Chapter Eighteen: Step Aside, Let Me Handle This

Gu Xiaoyao could see that he was beginning to feel afraid. Leisurely, she picked up a stick as thick as a child’s arm. She measured it against Gu Dacai’s body, estimating that ten strikes should be enough for him to truly feel the pain.

“The night I agreed to marry, what did you promise me?” she asked.

“At the time you said, as long as I agreed to marry, you would never beat Mother again,” he replied.

With every word Gu Xiaoyao spoke, she lashed him once with the stick, drawing loud howls from Gu Dacai. If not for this, why else would her former self have obediently married into Lotus Village? It was because Gu Dacai had sworn an oath under the sky that as long as she agreed to marry, Li and her younger brother could finally live peacefully at home.

“Since you treat your own promises as worthless, today you must bear this beating,” Gu Xiaoyao declared. She paid no mind to how the villagers might judge her for it. She only knew that some people would never change unless they were truly beaten into submission.

“She’s the wife I married, I’ll beat her if I want—what, do I need your permission to do it?” Gu Dacai, after three blows, still tried to keep up a tough front, determined to preserve his dignity in front of so many people. After all, if not for the chance to marry a wife and push her around as he pleased, why would he have spent money on a bride in the first place?

“If that’s the case, then if I beat you, you should keep your mouth shut. After all, it’s my wish to beat you, and it has nothing to do with you—so why cry out in pain?” Gu Xiaoyao’s lips curled in a slight smile, which looked terrifying to Gu Dacai.

Before he had time to prepare himself, Gu Xiaoyao’s stick was already flying. In no time at all, he had taken more than a dozen blows. She made sure to strike the most painful spots, leaving Gu Dacai streaming with tears and snot, stunned and dazed.

Li, supported by her mother-in-law, was so frightened to see her daughter actually beating Gu Dacai that she felt her soul nearly flee her body. Watching the stares from those around her, she struggled to the fence gate.

“Xiaoyao, stop hitting him, let me do it, let me!” Li cried. She couldn’t let her daughter’s reputation be ruined. If she beat Gu Dacai, at most people would call her a shrew. But Xiaoyao had only just married into the Chu family—she, as a mother, couldn’t let her daughter’s whole life be destroyed.

“Mother, you really want to do it?” Gu Xiaoyao was surprised that Li would actually want to beat Gu Dacai.

Li summoned her courage, stepped out past the fence, and snatched the stick from Gu Xiaoyao’s hand. “Yes, let me do it, you don’t lay a hand on him.”

Li picked up the stick, closed her eyes, and brought it down on Gu Dacai’s head and face.

“Ow! You wretched woman, if you kill me, I’ll get you for this when I get free! Ow, ow, it hurts!” Gu Dacai, seeing Li strike with her eyes squeezed shut, struggled desperately to get away. Because her eyes were closed, several blows nearly landed on his head.

The old man Gu, seeing his eldest son howling and wailing as he was beaten, felt a pang of pity. “Xiaoyao’s mother, isn’t that enough? Don’t really cripple him, or we’ll have to pay to send him to the healer!”

They had no spare money left at home. A hard lesson was enough.

Gu Xiaoyao had planned to half-cripple the man, but hearing the old man’s words, she realized he had a point. Even a hero can be brought low by lack of money, and she herself was penniless now, which left her feeling insecure.

“Mother, stop—just leave him hanging here! Let me help you sit down. Have you been to the healer yet?” Gu Xiaoyao took her mother’s trembling hand, took the stick, and tossed it to the ground.