Chapter 106: Shrew Li Zhaodi

But someone was not going to let Xiaoguo leave.

“Xiaoguo…”

Mrs. Yang called out to Xiaoguo happily, wanting to follow her back.

When Xiaoguo saw that it was her, she stopped the donkey cart and waited for her.

Mrs. Yang’s voice wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t soft either. Those who were standing nearby could hear her.

Li Zhaodi was one of them. When she heard Xiaoguo’s name, she instinctively wanted to start cursing. “Tsk, why are you calling out to a widow?!”

Li Zhaodi was famous for her loud voice. She did not deliberately lower her voice. Everyone heard her, including Xiaoguo.

Xiaoguo’s expression darkened. She subconsciously covered Zhuang Zhuang’s ears and glared at Li Zhaodi. At other times when Li Zhaodi called her names, she usually couldn’t be bothered about it. But today, she was doing it in front of Zhuang Zhuang. This was unforgivable!

Before Xiaoguo could flare up, Mrs. Yang, who was in front of her, got worked up. She didn’t expect that calling out to Xiaoguo would cause her to get a scolding.

A slap landed on Li Zhaodi’s face. Before she could react, she fell to the ground. She reached out to cover her face and looked at Mrs. Yang in confusion. What had just happened?

Everyone was shocked. Time seemed to have stopped as they watched the situation in front of them.

Li Zhaodi reacted and let out a furious roar. She jumped up and cursed without caring about her image. She spewed all the vulgarities she knew. Most of what she said was related to widows. Li Zhaodi didn’t dare to do that in the face of Mrs. Yang, so she directed all her anger at Xiaoguo.

When she jumped up, the people around her tried to hold on to her, making it difficult for her to move. Mrs. Yang stood where she was and did not dodge. After all, Li Zhaodi was unable to reach her.

Mrs. Yang gloated at Li Zhaodi and kept making faces to provoke her. If Li Zhaodi were an anime character, her hair would definitely be standing on end.

As Li Zhaodi was constantly harping about widows, some of those who were kind enough to hold on to her, became furious, as their husbands were no longer around. Hidden among the crowd, they attacked Li Zhaodi from behind her back.

Li Zhaodi, who was in the midst of cursing, suddenly felt someone pinching her on the back of her waist. She let out a cry and clutched her waist as she threw curses in that direction. Suddenly, her arm was pinched again. Li Zhaodi was furious and she exploded in anger. She flung her arms around to hit the people around her, not caring who she had hurt.

Immediately, there were shouts of abuse. Those who were kind enough to hold her up became angry as they got hit by her. Even those who always fawned on her, started attacking her secretly to vent their unhappiness with her.

The situation had progressed from Li Zhaodi attacking a group of people, to a group of people attacking her. The scene was spectacular. There were people scratching faces, pulling hair, rolling on the floor and kicking at others. Xiaoguo was utterly shocked. She had never seen anything like this before. Xiaoguo had been covering Zhuang Zhuang’s ears since Li Zhaodi started cursing. Later on, when the group started fighting, she covered his eyes. It was too painful to look at, she had to shield him from the commotion.

While everyone was still fighting, Xiaoguo asked Mrs. Yang to leave with her. The rest of the crowd can continue fighting for all they want.

When they were a distance away, there was finally no more noise. Xiaoguo and Mrs. Yang heaved a sigh of relief at the same time. Then, they looked at each other and laughed out loud.

Zhuang Zhuang did not speak. He lay listlessly in Xiaoguo’s arms. As Xiaoguo was talking to Mrs. Yang, she did not notice anything unusual about Zhuang Zhuang.

On the way, Mrs. Yang rubbed her sore cheeks. “The men in the village are coming back.”

Xiaoguo looked calm and nodded. “I saw the announcement when I was in the county.”

Mrs. Yang’s eyes were filled with longing and anticipation as she looked into the distance. Xiaoguo did not interrupt her thoughts and quietly drove the donkey cart.

Neither of them took notice of Zhuang Zhuang, who was in Xiaoguo’s arms. He pursed his lips and hugged his mother tightly.

