They’re All Bastards
A face, swollen and covered in bruises, appeared before the crowd. Everyone involuntarily shuddered, and after recovering, they began to scold.
“This man is shameless! He hit someone and overturned a stall, and he still has the nerve to claim she’s his niece. Bah!”
“Exactly! Officer, you must uphold justice for this girl! Their tofu stall has been here for a long time, we all know them. Widow Cheng isn’t mad; she’s usually very nice. It’s just that these people bullied her too much, so she scared them, but she didn’t really hit anyone.”
Jiang Yimian frowned at the wounds on Xu Xiaotao’s face.
When they met at the mountain fortress last time, she thought this girl had resilience. She hadn’t been assimilated in a place like that. Unexpectedly, she has gone through so much after leaving the mountain fortress.
Xu Yongfeng, angered by the crowd’s scolding, turned ashen. He quickly quibbled, “Officer, they’re talking nonsense! Widow Cheng clearly wanted to kill me with a knife just now, but she missed. My shoulder is definitely injured! You can’t just listen to these people’s one-sided story!”
Ma Ming frowned. Although he had pieced together the events from the crowd’s words, he still looked at Xu Yongfeng and said, “Did she really attack you with a knife? Where’s the wound? Where’s the knife?”
Verbal arguments would be fine, but using a knife to injure someone in the street is a serious matter.
He couldn’t let the pitiful Widow Cheng and the others off the hook. He would probably have to take them all back to the Magistrate for processing.
Widow Cheng would have to spend a few days in prison.
Xu Yongfeng immediately became smug, pointing to the knife on the ground. “Officer, this is the evidence that Widow Cheng used the knife to attack me! Take her away quickly!”
After saying this, he glared fiercely at Widow Cheng several times. This woman was waiting to go to prison. Daring to use a knife to attack someone in the street, she would at least spend three days in jail and receive a beating.
After three days, Xu Xiaotao and that old widower would be inseparable. Repentance would be impossible.
Just as he was feeling smug, he heard Ma Ming’s strange voice, “You mean Widow Cheng wanted to kill you with this knife?”
Xu Yongfeng immediately nodded, saying triumphantly, “Yes, this kitchen knife.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt something was wrong with the kitchen knife. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the originally intact kitchen knife had a large oval-shaped notch, almost breaking off the part that had been sharpened.
It couldn’t even be used to cut vegetables, let alone attack someone.
He immediately widened his eyes and quickly said, “No, no, it was fine just now! It’s not like that! It must have broken when it hit me. Yes, yes, that’s it! The knife hit my shoulder! Oh, no, is it stuck in my flesh? Oh, Officer, my shoulder hurts! Quickly call a doctor!”
Xu Yongfeng immediately lay on the ground moaning, acting unusually pained.
Ma Ming frowned, looking at Xu Yongfeng’s undamaged clothes on his shoulder. He was speechless. “You mean this kitchen knife didn’t even tear your clothes, but it cut your flesh?”
Xu Yongfeng, knowing that the constables wouldn’t side with him, started rolling on the ground, moaning, “Yes, it cut me! Officer, you must uphold justice for me! That mad woman really wanted to kill me!”
Ma Ming was annoyed by the noise and gave a signal to two constables beside him.
The two immediately understood and stepped forward to pull open Xu Yongfeng’s clothes.
There wasn’t a single wound on his shoulder, not even a mark from the knife. Clearly, the attacker hadn’t used much force, leaving no mark on the opponent.
Now it was clear: Xu Yongfeng and his group had bullied Widow Cheng too much. She had only used the knife to scare them and didn’t intend to kill anyone.
He immediately coldly said, “If you continue making trouble, all of you will come with me to the Government Office. Compensate for the loss of the tofu stall and leave immediately. If there’s a next time, you will be severely punished.”
Widow Cheng breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this, staring at the notched knife on the ground without speaking.
Xu Yongfeng, however, was relentless. He stopped pretending to be in pain, climbed up from the ground, and said, “Why should I compensate for the loss of the tofu stall? This isn’t over! My niece was abducted by this woman, and I came to rescue her! What’s wrong with that? I won’t compensate for the tofu stall; I’m taking my niece with me!”
As he said this, he went to grab Xu Xiaotao, but before he took a few steps, two constables stopped him.
Ma Ming said coldly, “If you don’t want to compensate, then come with me to the Government Office. You’ll get a beating and probably spend a few days in prison.”
After he finished speaking, the other constables quickly stepped forward to restrain the other men who had come to cause trouble with Xu Yongfeng.
Seeing that Ma Ming was serious, Xu Yongfeng quickly said, “I…I’ll compensate, Officer! Officer, please let us go! I’ll compensate, but Xu Xiaotao is my niece. What’s wrong with her going home with me?”
The matter had already escalated. If he couldn’t take Xu Xiaotao away today, it would be even harder later. He had already received the money—a full three taels of silver!
Enough for his whole family to eat and drink for a whole year.
Ma Ming looked at Xu Xiaotao. “What is your relationship with him? Do you want to go back with him?”
Xu Xiaotao quickly said, “Officer, I don’t want to go back. Although he is my second uncle, my Xu family’s First Branch and Second Branch have already separated; we are not a family.”
During the famine, Xu Yongfeng didn’t want to bring them mother and daughter along, so he directly separated the family. She and her mother hid in the cellar of their home and were discovered by mountain bandits. The bandits accidentally killed her mother.
She was taken to the mountain fortress. She thought that life in the mountain fortress was the most difficult, but after she left, she realized that these relatives were the real bastards.
Like those mountain bandits, they were bastards. They stole the grain and seeds given to her by the Government, and they drove her out of Xujiacun village.
She had no choice but to seek help from her mother’s close friend, but these people came looking for her for money.
She was being driven to death.
Xu Yongfeng was furious and tried to quibble again, so Ma Ming said, “If you say one more word, I’ll take you all back to the Government Office immediately.”
If it weren’t for the fact that the Government Office had many cases and these people and Xu Xiaotao were related and hadn’t caused any serious negative influence, he would have taken them back to the Government Office directly and wouldn’t have wasted time talking.
Xu Yongfeng shrank his neck, dropped his money bag, and ran away with the others.
After everyone had left, Ma Ming frowned at the onlookers. “Disperse! Disperse! Don’t crowd here. There’s no more excitement. Go about your business.”
The onlookers were quickly dispersed by the constables. Ma Ming saw Jiang Yimian and the others were a little dazed. He said helplessly, “The excitement is over. Aren’t you leaving? Do you have something to do with me?”
As soon as he entered the crowd, he saw them. He thought they were there to watch the excitement, but now he realized that it wasn’t so.