Chapter 72: Skills
Twenty days later, Su Yaoguang took her whole family into the city to deliver the goods.
She planned that after delivering the goods and receiving the remaining payment, she would take her whole family to a restaurant for a meal.
At that time, she would also have to call out Zhou Wangshu and introduce him to the others.
Su Yaoguang and Jiang Jing sat in front of the ox cart driving it, while Zhang Zhaodi and the others sat in the back of the ox cart, each carefully holding onto those cloth bags.
All the bottles were made of ceramic, and if they were accidentally dropped or bumped, the bottles would break and the whole batch of goods would be wasted.
Jiang Jing reminded Su Yaoguang: “Yaoguang, I hear hoofbeats. Should we pull over to the side?”
Su Yaoguang looked at this path and said: “This path isn’t an official road, so where would horses come from? It must be the Jiang family’s horse-drawn carriage.”
“This path is quite narrow, so we should be careful and stay away from the horses!” Jiang Jing reminded uneasily.
Su Yaoguang stopped the ox cart.
“What’s wrong?” Zhang Zhaodi asked.
“A horse-drawn carriage is coming. Let’s make way for them.”
Su Yaoguang handed the ox rope to Jiang Jing, had Jiang Jing sit in her previous position, while she stood at the roadside, grabbing nearby grass to feed the ox.
Zhang Zhaodi leaned there and muttered: “There’s only one horse-drawn carriage in our village. Hmph, look at her being so smug.”
The horse-drawn carriage drew closer and closer.
At this time, the one driving the horse-drawn carriage was Zhong Jianghe.
Zhong Jianghe was Zhong Lanhua’s nephew and also Jiang Yihuan’s male cousin.
Zhong Lanhua sat in the carriage compartment and said to Zhong Jianghe: “River, hurry up. We’re in a rush.”
When Zhong Jianghe saw that ox cart, he smugly curled up the corner of his mouth: “Aunt, don’t worry. I understand.”
The horse-drawn carriage came galloping.
Just as it was about to brush past the ox cart, the whip suddenly swung toward the ox.
However, before the whip could land on the ox, a strong arm grabbed the whip and yanked it hard, sending Zhong Jianghe flying out of the horse-drawn carriage entirely.
“Ahhh… Zhong Jianghe, what are you doing?” Jiang Yihuan saw Zhong Jianghe fly out, with no one driving the horse-drawn carriage up front, and she was so frightened her face lost all color.
After Zhong Jianghe flew out, he landed in the nearby grass. Bang! He flew high up and fell heavily, losing consciousness the moment he landed.
Looking at that horse-drawn carriage again, with no one controlling the horse, it charged forward madly like crazy.
“Help… help…” Jiang Yihuan and Zhong Lanhua screamed for help.
Zhang Zhaodi and the others sat on the ox cart, watching the horse-drawn carriage approach the whole time. They clearly saw Zhong Jianghe swinging the whip toward their ox cart. Of course, they also saw Su Yaoguang’s nimble moves.
They had already been breaking out in cold sweat when Zhong Jianghe swung the whip at the ox, but before the whip could even touch the ox, the instigator had already reaped what he sowed.
“I’ve long heard that brother-in-law has infinite strength. Could it be that Yaoguang girl inherited brother-in-law’s skills?” Wang Huanzhi said. “She truly is a heroine who doesn’t yield to men.”
Zhang Zhaodi said proudly: “Don’t praise her. A young lady with such great strength—fortunately she has a husband now, so no worry that no one will want her.”
“Cousin, how did you know they would cause trouble?” Jia Chunni asked.
“I didn’t know.” Su Yaoguang returned to the ox cart and stood tall, looking up at the commotion ahead. “I just took precautions in advance. If they had no ill intentions, of course we would pass without incident. But if they deliberately tried to cause us trouble, I could respond in time. This road isn’t an official road with so many carriages—our village has only one horse-drawn carriage. Their family has a grudge against ours to begin with, and now that they’ve seized the opportunity to find fault with us, that’s the most normal thing.”
“I don’t want to think so badly of people, but that mother-daughter pair—no, not just that mother-daughter pair, but all four people in their family from top to bottom are no good. In the future, if you encounter Zhong Lanhua and her daughter, Jiang Yihui, and that man they bought, remember not to believe their nonsense and stay as far away from them as possible.”
Su Yaoguang continued driving the ox cart forward.
They soon saw the stopped horse-drawn carriage.
It was no longer a horse-drawn carriage now, because the horse had run off somewhere, leaving only the carriage compartment. That compartment had crashed into the mountain wall and splintered into pieces.
Zhong Lanhua crawled out of the carriage compartment, rummaged through it, and pulled Jiang Yihuan out from inside.
“Huan’er, are you okay?”
“Didn’t I say not to cause trouble?” Jiang Yihuan touched the wound on her forehead and said angrily, “You nearly got us both killed.”
Zhong Lanhua’s face darkened, and she said unhappily: “Am I your mother or are you? Is that how you talk to your mother? Things turning out like this isn’t what I wanted to see—it’s all because of…”
Zhong Lanhua and Jiang Yihuan had both been in the carriage compartment earlier, pretending not to know anything, so they hadn’t stuck their heads out to look at the situation outside.
They thought the incident happened because Zhong Jianghe was useless. Before setting out, Zhong Lanhua had known the Su family was delivering goods today and planned to ruin their business, wasting all their hard work these days. Precisely because they were going to do something bad today, she had called her maternal family’s nephew along. After all, it wasn’t convenient to let outsiders know about these matters.
Zhong Jianghe always listened to Zhong Lanhua because she always helped out the Zhong family. The Zhong family’s days were barely passable thanks to Zhong Lanhua’s support.
Zhong Lanhua had clearly told Zhong Jianghe her purpose, so earlier she had deliberately told him to hurry and drive the horse-drawn carriage over to collide with the ox cart.
If the horse-drawn carriage and ox cart collided on the path, they could just call it an accident. But they never expected that useless thing not only failed to hit the ox cart but also got himself thrown off, dragging the mother-daughter pair into the fright as well.
“Where’s the horse? That horse cost tens of taels of silver. Hurry and find it!” Jiang Yihuan fumed.
Jiang Yihuan’s image in the village was always one of gentle grace. If her little admirers saw her now, who knows how many hearts would break.
When the ox cart passed by that mother-daughter pair, Su Yaoguang waved her hand at them and said: “We’ll go on ahead. You take your time finding the horse!”
“Hurry on. That big boss is waiting impatiently,” Zhang Zhaodi urged.
“You’re right. We’re in a rush. Let’s go.” Su Yaoguang cracked the whip once, driving the ox cart. “Ox, walk slowly. Don’t run around blindly like some blind things!”
Jiang Yihuan watched the figures of Su Yaoguang and the others, stamping her feet in anger.
“Huan’er, the wound on your forehead…” Zhong Lanhua pointed at her forehead. “It won’t leave a scar, will it?”
Jiang Yihuan’s face changed drastically, even more furious: “It’s all your fault. I don’t care—you and Zhong Jianghe find the horse. I’m going back to Doctor Lin for medicine. My face can’t be scarred, or how will I marry into a good family?”
“Right, you go back first for medicine. Jianghe and I will look for the horse. Where’s Jianghe?” Zhong Lanhua started looking for Zhong Jianghe and found him in the earlier grass patch.
