As a modern man with a normal sexual orientation, Xu Yun certainly had no improper thoughts about a little girl of five or six.
After all, he wasn't some kind of lolicon—he was a firm Tifa supporter.
But by the same token, he couldn't be too wary of her, especially since she had appeared in Young Newton's uncle's home and was clearly a member of the family.
He never expected this.
The girl had launched a sneak attack the moment they met, hurling a clump of cow dung right at him?
Caught completely off guard, Xu Yun took the hit. Cow dung rained down over his head.
Seeing this, William Askew, standing beside Xu Yun, turned pale with rage.
He hurriedly brushed the cow dung off Xu Yun with one hand and bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"Li—la—ni!!!"
As Newton's closest elder—without exception—William knew all too well how isolated his nephew was socially.
If getting into fights counted as socializing, Young Newton would undoubtedly be a ladies' man, the kind who could beat out every other man in Lincolnshire.
But setting fights aside and talking about making proper friends, Newton didn't even have one person he could greet.
So when William first saw Xu Yun—especially the bandage wrapped around the wound on his head—his first thought was that Newton had gotten into trouble with some nobleman's son and brought him home to ask for help paying his medical bills.
And now this guest, practically a VIP, had barely stepped inside before William's youngest daughter smeared his head with cow dung?
At that moment, William had only one thought:
Good heavens, we're doomed!
But faced with her furious father, the little girl named Lilani showed not the slightest fear.
She stuck out her tongue mischievously, then hopped toward the far end of the sitting room.
"Mommy, Sister, a monster's captured Brother Isaac!!!"
Xu Yun, William, and Young Newton:
"."
Then William came to his senses and hurriedly brushed the cow dung off Xu Yun, apologizing over and over.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Fat Fish. I sincerely apologize!
"That's my youngest daughter, Lilani Askew. I've been away from home so much over the years that I haven't had time to discipline her, and now she's...
"Please rest assured, I'll make sure to teach her a proper lesson!"
Xu Yun lowered his head and tried desperately to shake the cow dung off himself. A helpless smile tugged at his lips.
So that's who it was. This little rascal...
Lilani Askew, William Askew's youngest daughter.
In a letter Newton wrote to Stukely in 1703, old Newton had once mentioned one of this little rascal's stunts.
William Askew had been hosting a guest from Sweden. Since the guest was someone of high status, William had begun preparing for the visit in advance.
When Lilani Askew heard about it, she somehow got hold of a huge bucket of cow dung. As soon as the guest arrived, she unleashed a divine punishment from above.
Old Newton hadn't said much about what happened afterward, but the scene must have been terribly awkward. Lilani had probably gotten a thorough thrashing from both her parents.
Who would have thought that after his transmigration, this incident—which should have happened in late 1667—would happen to him instead?
He'd let his guard down...
Meanwhile, the commotion by the entrance had roused the people inside the house, and they began coming out one after another.
The first to appear was Lisa Askew, whom he'd met earlier.
She was holding the fleeing Lilani Askew by the collar. Lilani was waving a Gallic white flag high above her head, flailing around as if surrendering.
Lisa Askew had been holding the little rascal as easily as a chicken, but when she spotted Young Newton nearby, she froze, quickly let go, and adopted a reserved pose.
Following behind her was a pair of twelve- or thirteen-year-old twins. They were rather thin and looked a little undernourished.
The four sisters appeared from the passage on the left, chattering noisily for a while. Then Lisa Askew said something to someone in a narrow room that looked like a kitchen.
Before long, a plump, middle-aged woman came out.
She was wearing an apron and holding a bunch of wet wild vegetables in one hand. In the other, she held a kitchen knife about the same size as Saionji Sekai's.
She was clearly William Askew's wife. Since her name couldn't be found, he would refer to her as Mrs. William.
Taking in the scene at the entrance, Mrs. William blinked and hurried over.
"Dear, what happened?"
William plucked a piece of cow dung from behind Xu Yun's ear without the slightest hesitation, then pointed at Lilani.
"She. Guest. Cow dung."
Those three concise words were enough for Mrs. William to immediately understand what had happened.
The lady of the house didn't even have time to greet Young Newton. She joined the battle to clean up the dung.
As for Young Newton...
He merely patted Xu Yun a few times out of courtesy, then stood to one side and exchanged glances with Lisa Askew, smacking his lips so enthusiastically he looked ready to pop his eyeballs out.
Fortunately, the cow dung Lilani had thrown was fairly dry, and it hadn't hit Xu Yun in the face.
After a great deal of fuss, Mrs. William brought over two buckets of freshly boiled hot water and took Xu Yun outside to rinse his head with a little blueberry juice.
Once everything had been cleaned up, Xu Yun followed Mrs. William back inside.
By then, the entire William household, including Young Newton, had gathered by the fireplace. William sat in the middle with a somber expression. The twin sisters stood quietly to one side, while Young Newton and Lisa Askew were still smacking their lips.
As for Lilani...
The little girl stood alone beside William, her eyes red from what was clearly a thorough spanking.
When Xu Yun entered, William quickly stood and led Lilani over to him.
"Lilani, come over and apologize!"
Lilani pouted, rubbed her left arm, and muttered sulkily,
"I'm sorry, Mr. Fat Fish."
William took out a stick of sea buckthorn wood—the kind with lots of thorns on its branches, which could easily leave a scratch if you weren't careful.
"Mr. Fat Fish, under Comis Law, you're permitted to give Lilani up to twenty lashes."
Xu Yun had already prepared to politely decline, but at those words, he froze. Then he remembered something.
Oh, right. This was Britain, a country with more bizarre laws than you could shake a stick at!
As the birthplace of common law, Britain's legal system had had a profound influence on countries around the world.
British law was also one of the world's oldest legal systems, and one of the most enduring.
Some laws had been enacted hundreds of years ago. They were utterly bizarre, yet still in force today.
For example, under the 1848 Treason Act, turning a postage stamp bearing the British queen's portrait upside down on an envelope was considered treason.
The 1998 Prohibition and Inspection Act also stipulated that any British citizen who detonated a nuclear device in a suicide attack, whether at home or abroad, would be sentenced to life imprisonment.
And if a whale died on a beach, its head automatically belonged to the queen, while she had first claim to its tail. (I recommend a book called The Strange Laws of Old England. It's really interesting.)
So in the seventeenth century, it wasn't particularly strange for the British to have a law about punishing naughty children.
But even if the law allowed it, Xu Yun still had a modern person's values. Surely punishing a naughty child wasn't going to do her any good...
Xu Yun thought it over and made up his mind.
He clenched his right hand into a fist and held it out, then took the little rascal's left hand in his own and held their arms parallel.
Then he picked up the cane and struck three times with moderate force.
After the third strike,
three shallow but broken-skin welts appeared on both their arms, one large and one small, one yellow and one white.
Then Xu Yun pointed at Lilani's arm and said to her,
"That's the punishment you deserved. Since you're still young, I'll only give you three lashes."
Then he pointed at his own right hand, which was bleeding, and said earnestly,
"This is my self-punishment for punishing a little girl. It has nothing to do with the law, but everything to do with morality."
Across from him, Lilani, who had never been afraid of anything, suddenly froze. She stared at the arms before her, opened her mouth, but said nothing.
Before you continue