Chapter 1350: Is It About to Get Dramatic?

After Mrs. Kuang finished scolding her son, she looked at Gu Jinli. Borrowing the light of the torches, she finally saw her face clearly and was so scared she screamed, "Ah! Y-you’re sick!"

Mrs. Kuang hugged her son and jumped back several big steps. She reached into the basket, wanting to throw the roast duck leg back to Gu Jinli, but then thought it was meat after all and couldn’t bear to throw it away. Yet she was also afraid it had been touched by Gu Jinli and was poisonous, so for a while she was terribly conflicted.

Gu Jinli was stunned for a moment, then smiled and explained, "Mrs. Niu, don’t panic. This isn’t a disease, just ordinary pox. It wasn’t handled properly so it festered, but it’s not contagious."

"Really?" Mrs. Kuang’s face clearly said "I don’t believe you," and she just stayed where she was, clutching her son and refusing to step forward.

Gu Jinli nodded. "Really. We brought a doctor with us. If you don’t believe me, I can call him over and have him tell you himself."

Nanny Tao also got off the cart and said to Mrs. Kuang, "My lady is not sick. This is just ordinary pox."

Seeing Nanny Tao’s serious, proper manner, Mrs. Kuang felt she was more reliable and believed her words, but still didn’t dare go forward. She only said, "So it’s pox, that’s fine. But if it were some contagious foul disease, you’d have to say so. You can’t hide it. Letting people get sick because of you, that’ll get you struck by lightning from the heavens!"

She then asked, "How’d you end up like this? It’s too disgusting. You just got married, right? You can’t let yourself get this ugly, or how’s your man supposed to touch you? I heard most of the men in the Northwest are dead already, there’s a whole crowd of widows, each one like a starving wolf, they’re crazy for men. You’d better worry about that face, let the doctor take a good look. If that doesn’t work, pray to all the mountain gods along the way. Otherwise once your man gets to the Northwest, those widows are going to snatch him away!"

Gu Jinli was shocked. This Mrs. Kuang really dared to say anything, even things like "how’s your man supposed to touch you" and "crazy for men."

But she felt Mrs. Kuang wasn’t bad. At least she spoke her mind and didn’t hide things.

"Don’t worry, Mrs. Niu. Our lady brought a doctor and a medical woman as part of her dowry. There’ll be a doctor treating her face all the way, and once we reach the Northwest, it will definitely be cured," Nanny Tao said.

At that, Mrs. Kuang’s eyes rolled and she immediately said, "You even brought a doctor and a medical woman? Then you must have brought medicinal herbs too, right? Ai, Auntie’s family is poor. My man’s been a soldier for twenty years, spent ten years as a Section Leader, three years as a Chief Commander, and not even half a month as a Company Commander. We’ve got nothing. This time going to the Northwest, there are lots of soldiers’ families traveling with us, one after another all weak and sickly. If they fall ill later, Auntie will bring them to you, let your mother’s family’s doctor take a look at them. After all, it’s human life, you can’t just watch them die, right."

Wow, and just like that she started asking Gu Jinli for benefits.

Gu Jinli: "..."

There was a sentence greeting your ancestors she really didn’t know whether she should say or not.

She didn’t answer, but suddenly looked into the distance and said, "Mrs. Niu, looks like someone’s coming. Seems like it’s a big shot, and there are a lot of them. You’d better hurry back and tell the accompanying families to move out of the way, so they don’t get run over."

Gu Jinli had already heard the dull, orderly thud of footsteps and the clatter of hooves, which meant a troop was coming, and not a small one.

"It’s fine, it’s fine. Auntie brought a bunch of shrews. When they see someone they can’t afford to offend, they’ll run off on their own." After hearing this, Mrs. Kuang quickly raised her head and looked around. Sure enough, she saw countless torchlights rushing toward them.

Mrs. Kuang loved a spectacle. Seeing this show, she lingered to watch a bit longer, but who knew that group was too fast and in no time they were right in front of her.

