Mi Lan looked coldly at the cackling crowd, pulling Xiaoyan behind him.
"Ah-Fei, what is the meaning of this?" asked a young man in a moon-white robe. With a handsome face and a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth, he looked at Mi Lan with disdain.
That was Zhao Feng, the son of the Town Lord of Ping'an Town under Donghai City. Like City Lords and Commandery Governors, town lords were not from aristocratic families, but were grassroots regional administrators dispatched by the empire, holding the highest authority in a town and representing the will of the empire.
"Zhao Feng, Wu Kai, and Xiao Guoding, with your status, how could you stoop to forcibly seizing a commoner girl in broad daylight?" Mi Lan said with a cold face.
Xiao Guoding, the fifth young master of the Xiao Family in Yijia Town, was unlike his brothers and sisters. He was idle and incompetent, often hanging around Donghai City eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling with Luo Zhongyu and the others.
"None of your fucking business! Today, either Xiaoyan stays and you get lost, or you both stay, and we'll settle the score from yesterday all at once!" Luo Zhongyu's angry voice rang out. Being humiliated by Mi Lan at Xilai Teahouse yesterday had infuriated him all night. He hadn't expected an opportunity to present itself after just one day. Counting their respective retinues, his side had twelve people. Eight guards could tie down the other side's four people, and as for Ah-Fei left behind, he was merely at the Eighth Layer of Body Refining—wouldn't he be easy to beat up?
Luo Zhongyu stepped forward and said to the three young masters beside him, "I have a grudge with this little fertilizer ball. Can you guys lend me your men for a bit?"
All three nodded in unison.
Sensing danger, Chunyue said to Mi Lan, "Young Master, run! We will hold them off for you."
Before Mi Lan could reply, Luo Zhongyu led eight burly men and charged straight at Mi Lan.
Mi Lan hurriedly pulled Xiaoyan along and turned to run toward the stables of Jubao Pavilion. Once they mounted "Chufeng," these people would no longer be able to catch up to them.
Chunyue and Qiuhua blocked two of the opponents, while Zhang Ya and Wuzha each blocked another two. The remaining Luo Zhongyu and two henchmen chased after Mi Lan.
The plump Mi Lan pulled Xiaoyan and had not run far before Luo Zhongyu almost caught up to him from behind.
Luo Zhongyu wore a savage grin, just about to hurl a harsh threat and rush forward to beat him up, when a red spherical object suddenly flew from the side and struck Luo Zhongyu precisely on the head.
Luo Zhongyu felt a sharp pain on his head. He looked down and saw a half-eaten apple. Enraged all over again, he turned his head, only to catch sight of the retreating back of a small boy running away.
The two lackeys bypassed Luo Zhongyu and continued charging toward Mi Lan.
"Bang." A row of bamboo poles originally propped against the wall toppled directly in front of the two lackeys, giving them quite a start.
Just as they wanted to look for the person who pushed the bamboo poles, a gust of wind whistled past the back of their heads. Reaching out to grab it, they caught an egg instead. Looking closer, they saw it had been thrown by a middle-aged man selling free-range eggs nearby, who was still maintaining his egg-throwing posture.
That infuriated the lackeys! Since when did these lowly commoners dare to actively provoke them?
Just as they were about to flash a ferocious smile and teach these rabble a lesson first, another gust of wind struck. The lackey on the left threw a punch, and with a loud "clatter," a large black iron wok was smashed to pieces by a single blow.
It turned out that Mi Lan had improvised in a crisis and hurled an iron wok. After doing so, he made a funny face at the three of them and once again dragged Xiaoyan away as he fled.
With Mi Lan on the run, the three men behind no longer paid attention to the surrounding townsfolk and continued chasing after him.
After running for over a hundred meters, seeing the three men closing in fast, Xiaoyan stopped and cried, "Young Master, I'm sorry. Xiaoyan has implicated you. You're a good person—the best of good people. You go on first, Xiaoyan will go with them."
"No way, you run first. It's fine if they catch me, the most they'll do is give me a beating, but something bad will happen to you, and you still have to look after your grandfather." Mi Lan's plump face trembled as he anxiously pushed Xiaoyan forward.
Just then, they reached a fork in the road. Mi Lan forcefully pushed Xiaoyan into the right-hand alley and shouted, "Run!"
Xiaoyan bit her lip, her eyes brimming with tears. Wanting to say something, she ultimately said nothing more and bolted down the right-hand street.