When Mrs. Yang said goodbye to Xiaoguo at the door, she looked at the mother and son pair, and hesitated before finally shaking her head without saying anything.

After saying goodbye, Xiaoguo drove to their house. Zhuang Zhuang got out of the car and opened the door for Xiaoguo to drive in. He then fed the animals, collected the eggs, and started a fire.

Xiaoguo looked at Zhuang Zhuang who seemed rather out of sorts. She wondered what was wrong with him. Had he heard Li Zhaodi’s words?

Perhaps he had been frightened by Li Zhaodi’s actions.

Thinking about how Li Zhaodi had bared her fangs and brandished her claws in the morning, it did look like she had gone crazy. She looked like the witch in the story that Xiaoguo had told Zhuang Zhuang. “Was he frightened by what he saw?”

The more she watched Zhuang Zhuang, the stranger she felt. Although he was still doing his usual work, he did not speak much.

Xiaoguo gritted her teeth. The horrible Li Zhaodi had actually frightened Zhuang Zhuang! She would definitely not let her off so easily!

At night, after Zhuang Zhuang had washed up, he climbed into bed and hugged Xiaoguo tightly. Xiaoguo held Zhuang Zhuang in her arms and wondered what to say.

“Zhuang Zhuang?”

Xiaoguo called Zhuang Zhuang’s name tentatively.

Zhuang Zhuang heard her but didn’t move. He buried his face in Xiaoguo’s neck and said, “Mother, I’m sleepy.”

When Xiaoguo heard this, she knew that Zhuang Zhuang didn’t want to talk about it. She sighed in her heart and patted Zhuang Zhuang on the back. “Go to sleep.”

“Go to sleep. You might feel better tomorrow.”

After Zhuang Zhuang had fallen asleep, Xiaoguo got up gently and made sure that he was sound asleep.

After confirming that Zhuang Zhuang was deep in slumber, Xiaoguo got out of bed. She had not changed out of her clothes yet. The more Xiaoguo looked at Zhuang Zhuang, the angrier she became. Of course, this anger was directed at that shrew, Li Zhaodi.

“How dare you scare our Zhuang Zhuang!”

Xiaoguo gently closed the door. When the dogs in the courtyard were about to bark, she knelt down to comfort them. She had to make sure that Zhuang Zhuang would be woken by any sounds. She walked out of the front door quietly. It wasn’t safe enough to just close the door tightly—she decided to lock it as well. She was really worried about leaving Zhuang Zhuang alone at home.

She would make it quick. Xiaoguo quickened her pace and walked towards Li Zhaodi’s house.

The two houses were quite a distance away from each other. The roads in the village were dark and there were no street lamps. Xiaoguo had just come out of the village and was feeling quite brave. However, the more she walked, the more frightened she felt. She could not help but hum to the tune of the Revolutionary Army’s march.

As she hummed the tune, she really felt bolder. If there were really three fires on a person’s body, Xiaoguo felt that her three fires were burning vigorously now.

Xiaoguo hummed as she walked quickly to Li Zhaodi’s house. Before she reached the door, she saw a sneaky figure tinkering with something at the door.

Xiaoguo lightened her footsteps and hid among a cluster of grass by the road. As she watched the man’s every move, she wondered who it could be?

“Why did a man appear at Li Zhaodi’s house so late at night? Does she have another man?”

“No, no, no. That was impossible.”

Xiaoguo eliminated this thought first. Firstly, there were no men in the village. Secondly, if he was from another village, why would he come so far and knock on Li Zhaodi’s door so late at night?

“That’s not right either. People would usually do sneaky things in the middle of the night.”

Thinking along this line, XIaoguo felt the man was most likely a secret lover.

She held her breath and tried to get closer. It was too far and too dark. Xiaoguo could not tell if it was a man or a woman. She had to get closer.

After taking a few more steps beyond the grass patch, she saw the figure paused as if he had discovered something. Xiaoguo was alarmed and quickly ran back into the grass.

Sure enough, the second Xiaoguo hid herself, the person turned around. Xiaoguo held her breath and stayed in her hiding place. She squinted hard at the man.

With the help of the moonlight, Xiaoguo finally got a good look! The person was actually…