"Stop! Did I give you permission to leave?" Hong Xiaoduo said in a deep voice.
Hu Jiawang slowly turned around, pursed his lips, looked at Hong Xiaoduo, and said in a very restrained tone, "I admit that I owe you a favor, but no matter what I did before, I have never done anything to harm you. What do you want?"
Hong Xiaoduo didn't think much of his words, tone, or expression, but Tian Shu and the other six children were very unhappy.
I was wondering if he had some kind of trouble, and I was thinking about how to put in a good word for him and persuade him to stay. I thought that no matter how difficult things were for him, Xiaoduo was so capable that she could definitely help him solve them!
"No matter what your reason is for leaving, and no matter what you have hidden from us before, we took you in and treated you sincerely. It is wrong of you to leave without saying goodbye and steal Little Grey."
"It's even more inappropriate for them to speak to our mother in such a tone and attitude." This time, it was Tian Shu who spoke.
"Fine, I admit I was wrong. So how can I leave? By kneeling?" Hu Jiawang was furious. Looking at the six people who usually seemed innocent and harmless, all of whom were staring at him with anger, and their mother with a half-smile, he knew that if he didn't beg for forgiveness, he would have a hard time leaving.
He simply knelt down in front of Hong Xiaoduo: "It was wrong of me to steal it, but I had no choice. My story is not what you heard. Please don't hold it against me and let me leave, okay?" After saying that, he kowtowed three times.
It wasn't a perfunctory kowtow; it was three genuine, resounding kowtows.
What does kowtowing matter, as long as I can leave smoothly as soon as possible.
Everyone present looked at Hong Xiaoduo, wondering what she would decide.
“No.” Hong Xiaoduo responded without even thinking.
Hu Jiawang suddenly raised his head, still looking at her with suppressed anger: "Why, why are you making things so difficult for me? What exactly do you want?"
Hong Xiaoduo ignored him and instead looked at Lan Zechen, asking, "Pavilion Master Lan, has the person who delivered the message left?"
Lan Zechen thought she had something else to ask, so he said no. In order to deliver the message as soon as possible, I told the person who had rushed over day and night to rest at the inn.
After saying that, without waiting for Hong Xiaoduo to speak, he made a gesture, and the next moment, someone jumped down from the height.
Apart from a few children and Fei Yan who were stunned for a moment, Hong Xiaoduo and Quan Jinghuai were not surprised.
Quan Jinghuai had long sensed that someone was lurking in the shadows, and that they were quite skilled.
Although Hong Xiaoduo didn't realize it, she always was like that; she could only clearly sense danger when it was present.
Given Lan Zechen's identity, it's normal for him to have bodyguards accompanying him.
"Xiao Duo, if you need anything from him, just tell him. Don't stand on ceremony," Lan Zechen said, pointing to his newly appeared subordinate.
Upon hearing this, the man immediately stepped forward and clasped his hands in greeting to Hong Xiaoduo.
“You’ve gone to so much trouble to make this trip, so I won’t let you go for nothing. Here’s what you’ll do: take him to Hu Dongshan’s residence in Xishan Town, and you should receive a reward of a thousand taels of silver. You don’t need to hand it over to your sect leader; you can keep it for yourself,” Hong Xiaoduo said to the man in black in front of her.
"Alright, thank you, young lady." The man in black didn't say much, but he was very excited. This mission had unexpectedly brought such a pleasant surprise.
With the reward of a thousand taels sent back, life became much better for the elderly, wife, and children at home.
After hearing this, Lan Zechen glanced at Hong Xiaoduo with a hint of helplessness, thinking to himself, "Did you really need to bring this up in public? What do you mean I don't need to hand it over to you? Do you think I'm the kind of greedy person who would ask him for this reward? Who do you think you are!"
"Why are you picking on me? Why can't you just leave me alone? I've never done anything bad to you." Hu Jiawang suddenly stood up and questioned him angrily.
"Good question. Well then, I might as well tell you why. Let's not even talk about how you are so young yet so vicious, treating your six-year-old brother with such cruelty."
Take the day I found you starving and collapsed on the roadside, for example. It was they who persuaded me to take you in. But how did you treat them? Have you forgotten what you did last time when you suggested using the name Kaiyang to replace him and join the Big Dipper constellation, and were opposed by several of them?
Let me remind you, Tian Shu's favorite wolf-hair brush is missing. Did you secretly throw it away?
Did you tell Tianquan in private that Tianxuan complained that he ate too much and did too little? Was the cracking of Yuheng's embroidery frame also your doing?
And what about Yao Guang's windmill, and Tian Ji's eggshell carvings?
"You, you, how did you know? How did you know it was me?" Hu Jiawang asked in disbelief.
They're together all the time, so it's normal for her to know about these trivial things, but how can she be sure it was him? You know, Tian Shu and the others never suspected him.
"How do I know? Because I know them well. They've suffered so much, so they cherish everything they have now, even the cheapest little things."
This had never happened before they objected to you using the name Kaiyang, but since then it has been happening frequently.
You lied, trying to sow discord between Tianquan and Tianxuan, but you forgot about the trust they have in each other. When Tianquan heard what you said, he didn't question Tianxuan or hold a grudge against him. Instead, he realized that he had indeed been eating too much and doing too little. He secretly asked the others if that was the case, and if so, he would change.
He even asked about Xiao Yaoguang. The little girl likes to nag in front of me, so I found out too.
So I asked Tianquan what happened, and he told me that this is what you told him.
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