Bullying

Fang Yuan had just reached the gate of his courtyard with Liu Wanwan when the sight before them made both their hearts clench!

Little Bean Sprout was crouching all alone at the base of the courtyard wall, her tiny body curled into a ball as she used her little hands, red with cold,

to painstakingly pick up scattered bits of firewood from the snow.

Her little face was smeared with a grimy mix of mud and tear tracks. Her hair was in disarray, and a large patch of her cotton-padded jacket's sleeves and front was wet and spattered with mud.

"Little Bean Sprout!" Liu Wanwan cried out. The water bucket nearly slipped from her hand as she hurriedly rushed over.

Hearing the voice, Little Bean Sprout looked up. The moment she saw her brother and sister-in-law had returned, all the grievance and fear she had been holding back burst forth. With a wail, she began sobbing,

throwing down the firewood and stumbling into Liu Wanwan's arms. She cried so hard she could barely catch her breath, her tiny body trembling like a fallen leaf in the wind.

"What happened? Little Bean Sprout, tell Brother—who bullied you?"

Fang Yuan crouched down, making his voice as gentle as possible, but his gaze had already turned cold.

He gently brushed aside the damp hair on Little Bean Sprout's forehead and saw a conspicuous swollen red patch at her temple. The skin had even been scraped open a little, with mud and grit stuck around it.

His fingers trembled slightly.

Under Liu Wanwan's gentle soothing and Fang Yuan's quiet questioning, Little Bean Sprout finally sobbed out the story in fits and starts.

It turned out that, seeing her sister-in-law had gone to fetch water and had not returned for a long while, she had wanted to help gather some firewood.

Not far from the entrance to their home, several half-grown children who had never been friendly toward her surrounded her, holding snowballs packed hard as rocks.

Inside those snowballs were sharp little stones and filthy clumps of mud!

As they shouted, "Baleful Star's sister! Get lost!"

"Little jinx! Stay away from us!" they hurled the snowballs at her with all their strength.

She could not dodge in time and was struck by several snowballs. Her forehead and arms burned with pain as she fell into the muddy snow.

Not only did those children refuse to stop, they broke into smug laughter. Only when an adult happened by and shouted at them did they run away laughing.

As Fang Yuan listened, his face darkened as though water could drip from it.

He carefully examined Little Bean Sprout's arms and, sure enough, found several bruises and scratches there as well.

This was not children fooling around at all. It was malicious bullying!

Liu Wanwan's heart ached so badly that tears streamed down her face. As she gently wiped the grime from Little Bean Sprout's face with her sleeve, she softly comforted her.

Suddenly, she froze. Her gaze fell upon Little Bean Sprout's bare wrist, and her expression changed drastically!

"Little Bean Sprout... y-your bracelet?" Liu Wanwan's voice carried an almost imperceptible tremble.

It was a small, exquisitely crafted gold bracelet she had bought with the private savings she had scraped together before her maiden family fell into ruin,

and though it was not heavy, it was one of the few keepsakes she had left.

She loved Little Bean Sprout dearly. Even when the family had been at its most desperate, she had gritted her teeth and refused to pawn it,

eventually hiding it away and secretly giving it to Little Bean Sprout to wear close to her body for protection.

Little Bean Sprout had treasured it dearly as well and never took it off.

After Fang Yuan was injured, they had intended to pawn it in the county town, but fortunately Fang Yuan recovered on his own later, so they never brought it up again.

When Little Bean Sprout was asked, she cried even harder, her little face flushing red as she said in broken sobs:

"Th-they took it... Er Gouzi and them... They said... said it was a bracelet their family lost... said it wasn't mine, that I stole it... so they took it... Waaah..."

It was as if a thunderbolt had exploded in Liu Wanwan and Fang Yuan's minds!

They had taken it?! And even slandered her as a thief?!

This was no longer merely a children's prank!

This was plainly the malice of the adult world, nakedly inflicted through the hands of children!

Liu Wanwan shook all over with rage, her lips white as paper. She could not say a word, only held Little Bean Sprout tightly as tears silently flowed down her face.

Fang Yuan slowly rose to his feet.

Fang Yuan's voice was pressed terrifyingly low. He crouched down and looked into Little Bean Sprout's tear-filled eyes.

"Little Bean Sprout, tell Brother, Er Gouzi... whose child is he?"

Little Bean Sprout sniffled and timidly pointed her little finger toward the center of the village, her voice thick with tears:

"It's... it's that fierce grandpa who came this morning... Headman Grandpa's family..."

A cold glint flashed through Fang Yuan's eyes.

Village Chief Li!

So it was that old bastard's brat!

Rotten to the very marrow, just as expected. He had been about to settle things with him anyway!

That morning, Village Chief Li had come putting on a false show of righteousness, using the entire village's name to force him to move away. That afternoon, he had indulged—or perhaps even instructed—his own grandson to commit such robbery and bullying!

"Good. Brother understands." Fang Yuan's voice was calm in a terrifying way.

He scooped Little Bean Sprout into his arms, carefully wiped the tears and mud from her face with his sleeve, then said to Liu Wanwan:

"Come. We're going to get Douding's things back."

Liu Wanwan looked into her husband's eyes, where a storm lay hidden beneath that calm. Though she was afraid, she was even more furious at the Li Family.

She nodded forcefully and followed closely behind Fang Yuan.

Carrying the still softly sniffling Little Bean Sprout, Fang Yuan strode toward Village Chief Li's home.

Liu Wanwan followed close behind.

The sight of the three of them, especially Fang Yuan's expressionless face and icy gaze, immediately drew the attention of every villager along the road.

"Look! Where's Fang Yuan going?"

"He's carrying the child... and his face looks awful..."

"That direction... isn't that the Headman's house?"

"Heavens! He actually dares go looking for the Headman? Has he gone mad?"

"Come on, come on! Let's go take a look!"

Driven by curiosity, shock, schadenfreude, and all manner of other emotions, more and more villagers put down their work,

following from afar and forming a silent, eerie procession of onlookers. They all wanted to see what this "Baleful Star" intended to do, and how it would end.

Meanwhile, at Village Chief Li's house.

Village Chief Li sat in the main hall, smoking his pipe with his brows tightly furrowed, looking somewhat restless.

"Husband, why are you wearing such a gloomy face?"

A woman in a respectable cotton-padded jacket, with slightly prominent cheekbones and thin lips—Village Chief Li's wife—held a gleaming, small, exquisite gold bracelet,

beaming as she examined it in the light and repeatedly held it against her son Er Gouzi's wrist.

"Look at that color! Just as I said, how could that Fang Family, poor as church mice, possibly have something this fine?

That little bastard must have sticky fingers and stolen it! It ought to belong to our family!"

That fat boy, Er Gouzi, also smugly swung his wrist around. Though the bracelet was still a little loose on him, he clearly knew it was a fine thing.

Village Chief Li irritably knocked out his pipe bowl.

"Say less! I just have a bad feeling about this... That Fang Yuan... I heard his strength is freakish,

and he fights dirty too... What if he comes to our door..."

"Pah!" The woman's brows shot up, her face full of disdain.

"Look at you, scared of nothing! He's just a poor scholar who lost his scholarly title. Can he turn the heavens upside down? He dares come to our door?

What right does he have to come here? This bracelet belongs to our Doggie! Even if the Jade Emperor himself came, it would still be ours!

If Fang Yuan dares come and make trouble, all the better—let everyone in the village see his family's ugly true colors! They steal things, then dare come to our door? Has he gone mad?

And that little bastard girl, is she worthy of wearing such a fine gold bracelet?"