"I'll marry, I'll marry, just don't hit my brother anymore! I'll marry, I'll marry!" The woman's tearful cry rang in Nan Yu's ears.
His eldest sister's voice?
Such a thought popped up in Nan Yu's muddled brain.
"Such a cheap piece of work, always needing me to use force before she agrees. I see no point in discussing anything with you lot from now on. A good beating straight off solves everything," another sharp, grating female voice scolded.
Who is this? Is that Li Guihua's voice? How many years had it been since he last heard this voice?
"Father, Father, please take Xiao Yu to the hospital! Look at all this blood on Xiao Yu's head, do you want my brother to die?"
A deep male voice rang out, "What hospital? Don't it cost money to go to the hospital? It's fine, just have the village barefoot doctor take a look at him later and that'll be enough."
Father?
Nan Yu twitched his heavy eyelids and slowly opened his eyes.
Feeling a hand pressing hard against his forehead, Nan Yu looked at the woman beside him.
At first, his vision was blurry and unclear, but once he made out the features of the woman beside him, Nan Yu froze in shock.
Could this really be his eldest sister? Hadn't his eldest sister been dead for several decades? This woman?
Wait, aren't these the features of his eldest sister when she was young? This... what is going on here?
Nan Yu looked around at the people before him and the dilapidated, old house.
When his gaze inadvertently caught the calendar on the wall, Nan Yu froze, staring blankly at the year written on it.
1978? 1978? How is it 1978?
"How can a barefoot doctor possibly do! With this much blood, he has to go to the hospital!" His eldest sister's voice, laced with tears, was so real.
"I see you're really asking for a beating, aren't you? Our family is counting on your betrothal gift money, where would we get the money to send that little beast to the hospital? I'm telling you, you'd better marry obediently, and once I get the betrothal money, I'll take him to the hospital."
Li Guihua's voice, screeching like chalk scraping across a blackboard, felt utterly grating to Nan Yu no matter when he heard it.
"No! If you don't take my brother to the hospital right now, I won't marry!"
His eldest sister's voice was unshakeably firm; even though her hands were trembling, she was still fighting for her brother's chance to see a doctor.
"I think you're rebelling against the heavens!" With that, Li Guihua reached for the old broom by the door.
Though Nan Yu's mind was still somewhat muddled, he gave a sudden, fierce lunge to his feet and yanked his eldest sister behind him in one swift motion.
Back then, his eldest sister had willingly agreed to get married all for his sake, and only three years into the marriage, she had been tormented and beaten to death by her husband.
This was something Nan Yu had never been able to forgive himself for; his sister had ultimately agreed to marry entirely for him.
Everything was for him, and everything had started because of him.
Now seeing this scene play out again, even if it were fake, even if it were a dream, Nan Yu would never let his sister get married off.
"Who are you trying to hit?" Nan Yu asked in an icy tone, his gaze locked with bone-chilling coldness on Li Guihua, who had already picked up the broom.
Catching Nan Yu's gaze, Li Guihua felt a sudden, inexplicable jolt in her chest.
This little brat had always been timid and cowering; why was his gaze so terrifying right now?
Yet Li Guihua only paused for a fraction of a second, refusing to believe Nan Yu could actually stand up for himself, and let out two arrogant, mocking laughs.
"Hahaha... Who do you think I'm hitting? If you little beast dare to try and stop me, I'll beat you right along with her!"
With that, she marched aggressively toward Nan Yu.
Nan Yu narrowed his eyes. The moment Li Guihua reached him and raised the broom, Nan Yu decisively lashed out with a kick, landing a heavy blow straight to Li Guihua's stomach.
Never expecting Nan Yu to actually dare raise a hand against her, Li Guihua stumbled back three or four steps in a daze, her foot caught by the door threshold, and she tumbled headlong into the courtyard.
Yet instead of caring how much her backside hurt from hitting the ground, Li Guihua immediately clutched the stomach where Nan Yu had kicked her, her face twisting in agony.
"Ow, ow, you're going to be the death of me! You little beast, how dare you kick me! Old Nan! Are you a corpse? Can't you see your son kicking your wife? Ow... it hurts so much!"
Hearing Li Guihua's cries, Nan Dad finally snapped out of his daze and hurried into the courtyard to help her up.
This sudden change in Nan Yu was truly something Nan Dad had never anticipated.
"How is it? How are you? Are you alright?" Nan Dad asked anxiously, the look of tension and distress on his face entirely genuine.
Standing inside the house, Nan Yu watched the two figures at the door, his heart turning ice-cold.
His own biological son had his head bashed open, yet Nan Dad felt not an ounce of urgency, didn't even step forward to check on his own flesh and blood, and refused to take his biological son to the hospital—yet he felt such deep distress for a woman he was simply shacking up with.
Not only that, but he hung on every word this woman said, willing to sell his own biological daughter to rake in betrothal money.
Is this something a normal person, a normal father, could ever do?
Treating the son and daughter brought by this woman Li Guihua better than his own flesh and blood—was this something a human being would do?
Right at that moment, a mechanical voice rang out in Nan Yu's head: "New World System has been bound..."
Nan Yu had no time to pay attention to what the voice said next, because he saw his father pick up the broom Li Guihua had tossed aside and charge straight at him.
Nan Yu now remembered what kind of situation he was in.
This was when he was nineteen years old, when Li Guihua and his biological father had conspired to sell his sister.
When Nan Yu disagreed and argued a few words with his father, his father had smashed Nan Yu's head open.
Because of this injury on his head, the younger Nan Yu had run a high fever for three days, and ever since then, a prominent scar had remained on his forehead.
Now watching his father rush toward him with a broom, Nan Yu roared out every bit of hatred he had harbored for his father in his previous life.
"Nan Dashu! Am I still your biological son? Just you dare try hitting me!"
Nan Yu's roar was immensely loud, carrying an extraordinary aura that stopped Nan Dashu dead in his tracks, freezing the broom he had raised to strike.
Even the neighbors living next door heard Nan Yu's roar.
"Well now? Looks like they've finally pushed an honest man too far! Even that quiet boy Xiao Yu dares to roar at his old man like that."
Standing in their courtyard, the neighbor puffed on a long-stemmed pipe while looking over toward Nan Yu's home, waiting to watch the spectacle.
Seeing Nan Dashu stop, Nan Yu pressed on: "I'll ask you this one question today: do you want this woman, or do you want your biological children?"