Gu Xiqiao blinked in slight surprise, evidently not expecting to see her so quickly, and the frost on her face dissolved into a warm smile as she walked down the stairs. "Sister Mei."
"It’s great that you’re back!" Li Yanmei smiled before holding Gu Xiqiao’s arm naturally and leading her towards the entrance of the house. "Let’s go, I’ll go cook some noodles for you at my place!"
Those clean eyes were filled with worry, and Gu Xiqiao obliged with her silent plea to leave so as to not worry her.
After the two girls left, the two that were left on the second floor finally reacted. The girl shook herself free of the man’s hand, still quite angry. "What are you doing, Su Wen? That woman is a menace! Who is she, to chase us out like that?!"
"Bao Xinyi, calm down, please." Su Wen rubbed his head, his brows knit together. "Didn’t you hear? This is her house, and we moved in here without her permission. We’re the ones at fault here."
"We’re at fault?" Bao Xinyi scoffed. "Are you really planning on moving out? What a laugh!"
Su Wen was quite frustrated with the current situation too. It was impossible for them to leave because Tang Qinghong would be the first to disagree after settling on this place, but at the same time, it was hard to look for a compromise with the owner of this house seeing that they had given her a bad first impression.
Just from a few words, it was clear that she wasn’t the type to go back on her words easily.
"What are you doing?" When he came to from his thoughts, he saw Bao Xinyi stomping on the door with her foot, and he held his head again at the headache that came onto him.
Bao Xinyi looked at him with a disdainful expression. "What’s there to be surprised about? Now that she’s back, wouldn’t it be natural that she give this room to me? You’re such an imbecile, don’t you know that a girl from this backwater place would be able to be dismissed with some cash in her face?"
After she spoke, she stomped on the door again, and this time, the force of her stomp was reflected onto her by an unseen force, and she fell onto the ground very ungracefully.
Su Wen helped her up with a frown. "Are you alright? Don’t make a fuss, let’s wait for Young Master Tang."
He had thought that Bao Xinyi would definitely refute his words, but he was surprised at how she didn’t speak back after he suggested waiting for Tang Qinghong, making him cast another glance at her in confusion. It was then that he realized that her face had gone pale as a sheet as if she had just seen a ghost.
***
Li Yanmei was Gu Xiqiao’s neighbor, so they got to the former’s house with only a few steps.
After they walked out of Gu Xiqiao’s house, Li Yanmei’s expression became serious. "Thank goodness I got there in time, or else you might have gotten on the bad side of some big shots..."
"Big shots?" Gu Xiqiao didn’t even need to think to know that she was talking about the two that had moved into her house like a bunch of cuckoo birds.
"The three that are living in your house now, I mean." Li Yanmei spoke carefully, her voice becoming a whisper as she did as if she were scared of anyone listening in. "The town mayor brought them here himself, and apparently these people from the Imperial Capital with high officials in their family. The village chief couldn’t refuse, and the only room he could keep from them from was your room. You acted too rashly just now! These people can crush us like ants with a single finger, so you better not get into any trouble with them. You can stay at my place until they move away, okay?"
Three people? And they picked their house?
Gu Xiqiao rubbed her forehead slightly. "Alright, I know what to do."
Li Yanmei opened her mouth slightly but didn’t speak anymore. Gu Xiqiao had always had her own ideas and had always been smart since she was a child, so she wouldn’t do anything foolish.
"My, is Little Gu back?" A worried voice rang out from inside the house. "Come, let Aunt look at you!"
Gu Xiqiao grew up together with Li Yanmei since they were children, and Aunt Li had always treated her as her own daughter, sharing food with her all the time.
"Aunt, I..." Gu Xiqiao had barely spoken before she paused in her steps as she stepped into the room, the smile on her face frozen in place.
Inside, Aunt Li was lying weakly on the bed, her expression as gentle as always, but all Gu Xiqiao was see were Aunt Liu’s legs.
"What...Happened to your legs?" Her voice was a little dry as she clenched her shaking hands into fists in an effort to suppress her emotions from going out of control.
Aunt Li waved her over and sat her down on the bed, before reaching and petting her head affectionately. "It’s alright, I just fell on the mountain road on a rainy day. I’ll get better in a few days!"
Meanwhile, Li Yanmei made her way to the kitchen.
"Have you seen a doctor?" Gu Xiqiao sniffled slightly. Aunt Li’s legs were hurt to such a degree, and judging from the looks of it, they definitely didn’t stay in the hospital for long. This would definitely leave behind lingering pains in the future, and if it was left that way for too long, she would become a cripple. This sort of development would definitely be devastating for the Li family.
This degree of injury wasn’t much for Gu Xiqiao to treat, but all she could think of was whether Aunt Li suffered the same injury in her past life. Did she manage to get it treated? Where did their family move to in the end?
The more she thought of it, the more she felt distressed.
"Child, I’m doing alright, see?" Aunt Li sighed softly, before speaking as she saw Li Yanmei come in with a bowl of noodles. "You’re hungry, aren’t you? Eat up!"
After she ate, Gu Xiqiao took out the reached into her pocket and pulled out her set of gold needles from the inventory. Both Li Yanmei and Aunt Li knew that Gu Xiqiao had a rudimentary understanding of medicine at least because people used to ask her for help with light ailments when Yu Man wasn’t around to help.
Aunt Li let Gu Xiqiao apply the needles as she wished. She had seen a doctor when she went to the hospital in the city and said doctor had told her that her legs were beyond saving, so she didn’t have her hopes up for Gu Xiqiao.
