[[ A/N
This chapter is a little bit long and half of it still focuses mostly on the relationship between Ge'er and Dafu (and their family drama)
But the later part is all about Fool Yi's childhood.
Please, bare with me through those boring moments!
The upcoming chapters are going to be more interesting, I promise!!
>.< ]]
Chapter three:
Even though it was only over half a month later when the two of them met for the second time...
Everything happened on a day when Li Dafu, who once again failed to see the younger ger, chosen to walk on the road heading towards Li Ge'er's village, hoping he would be able to catch a sigh of Li Ge'er's shadow.
And luckily for both of them, he arrived there at the right time...
The reason for their sudden lack of contact was quite simple. After Li Ge'er returned to the Li family he met with an old patriarch Li and his wife, who questioned him about his whereabouts during the time of his disappearance.
Li Ge'er didn't want to tell them about what happened to him at all and when the two elders saw his resistance, they grew even more angry and as a punishment prohibited him from going outside of the gates of their house.
Li Ge'er felt heartbroken, but he was even more afraid of what his parents would do if they knew that he was staying in Li Dafu's house.
And his worries weren't completely unnecessary...
A couple of days later when wife Li was visiting her friend to sell her some eggs in exchange of fat, she heard a group of local gossipers whispering about how Li Ge'er was seen talking to a strange man at the entrance of their village.
They wondered if that man was interested in Li Ge'er or whether the two of them had already slept together.
When wife Li heard their chatter she was both embarrassed and furious. She forgot about her friend and went straight back home to tell patriarch Li about everything she had learnt. After telling him about the gossip, both husband and wife were sure that Li Ge'er definitely stayed at that man's house.
They confronted Li Ge'er and after seeing his face turning pale and him bowing his head in shame, wife Li accused him of whoring and the enraged Patriarch Li decided to teach that uneducated ger a lesson and beat him up with a wooden stick.
The ruckus was noticed by their curious neighbours who excitedly called over other villagers to join in watching the fun.
At that time Li Dafu was passing by two young man who were rushing to the scene. Li Dafu followed them without thinking.
When he arrived at the Li family's house he was shocked by the commotion that was happening there.
After hastily making his way through the happily eating melons locals, he saw the two Li sons, standing on both sides of the backyard huddled together with their wives and children. The madam Li who felt ashamed after losing face in front of the whole village was madly shouting insults at the hunched on the ground Li Ge'er whose thin back began to bled from the injuries caused by the angry patriarch Li.
Li Dafu was frightened when he saw the wounded and pitiful Li Ge'er and he quickly run over to step in between the furious father and half dead son. After yanking the stick out of patriarch Li's hands he kneeled next to Li Ge'er and carefully picked him up into his shaking embrace, wishing to take him to the village doctor as soon as possible.
When the gathered around people saw the swift and decisive actions of that random man they were all stunned.
Wife Li was the first one who came back to her senses and looking at the two hugging figures she instantly connected the dots. After pointing at them one of her bony fingers she loudly accused Li Dafu of being the main villain who shamelessly robbed her son's innocence!
The onlookers all exclaimed in surprise and realization and immediately started whispering around themselves. But Li Dafu didn't have time to pay them any mind, he kicked away the old patriarch Li who tried to block him and made his way out of the Li family's backyard, running straight to the doctor.
He was trying to save Li Ge'er's life.
• • •
A week after that incident Li Ge'er woke up and the moment he saw the joy and relief on Li Dafu's face, he felt both indescribably happy and sad. The grievances accumulated throughout the years of abuse finally found their outlet. He greedily hugged the startled Li Dafu and cried in his arms for a very long time.
When Li Dafu saw his sorrowful appearance, he gently appease the weeping man and made a resolute decision.
He wanted to take Li Ge'er away from that terrible family!
When Li Ge'er calmed down he looked into the ger's puffy eyes and promise to marry him as his wife!
But obviously the Li family wasn't very easy to deal with.
When the patriarch Li and his wife heard the intentions of Li Dafu they were initially very displeased, but after a day of consideration they eventually agreed, but only under one condition.
They demanded that Li Dafu has to pay them a bride price consisting of whole seven teals of silver, two healthy piglets and four ducks.
