Pastoral Splendor

"Are you the heir of the Prince of Yu?" The registrar narrowed his eyes, feeling a little tremble. Although he had never met the rumored Xu Yixuan, his attire suggested he was extremely wealthy.

She appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old, wearing a purple-gold crown with a large ruby ​​inlaid on it, which sparkled in the sunlight. She wore a royal blue brocade robe, a necklace with colorful tassels and gemstones around her neck, with a large piece of purple jade tied in the center. At her waist was a jade pendant, clearly an old mine icy jadeite, with water seemingly flowing within it, shimmering and sparkling.

Jian Yifei reached out and slapped Gao, the registrar, several times across the face. A series of loud cracking sounds followed, and Gao's face instantly swelled up like a pig's head. He stood there, covering his face, his words slurred: "You, you, you, what are you doing?"

"Not only did you not bow to Prince Xu, but you even addressed him as 'you.' Doesn't that deserve a beating?" Jian Yifei stood beside Yan Ying and looked at her with concern: "Are you alright, Miss Xiao?"

Yan Ying had already breathed a sigh of relief, and was watching the commotion from the sidelines with her arms crossed. When Jian Yifei asked her, she smiled and shook her head: "It's nothing, it's nothing, what could possibly happen to me?"

Jian Yifei smiled. Just now, she saw her standing there with her body hunched over, like an angry cat. Judging from her posture, she seemed to have practiced martial arts, but from her lower body, she didn't seem to have any internal strength. It was really strange. How could a farm girl know these moves? Or perhaps she had seen a master practicing somewhere, and being clever by nature, she remembered the posture after just one glance.

Xu Yixuan also reached out and grabbed a tuft of Gao Zhubu's beard, scrutinizing his face. He chuckled and then shouted at Jian Yifei, "Master, come and teach me how you made that move, and why it was so fast! I didn't even see it clearly before you made his face swollen."

Jian Yifei walked over and stretched out a hand: "Young Master, look, when you strike, you must be ruthless, accurate, and fast. You must not pause for any time. When you stretch out your palm, turn your fingers outward, and put all your strength in your palm. Then, channel your energy into your palm and it will be as hard as iron."

Xu Yixuan did as he was told and stretched out his palm. Jian Yifei pinched his palm with her fingers and shook her head: "This is not strong enough. Your palm is still soft. You pinch your teacher's."

Xu Yixuan reached out and pinched Jian Yifei's palm with some skepticism, then exclaimed in surprise, "Master, your palm is so hard, it's almost like a block of iron!"

Jian Yifei smiled and raised his hand. The registrar, Gao, was shocked and tried to kneel down with a thud, but Xu Yixuan grabbed his beard and pulled painfully. Seeing that Jian Yifei was about to hit the registrar again, the old woman, Si Jin, quickly pushed her way through, shouting, "Hitting people in broad daylight! Is there no law? Heaven, please come and take these robbers away!"

The old lady Sijin didn't quite understand the concept of a prince. In her mind, the prefect of Yuzhou was the highest-ranking official, and her cousin, the registrar Gao, was the second highest. As for the village heads and hamlets, they all had to bow down and curry favor with her cousin.

The village head was already pale with fright. He tugged at the old woman, "Old woman, stop shouting! Stop shouting!" Did this old woman think things weren't serious enough and wanted to make a big scene? He glanced at Xu Yixuan, afraid that he would remember his face and that the prefect would punish him, the village head.

"Old lady Sijin, you're talking about the law now?" Yan Ying stepped forward with a smile, her face full of disdain: "Just now, when you forced my father to put his fingerprint on your hand, did you mention any law?"

"Why didn't you say so?" The old woman stretched out her arm and waved it wildly. "Didn't my cousin say you committed theft?"

"Just because he says I committed a crime doesn't mean I did. Ask the villagers if there was a reason I killed your sheep. Doesn't that count as theft?" Yan Ying stood there with her hands on her hips, smiled at the old woman, and said, "Try asking them."

"Sanhua told you a long time ago not to let the sheep eat her vegetables, but you just wouldn't listen. You always let your precious grandson drive the sheep into her vegetable garden!" A woman hiding behind someone shouted, "Old Master Xiao's family has so many people, and a lot of their food and clothes come from the vegetable garden. How can you bear to let the sheep go there to rot!"

The old woman, weighing four jin, tiptoed, trying to see who was speaking, but all she saw was a bunch of heads standing there; she couldn't see anyone's mouth moving. She muttered to herself, "No matter what, you can't kill my sheep! Doesn't she have any respect for the law?!"

"So what if I killed your sheep? Good riddance!" Xu Yixuan heard the shouts of the crowd and learned the whole story. His eyes widened and he said, "You old hag, if it weren't for Master saying not to hit women, I would have given you a good beating! So what if there is no law? I'm standing here now, and I am the law!"

He looked up at Jian Yifei and saw that his brows were slightly furrowed, so he quickly tried to ingratiate himself, saying, "My master's laws are the absolute law!"

Looking at Xu Yixuan's innocent yet deliberately arrogant appearance, Yan Ying couldn't help but laugh. In the TV dramas she had watched in her previous life, when those bullies were running rampant, they always liked to pat their chests and say, "I am the law!" Xu Yixuan's trick was really similar to theirs.

"Your Highness, you are right, what you say is the law!" The registrar Gao bowed and kowtowed to Xu Yixuan with trepidation, but Xu Yixuan grabbed a beard and made him nod his head, causing him excruciating pain.

