Chapter 73
A crowd had gathered nearby, and Zhou Ger was among them.
"You wretched bitch!" Madam Ma was so furious her mind seemed to have left her body: "You beat me up like this—you have to take me to see a doctor and pay me compensation! Otherwise, this isn’t over!"
"Pah!" Zhou Ger didn’t even know what had started the fight, but he immediately took Zhao Ger’s side: "Where are you hurt? See a doctor? Pay compensation? Some people aren’t much to look at, but they sure dream big—fat as a pig! I should say you crushed Zhao Ger with your weight! You should pay compensation!"
"Exactly," someone chimed in disapprovingly. "Look at Zhao Ger—his face is swollen from your slaps, and his mouth is still bleeding. And you? Where are you hurt?"
"I..." The places Madam Ma had been hit were all around her belly, but she couldn’t very well strip in public. "He really did hit me!"
No one believed her.
Madam Ma unleashed a torrent of curses, her vulgar insults laced with crude body parts. Zhou Ger couldn’t stand listening anymore. He fetched Zhao Ger’s clothes, helped him up, and took him home, unwilling to waste any more time arguing with Madam Ma—it was beneath him.
Madam Ma tried to stop Zhao Ger from leaving, reaching out to grab him, but someone blocked her.
"Madam Ma, you’ve got some nerve! Don’t you know he’s Fang Zichen’s fulang? Haven’t you had enough beatings from Fang Zichen? Did buying a new dining table make you forget your place?"
The words were like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head—her anger cooled, and her senses returned.
Madam Ma’s mind involuntarily flashed back to the scene of Fang Zichen smashing her dining table to splinters with a single wooden rod.
A shiver ran through her, leaving her numb.
Had she... lost her mind just now? How could she have gotten into a fight with Zhao Ger?
Zhao Ger wasn’t scary, but Fang Zichen—Fang Zichen was terrifying!
"You—you! Had enough of peaceful days? Now that you’ve hit someone, go home and wash your neck clean—wait for Fang Zichen to come for you!"
Madam Ma's face turned pale, and she trembled uncontrollably, looking rather pitiful. Someone took pity and offered advice: "Madam Ma, why don’t you hide at your parents’ house for a while?"
As soon as the words were spoken, another voice added: "You can hide for the first of the month, but not the fifteenth."
[躲得了初一，躲不過十五 (duǒ déliǎo chūyī, duǒ bùguò shíwǔ): lit. can hide on the first day but not the fifteenth; fig. can’t escape forever]
Madam Ma: "......"
Liu Laizi limped forward and kindly suggested: "Don’t worry, at worst, you’ll just get a beating. Speaking from experience, I’d advise you to buy some bruise medicine from town in advance. Go home, wash your hair, take a bath—otherwise, I’m afraid you won’t be able to get out of bed for half a month. The plaster from the medical hall on West Street works well—you should buy some. Cheap and effective."
"Why bother worrying about her? She already bought medicinal wine from the peddler last time—she’s prepared. Otherwise, would she dare start a fight today?"
Madam Ma: "......"
____
When Fang Zichen returned home from work, he noticed the yard was in disarray. Zhao Ger was lighting the fire in the kitchen stove, the rice still steaming in the pot. Unlike usual, Zhao Ger didn’t rush to greet him. Instead, he kept his head down, avoiding eye contact, and said softly, "You’re back. Dinner isn’t ready yet—go wait inside. It’s smoky here."
The weather was hot, and the family only had one pot. Zhao Ger usually had the rice cooked early so he could stir-fry the dishes as soon as Fang Zichen returned. But today, the rice wasn’t even done yet. Fang Zichen sensed something was wrong. He stared at Zhao Ger for a few seconds. Zhao Ger tried to evade his gaze, but soon Fang Zichen gripped his chin and tilted his face up.
"What happened to your face? Did someone hit you?"
"No," Zhao Ger lied poorly. "I... fell."
"You must’ve fallen with great skill, then!" Fang Zichen let go of his chin, glanced around, walked to the corner, and pulled a thumb-thick stick from the firewood pile. He tapped it threateningly against his palm. "Tell me the truth, or I’ll enforce house rules!"
Zhao Ger blinked. "House rules?"
"Mn!" Fang Zichen said. "Liars get spanked. Not too many—just thirty strokes. But..." He gave Zhao Ger’s thin, frail body a once-over and shook his head with a tsk. "With your build, thirty strokes would probably split your skin and make you bleed like a river."
Zhao Ger shivered instinctively.
He didn’t know what "split your skin" meant, but he had experienced the pain of being beaten with a stick before.
He knew Fang Zichen was just trying to scare him, but the fear was still overwhelming.
"...It was Madam Ma," Zhao Ger admitted immediately.
"That shrew from the Ma family hit you?" Fang Zichen’s brows furrowed, his expression darkening. "Why did she hit you?"
Like a child caught misbehaving, Zhao Ger lowered his head under Fang Zichen’s stern gaze and confessed: "We had an argument. I couldn’t take it, so... we fought."
Zhao Ger wasn’t the type to endure abuse silently. Back when he was with the Ma family, he hadn’t fought back because he knew the consequences would be worse.
Poverty stripped people of their kindness.
He had been bought as a child fulang for the Ma family—they could treat him however they wanted. On the rare occasions when beatings grew too severe, some villagers would speak up for him, but no one offered more than a few words of sympathy.
"Oh, you can’t stand it? Then take him in yourself! Feed him a couple of meals!"
A single sentence was enough to silence them.
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