Transmigrated Leftover Woman in Rural Style

Li Xiaonuan thought this must be a glimmer of hope arranged by heaven for her troubled fate. Europe at this time was in a period of chaos. The Mongol Empire, shut out from the rest of the world, was launching a major invasion. If Qi Song were to begin developing its navy now, it might be able to avoid the historical tragedy of the Eight-Nation Alliance invasion. Perhaps, it might even be able to destroy Japan.

However, Li Xiaonuan wasn't concerned with those things now; she was focused on setting sail. She planned to draw up a nautical chart and anonymously present it to the Eagle King. Then, she would simply wait for the high-yield seeds of those foreign crops. After all, having lived an extra life, she knew better than anyone else how to cultivate those seeds.

Just thinking about it, Li Xiaonuan seemed to see corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and so on floating towards her. She also saw tall rubber trees and advanced metal smelting technology.

But before she could even finalize her plans for the future, troublemakers came knocking. Li Xiaonuan coldly stared at the woman pointing fingers and hurling insults at her, and the young man standing bowed behind her. They had come to annul the engagement.

The woman stood in the courtyard, raising her voice and hurling every insult that could damage a woman's reputation at Li Xiaonuan. Xiaonuan's mother, Su, tried to reason with them, asking what had happened, but the woman ignored her and continued her tirade.

Li Xiaonuan stared intently at the young man. He had looked up briefly while Su was speaking. Later, when he saw Li Xiaonuan looking at him, he lowered his head fearfully. He made no attempt to speak up for Li Xiaonuan, letting the woman pin the blame on her. Li Xiaonuan sneered inwardly: You'll have your day.

Poor Li Xiaonuan, in her attempt to save this marriage, ultimately perished. Even then, she was still betrayed and her engagement broken off. However, the Li Xiaonuan of today is a different person. In her eyes, it's better to break off the engagement with such a despicable family.

Li Xiaonuan stopped her mother from going up to fight the woman. She called her younger brother, Li Xiaogang, over and whispered a few words in his ear. Xiaogang then pushed his way out of the crowd. Finally, Li Xiaonuan reassured her father that she could handle the matter and had her older brother, Li Xiaoyang, help him back into the house.

Amid the woman's extremely vile insults, Li Xiaonuan did not cry and beg like other women. She did not consider herself a saintly, innocent woman, and she could not imitate that kind of feigned weakness.

Perhaps because of Li Xiaonuan's lack of cooperation, the woman turned to the crowd and began to list Li Xiaonuan's faults even more vehemently. Some people in the crowd echoed the woman, making sarcastic remarks and attacking Xiaonuan's family.

The more Su listened, the angrier she became. First, she was angry at the woman for fabricating accusations and making baseless false accusations. Second, she was furious at those gossipy women who treated her kindly usually but were now kicking her when she was down. Finally, Su, who had been working so hard for Li Xiaonuan and her father these past few days, fainted spectacularly under the double blow.

Li Xiaonuan instinctively reached out to help Su Shi. Unfortunately, she was still weak and couldn't support her. Fortunately, a good neighbor came over to help. Li Xiaonuan, along with the two aunts who helped, helped Su Shi to lie down on the long bamboo couch in the main room.

She said to one of the aunts who was closest to Su, "Aunt Zhou, could you please take care of my mother for me? I'm going out to deal with something."

Then, she took another aunt's hand and said, "Aunt Huang, could you please ask Chief Zhou and the village head to come here? I want to break off the engagement."

The two aunties looked at Li Xiaonuan for a long time and then sighed. Aunt Zhou said to Li Xiaonuan, "Go on, be careful. If you need any help, call your uncle and brother; they're watching outside."

Aunt Huang also said, "Yes, I'll have your sister-in-law Erquan come and keep you company later. We're not afraid."

Li Xiaonuan's originally cold heart was instantly warmed. She smiled slightly and said, "Oh, Xiaonuan isn't afraid. Xiaonuan thanks you both, aunties."

After speaking, Li Xiaonuan and Aunt Huang left the main room. Aunt Huang walked through the crowd, heading towards the clan head's house. Li Xiaonuan, on the other hand, searched for acquaintances in the crowd, hoping they could help her fetch a doctor. However, before she could even get a good look around, she overheard these words.

"Look, that's how she is, that's how she seduces people. Look at her seductive face, even now, she's still looking for men in the crowd. Tell me, which family would dare to marry a woman like that?"

Li Xiaonuan was so angry she laughed. She walked up to the woman and stared at her coldly for a long time. Only when she saw the woman's guilty eyes darting around did she ask her calmly, "Auntie, tell me, how did I seduce men, and which men did I seduce?"

The woman looked somewhat awkward and said, "How else can you seduce someone? It's just throwing your eyes at people in the crowd, isn't it? That's how you seduced my Wang Tu back then."

After saying that, fearing that people wouldn't believe her, she tugged at the sleeve of the boy behind her, signaling him to nod. The boy had just looked up when he was startled by Li Xiaonuan's ambiguous smile and hurriedly lowered his head.

Upon seeing this, the woman puffed out her chest and shouted loudly, "Did you all see that? My Wang Tu has already nodded. It was this shameless woman who seduced my Wang Tu back then. Now, she can seduce people right in front of you. Tell me, how can my family not break off the engagement?"

Seeing the woman's exaggerated performance in front of the crowd, Li Xiaonuan suddenly burst out laughing. After the woman stopped talking, she asked her, "Oh, auntie, I think looking around at the crowd is seduction. You've looked around at the crowd dozens of times now. Tell me, have you managed to seduce a man you like?"