With a swish, the man in the lead, covered head to toe in heavy armor and gripping a broadsword, spurred his horse forward and charged toward the Military Office. Because he was riding too fast, he startled a big crowd of accompanying families up ahead.

Everyone screamed and scattered. Several mule carts failed to dodge in time and were rammed by the fast horse. With a rumble, two figures, one big and one small, were thrown out of the cart.

"Ah~" Mrs. Cen clutched the child, sprawled on the ground, and looked up at the mass of soldiers charging toward the Military Office, shaking with fear.

Those soldiers were ruthless enough; even seeing Mrs. Cen holding a child in the road, they still charged straight toward her without a care.

The man who had already ridden into the Military Office suddenly turned his horse around, galloped back, and stopped in front of Mrs. Cen. He drew his long blade and pointed it at the charging soldiers, shouting, "Stop!"

The soldiers halted at once, their movements as swift as a sudden storm coming to an abrupt end, leaving everyone present staring in awe.

Seeing that she and her daughter hadn’t been trampled to death, Mrs. Cen’s expression relaxed. But the man on horseback suddenly swung down, strode toward her, his tall frame looming over her. He stretched out a long arm and directly hauled her up from the ground, looking at her with a smile. "Little lady, are you injured? Don’t be afraid, they are all my soldiers, they won’t do anything to you."

Mrs. Cen was stunned by his words, staring at the man, unable to speak.

Gu Jinli was stunned too: Was this about to turn dog-blood already?!

Mrs. Cen was dressed as a married woman and even had a child with her. Anyone could tell she was a soldier’s family. In broad daylight in front of everyone, this man just reached out and yanked up someone else’s wife—he clearly didn’t put her husband in his eyes at all.

Her gaze shifted and landed on the Military Flag in the Flag Soldier’s hand. The two characters "Qianyang" were written on it, and she immediately understood: these were from the Qianyang County Military Office.

The record book said that Qianyang County Military Office Company Commander Ding Ge, twenty-seven, came from the Ding Family, a noble family in the Central Plains. He was supposed to rise swiftly through the ranks on his clan’s backing, but his future was delayed because he committed an offense when he was young. This time going to the Northwest, he hoped to climb higher by military merit.

Because of his respectable background, Ding Ge was extremely arrogant and was a local tyrant of Qianyang, not even the County Magistrate in his eyes. He also had a hobby—he liked young, beautiful married women.

To put it bluntly, he liked making moves on other men’s wives.

Mrs. Kuang was a gossip and knew about Ding Ge’s hobby. Looking at Mrs. Cen up ahead, she curled her lip and said, "That fellow Ding just loves pretty married women, and he only goes after other men’s wives. That Cen woman is young, beautiful, and delicate. She’s probably done for."

She then looked at Gu Jinli with a trace of disgust and said, "You’re fine. You’re so ugly it’s disgusting. That Ding fellow wouldn’t look twice at you."

This was really... so very thoughtful of you, huh.

"Auntie can read? You know he’s the Company Commander from Qianyang County?" Gu Jinli asked in some surprise.

Mrs. Kuang said, "Tch, I just learned it from my man. We’re all mud-legged peasants. For five generations up, no one in the family could read. After he became Chief Commander he had to read official documents and whatnot. He couldn’t understand them and got laughed at, so he started studying hard. I laughed at him a couple of times and got dragged into learning too. But I don’t know much; I mainly recognized that Ding fellow’s horse."

"The Ding Family has money. I heard they got Ding Ge a fine horse from the Northwest, runs like the devil. Ding Ge loves it to death and even had a set of armor made specially for it. Treats that horse like his own son. I recognized him by the iron armor on that horse."

Though Mrs. Kuang was a rough person, she had her own methods of telling people apart and hadn’t made a single mistake.

Gu Jinli praised, "Auntie is clever, sharp-eyed too."

But Mrs. Kuang completely ignored her, instead letting out a low exclamation, "Look, look! Oh dear, he’s actually putting her straight on the mule cart. Is he going to score already?"