Luo Zhongyu, having caught up, executed a Cloud Rolling Hand, lunging at Mi Lan's right shoulder, intending to use his late stage of Minor Accomplishment cultivation to ruthlessly cripple Mi Lan's right arm.
Mi Lan channeled all the strength in his body into his arms, crossing his hands above his head. "Bang!" A flash of earthy-yellow light appeared and vanished instantly—that was the innate divine ability of the Fertilizer Body, the Fertilizer Shield. Luo Zhongyu was sent stumbling back a dozen paces, while Mi Lan was knocked to the ground and rolled two or three full turns, feeling as though both his arms were about to dislocate.
Enduring the pain in his arms, Mi Lan scrambled to his feet and continued running toward the left-hand street.
The two lackeys strode forward, eager to charge at Mi Lan again.
Suddenly, a woman by the roadside hurled the bowl in her hand with all her might, only for a lackey to shatter it with a single palm strike. Before the lackeys could react, eggs, shoulder poles, melons, water buckets, bowls, chopsticks, vegetable leaves—everything within reach of the ordinary townspeople was hurled at them with all their strength.
Indeed, Xiaoyan was right. Mi Lan was a good person. Everyone knew Mi Lan was a good person, and the people of Donghai City knew Mi Lan was a good person. Yet they also knew they were facing a power they could not resist. They simply wanted to use every ounce of their meager strength to help Mi Lan.
How many years had the Mi Family been rooted in Donghai City? No one could say for sure. How many destitute commoners had the Mi Family's medical clinic saved? No one could say for sure. Natural disasters or famines—how many people had the Mi Family's grain saved? No one could say for sure. How many people had the Mi Family's businesses fed? That, too, no one could say for sure.
There once was a habitual thief in Donghai City who said, "I can steal anyone's things, but I will never steal Young Master Mi's. Because there's no need to steal; if you have difficulties, just talk directly to Young Master Mi, and he'll help you out on the spot. He's a good person—a rare and truly good person."
Mi Lan had only run a short distance when, hearing the commotion, he looked back and witnessed a scene he had never seen before. When he was little, Mi Lan often heard his grandfather, Mi Duoduo, say: "Good people meet with good rewards, and villains will ultimately be punished by the heavens."
Mi Lan had never believed it. After all, those corrupt officials who bent the law for bribes, those tyrannical and oppressive young scions, those local gentry and bullies who tormented villagers, and even the heinous, notorious master thieves listed on the empire's wanted posters, or the evil cultivators who refined their martial arts using a whole town's lives as a blood sacrifice—they all lived perfectly well, and no so-called heavens ever came to punish them. Conversely, do good people really get good rewards? Mi Lan had also heard that in the distant Northern Domain, there was someone who helped up a fallen elderly person, only to be told: "If you didn't cause it, why did you help?"
When Mi Lan first heard that story, he was so angry that he ate three bowls less of rice that day.
Mi Lan stared blankly at the disheveled trio. He stopped in his tracks, knowing he could no longer flee, otherwise he really would implicate these common people. Mi Lan was wealthy and powerful; he knew how easy it was for someone like him to deal with ordinary folk. A single word from him could make the breadwinners in their households lose their jobs, and breaking a commoner's legs would cost at most a few dozen silver coins, after which he would only need to toss a lackey to the authorities to easily sweep the matter under the rug. The imperial laws were strict, and the Holy Monarch had once declared that all beings are equal. Yet, after all, there were still loopholes.
Mi Lan's vision blurred, and he clenched his fists tightly—there was nowhere left to run. Then he tried to comfort himself: "So what if I get beaten up? My family's medicinal pills still work wonders!"
"Yaaah!" Clenching his fists, Mi Lan charged toward the three men.
"Heh..." Although Luo Zhongyu had been blocked from some of the debris by his two Qi Control Realm retainers, he had still been struck by a few items. Watching Mi Lan run toward them, he gestured to the two lackeys and met him with a cold sneer.
"Ah!" A heavy punch landed on Mi Lan's plump face. The pain arrived so abruptly that before Mi Lan could react, a kick landed squarely on his belly.
Half-fallen to the ground, Mi Lan watched the large boot kicking toward him grow larger in his vision, and he closed his already small eyes...
"Jingle~" A crisp sound of bells rang out, accompanied by Luo Zhongyu's howling cries as he clutched his leg.
The anticipated pain never came. Mi Lan opened his eyes.
Before him stood a figure in a pink dress, her back turned to him, the hem of her skirt fluttering in the wind as if rippling across the very strings of his heart...