"Master, what do you think we should do?" Xu Yixuan smiled ingratiatingly at Jian Yifei, then glanced at Yan Ying, who was standing there with her hands on her hips, and grinned at her: "So the sheep you cooked for me last time came from this old woman's house."

Yan Ying nodded, without a trace of shame: "Yes, that old woman's sheep come to our vegetable garden to eat every day, that's why the meat is so delicious. I've told her countless times, but she won't listen. She even sends her grandson to drive the sheep over. How can I not be furious?" She pointed to the back of the yard: "Young Master, to tell you the truth, our family is dirt poor..."

Xu Yixuan looked at the dilapidated mud-brick house, then at the thatched roof, and nodded: "I can tell."

“My mother is pregnant, and we don’t have money for meat. We can only cook some vegetables for each meal. Sometimes my father picks vegetables and sells them outside to feed our family and let my mother eat a boiled egg every day.” Seeing that Xu Yixuan’s expression was becoming more and more gentle, Yan Ying pressed on and added, “Young Master, that old lady Si Jin drove her sheep into my vegetable garden to eat the vegetables. Isn’t that ruining our livelihood?”

"This is outrageous!" Xu Yixuan glared angrily at the old woman, rolling up her sleeves in anger: "You heartless old woman, you were in the wrong first. You drove your sheep to eat her vegetables, and you still dare to send people to occupy her vegetable garden!"

Seeing Xu Yixuan's fierce appearance, Qi Mu burst into tears. The old lady Si Jin pulled him and tried to squeeze into the crowd. Xu Yixuan shouted, "Stop them!" Several guards dismounted and blocked the old lady Si Jin. They glared at her and said menacingly, "Our young master wanted to hit you, which was giving you face. You dare to be so shameless!"

Only then did the old lady, Sijin, admit defeat. She knelt down with a thud and kowtowed repeatedly: "Young Master, Young Master, I don't want Master Xiao's vegetable garden anymore. Please have mercy and let me go!"

Xu Yixuan shook his head: "Just don't have a vegetable garden?"

The old woman with four jin rolled her eyes: "I don't want the vegetable garden, and I don't want them to compensate me for the sheep. I'll just consider myself unlucky and give them a sheep to eat!"

"What? You're just accepting your bad luck?" Xu Yixuan raised his eyebrows high: "Your sheep is already in my stomach, and you're saying you're unlucky? Your sheep is lucky to have been eaten by me; it must have been blessed in its past life!"

At this moment, Erhua emerged from the crowd and kicked the old woman, Sijin, saying, "It's all your fault! You keep cursing and saying our family is childless, and now my mother has given birth to another girl! She was originally carrying a boy!"

The old woman, Sijin, wept bitterly and cried out to the heavens, "Whether the baby in your mother's belly is a boy or a girl was already decided long ago. Do you think that if I curse a few times, the baby in your mother's belly will change?"

"Yes, yes!" Erhua said viciously, "It's because of you, you wicked old man, who curses us every day for having no descendants. You might even have secretly hired someone to perform a ritual, which is why my mother gave birth to another girl!"

Yan Ying sighed and pulled Er Hua over: "Don't argue with her, let's stick to the facts! Since Old Lady Si Jin has agreed not to make us compensate her for her sheep, let's just leave it at that."

"You're too easy to talk to." Xu Yixuan, standing to the side, revealed an indignant expression: "I originally wanted her to compensate your family with six or seven hundred taels of silver, how can you say it's settled?"

When the old woman, Sijin, heard "six or seven hundred taels of silver," her eyes rolled back and she immediately fainted. The villagers' faces also changed color. This young master was really too arrogant. Let alone six or seven hundred taels of silver, even sixty or seventy taels of silver was beyond the reach of the old woman, Sijin.

Yan Ying killed the old lady's sheep, but then demanded that the old lady pay her six or seven hundred taels of silver? How could such a good thing happen in the world? Everyone stared at Xu Yixuan, then turned to Yan Ying, completely unaware of the mystery behind it all. They heard a bunch of eyeballs falling to the ground, making a crackling sound.

“Your Highness, it’s unrealistic to expect her to come up with six or seven hundred taels of silver.” Jian Yifei smiled at Xu Yixuan: “Since this young lady says she doesn’t care, let’s just call it even.”

Seeing that Jian Yifei had spoken, Xu Yixuan nodded and said, "Alright, since Master has spoken, your family will be exempted from compensation."

Qi Mu was overjoyed upon hearing this and pushed the old lady Si Jin, saying, "Grandma, then the young master doesn't want you to pay compensation."

The old woman's eyes immediately opened, and she rolled them around: "Really, we don't have to pay?"

"Really, there's no need to pay compensation. I heard it clearly." Qi Mu's hand trembled as he held the old lady's hand. He had been so frightened by the thought of paying so much money that he almost wet his pants, but thankfully he didn't.

The old woman, Si Jin, got up from the ground, hunched her neck, looked at Xu Yixuan, and murmured, not daring to speak. The registrar, Gao, stood there with his old face flushed red: "Young Master, can you let go?"

Xu Yixuan glanced at him and snorted coldly: "You are the registrar of the state government, you should be reasonable. How come you are helping that black-hearted old woman to bully the poor? I think you should be the one to teach her a lesson."

Clerk Gao looked up at Xu Yixuan with fear in his eyes, wondering if he could still keep his position. He secretly regretted coming to Xiao Family Village after being praised by Old Lady Sijin; he never expected to encounter such bad luck.

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