As soon as Xiao Nuan finished speaking, a burst of laughter erupted from the crowd. A man in the crowd shouted, "If this is how you seduce people, wouldn't we dockworkers be seduced all the time?"

Another man chimed in, "That's right. I set up my stall on the street every day, and those young girls and married women have been giving me countless glances. Are they trying to seduce me?"

No sooner had she finished speaking than a woman loudly echoed, "If that's really the case, then perhaps only a blind man in this world wouldn't know how to seduce people. It seems that young ladies should just cover their eyes when they go out from now on."

At this moment, a woman replied, "That's exactly how it should be. Look at the young ladies and wives of wealthy families, they all wear veils when they go out."

Li Xiaonuan glanced at the woman and recognized her as the one who had been making sarcastic remarks. She asked her, "Aunt Zhou, your daughter and granddaughter both wear veils when they go out. They really are young ladies from wealthy families. But I've seen Aunt Hai and her two sisters-in-law at the dock many times, and I've never seen them wear veils when they go out."

Laughter erupted again from the crowd. An old man scolded the woman and sent her home. The Wang family woman was first embarrassed by the laughter, then rendered speechless by the men. Finally, when the crowd quieted down a bit, she shouted at Li Xiaonuan:

"You little slut, do you dare say that when you fell into the water, it wasn't a man who rescued you?"

Li Xiaonuan nodded; that was true. However, that was the older brother from next door, already married with children. Li Xiaonuan didn't understand why the woman asked that. But it wasn't hard to guess that the woman was implying that she was unfaithful and had been intimate with another man.

Sure enough, when the woman saw Li Xiaonuan nod, she shouted even more excitedly, "Look, she admitted it herself! She's the one who lured that man to the river for a secret rendezvous, and when she was discovered, she panicked and fell into the water. She wouldn't have admitted it just now."

This doesn't seem to be going according to plan. How could it be related to seducing men? Fortunately, they weren't the only two people by the river. So, Li Xiaonuan called out to the crowd, "Sister-in-law Minghua, tell this auntie who I was with when I fell into the water."

When her name was mentioned, Minghua, the rescuer's wife, answered loudly, "At the time, Xiaonuan was with her fiancé and another woman. Oh, right. At the time, the woman and Xiaonuan's fiancé were both disheveled. When my husband went into the water to save Xiaonuan, Shuhua and Fangfang were also there."

As soon as he finished speaking, the young man from the Wang family looked at Li Xiaonuan with a terrified expression. Unfortunately, Li Xiaonuan was busy trying to extricate herself from the situation and didn't notice his fear. Meanwhile, the woman grabbed another woman who was watching and argued that Li Xiaonuan was making false accusations.

Looking at the increasingly timid boy, Li Xiaonuan felt a surge of inexplicable anger. She blurted out uncontrollably, "Wang Tu, do you dare tell us who that woman is? Do you dare tell everyone why you two are standing by the river in such disheveled clothes? Do you have the guts to tell everyone how I fell into the water?"

The boy was stumped by the question, and stared blankly at Li Xiaonuan, looking at her with some surprise. Li Xiaonuan swept a sharp look over him, and he fell to the ground in shock. Looking at the pathetic boy on the ground, Li Xiaonuan smiled contemptuously.

Seeing her son fall, the woman quickly helped him up. Her face contorted with anger, she was about to berate Li Xiaonuan. But Li Xiaonuan didn't give the woman a chance to speak. She walked up to the boy, looked him in the eyes, and asked:

"Why aren't you saying anything? You were quite talkative when you and that person pushed me into the water. Why are you afraid to speak now? Just tell everyone with the same confidence you had back then."

The boy, his eyes red from Li Xiaonuan's interrogation, crouched on the ground, burying his face in his hands and sobbing. Seeing her son had been wronged, the woman slapped him. Li Xiaonuan, caught off guard, couldn't dodge in time and took the full force of the slap, nearly knocking him to the ground.

That slap completely enraged Li Xiaonuan. She stood up calmly, tidied her messy hair, and said in a low voice, "Shuhua, Fangfang, tell everyone what happened that day in detail."

Two people stepped out from the crowd, a boy of about fifteen or sixteen and a girl of about ten. They stood beside Li Xiaonuan and recounted the events of that day in detail. At this moment, Clan Chief Zhou, who had come out of the crowd with the village head, suddenly spoke up and questioned:

"Is this true? Wang Tu and Xu Yan really did have an affair in the bamboo grove by the river, and you caught them? After catching them, did they really work together to push Xiao Nuan into the river?"

The innocent and straightforward Fangfang was the clan chief's granddaughter. She went over to help the clan chief and replied, "Grandpa, that's how it was. At that time, that woman scolded Sister Xiaonuan for being shameless, saying that she had long been Wang Tu's woman. The Wang family would go through all the proper betrothal rites to marry her, and told Sister Xiaonuan to be sensible and break off the engagement herself."

Li Shuhua added, "Well, at the time, Sister Xiaonuan ignored the woman and asked Wang Tu if it was true. Wang Tu nodded then, and even said that if his grandfather hadn't passed away, he would have broken off the engagement and married that woman long ago. Sister Xiaonuan then asked Wang Tu why he went to their house to propose marriage in the first place, and Wang Tu said... said..."

Li Shuhua hesitated, unable to finish his sentence. Some impatient people urged him, "Just tell us already, what did Wang Tu say?"