Chapter 23: What I Picked Up

Shaowei's consciousness was blurred; she only vaguely remembered that the person before her had stuck needle after needle into her, and along this journey she had no idea how many needles she had endured in total, nor how far the green ox had carried her, nor even where she was — she only knew that at this moment she had been tossed onto a small bed.

Shaowei tried hard to move her body, but angrily discovered that her body still would not obey, especially her lower half, which could not summon a shred of strength.

The young woman was still smiling: "Little brat, don't be anxious; why not eat a piece of rock sugar, sweeten your mouth first."

Shaowei frowned and turned her face away.

The young woman pressed the rock sugar to Shaowei's mouth again, but Shaowei opened wide and bit down hard on her hand.

"Ow, ow ow!" The woman jumped up, shrieking as she yanked her hand back; the rock sugar in her hand flew out.

The youth guarding behind the door immediately sprinted over at the sight — he crouched, picked up the piece of rock sugar that had fallen to the ground, blew on it, and neatly tossed it into his mouth.

The woman looked at her two fingers marked with blood prints, grimacing in pain: "You little brat have sharp teeth; good thing you've lost your strength, otherwise wouldn't I have become the Broken Finger True Man…"

Her words were not yet finished when a loud "thump" sounded —

Shaowei used all her strength to throw herself off the bed, and without a word stretched out both arms and hugged the woman's leg, opening her mouth to bite down viciously again.

"Aaaah—" The woman screamed, hopping and retreating; seeing the girl still crawling toward her relentlessly, she hurriedly called out: "Mo Li, hold her down!"

"Oh, coming!"

Mo Li, with the honey candy in his mouth, crouched down and pinned Shaowei's shoulder and back with just one hand.

Shaowei, having little strength, was easily restrained, yet her hands still unwillingly tried to grab the woman's skirt hem; she strained to lift her face, her eyes full of ferocity.

However, this fierce god evil spirit appearance, in the young woman's eyes, clearly looked exactly like a puffer fish puffed up with anger, stranded and flopping.

The woman tilted her head, watched with amusement for a while, then went to the wooden basin at the side to wash the bloodstains and wound, saying as she did: "Wanting to use a small injury to inflict a large one, to overcome the strong with the weak — by rights you should strike when the enemy is vulnerable, but you, little brat, are already weak beyond weakness, yet you still dare chase after someone to hurt them."

"At such a young age, who taught you to go all out like this? How you resemble a mountain forest naive beast that doesn't understand human nature and has never entered the world."

The woman wiped her hands with a coarse cloth towel, crouched down before Shaowei, and asked curiously: "Or is it that you fundamentally don't care about this life of yours?"

While struggling, Shaowei glared at her angrily: "Don't think that because you saved me, I'll be grateful and let you manipulate and mock me; I never asked you to save me!"

The woman blinked: "When did I save you? You couldn't be referring to the time in the water, could you?"

"I never saved you." She smiled faintly: "On the contrary, I originally intended to kill you."

"At that time I held a pole; had you not resisted, I certainly would not have shown mercy, but would have knocked you back into the water again and again, until you could float up no more."

"You struck back out of anger, and that gave you a genuine thread of survival." The woman said with a smile: "Others could not save you; it was your anger that saved you."

As she spoke, her gaze swept a circle over Shaowei's body, her tone somewhat puzzled: "But when you were in the water, you were clearly covered in wounds; with your vengeful temperament, how could you have not a shred of resentment then? If you had hated a little, been annoyed a little, relying on your physique that's like ten big pigs, you probably could have barely crawled ashore, right?"

Shaowei lowered her eyes; her pale mouth corners were pressed straight, without a trace of curve.

When in the water, Shaowei thought of Mother's expression when she wanted to strangle her… but she had no way to hate Mother; Qin Fu was already dead, she truly did not know who else she could hate.

But, do people actually need anger to survive?

She vaguely remembered that when at the Feng Family, Feng Xu often earnestly taught her to try to let go of the resentment and knots in her heart, and told her that only then could she live more easily.

Shaowei had once wondered blankly, is this the proper principle of the world outside? She indeed was a person harboring much resentment and hatred; was that the root of her incompatibility with this world?

Yet at this moment the strange woman before her told her: "A person entirely without hatred lives too lightly, cannot put down roots. And this world has many fierce beasts and floods; if one cannot root firmly, it is very easy to be swept away by the flood."

In Shaowei's lowered eyes there seemed to be a weighing of right and wrong — both were adults from outside the mountains who had entered the world; Feng Xu taught her to let go of hatred, this person told her to keep hatred. These people in the outside mortal world who wear equally proper clothes actually live so completely at cross-purposes.

Shaowei tried to sort things out.

The youth holding her down finally deigned to bite down on the rock sugar he had held in his mouth for a long time; accompanied by the crisp crunch of the rock sugar, this brief silence was also bitten to pieces together.

The woman remarked with feeling: "In short, ultimately, I did not save you — you little brat look fierce, how come you're one who randomly acknowledges a benefactor?"

Shaowei ignored her, only raised her eyes to look at her again, tone unkind: "Who exactly are you?"

"Name? Jiang Fu." The other party answered straightforwardly this time, and asked: "You? What are you called?"

Shaowei, however, had not the slightest intention of reciprocating the courtesy, but said: "Since you say you didn't save me, you have even less reason to coerce and force me like this; let me go!"

"You little brat are lecturing me on reason at a time like this?" Jiang Fu raised her thin eyebrows: "Though you weren't saved by me, you were picked up by me; what I picked up naturally follows my say."

This argument was simply unreasonable and tyrannical; Shaowei was so angry her face turned red, and she blurted a retort: "I didn't abandon myself; why should you be the one to pick me up!"

Jiang Fu's tone was doubtful: "But you were willing to let yourself drown in the water; doesn't that count as abandoning yourself?"

Meeting those slightly upturned phoenix eyes, Shaowei suddenly felt her self-abandonment had been completely seen through.

Self-abandonment is ultimately not a glorious ability.

Shaowei actually could not produce any decent retort, only stubbornly turned her face to the side and said muffled: "That still doesn't mean an outsider gets to pick me up and claim me as their own."

A moment later, the unreasonable babble Shaowei had imagined did not continue; instead a soft hand landed on the top of her head.

Shaowei instantly warily avoided that hand, but heard the other sigh with feeling: "What a good head, so alert and useful."

That hand did not withdraw, but instead cupped Shaowei's loose-hanging hair with its palm: "Hair is good too, so black and heavy; cut it off and sell it, it would surely fetch quite a lot of money."

Before Shaowei could shake off the hair being cupped, that hand had already slid to her shoulder, pinching her arm.

And Shaowei subconsciously tensed her muscles, so the sensation under those fingertips became even more full, firm, and elastic —

"At such a young age your shoulders are already this strong; if your strength were intact, one punch would probably knock a weak person like me back three to five steps, right?"

"……" Shaowei's impatient expression paused for a beat; her eyes slanted to look at Jiang Fu's face, and she no longer resisted so urgently, just lay there listening to her continue.

Good morning everyone~

(Shaowei really likes hearing people praise her as mighty and strong;

Muscles and hair both need large amounts of protein; Shaowei privately gets meat, eggs, and milk.)

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(Chapter End)