Farmer’s Blessed Girl 35

Chapter 35: The Childhood Friend Beats Up Her Soulmate

Mr. Zhuang was teaching the Analects. He had hand-copied a book for Man Bao, who now had two “books” including the previously copied Thousand Character Classic.

Man Bao was delighted, as it was her first time sitting in the classroom with her classmates. She was especially excited, shouting loudly when reading and very actively answering questions.

Mr. Zhuang felt the classroom atmosphere had become much livelier, so he praised Man Bao several times, which made someone even angrier.

He decided to go find bugs with his little friends after class and make the hateful cousin and hateful Man Bao fight each other.

But he didn’t expect that before he could make a move, Man Bao had already started fighting with his cousin.

It was a sunny afternoon, actually it was this afternoon after the evening class.

Since the students came not just from their own village but two nearby villages as well, in order to ensure the children’s safety on their way home, Mr. Zhuang always dismissed class at the proper zhenshi hour.

The students from neighboring villages would hurry home, while the local children could play with friends for a bit before going home for dinner.

Of course Man Bao wouldn’t go home either. She hugged her books and scampered out. The Zhou family always doted on her, so even though the school was in the village, they would definitely send someone to pick her up.

The nine-year-old Da Tou was assigned the pick-up duty today.

As Man Bao ran out, she heard wah-wahing from outside and immediately forgot about finding her nephew to go home, going straight over with her books to join the commotion.

Looking around, she saw her second nephew being pinned down and beaten by someone she didn’t recognize with an angry face.

Man Bao became enraged – how dare an outsider come bully people in their village, even her own nephew? If her uncle could tolerate it, her aunt couldn’t.

So Man Bao put down her books, pounced on the person to pin them down, and wah-wahed back while retaliating on her nephew’s behalf.

Bai Shanbao had just achieved a temporary victory when, caught completely off guard, he was pressed down again.

Bai Shanbao was furious. Before he could look up to see what the shameless sneak attacker looked like, he was slapped across the face.

Bai Shanbao flew into a rage, immediately grabbing the person on top of him and flipping them over, then lashing out to hit them.

Man Bao blocked with her arm, but her opponent was too strong. Feeling she couldn’t win, she grabbed their arm in desperation and bit down.

Man Bao hadn’t even bitten down hard when Bai Shanbao felt the pain, “Wah!” letting out a shrill cry that startled Man Bao into loosening her grip.

Seeing Bai Shanbao scrunch his eyes shut wailing, she couldn’t help loudly saying “Don’t cry, I won’t bite you anymore!”

But Bai Shanbao couldn’t hear her words, only feeling that he’d been bitten and was surely bleeding terribly and in unbearable pain.

He wailed loudly, while on the side Bai Erlang couldn’t help but guffaw, pointing at his face and mocking “How shameful, a grown man can’t even beat a little girl.”

Though Man Bao disliked this chubby kid she’d beaten up, she disliked Bai Erlang’s tone even more, waving her fist at him, “You dare laugh at us? Watch out or I’ll beat you up too!”

Bai Erlang was taken aback before angrily retorting, “You think you can beat me?”

“If I can’t, I’ll have my big nephew do it!”

The two children started bickering back and forth. Bai Shanbao finally came to his senses, opening his teary eyes to glare blurrily at Man Bao as he sniffled and rolled up his sleeve to check for blood. Seeing none, he let out a small relieved sigh.

Then he glared angrily at Man Bao, as if wanting to bite her back.

Man Bao turned her attention back to him, taking the proactive to ask, “Why did you hit my nephew?”

Er Tou tattled first, “Little Aunt, he snatched my rock.”

Bai Shanbao angrily countered, “It was mine first that I saw, you snatched it from me!”

“You’re not from our village, the rocks in our village belong to us, you can’t take rocks from our village.”

Bai Shanbao’s face flushed red. Before he could respond, he saw Er Tou slapped on the head by Man Bao who scolded “So you were the bad one, I won’t be nice to you anymore.”

Er Tou was dumbfounded before aggrievedly saying, “But he really was bullying me.”

“Why did you snatch his rock?” Man Bao reasoned, “An ownerless thing, anyone can take. Once he took it, it became his since it was found in our village. But you snatched it just because of that? Then if you went to the county town, would others be allowed to block you from passing through their villages?”

Bai Shanbao nodded vigorously, “No one would be that unreasonable.”

Man Bao agreed emphatically, “Exactly, exactly.”

The two who had just been fighting each other became allies.

Er Tou looked aggrievedly at his little aunt.

So Man Bao made him return the particularly smooth rock to Bai Shanbao.

Er Tou reluctantly handed it over.

Bai Shanbao accepted it with a hmph, even though Man Bao had stood up for him, he still decided he disliked her for being a bad person.

He glared his big eyes at her.

Man Bao patted her bottom and stood up, calling for Er Tou to go home.

But Bai Shanbao hadn’t gotten an apology yet, so he grabbed her unhappily, “You still haven’t apologized to me.”

Man Bao was perplexed, “Why should I apologize to you?”

“You hit me!”

“That was because you hit my nephew.”

“Your nephew was the one in the wrong.”

Man Bao was bullheaded, “But you still shouldn’t have hit my nephew. I hit you because you hit my nephew, so I’m not apologizing.”

“You’re just a sneak, only good at ambushes!”

“I’m not a sneak, as long as I can win, who cares if I ambushed you.”

Bai Shanbao said, “Either way you were wrong, people who ambush aren’t real men.”

Man Bao replied, “I’m not even a man to begin with, I’m a girl…”

The two argued more and more heatedly until Bai Shanbao dropped the rock, challenging “Do you dare fight me fair and square?”

“What’s there to not dare?” Man Bao reached out to shove him.

Bai Shanbao didn’t expect her to act as soon as she spoke, his anger rising too as he was a bit taller and chubbier than Man Bao. Pushed back two steps, he immediately grabbed and slammed her to the ground, the two instantly rolling around brawling.

Er Tou’s eyes went wide in shock as he hurriedly rolled up his sleeves to help his aunt. If his big brother found out he let his little aunt get into a fight when sent to fetch her, both he and his brother would surely get beaten by their grandparents and parents later.

Though Bai Erlang disliked this cousin who suddenly appeared, he disliked Man Bao even more. Seeing Er Tou try to help her, he joined in too, turning the one-on-one fight into a group melee.

Finally, someone fetched Mr. Zhuang from the school building. Only he could break up the children when he arrived.

Mr. Zhuang was quite angry, checking over the four kids. He found Er Tou and Bai Erlang had some redness on their faces, likely from being scratched by the others, but no other issues.

Meanwhile, the seemingly more intensely fighting Man Bao and Bai Shanbao had no real injuries, just extremely dirty clothes from rolling around on the ground.

Mr. Zhuang took a deep breath. Man Bao’s admission to the school hadn’t been easy, and he didn’t want to make too big of a deal out of this incident. But Bai Erlang getting beaten up couldn’t be covered up.

After some hesitation, Mr. Zhuang brought all four kids back to the school building, then sent students to summon the parents from both families to come. Rather than keeping things obscured, it was better to lay everything out for everyone to speak their grievances and resolve them.