I used rebirth to bury his captivating gaze.

Chapter 8 Opening the Eight Trigrams

After borrowing money from her mother at the Yang family compound, Yang Chunyue stayed at home to take care of her injured son, Li Feng.

That day, the old lady personally promised her that if she didn't come, someone else would come to deliver the thirty yuan she had borrowed to Li Feng so he could see a doctor at the hospital.

She waited until the tenth day, looking out the window every day, but no one came to her front door.

She was a woman who had lived half her life. Although she had never seen much of the world, she was clear-headed and understood the truth that poverty in the city goes unnoticed, while wealth in the mountains attracts distant relatives.

She didn't blame the Yang family. The two families lived in the same village and worked in the same production team to earn work points and get food. But her husband was idle all day, indulging in drinking, gambling, and whoring, and was never home.

Her family opposed the marriage back then, but she chose him instead. Now that he's poor, they look down on her, and she even had to swallow her pride and borrow money. She deserves to be shunned by them!

Li Feng is the youngest in his family. He has six or seven siblings, all of whom are married and live independently. His daughter, who married into another village, can only visit her parents' home a few times a year.

Li Feng inherited some of his father's personality traits; he finally managed to get married through a persistent, albeit slow, approach. His wife was a somewhat eccentric, headstrong girl from a neighboring village, introduced by Zou Laqian, a matchmaker from their own village.

In those days, everyone was poor, but no one was as poor as the Li family, who lived on a heated kang bed without a mat woven from sorghum stalks.

In the east and west rooms of Li Feng's three thatched houses, the kang (heated brick bed) was bare, dry mud, covered with tattered sheets of various colors used as mats.

What normal girl would marry into such a poor family? Don't blame the matchmaker. Zou Laqian deliberately concealed the fact that her aunt's silly daughter from another village married Li Feng.

Marrying a mentally challenged wife wouldn't be so bad; it wouldn't cost much money. The following year, the mentally challenged wife even gave birth to twin boys for the Li family.

Yang Chunyue's husband's family, the Li family, was extremely poor, while her maternal family, the Yang family, were among the better-off villagers in the village. They had more laborers, earned more work points in the production team, and received more grain rations after the autumn harvest.

Yang Hong inherited his family's carpentry skills, and his second son, Yang Zhannan, inherited those skills to earn more money.

Yang Chunyue looked out the window, wondering if any of her family members would appear.

"Mom, stop looking out the window. Are you thinking about Grandma's family coming to give you money? My injury is much better now. I don't need to borrow money to go to the hospital to see a doctor. It's just a small injury. Dr. Hu applied medicine to it and gave me anti-inflammatory injections for more than ten days, which worked quite well."

After Li Feng finished speaking, he immediately threw off the patched cotton quilt covering his body, sat up abruptly, and then turned around to get out of bed to put on his shoes.

"What are you trying to do? Lie down right now. Will an IV drip of anti-inflammatory drugs help? That's just maintaining the condition. I'll go to the Yang family to borrow money to take you to the hospital to get your injuries checked."

"Mom, the injury is on my body, how do you know if it's healed or not? It's no use borrowing money again, and I'm not going to go to the hospital and embarrass myself."

After speaking, Li Feng got off the kang (a heated brick bed) and put on black, handmade, velvety cotton shoes. He then put on the dark green general's uniform jacket hanging on the earthen wall, pushed open the west room door, and went out.

"Li Feng, come back quickly. Don't let your wound get infected, or you'll be done for, and your life will be over."

She cried and followed closely behind, but Li Feng left her far behind!

Li Feng hadn't left the fields or gone out for more than ten days, which had really frustrated his lazy and impatient nature. Getting some fresh air was so refreshing, and it lifted his spirits.

He wandered around aimlessly, and just as he reached the gate of Zhang Cuihua's house in the east courtyard of Widow Li in the west of the village, he heard two women gossiping.

"Yang Yuqiu from the Yang Family Compound, she and her cousin Li Feng went to harvest corn in the west of the village, and the two of them caused some gossip, haha!"

"What's wrong with harvesting corn? Stop being so mysterious and tell me quickly. Don't you know I, Zhang Cuihua, am an impatient person? Just tell me already, it's almost lunchtime. My son will be home for lunch soon after class."

"Why are you in such a hurry? I'm just saying, Yang Yuqiu was harvesting corn. She didn't get home until late at night, and she was soaked to the bone by a torrential downpour. Someone put a big sack over her head, and in the end, Yang Yuhan, another girl, and a boy had to pull her home on bicycles."

"Ah! Wu Sanbao, are you telling the truth? Who put her in a sack? And why is she on a bicycle? Why didn't she come back in the white horse-drawn cart driven by the old ox?"

“Oh right, now that you mention it, I just remembered that that morning, Old Niu ran off to the cornfield west of the village in a panic. Wang Keba, who used to herd sheep, came running from the west to call him.”