The next second, her expression froze as she felt a stream of warmth in her legs, and the next moment, she felt pain from her legs that had already gone numb since the day of the accident.
"This is... Little Gu..." She had already given up on her life ever since the day she got the diagnosis, and the last thing she expected was for Gu Xiqiao to bring her hope once again.
"My mom always told me that those doctors couldn’t be trusted...Have some rest and don’t get off the bed just yet, I’ll come and apply needles to you every day. Keep calm and have a positive attitude, you’ll recover!" Gu Xiqiao kept her needles before looking over at Li Yanmei. "Come with me, let’s go get some herbs that my mom left behind."
The two walked outside, and Li Yanmei couldn’t help but ask in surprise, "Little Gu, will my mom really recover?"
"Yes, I’m positive." Gu Xiqiao stuck her hands into her pockets and looked up at the sky. "The rest depends on how much I’ve learned..."
Li Yanmei immediately giggled and replied, "I believe in you! You have always been a smart pickle, what can’t you learn? Even the strict old man from back in the day had always been gentle to you because you were a genius!"
"What, that’s only because you guys didn’t want to learn calligraphy from him." Gu Xiqiao replied, her expression becoming gentle as she thought back to the carefree days of her childhood.
Once the topic of their childhood came up, their moods became better, and when they returned to Gu Xiqiao’s house, they met with Su Wen and Bao Xinyi. Four gazes locked with each other, none of their owners uttering a word before Gu Xiqiao led Li Yanmei up the stairs.
When Yu Man was still alive, she always went up the mountains to pick medicinal herbs. Part of those herbs was used to treat the villagers, while the rest were dried in the sun and collected as a hobby.
Li Yanmei wasn’t as scared of the people outside anymore because of Gu Xiqiao’s reassurance, but as soon as she saw Gu Xiqiao take out the dried herbs, her eyes started tearing up. "Aunt Yu had always loved collecting herbs. My parents always brought back herbs for her when they went up the mountains because they knew she loved them, but the last time they did that they were met with locked gates..."
Many of the villagers had the same habit because they knew that Yu Man loved collecting herbs, and they always tried their best to repay Yu Man for treating them without asking for any compensation.
Yu Man’s sudden death had a great impact on all of the villagers, and Gu Xiqiao left after that, and this house was locked up.
When the three people from the city came, the village chief was pressured into opening the lock for them.
"It’s alright, we all have to look forward, yes?" Gu Xiqiao took the required herbs and gave them to Li Yanmei as she felt hard to breathe from this room filled with memories of Yu Man. "Now go home."
"Are you really not going to stay over tonight?" Li Yanmei was still quite worried.
"Yeah, it’s alright." Gu Xiqiao walked out the gates with her as she pushed the hair off of her face, her hooded eyelashes not betraying any of her emotions. "Believe in me, okay?"
Her strange state had Li Yanmei cast a worried gaze on her, but she still left with Gu Xiqiao’s persistence before the latter walked back into the house.
Bao Xinyi’s gaze shifted as if she didn’t dare to look at Gu Xiqiao in the eye, but then again, she thought of how she was a rich girl from the city, so why would she need to be afraid of a country bumpkin? And so, she walked over to Gu Xiqiao with a stack of cash in her hand. "We don’t need you to move out, but you must let me stay in that room on the second floor. If you agree, this money is all yours. If you don’t, I’ll have my ways to make you agree, and when that happens, you won’t even be able to get this money!"
As she spoke, the guilty expression on her face receded, and she became more and more confident.
These people have probably never seen so much money in all their lives, huh?
"Xinyi!" Su Wen hadn’t even had the chance to stop Bao Xinyi before the girl took out the money, and now he could only wish that this girl could take the money and let things be, or else things would get quite troublesome.
It was true that he thought that this was just a backwater place the same way as Bao Xinyi did, but he was scared that she would anger Tang Qinghong if they got into any trouble.
If it were anyone else, they would have been intimidated by the money, but the person in question was Gu Xiqiao.
When she saw the money, a strange smile made its way onto her face as she reached for the money and grabbed it, and before Bao Xinyi could react to this, Gu Xiqiao smacked the wad of money into her face!
The money slid down her face and onto the floor, and Gu Xiqiao’s smile was as perfect and graceful as always, her aura like a lily in bloom. "You better leave before I get angry, or else you might meet a miserable end!"
The person in front of her was as flawless as a piece of jade and was smiling at that, but Bao Xinyi stepped backward as her expression was replaced with one of horror. She felt a pulse of energy press down on her brain as if she would go insane if the other so much as used one ounce more of power!
This person wasn’t lying!
Before Su Wen could react, he saw Bao Xinyi stumble away and out the door as if she were the heroine of a thriller. What had happened?
As Bao Xinyi was making her escape, she bumped into Tang Qinghong who had just returned. If it were ten minutes earlier, she would have been excited because she thought that Tang Qinghong only needed to move a finger to deal with Gu Xiqiao, but at that moment, she knew that the girl was quite strong too. She would probably be dealt with in moments, and Tang Qinghong would probably not even help her!
"What happened?" Tang Qinghong asked with raised eyebrows.
He was wearing casual clothes, his hands stuck in his pockets as he smiled, his arched eyebrows framing his star-like eyes that seemed hard to even look at directly.
It was hard for any woman to resist his charms, and Bao Xinyi calmed herself down as she looked back at the house. "Young Master Tang, the owner of this house is back."
Tang Qinghong only chuckled. "So...You’re going to leave just like that?"
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