Chapter 138: How Dare You Flirt with a Savage Man Here?!

"Mister Li, where are you?"
"Mister Li, are you alright..."
Shortly after.
The exceptionally anxious shouts of Ma Huan, Zhu Zi, and the others rang out from right above.
Meanwhile, the pain throbbing in Li Yuanjing's lips quickly shocked him back to full sobriety.
"Spit."
He hurriedly spat out a mouthful, only to find his mouth full of blood...
This woman—he had risked his life to save her, yet she could be so heartless...
Unable to hold it in, he let out a low curse:
"I risked my life to save you, and this is how you treat me?"
Even in such a perilous environment, Madam Xue blushed as intensely as an untouched maiden, her pretty face completely crimson. She also spat out a mouthful of blood and bit her silver teeth, whispering indignantly:
"I—I thank you for saving me, but how could you, how could you humiliate me like this?!"
"..."
Li Yuanjing figured out where things had gone wrong in a split second...
This era was not like modern times.
A woman like Madam Xue, who clearly had extensive classical education, held an absolute obsession with chastity and societal constraints, no matter how unhappy her marriage was.
"Sigh, you really are a bore, Madam. We're about to die, and you wouldn't even let me have a little advantage."
Knowing how unyielding Madam Xue was, Li Yuanjing dared not tease her further and spoke in a low voice:
"Hold on tight to me. I'll see if we can climb up."
Looking at Li Yuanjing's lips, which were still oozing blood, Madam Xue felt a wave of uncontrollable guilt. She let out a soft sigh, wrapped her arms tightly around Li Yuanjing, and closed her eyes.
"Master Ma! Zhu Zi! I'm here, I've got a firm grip now, pull me up!"
Acting like a professional rock climber, Li Yuanjing held Madam Xue tightly with one arm while forcefully pushing against the cliff face with both legs, shouting up to the top.
"Mister Li is fine! That's wonderful! Hurry, pull Mister Li up!"
The people above were overjoyed and hurriedly exerted their strength together.
Even with Madam Xue in his arms, her weight—including her fur coat, trousers, and undergarments—was only around a hundred catties, which posed no real difficulty for Li Yuanjing at his current physical capacity.
Very soon.
The two of them were hauled to the edge of the roadbed.
Yet, at the very instant before they reached the top, Li Yuanjing suddenly gave Madam Xue's delicate buttocks a firm pinch, leaning close to her ear to whisper:
"Now, we're even..."
"You..."
The pretty face of Madam Xue, which had only just begun to calm down, instantly turned fiery red again. She wished she could strangle Li Yuanjing on the spot, and hissed in a low voice:
"Shameless!"
"Hehe, how did you know my nickname?"
Li Yuanjing shot Madam Xue a wicked, smiling glance.
"You..."
Even with Madam Xue's refined upbringing, she couldn't help rolling her eyes in exasperation. She had truly never seen anyone so utterly brazen...
Who would have thought...
That the renowned Li Yuanjing, whose name was known and feared throughout all Fengcheng County, would actually act like this...
Before Madam Xue could hurl any more curses at him, the two of them finally clambered up onto the normal roadway.
Ma Huan, Zhu Zi, and the others, who had been waiting anxiously for a long time, rushed forward to pull them both up.
Li Yuanjing spat out another mouthful of blood ("Ptui"), threw all caution to the wind, and lay flat on his back on the icy, frozen ground, panting heavily.
After all,
given the sheer intensity of what had just transpired, even with Li Yuanjing's robust physical constitution, it had been quite a grueling ordeal.
Over on the other side,
Madam Xue, who had still been intending to scold Li Yuanjing, saw him lying there utterly devoid of any pretense or dignity, and a complex mixture of emotions flashed through her beautiful eyes.
If not to save her, would Li Yuanjing ever have been driven to such a wretched state?
Especially his lips...
At this thought, Madam Xue gave a slight start and instinctively covered her delicate mouth with her hand.
That was when she remembered—her own lips were undoubtedly stained with Li Yuanjing's blood.
"Mistress, Mistress! Little Seven ran off just now; he... he seemed to see the blood on your lips..."
At this moment,
Madam Xue's young maid hurried up to her side and whispered in a low voice.
Clearly,
although young, having spent a long time in the Xue household estate, she was quite a sharp little creature.
"What?"
Madam Xue was jolted into sudden alertness.
Had someone already seen it...
However, Madam Xue quickly composed herself.
