After dealing with Li Ergou and Fatty Cui, Gu Shichu locked the gate again. As soon as he turned around, he saw Ji Mingtao standing in the shadows. He could only vaguely see his tall figure.
Gu Shichu was startled and said angrily, "Why are you standing here? You scared me. I've taken care of things, let's go back to sleep." He silently wondered if his actions just now were too out of line and whether they would arouse Ji Mingtao's suspicion.
Ji Mingtao listened to the two men's wailing outside and said, "Is this considered a good solution? If we leave them here, they will be discovered tomorrow. I will throw them into the village."
"It's up to you then." Gu Shichu waved his hand and yawned. Suddenly he remembered something and quickly pulled him back, saying, "No, no, you can't leave my house. It's not safe for them to see us. We're alone, a man and a woman. They'll know what's going on at a glance. What if they use this to threaten and retaliate against us?"
Ji Mingtao looked at her steadily. He felt uncomfortable when he heard her words that seemed to indicate that she wanted to cut off all ties with him, but he finally compromised: "Then I'll knock them out first and then drag them away. They won't know about it."
"Okay." Gu Shichu nodded. If he was willing to do this kind of heavy physical work, she would not object.
Ji Mingtao walked out. The two men were still wailing and had no energy to pay attention to other things. Before they could see his appearance, Ji Mingtao flashed behind the two men and hit each of them with a stick. Soon the two men fainted.
He dragged Li Ergou and Fatty Cui back to the village separately and threw them into the haystacks on the side of the village road. Just to prevent them from freezing to death. As for whether they would attack Gu Shichu after they woke up tomorrow
Ji Mingtao thought that if they were smart, they would not do this. But even if they foolishly accused Gu Shichu, it didn't matter. Without any evidence, Gu Shichu could also refute that they wanted to plot against her because they saw that she was helpless...
Li Ergou and Fatty Cui probably didn't expect that their plan would fail from the very beginning. Not only did they fail to get into Gu Shichu's courtyard, but they also ended up losing more than they gained. They were beaten up and had to endure pain that was worse than death.
After pulling the two away, Ji Mingtao returned to Gu Shichu's home. Gu Shichu asked in a daze, "Are you back?"
"Yeah." Ji Mingtao hugged the person in his arms, but he was very awake and not sleepy at all. He thought about what happened tonight and knew that the money and food that Gu Shichu got made others jealous. Unfortunately, she had no family, so Li Ergou and Fatty Cui wanted to take action against her.
What he is most worried about now is that the people targeting Gu Shichu may not only be Li Ergou and Cui Pangzi, there may be others, but he just hasn't had time to take action yet.
How could he help Gu Shichu scare off those people with bad intentions? Ji Mingtao frowned and thought worriedly. Otherwise, would he just stay here and guard her
When Ji Mingtao thought of this, his heart warmed up. However, he remembered that Gu Shichu had not allowed him to appear in public before, and the heat that had just risen suddenly cooled down.
Gu Shichu had no idea of the complicated thoughts of the man next to her. She slept soundly. Even if someone wanted to climb over the wall and do something bad to her tonight, it wouldn’t be able to stop her from sleeping well. She was really broad-minded.
Early the next morning, the families living in the center of the village were awakened by the wailing, groaning and moaning sounds coming from the haystacks. When they looked over, they found Li Ergou and Fatty Cui curled up and rolling on the haystacks. They were sweating in this cold weather and were covered in a lot of hay debris, looking miserable.
"Oh my! What are you two doing?" Mrs. Guan Wu, who was the first to discover the two, asked them in amazement.
Li Ergou and Cui Pangzi were in so much pain that they wanted to die. How could they listen to Guan Wusao's questions? Naturally, they did not answer.
The other villagers also gathered around at this time. Seeing the appearance of these two people, if they had not seen that they were wearing proper clothes, the villagers would have thought that they had gone into the haystack to do something "indecent".
The others asked the two men a few more questions, but they didn't answer. Someone then suggested that someone go find their families, but Li Ergou had no family, and when the team leader came to inquire, they could only let a few young men carry him back to his home, while Fatty Cui was carried back by their family.
The village doctor was hurriedly invited to see the two people. However, except for Fatty Cui's palms which were pierced by glass fragments, there was only a small red spot on their arms, and the rest of their bodies were fine. However, they kept complaining of pain, as if they had been touched by a leaf, and asked the village doctor to prescribe them some painkillers.
The village doctor asked them what kind of leaves were so powerful. They described it for a long time. There were several kinds that sounded similar, but those kinds of leaves were fine when touched. So the village doctor was angry and thought they were talking nonsense. Where could there be leaves that would hurt so much when touched? If there really were leaves, why didn't anyone else in the village encounter them
The two dared not tell the village doctor that the leaf was brought by Gu Shichu, so they could only beg the village doctor to give them painkillers. At that time, medicines were very scarce and precious, especially Western medicines. Their illnesses were inexplicable, so the village doctor did not dare to prescribe medicine for them casually, so he only prescribed some Chinese medicine for them to try, and whether it would work or not was up to fate.
Of course it was ineffective. The severe pain caused by the leaves of the golden bark tree could not be cured by any specific medicine even after forty years. People could only endure it and everything would be fine.
Gu Shichu and Ji Mingtao paid a little attention to what happened between Li Ergou and Cui Pangzi. They were relieved when they didn't hear them bothering Gu Shichu. It seemed that these two knew the importance of the matter and would rather endure the pain than go to jail.
Because of the strange pain of these two people, it also caused a lot of discussion in the village. In this winter, everyone is relatively idle, so from time to time, they use the story of Li Ergou and Cui Pangzi as a pastime after dinner:
"Have you heard that Li Ergou and Fatty Cui got a strange disease? They said their bodies ached, and no medicine worked. They were in so much pain that they banged their heads against the wall."
"Isn't it said that it hurts when you are allergic to a certain kind of leaves?"
"What kind of leaf did they touch to cause such severe pain? They couldn't tell me when we asked them! If there really was that kind of leaf, why haven't so many people in our village ever touched it? They must be lying! I don't know what bad things they did to cause this!" the aunt said confidently.
"Could they be possessed by evil spirits? Weren't they on the haystack when they were found? They must have come out in the middle of the night to do something bad and ran into something they shouldn't mess with..." Someone lowered his voice and said mysteriously.
"Bah! What do you mean by possessed? Are you not afraid of death and want to engage in feudal superstition?" Another person quickly stopped her.