Lin Jinxiao grimaced in pain. He gritted his teeth and his entire face was scrunched up. He could only raise his hand and point to the region below Chu Nanzhi's butt.
Chu Nanzhi looked over and realized that she was sitting on his injured leg.
She was so frightened that she quickly moved to the side. Only then did Lin Jinxiao relax. He endured the pain and asked softly, "Where did you get so much strength?"
Chu Nanzhi stood up to pick up the walking stick on the ground and pointed it at him, not daring to go any closer. "Tell me quickly, what do you want?"
"Keep your voice down. The children are asleep."
Lin Jinxiao moved his body with difficulty and leaned against the bed, moaning a little. As he checked the wound on his leg, he said to her,
"What can I do in my current state? I want to ask you, why did you do all that today?"
Chu Nanzhi finally understood what was bothering him.
As his tone was much nicer she did not object to talking to him. "Why? You don't like me being nice to you? You're only happy when I punch and kick you? Do you have masochistic tendencies?"
"Don't give me that."
Lin Jinxiao clutched his wound, clenched his teeth, and grunted. "You were so ruthless to that priest. You certainly don't have any pity for me."
Chu Nanzhi saw that he was in agony, but he endured it without a sound. She took a closer look and realized that the wound on his leg was bruised. There was a big red area around it and blood was seeping out of the wound again.
She hurried to the cabinet to find some medicine and cleaned his wound. As she applied the medicine and bandaged it, she said solemnly,
"I'll only say this once. I don't care whether you believe me or not."
She looked up at him and saw that he was listening quietly. Chu Nanzhi continued,
"There's nothing going on between me and Priest Ximen. I don't know anything about the tax case, and I believe the county magistrate has mentioned how the case was resolved. If you want to know the details, I'm afraid you won't understand even if I tell you."
"You…"
Her last sentence infuriated Lin Jinxiao.
It was extremely humiliating for an illiterate woman to look down on a scholar like him.
He was not convinced.
Chu Nanzhi could see that, so she said to him,
"I know you're not convinced, and I also know that you've read a lot of books, but the books you've read are useless in this case."
"Then how did you solve the case?"
"Me?"
Chu Nanzhi glanced at him and sneered. "Because I'm smart enough."
"Ridiculous."
Lin Jinxiao turned his face away disdainfully.
For some reason, Chu Nanzhi was moved when she caught sight of his exquisite and well-defined profile. She was almost unable to move away.
"D*mn it. He's really handsome and attractive."
Chu Nanzhi sighed softly.
Seeing that he was about to turn away, she immediately shouted, "Don't move."
"Why?"
"Just stay in that position. I'll tell you what happened as long as you don't look at me."
"Absurd."
Lin Jinxiao felt that this woman was unreasonable.
However, he wanted to understand the case, so he did not move.
When Chu Nanzhi saw that he complied and stayed still, she inwardly snickered and earnestly explained the theory to him.
"The matter is actually very simple. You know that Priest Ximen knows alchemy, right?"
"Yeah."
"I think that on that day, he must have secretly poured mercury or cinnabar into the leather box containing the gold while you were distracted. It is now summer and the weather is hot. While you were traveling, the leather box was exposed to high heat. Under such high temperatures, the mercury would constantly evaporate. In the end, the gold became bleached, and that's what you saw."
"How do you know all this?"
Lin Jinxiao was at a loss and could not understand at all. Finally, he could not help but turn around and look at her sinisterly. "Did that Taoist priest teach you all this?"
"None of your business."
Chu Nanzhi felt even angrier when he mentioned the Taoist priest again, She said loudly, "I've already bandaged your wound. Get lost."
She handed the walking stick back to Lin Jinxiao, not wanting to pursue why he had come here.
Lin Jinxiao frowned and took back his walking stick. He glared at her helplessly and turned away resentfully.
When Chu Nanzhi saw that he had returned to his room, she locked the door again and briefly tidied up the room. She lay on the bed, feeling depressed.
D*mn it, it seemed that he was still suspicious.
However, she had already clearly made her point. She could not control other people's thoughts.
She went to sleep quietly. When she woke up the next day, she changed her clothes and re-bandaged the wound on her forehead. She went to the kitchen to make some porridge and got out some pickled vegetables that Liu Yun had brought over a while ago.
She, Lin Jinxiao, and the four children finished their breakfast as if nothing had happened last night. Then, she took some silver and went to the street to buy groceries.
The medicine at home was almost used up. The wound on her forehead was healing after she had applied medicine to it a few times, but Lin Jinxiao's injury probably still needed to be treated with a lot of medicine.
She remembered that not only had his leg been slashed, his chest had also been injured by a kick.
It was just that Lin Jinxiao was a person who tolerated everything without complain. No matter how painful it was, he would just endure it.
She had checked the injury on her leg last night. It was actually quite serious, but she was not sure about his internal injuries.
The medical standards here were ridiculously poor. She had to find some good treatment methods and medicinal herbs.
But her money was limited. She really could not afford good medicine for now.
For now, he could only slowly recuperate.
Chu Nanzhi went to the pharmacy first. A few days ago, Li Ce had invited the manager of the pharmacy to check on Lin Jinxiao's condition at home. He still remembered her and gave her some medicine for internal and external injuries. He also told her that when this medicine was used up, he would visit her home to check on Lin Jinxiao's recovery.
After picking up the medicine, Chu Nanzhi went to the market and bought thirty catties of flour and noodles, ten catties of sesame oil for stir-frying vegetables, and five catties of pork, as well as some fresh vegetables and various seasonings.
When she passed by a grocery store, she bought a few horse-hair toothbrushes and tooth powder.
She slowly walked home carrying a heavy bamboo basket on her back. Just as she reached the entrance of the village, she saw Li Ce walking up to her, sweating profusely.
"Third Master Li?"
Chu Nanzhi looked at him in confusion.
Li Ce was the third son in his family, and everyone usually called him that.
Li Ce hurriedly took the basket from her back. "Sister-in-law, let me help you. Go back quickly. Brother Jinxiao's family came to ask for money. I couldn't handle it, and Brother Jinxiao can't move around very well, so I came out to look for you."
"Money?"
Chu Nanzhi's eyes shifted and she frowned. "What money?"
Li Ce glanced at her meaningfully and maintained a deliberate silence as he grabbed her basket, signaling her to hurry up.
After Chu Nanzhi thought about it, realization dawned.
No matter how sharp Madam Chen's family was, they could not have found out about the fifteen taels of silver that Liu Yun had left behind yesterday. They must have heard that the county magistrate had rewarded her with forty taels of silver and one tael of gold.
That was a huge sum of money.
It was also all she had.
Chu Nanzhi immediately sensed that something was wrong. She abandoned Li Ce and ran home. When she reached the wooden fence, she heard the four children arguing loudly with someone.
"Our family doesn't owe you money. What right do you have to come to our house to ask for money?"
"You sold Father to Granny for five hundred taels of silver and you haven't even returned that to us. Why should we give you money? How shameless!"