The very reason she was leaving the Xue household now was because she wished to seek a "divorce" from Benevolent Master Xue. Even if he knew now, so what?
Li Yuanjing had also been helped to his feet by this time. Seeing the thirty-odd burly men still holding onto the carriage, he quickly waved his hand and ordered:
"Stop pulling, let it drop."
"Yes, sir!"
The men hastily released their grip.
"Boom!"
A split second later,
the carriage, packed completely full of books, crashed heavily to the ground at the bottom of the deep ravine.
"My books!"
"My books! Li Yuanjing, you'll pay for my books! I'm going to fight you to the death, wah..."
Just as Li Yuanjing was trying to catch his breath and urge everyone to hurry past this dangerous section of the road, Madam Xue shrieked at the top of her lungs like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her voice filled with absolute anguish.
As she wailed, she actually lunged toward Li Yuanjing, and her pretty young maid had a hard time holding her back.
"What the hell..."
For a moment, Li Yuanjing was genuinely dumbfounded. Could books possibly be more important than a human life?
Beside him,
Ma Huan, who was adept at reading the room, hurriedly stepped forward and whispered in explanation:
"Sir, I've heard that Madam Xue has been obsessed with books since childhood and has collected many rare editions. Now that this has happened..."
Li Yuanjing came to his senses. Ah, so she was a literary maiden.
He hurriedly walked over to the edge of the road, looked down, and said coldly:
"What are you howling about? The bottom of this cliff is dry, and the river has been dried up for ages. I'll just send some men down to fetch your books back up. Is there any need to fight me to the death over it?"
"Eh?"
Madam Xue paused, then hastily rushed to the edge of the road to look down. Her expression instantly shifted to one of great joy, followed quickly by tears of relief as she and her maid hugged each other and wept bitterly.
Seeing this, Li Yuanjing was left somewhat speechless. He directly instructed Ma Huan to send men down to help Madam Xue retrieve her books, and told Zhu Zi and the others to shovel up some dirt to patch up the road surface first.
After all,
this road was a lifeline for Li Yuanjing as well; he could hardly afford to leave it abandoned.
Before long,
the road had been patched up sufficiently, and Madam Xue's books had all been hauled back up.
However, having fallen from such a great height, many of the books had suffered varying degrees of damage, which made Madam Xue's heart ache as if she were bleeding. She squatted on the ground, sobbing softly.
Seeing this scene, a wave of unspeakable complexity stirred in Li Yuanjing's eyes.
It felt as though time and space had warped, taking him right back to his high school days and his adorable, bespectacled desk-mate...
"Li Yuanjing!"
"You bastard! You thousand-times-damned beast! Are you even worthy of being a disciple of the Ming Cult? How dare you openly flirt with my wife!! I'm going to fight you to the death today, wah!!!"
Just as Li Yuanjing was wondering how to act cool and comfort Madam Xue,
not far away,
Benevolent Master Xue suddenly arrived with twenty or thirty men, looking murderous. Before he even reached them, he began hurling venomous abuses straight at Li Yuanjing.
The surrounding crowd was instantly stunned, all of them staring wide-eyed.
"Qiu Zhiyu!"
"You slut! You stinking whore, a rotten commodity ridden by ten thousand men!"
"To hell with my wholehearted devotion to you, yet you damned well come out here to dally with a wild man! And with Li Yuanjing, of all people—that low-class punk!"
"I'm going to beat you to death right now and drown you in a pig cage!!!"
As if cursing Li Yuanjing wasn't enough to vent his fury, Benevolent Master Xue turned his wrath entirely onto Madam Xue, spewing insults that were even harsher, uglier, and more brutal.
"I didn't!"
"Xue Mang, stop spouting such vile slander!!!"
Madam Xue never imagined that Benevolent Master Xue would launch such an attack on her. Her pretty face turned deathly pale with anger and her whole body trembled, yet she was too dignified to hurl any equally vulgar retorts back.
Seeing Benevolent Master Xue lunging forward with the intent to rush straight at Madam Xue,
"Whoosh!"
At that exact moment,
a sharp, standard-issue military saber flashed out of its scabbard with absolute precision, laying itself horizontally right across Benevolent Master Xue's path.
Fingering the hilt of the blade, Li Yuanjing looked at Benevolent Master Xue with a sneer and said:
"Brother Xue, your words are rather ungracious. I had good intentions and risked my life to rescue your wife from the cliff! And yet you slander me like this?!"
"Or could it be—"
"That my doing this good deed has somehow ruined some grand scheme of yours, Brother Xue?!"