Li Dafu lived on as a hunter. His income came only from the sells or exchanges of the beasts he had hunted. So usually it wasn't much.
Also the money he recently managed to saved up were all used up on the medicine prescribed for Li Ge'er's recovery...
But he was also the only living person in his family. And before the death of his parents they left him a small sum of money, together with some old jewellery belonging to his late mother.
Li Dafu took out almost everything he owned and after exchanging it in the bank in the county town he returned to Li family's door.
After getting the silver and desired life stock, the Li parents were satisfied and finally allowed to let Li Dafu take Li Ge'er under his own surname.
• • •
Three years after their marriage the two got to celebrate the birth of their first baby. But because of Li Ge'er's weak body constitution the baby was born prematurely, causing it to be very small and fragile. However the child's will to live was extraordinary strong and thanks to the gentle care of both of his parents he managed to get through the most dangerous period.
After the child's full moon ceremony they named him Li Yi. Their one and only precious baby boy!
At that time they were very happy.
Unfortunately, with the passage of time the health of Li Ge'er regressed frantically. The fact that their child was diagnosed with a suspicion of being a fool doubled their worry.
Then, in a cold winter night, when Li Yi turned five years old Li Ge'er got sick and died...
After his death Li Dafu and his little son were the only ones left in their small broken family. But even though the orphaned Li Yi was a little bit foolish compared to other children his age, he had a very good and comfortable life. Li Dafu worked hard to take care of him and also tried to save a sum of money to secure his son's future, thinking about buying a wife for the older Li Yi, so that he wouldn't be left alone in the world after his death.
He already planned everything.
But when Li Yi turned twelve years old, Li Dafu had an accident during one of his hunts.
When running away from the group of wild boars, he wasn't careful enough, his right foot slipped and he rolled down the cliff.
Then he died from a blood loss.
Li Dafu's body was discovered only a couple of days later, after his fellow huntsman friend found him laying at the bottom of the cliff. The man called for help and together they took corpse back to their village.
Some people who had a good relationship with Li Dafu remembered about that stupid son of his and visited their home to check on that kid.
What they saw when they got inside the house was a dirty little boy, sitting alone in a dark corner of his father's bedroom hugging his knees and staring at the door without blinking. He was weak and starving. They couldn't tell how long he had been sitting there.
Later, the old village chief contacted the only other living relatives of Li Yi and asked them if they could take him back to their house. He feared that the stupid child wouldn't survive on his own.
When Li family heard what happened in Li Ge'er's house at first they were unwilling, but then old wife Li heard some rumours about Li Dafu's hidden fortune.
She was greedy for the money and nervous that someone else would rob Li Dafu's house, so she readily agreed on taking Li Yi in.
Although they were more interested in the money they could earn than meeting that idiotic grandson of theirs...
At first they planned to use Li Yi for work, just like his dad in the past, but they soon found out that that child was basically useless... He couldn't do anything properly, didn't speak and only stood and stared at them with a blank expression on his face.
After a couple of failed attempts, wife Li gave up and let him do whatever he wanted. But since he didn't do any work she decided that it also meant that he didn't get to eat with them.
So when the little Li Yi came back home he was greeted with an empty bowl.
After a couple of days like that, when the members of the Li family were working in the fields they got alarmed by their neighbor that his little son found the unconscious Fool Yi laying on the side of the road.
After cursing under her breath, wife Li didn't want to make another scene in front of the whole village again, so together with her eldest daughter-in-law she took Fool Yi to see the doctor. Who informed them that Fool Yi fainted from hunger.
Wife Li was embarrassed under the gaze of one of the most prestigious people in their village and to try making herself look blameless, she said that they recently were too busy with work and couldn't take care of Fool Yi. She also mentioned that she didn't noticed that the child wasn't able to feed himself regardless of reaching such an old age and promised to pay more attention in the future.
Later she took the Fool Yi home and threw him into his small thatched hut. She was fed up with him and made her eldest daughter-in-law responsible for his monitoring.
After Li Yi recovered, she visited him one last time and she beat and yelled at him for being stupid and making their family lose face again just like his slutty dad.
