"How did she fall? Who is so heartless to throw things in someone’s eyes!" the Ruanlin family’s matriarch fumed, carrying Jiaojiao to the wellside, "Doctor Lu, please come and have a look."
Doctor Lu from the village clinic had also been invited over for a drink today.
Being fully aware of the Ruan family’s concern for Jiaojiao, Doctor Lu did not dare delay; he first had someone fetch clean water and washed his hands, then proceeded to administer first aid to Jiaojiao.
Two minutes later, he had cleared the foreign objects from both her eyes.
"Open your mouth and let me see," he said gently, his tone soothing.
Jiaojiao, thinking about her lost front tooth, didn’t want to open her mouth anymore, and let out a whimpering sob, tightly covering her mouth.
"Be good and open your mouth, let Doctor Lu take a look," coaxed the matriarch of the Ruanlin family.
Feeling aggrieved, Jiaojiao glanced at her before finally opening her little mouth.
Her front tooth had broken in the middle; the root was still there. Doctor Lu prodded at the base with his hand, felt it was also loose, and said, "This will probably fall out in a couple of days too." Thinking that the little girl must care about her appearance, he smiled reassuringly, "It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s the right age for shedding teeth, and they will grow back soon."
But that still meant she would be toothless for a while.
Upon this realization, Jiaojiao couldn’t help feeling even more aggrieved. She pursed her small mouth, stubbornly refused to open it again, and listlessly slumped into the Ruanlin matriarch’s embrace, motionless.
During these few minutes, Liu Mei was already cursing up a storm outside.
After learning the whole story from Xiu Xun, the Ruanlin matriarch was so furious that her mind was in a fog. Before she had a chance to settle accounts with them, they had come to her doorstep, prompting her to place Jiaojiao into Jianguo’s arms and walked out with a serious face.
As she reached the doorway, Liu Mei was pulling her own Xiu Cheng toward the Ruan family’s home, shouting about demanding compensation for medical expenses.
Ruan Jie and Ruan Chi stood at the entrance, blocking her path and preventing her from entering, infuriating her to stand at the door with hands on hips, yelling insults inside, crude and foul.
The men in the courtyard, hearing those unbearable insults, consensually averted their gazes and continued their previous conversation as if they had heard nothing.
"Mom, how is little sister doing?" Seeing the Ruanlin matriarch come out, Ruan Chi and Ruan Jie asked in unison.
The Ruanlin matriarch glared at them fiercely, "With so many people around, you still couldn’t protect your sister. We’ll settle this later."
After finishing her words, she turned her head to glare at Liu Mei, "Xiu family’s woman, try repeating what you just cursed at us again, I dare you!"
Liu Mei, inherently a bully against the weak but a coward before the strong, had been on a roll with her insults until she saw the Ruanlin matriarch; she immediately shrank like a quail, involuntarily lowering her neck.
But then seeing her son’s miserable state, she quickly straightened her back, self-righteously saying, "Let’s not talk about other things, matriarch Ruan, but today’s incident is still your family’s fault, isn’t it? Look at how your boys have beaten up my son! What, just because you have more boys, does that give you the right to bully others?"
The Ruanlin matriarch glanced at Xiu Cheng’s bruised face. In such boyish scuffles, adults usually maintain a tacit agreement not to intervene, regardless of who is at a disadvantage.
But Liu Mei clearly lacked this awareness, and she thought her son had been wronged, yet she believed her own Little Jiaojiao had suffered much more!
She scoffed, "Who’s bullying whom is still up for debate!"
"You should ask your Xiu Cheng why he tried to snatch Jiaojiao’s candy to eat? And flinging mud, is that the behavior of a civilized person?"
"What? Snatching candy to eat? Matriarch Ruan, you mustn’t wrong people," Liu Mei rolled her eyes, feigning ignorance.