"Get up quickly, Village Chief Lu, you don't need to be so polite with me! I heard that some refugees wandered into your village last night. Are you... are you alright?" Magistrate Duan asked, slightly relieved, after seeing the unharmed village chief.
"This is all thanks to the Jiang family!" The village chief said, recounting the terrifying events of the previous night to Magistrate Duan.
Although Magistrate Duan appeared calm and collected, his heart was pounding like a rollercoaster.
Especially after hearing that that scoundrel named Wang Tieshuan had actually gone to Jiang Ling's new residence, if it weren't for his current status as the county magistrate, he would have slapped that shameless fellow a few times!
Magistrate Duan, barely suppressing his anger, looked at the village chief and asked, "Where is that scoundrel?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency, Wang Tieshuan and the other criminals have been tied up and are under strict guard!" The village chief looked at Magistrate Duan and assumed that his anger stemmed from concern for everyone in their Lu Family Village.
Thinking of this, the village chief once again silently murmured to himself, "Magistrate Duan is a good official! He is an honest official."
"Then... then is there nothing wrong with Jiang Shi?" Magistrate Duan asked the village chief again.
The village chief nodded and quickly replied, "Don't worry, sir, Jiang is fine!"
Hearing this, Magistrate Duan relaxed a little and, still seething with anger, followed the village chief to the empty house where Wang Tieshuan had been held.
Inside the room, Wang Tieshuan had already woken up, but he still felt dizzy and nauseous. However, he was tightly bound with hemp rope, making it extremely difficult to move. In the end, he could only vomit on his own face, filling the room with a foul smell.
The door made a sickeningly loud sound as it slowly opened. Wang Tieshuan thought it was his underling coming to rescue him, and he squinted at the door as he looked outside.
When he saw two strangers outside the door, he mustered his courage and shouted, "Are you bandits? Why are you forcibly tying me up here!"
When the village chief heard Wang Tieshuan's arrogant words, he was so angry that he almost threw his pipe at him.
As for Magistrate Duan, his expression wasn't much better!
Seeing that the village chief and Magistrate Duan remained silent, Wang Tieshuan assumed they were frightened by him and quickly continued to scold them: "Old man, let me tell you, if you keep tying me up like this, I'll report you to the authorities when I get out, and they'll arrest you and throw you in jail!"
"Send him to jail? Wang Tieshuan, do you know who we are?" Magistrate Duan couldn't hold back any longer and rushed over to Wang Tieshuan, who was covered in vomit, and berated him.
Wang Tieshuan was taken aback by Magistrate Duan's question. He sized up the magistrate, surmising that he must be wealthy and powerful. Thinking this, Wang Tieshuan smiled mysteriously and said, "Who you are doesn't matter! But I'll let you go! Judging from your clothes, you're probably a rich man. How about this, I'll give you face; you give me a few hundred taels and we'll call it even!"
As soon as Wang Tieshuan finished speaking, the village chief silently gave Wang Tieshuan a thumbs up from behind the county magistrate. "You're really something else. You're so bold as to extort the county magistrate. You're probably the first person to do that."
Magistrate Duan was so angry at Wang Tieshuan's words that he laughed. He coughed lightly and said to Wang Tieshuan, "A few hundred taels of silver is nothing, but whether you have the guts to take it is another matter!"
Whether it was because he was electrocuted yesterday or something else, Wang Tieshuan didn't understand the meaning behind Magistrate Duan's words at all, and just thought that Magistrate Duan was just threatening him.
He grinned and glanced at the two men indifferently, saying, "I, Wang Tieshuan, dare to eat people, how could I not have the guts to take a few hundred taels of silver!"
Upon hearing this, both County Magistrate Duan and the village chief turned deathly pale. County Magistrate Duan was alright, but the village chief felt his stomach churning, as if he could vomit the moment he opened his mouth.
The village chief walked up to Magistrate Duan, bowed, and was about to speak when he suddenly felt nauseous.
He covered his mouth and ran outside to vomit repeatedly.
Wang Tieshuan, who was inside the door, witnessed what had just happened and became even more convinced that the two people in front of him were definitely paper tigers.
Thinking of this, he became even bolder. He clicked his tongue and scoffed, "With this much guts, you want to be the village chief? Why don't I take over as village chief of Lu Family Village!"
Magistrate Duan, barely suppressing his urge to vomit, asked, "Wang Tieshuan, what do you mean by that?"
Wang Tieshuan rolled his eyes at Magistrate Duan and said, "What do you mean? It's just the literal meaning, right? Children under three years old are the best, especially newborns, followed by boys and girls, then women, then men, and the worst are the elderly..."
"Alright, shut up! You're capable of doing such heinous things, are you even human?"
Magistrate Duan really didn't want to hear Wang Tieshuan's words, so he quickly opened his mouth to stop him.
"Human? Ha! You were just born a little better off than me, a bit luckier in reincarnation, and you think you can stand here spouting ridiculous nonsense to me? What am I supposed to do if I don't eat? I need to survive! Do you know how delicious those wild vegetables are to us? Do you know what tree bark tastes like? Do you know what it feels like to dig up a tree root? You rich people have no idea!"
Wang Tieshuan's words left Magistrate Duan speechless; he opened his mouth, but for a moment, he didn't know what to say.
Even the anger from before had lessened considerably because of Wang Tieshuan's words.
"Don't listen to his nonsense! He's just spreading rumors and misleading the public!" Jiang Ling's cold voice echoed throughout the room.
She walked in from outside with an angry expression.
The events of last night were still vivid in Wang Tieshuan's mind. For some reason, he felt a sense of fear towards Jiang Ling. After recognizing the person as Jiang Ling, he trembled for no apparent reason.
Jiang Ling whispered something to Magistrate Duan and told him everything Yue'er had said yesterday.
Enraged, Magistrate Duan kicked Wang Tieshuan hard in the buttocks.
Wang Tieshuan never expected that "a Cheng Yaojin would appear out of nowhere." He angrily shouted at Jiang Ling, "You bitch! Did I give you too much face?! You just wait, I'm going to take you! Not just you, but all the brothers too..."
With a sharp "slap," the crisp sound of a slap echoed throughout the room. Jiang Ling's eyes widened in anger, and she slapped Wang Tieshuan hard across the face.
"Wang Tieshuan, you still want to go out? Come here, let me calculate for you: malicious murder, rape of women, and attempts to seduce the wives of court officials. Do you think you can escape all of these charges?" Jiang Ling glared at Wang Tieshuan and scolded him.
"How did I maliciously kill and rape women? Although I'm illiterate and haven't been to school, I know that everything requires evidence. Aren't you afraid of retribution for making such baseless accusations?" Wang Tieshuan wasn't afraid at all when he heard Jiang Ling's words. Instead, he raised his eyebrows, glared at her, and confronted her with an air of dissatisfaction.
Jiang Ling ignored Wang Tieshuan's words, instead believing that he was beyond redemption. She smiled slightly and said indifferently, "Oh? Is that so? Yue'er, come in!"
"What?" Wang Tieshuan, who had just been defiant, immediately changed his expression upon hearing the name "Yue'er".
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