After that incident, his Aunt Li taught him to eat the leftover food from the kitchen scraps.
Fool Yi was scared of these two woman from his family so he listened to her after some difficulty.
• • •
With the passage of time, the old patriarch Li retired and gave the position of the family head to his eldest male son Li Cheng.
The life of Fool Yi hasn't changed much. Ignored by everyone else, he spent most of his days roaming around the mountains, playing in the river or being made fun of by the local children.
Oh, but the wife of the new family head, Aunt Li, made him do some simple work at the house, such as feeding animals and cleaning up the pigsty and chicken coop every morning or caring up the heavy buckets of water from the well at the back of their house.
Although it wasn't ideas it could be considered as a simple but good life.
However some time ago, Fool Yi grew a little more gloomy and didn't want to leave his room for anything else but his daily tasks.
No-one really knew why, but it wasn't like they had any interest in the mood swings of the fool, so as always they only turned at him a blind eye.
But what they didn't know was that the reason for Fool Yi's low spirits was the fact the the ger he was in love with, moved out of their village and he couldn't see him anymore...
Fool Yi was sad and depressed.
He thought that he would feel like this for the rest of his life...
Four years later, at the age of twenty four, Aunt Li barged into the pigsty and after grabbing Fool Yi's arm she told him:
"Fool, your aunt finally found a suitable marriage for you!"
Hearing her sudden words, Fool Yi took a very long time to process what she had said.
Is... he going to marry a wife? Just like his older cousins?
What happened?
Did Liu Lixin came back?
His dull eyes gradually filled up with rays of light.
"You better behave well this days!"
"Mother is what you're saying the truth?" the young woman with a round face and black eyes asked Aunt Li after the older lady walked out of the pigsty. "Fool Yi is going to marry?"
"Yes!" Aunt Li nodded with a satisfied grin on her face "Haven't you heard that the Liu family offered six teals of silver to recruit a husband for that slut?"
The young woman gasped in disbelief.
"Mother! You don't mean that you want to marry Fool Yi to that vicious person?"
"I do! After all they want to give us six silver! And we are in a need of money right now! Especially you, since you are pregnant with my second sons child!" she looked at the young girl's stomach "Don't you want to eat good food to nourish the baby?"
The young girl subconsciously caressed her slightly bulging belly. Then she glanced at the frozen stiff Fool Yi in the pigsty, after catching a glimpse of his dazed expression, she guiltily averted her gaze.
"I do..." she whispered.
"Then stop talking nonsense!"
"The auspicious date has already been set!"
• • •
At the time when the man woke up, it was already the next day. He slowly blinked his heavy eyelids, the expression on his face was gloomy.
What was that about?
Were those someone's memories?
His memories?
So, is he really the person called Fool Yi...?
No... he still felt that it wasn't quite right, but he also couldn't argue, so he reluctantly accepted his new identity.
From now on he will live under the name of 'Li Yi'.
Li Yi sat up from the ground and stretched out his sore limbs and back.
The huge amount of information gave him another headache.
But what pained him more was his current situation.
That woman called Aunt Li said that Fool Yi is going to marry someone quite soon...
Li Yi calculated that this marriage is destined to happen in a few days...
But here's the problem.
Him, marry a wife? Please, he doesn't want to marry anyone!
Just when he was thinking about a way to escape from this unwanted situation he heard a sudden loud noise.
A sound, similar to the chiming of a small bell clearly resonated through his stimulated mind.
[Ding! The adaptation period: completed...
...
Ding! Activating Golden Finger...
...
Ding! Golden Finger power: ON... ]
There was a short pause, which for some reason made Li Yi feel extremely uneasy...
[Ding! Welcome to the system: "Love the villain, be on top!"
Dear host, please do your best to complete the tasks! And in the end you'll make your way to the pinnacle of life!]
[Mission task: Get married to the villain!]
Li Yi: "....."
Are you kidding me?
________________________
Author has something to say:
Don't worry! Ge'er and Dafu are very happily reunited in their next life! I promise!
Also the backstory is finally over, we can officially move on to the next part!
Xiao ML, please wait just a little bit longer!
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ML: ...Who the hell are you?
εїз • • • ~ εїз ~ • • • εїз
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^^