic, help me, help me!"
The others also reacted and rushed over to mediate. After all, they were friends with Huang Xiaojuan, and of course they were more inclined to Huang Xiaojuan than Xia Mian, the outsider and non-mainstream Bull Demon King.
"What's wrong with me? It hurts now?" Although Xia Mian no longer had the height and strength, he was still as skilled as ever. He dodged the attacks of several middle-aged women and kicked Huang Xiaojuan hard a few more times.
"When you beat children, you were even more brutal than this. You beat our children so hard that they couldn't even cry. How can you be worse than a child?"
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