Only after processing all of this did Nan Yu finally calm down completely.
However, the resentment from his past life lingered. Since he could no longer beat Li Guihua, Nan Yu turned his gaze toward Li Hai, who had stood up and was hiding in the crowd.
"Li Hai! Get your ass over here!" Nan Yu roared.
Li Hai had just been beaten by Nan Yu, so he knew better than to provoke him now. But it was clear that Nan Yu was targeting him. Li Hai wasn't stupid—why would he walk right into Nan Yu's reach? He was fat and sturdy, yes, but he was only twelve years old. He was seven years younger than Nan Yu and much shorter. How could a child possibly handle Nan Yu?
He turned and bolted with remarkable agility. But Li Hai was full of flab, and Li Guihua had never let him do a lick of work, so how could he possibly outrun Nan Yu? After only two steps, Nan Yu caught up and landed a heavy kick on his back. Li Hai sprawled forward, his face scraping across the dirt for a long distance.
By the time the dazed Li Hai sat up, blood was already streaming down his face, and within seconds, it was completely covered in red. He touched his face in a stupor, and seeing his hands drenched in blood, he let out a wail and began to sob uncontrollably.
Nan Yu found the blood all over Li Hai’s face disgusting, but he had no intention of letting him off. He began to kick Li Hai in the stomach.
"My son! Nan Yu, you little beast, I’ll fight you to the death!"
Seeing the state of her son, Li Guihua stopped pretending to be dead on the ground. She jumped up and charged at Nan Yu. In truth, Li Guihua hadn't really been hurt, but she had experience—she knew that when a man was in a rage, pretending to be on the verge of death was the best way to escape further punishment. She had learned this trick from her late ex-husband, a drunkard who would beat her whenever he came home intoxicated. That was exactly how she knew how to handle a furious Nan Yu. If it hadn't been for that drunkard stumbling into a ditch and freezing to death one winter night, she never would have ended up shacking up with Nan Dashu.
But now that Nan Yu was on the verge of kicking her son to death, Li Guihua couldn't keep up the act. She charged at Nan Yu like a madwoman.
Nan Yu had turned around the moment he heard her yell. He saw her rushing toward him. He had truly been fooled by Li Guihua earlier, believing he had nearly beaten her to death. Now that he knew she was faking it, his old and new grudges boiled over. As she rushed in, he landed a clean left hook, knocking her unconscious with a single blow. She collapsed heavily to the ground.
Nan Yu had practiced boxing for many years. He had started training after leaving the village, back when he had returned only to find that he couldn't even locate the grave of his younger sister. At first, he boxed just to vent his inner turmoil, but he kept at it until his body finally gave out and he could no longer train. Now that he was back in his younger body, his muscle memory remained. If not for the fact that this body was malnourished compared to his own in his past life, Nan Yu could have nearly knocked Li Guihua senseless with that punch. Knocking her out was nothing.
Between the emotional exhaustion and the force of Nan Yu's blow, Li Guihua had succumbed to a spectacular faint. The villagers watching the commotion saw her hit the ground and stop moving, and they assumed Nan Yu had actually killed her. A wave of alarm swept through the crowd.
Even Nan Yu was stunned; he hadn't expected to "kill" her with one punch.
An elderly man tremblingly reached out to check Li Guihua’s nose. After a moment, he let out a long breath and said, "She’s not dead! She just fainted."
Hearing this, everyone relaxed. Everyone in the village knew what kind of person Li Guihua was; few people liked her. If Nan Yu had actually killed her, they all would have felt it was a waste of a life like his.
"Someone call the barefoot doctor to take a look, just in case," a kind-hearted woman suggested.
Nan Yu looked coldly at the body on the ground and said, "If she’s dead, she’s dead. She has nothing to do with our family anyway."
With that, he turned away, ignoring Li Guihua entirely, and walked toward Nan Dashu, who was still unable to move on the ground.
Nan Dashu was in so much pain that even speaking was a struggle. Seeing Nan Yu approach, he gasped weakly, "Take me to the hospital."
Nan Yu gave a cold laugh. He pointed to the wound on his own forehead and said, "My head is in this state because you hit me, yet you said it was fine to just let a barefoot doctor look at it. You only pulled a muscle—calling the barefoot doctor over to take a look will be plenty. If you, as a father, don't care about your son, then I, as a son, have no need to care about you as a father. Don't blame me for the 'fifteenth' if you started it on the 'first'."
Without waiting for Nan Dashu's reaction, he said to the onlookers, "Could you please lend a hand and help me carry my father into the house?"
The crowd had certainly gotten their fill of drama. At Nan Yu's request, several people stepped forward to help him carry Nan Dashu into his room. Some kind villagers ran off to fetch the barefoot doctor, so Nan Yu didn't have to bother.
As for the still-unconscious Li Guihua, Nan Yu ignored her completely, and he certainly wasn't going to worry about her son, who was still covered in blood. Because of the incident with Li Guihua and Nan Dashu, Nan Yu temporarily set aside the topic of cutting ties with the family. There was no rush; he could handle that once they were both recovered. Right now, what he wanted most was to figure out if he had truly been reborn or if he was simply dreaming.
When the villagers left, they kept urging Nan Yu not to be too hard on his father and to go to the hospital if necessary. Nan Yu just nodded, but he didn't take any of it to heart. This fight had changed everyone’s perception of him; they no longer saw him as someone who could be easily bullied. After seeing him fight like a madman, they all had to think twice.
Once the courtyard was quiet, Nan Yu looked at his younger brother and sister. He said gently, "Go put your baskets down and see if there’s anything left to eat in the kitchen. Let’s get full first."
The two of them were truly pitiful. Ever since Li Guihua entered the house, they had never been allowed to eat their fill, let alone anything decent.
His sister, Nan Chan, said timidly, "Mother won't let us into the kitchen."
Hearing this, Nan Yu’s expression darkened. He said solemnly to them, "She is not our mother. From today on, you are forbidden from calling her that. Do you understand?"
Nan Chan was timid and frightened by her brother's look; she shrank her neck and lowered her head, not daring to speak.
Nan Xing, however, looked at Nan Yu with bright eyes. "Big brother, what should we call her from now on, then?"