"The more I talk about it, the angrier I get. That morning, I went out to collect firewood and had a few words with Old Niu. In the end, we even started cursing at each other. I almost scratched him, but I held back so as not to delay making lunch for my son before he went to school!"

"That slut surnamed Zhang really knows how to brag. He scratched the old ox; it's more like the old ox is going to hit her." Widow Li, a neighbor in the west courtyard, overheard the two gossiping while squatting by her outhouse at her front door.

"That kid Li Feng was knocked unconscious that day and then he was beaten up and covered in injuries. Most importantly, he was stripped naked and tied to that old elm tree trunk at the edge of that cornfield with a rope. Isn't that ridiculous? And there's something even more ridiculous. Haha!"

After finishing her business, Widow Li pulled up her floral cotton trousers and stood up. Suddenly, she noticed Li Feng standing behind an old elm tree next to Zhang Cuihua's gate through the earthen wall of the outhouse. Li Feng's face kept changing color, sometimes red, sometimes green, and sometimes white.

She hurriedly tied her cloth trousers belt and prepared to leave the outhouse when she heard Li Feng cough twice.

She thought Li Feng was hinting at her presence. Had he seen her squatting in the outhouse? That guy's old habit had kicked in again—he loves to peep at women using the toilet. No wonder he married a silly wife; what good girl would want him?

"Damn it, to be honest, I actually quite like guys like Li Feng." Thinking this, she happily went out to cater to this lecherous man.

She turned her head and saw the two gossiping women. She shrank back, deciding to wait and eavesdrop on their gossip for a while longer.

Zhang Cuihua then asked, "What's even more ridiculous? What did you mean by putting a burlap sack over your head? Tell me quickly or I'm going back to my room to cook."

"Shut up, didn't you hear someone coughing? Alright, I need to go home and make lunch for my students too."

Zhang Cuihua then added, "You really know everything. Our village isn't small, with over two hundred households. How do you know everything? Do you have super hearing?"

Wu Sanbao whispered into Zhang Cuihua's ear, "Look, someone's eavesdropping behind that old elm tree."

At this moment, Li Feng could no longer contain himself and stepped out from behind the old elm tree. "What else can you old women do besides gossip?"

The two women turned around and, seeing the situation was bad, immediately fled.

The two ran and shouted...

"Yang Yuqiu had a sack put over her head. Did she do something shameful?"

"I'll tell you another day. I'm going back to check on my husband and see which vixen has bewitched him." Wu Sanbao ran a dozen meters away, then turned back and swallowed at Widow Li.

Then the two of them fell silent!

"Brother, Brother Li..." The only answer to Widow Li was Li Feng's retreating figure!

"Those two old women of mine are such an eyesore! Ugh! What are they?" Widow Li spat towards the door of her neighbor Zhang Cuihua's house to the east, then went inside.

As Li Feng walked home, he gritted his teeth and swore, "Yang Yuhan, you wait! You dare to conspire with those two other kids to plot against me, causing me to be bitten in the groin by a black bear and making me unable to be a man anymore. I will definitely avenge this."

Wu Sanbao ran all the way to his front door at the east end of the village, panting heavily. He had originally gone to his good friend Zhang Cuihua's house at the west end of the village to wait and see what his husband and Widow Li were up to.

Unexpectedly, when she was gossiping with Zhang Cuihua about Yang Yuqiu, she was only halfway through the conversation when Li Feng, who was hiding in the shadows, overheard her and she almost got beaten up.

Disappointed, she returned to the east room and found her husband not there. She immediately panicked and went to the kitchen to cook. Suddenly, she saw her husband squatting in the toilet by the front door. She smiled with satisfaction and had more energy to cook. After washing and cleaning, she turned around and saw her husband coming out of the toilet. He didn't go back to the house but hurriedly walked towards the west of the village.

"Damn it, I have no choice but to squat outside Widow Li's house and spy on her now. I'm not cooking, eat it or don't!" She slammed the door and left!

She turned back halfway, thinking, "Forget it. Last time I fought Widow Li, I was only up to her chest, and she almost disfigured my face."

If she were to start another fight, she would completely ruin his reputation, and his husband would take him even less seriously, running to Widow Li's house even more often.

She gritted her teeth and accepted her fate. Who told her to be so ugly? She wasn't even as good-looking as Widow Li, who was just a little girl with a toe. No wonder her husband didn't like her. Thinking of this, she stopped being angry and even smiled!

Everyone has their share of embarrassing secrets, they just don't talk about them. If I hadn't been passing by the Yang family compound and eavesdropping over the wall, who would have known about the Yang family girl Yuqiu's scandalous affair? "Haha!"

She smiled from the bottom of her heart and started cooking, so the children could come home for lunch after their afternoon classes.

Li Feng had been recuperating at home for many days without leaving the house. He had planned to go out for some fresh air so that he wouldn't stay in bed all the time and upset his mother.

After listening to two old women gossip at the west end of the village, I lost interest and hurried home feeling a bit resentful. As I walked to my front door and took my first step, I suddenly felt as if I had stepped on something.