Saving System: Calm Down, My Fleeing Host!-Chapter 17: Confrontation

"Uncle Cheng, this... you misunderstand. Which couple doesn’t have their arguments? And it’s not just one woman who gets hit for doing something wrong. That’s their way of getting along. How can we outsiders interfere?"

Cheng Rong snorted coldly, "Village Chief Qiao means my aunt is just fine, huh? Then tell Qiao Hai to bring my aunt out here."

Still trying to smooth things over, but it’s not going to happen.

"If you don’t return my sister alive today, our Cheng Family will never let this go with you," Cheng Qiang threatened.

"What’s all the noise about? It’s early in the morning, can’t anyone get some sleep?" Qiao Hai finally came out slowly from inside the house.

"Yo! Isn’t this my brother-in-law? What’s all this? It’s not appropriate to break into my house with so many people!"

"Qiao Hai, quickly hand over my sister," he said, glaring fiercely at Qiao Hai.

"What’s my brother-in-law so angry about? Chudong caught a cold these past few days and just couldn’t go out."

Granny Cao chimed in as well, "That’s it, how big of a deal is this? Just because of a little illness, so many people coming over, bullying us because we’re outnumbered!"

"You’re talking nonsense, torturing a person to death and still not admitting it."

Cheng Xiaoxiao was gloomy, thinking that by the time everyone finished arguing, it would be too late. She quietly moved next to Qiao Xiaolan, crouched down. Xiaolan, who was still crying quietly on the ground, looked at her cousin with incomprehension. Cheng Xiaoxiao whispered a few words into her ear.

Xiaolan nodded!

Suddenly, Xiaolan jumped up, grabbed Cheng Qiang’s arm, and charged into the courtyard, shouting loudly, "Uncle, I know where Mom is! Quickly go and save her, Dad locked her in the woodshed!"

"Everyone, come and see, let’s see if someone has been beaten to death!" Someone led the charge, and soon the crowd squeezed into the courtyard.

"What are you doing? You can’t do this," Granny Cao struggled to pull at the crowd, but at this point, no one paid her any attention. She and Qiao Hai were pushed to the side, left in anxious frustration.

Cheng Qiang looked at the locked woodshed, kicked it open with one blow, and saw inside the dim, damp, broken shed lay a frail woman in tattered clothes, covered in wounds, motionless on the straw on the ground.

Qiao Xiaolan quickly rushed forward, and seeing her lifeless mother, she cried as if her heart was breaking, "Mom, what’s wrong with you? Don’t leave Xiaolan behind, Mom, wake up!" Even though it was previously discussed at her uncle’s house, seeing her mother in such a miserable state, her heart wrenched like knives.

She kept asking herself what her mother did wrong to end up like this. Is not having a son such a terrible sin?

"Waaah... he’s not my father! How can he be so heartless? How can he beat my mother to death?"

Cheng Xiaoxiao just stepped into the room, and the sour, musty smell almost made her vomit on the spot.

Covering her nose, she said, "What’s really going on here? Let both Village Chief Qiao and Uncle Cheng come see, is it us, the Cheng Family, who are being aggressive, or is it Uncle’s family who deliberately drove my aunt to death."

Mrs. Qiao shouted from the side, lying through her teeth, "Cheng Chudong was just weak and nearly dying on her own, this has nothing to do with us."

Then I ask Uncle, "Is my aunt a slave to your family? When she’s ill, she can’t even lie in a house, can’t even have a doctor, and is left to self-destruct locked in the woodshed."

"This, this..." Qiao Hai was a bit flustered, unable to think of a rebuttal for the moment.

Upon hearing this, Xiaolan cried even more bitterly, kneeling in front of Village Chief Qiao, clutching his leg, pleading for justice for her mother. Her mother worked hard for the Qiao Family like a cow and a horse her whole life, only to be abused like this.

At this point, Qiao Hai was both aggrieved and angry, seeing his own daughter siding with others, his anger found an outlet, "You damn girl, was it you, was it you, you ungrateful wolf, I raised you to this big, and you set your father up, see if I don’t beat you to death."

Cheng Hao stepped forward, blocking Qiao Hai, "Dead or alive, abused or not, let the doctor determine that," he said, pulling Doctor Huang to the front, "Grandpa Huang, please check if there’s any hope for my aunt?"

Doctor Huang examined carefully for quite a while, then told everyone, "This woman might still have a sliver of life left, but she suffers from severe internal bleeding and could stop breathing at any time. She has multiple fractures all over her body, whip marks everywhere, with weak pancreas and spleen, and long-term lack of nutrition. Even without the injuries, she wouldn’t live past forty, likely from long-term abuse."

These words caused a stir in the entire room.

The Cheng Family was filled with rage, while the people from Qiao Village looked on sympathetically, realizing that previous rumors were indeed true.

Village Chief Qiao no longer had the confidence he had before, unsure of how to handle this situation properly.

Granny Cao sat down on the ground, crying and wailing, "You jinx! You’re going to ruin our whole Qiao Family! If you hadn’t been disrespectful to this old woman, Ah Hai wouldn’t have beaten you."

Qiao Hai, looking dumbfounded, quickly responded as soon as his mother spoke, "Yeah, it was her being disrespectful to my mom first. She wasn’t showing filial piety, so I was just teaching her a lesson on behalf of my mom. I never meant to beat her to death."

Village Chief Qiao quickly interjected, "Yes, yes, it’s all a misunderstanding."

The Cheng Family all sneered in silence, still trying to argue at this point.

"How about I beat you to a pulp and then say it’s a misunderstanding, that it wasn’t intentional, do you think that would be okay?" Cheng Qiang took a step forward with a shoulder pole, getting closer to Qiao Hai with every step. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Now truly afraid, Qiao Hai retreated repeatedly, "Brother-in-law, brother-in-law, you can’t do this, I’m your brother-in-law."

"Now you remember you’re my brother-in-law, but when you were beating my sister, did you think about being my brother-in-law?"

"No, I didn’t, I didn’t, it wasn’t..." As the pole was about to fall, he quickly hid behind Granny Cao.

Granny Cao held her son tightly, shouting, "Murder! The Cheng Family is going to kill someone!"

**

With things escalating to this point, reconciliation was out of the question. The courtyard was filled with people, with those from Shangqiao Village and Qingshan Village standing on either side, led by the two authorities.

Village Chief Qiao asked repeatedly but got no result. Granny Cao staunchly insisted that her daughter-in-law was on the brink of dying on her own, and denied everything else. Village Chief Qiao was so angry that he didn’t know what to say. The facts were before their eyes, but the two of them refused to admit their guilt.

Under the intense gaze of everyone from Qingshan Village, Village Chief Qiao, ignoring the claims of the two, took pen and ink and asked someone to write a divorce document, then looked at Granny Cao, saying, "I heard you want to sell Dalan into a brothel. No matter what, she’s your granddaughter. If you don’t like her, you can marry her off early, but how can you sell her to a brothel? That’s just foolish!"

Though the buying and selling of people happened often, it usually occurred in the shadows, smuggling people, or if a family couldn’t make ends meet, they might sell someone into servitude. But never would anyone sell their own daughter into a brothel. That’s bound to bring shame to the entire village.

This was about the village’s reputation. The village chief was deeply pained, silently cursing Granny Cao for causing unnecessary trouble and tarnishing their village’s image.

Granny Cao was shocked, not expecting that the village chief knew about this, but still argued, "No such thing, this old woman plans to marry off her eldest granddaughter, definitely not to sell her," as long as it wasn’t admitted, what could the village chief do? After all, the broker was only coming for the girl tomorrow.