The Adopted Cannon Fodder Made a Comeback

Xiao Li felt his breathing quicken, like he was suffocating. The others seemed genuinely scared; no one came forward to help him. If this kept up, his throat would be damaged. ’I’m not going to take this lying down,’ he thought. ’Fine, I’ll apologize. I can just deal with them later.’

"I... I apologize."

Xiao Li forced the words out, his face flushed and his neck strained.

Sun Jiaming didn’t let him go. He dragged him in front of Gu’er to make him apologize, his hand never leaving Xiao Li’s neck.

"COUGH, COUGH. My apologies. I shouldn’t have cursed at you. COUGH, COUGH."

As Xiao Li spoke, a humiliating glint flashed in his eyes. ’To think I’m apologizing to a couple of villagers today. Who the hell do they think they are? Aren’t they afraid of bringing misfortune upon themselves? Just you wait. I’ll get every single one of you back for this later.’

"Hmph."

Gu’er snorted coldly, showing her dissatisfaction. ’For now, I’ll just have to play along,’ she thought.

"Can you let me go now?"

Xiao Li asked, his eyes filled with rage.

Before Sun Jiaming or Gu’er could say a word, a voice demanded, "What’s going on here? What do you think you’re doing!"

It was a man’s voice, tinged with annoyance and displeasure.

Gu’er glanced over. The speaker was the same man she had spoken to at the main entrance—the hotel manager. And he wasn’t alone. With him were the dignified, middle-aged man who had gotten out of the car earlier and two others who looked like his attendants.

Gu’er had expected the manager to show up, but not the middle-aged man.

The manager’s arrival wasn’t a cause for alarm. ’He’s surely more discerning and has better judgment than Xiao Li, so he’ll handle things differently.’ Gu’er wasn’t afraid of the manager being unreasonable, because he had the hotel’s reputation to consider.

But she hadn’t expected the middle-aged man to follow them out. ’What’s he here for?’

"Manager Shang, you have to help me! They saw we were sincere about buying their wild boar meat, so they deliberately jacked up the price, demanding one yuan per jin! When I refused, they started hitting me! These people have no respect for the law! People from the villages are just savages. If we let them get away with this, how are we supposed to do business in the future?"

The moment Xiao Li saw that people had arrived, he immediately started wailing his grievances.

Anger flashed in Uncle Zhao’s eyes. ’Isn’t this guy just making things up?’ 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

A cold glint appeared in Sun Jiaming’s eyes, but he said nothing, letting Xiao Li finish.

’He’s actually turning the tables and blaming the victim,’ Gu’er thought with a sneer. ’Does he think we can’t talk?’

The manager shot Sun Jiaming and Gu’er a hostile glare, but he was also annoyed with Xiao Li. He had sent him to do a simple task, and not only had he failed, he had even started a fight. ’These people are just after money. He should have just offered a higher price, bought the meat, and gotten it over with. Taking care of the honored guest is what’s important. To lose all sense of proportion and haggle over a few pennies... A guy like this is a lost cause. But, Xiao Li’s older brother is a friend of mine. If it weren’t for his brother’s sake, I would have kicked him out long ago.’

"Is that what happened? You came here to sell pork, and we were willing to buy it, but the price can’t be ridiculously high. Besides, resorting to violence is not a good look."

The manager’s question was directed at them, but his last sentence clearly blamed Sun Jiaming. If that other man weren’t present, he probably would have reprimanded Gu’er and Sun Jiaming more harshly. After all, he had to protect his own people. But he couldn’t do that now. He couldn’t just throw his weight around, or the important guest might get upset.

"No."

Sun Jiaming took a step forward, his back straight. He saw Gu’er about to move and knew she was planning to speak, but he was a man. ’I can’t let a girl like Gu’er be the one to step up.’

Gu’er had indeed been about to step forward, but Sun Jiaming beat her to it. She knew he was protecting her, and her gaze softened. ’In this life, I have Sun Jiaming. I don’t have to take the lead in everything myself. All I have to do is stand by his side.’

The manager frowned at Sun Jiaming.

"Young man, why don’t you tell me what happened?"

The middle-aged man spoke up. Though dignified, his tone was approachable at that moment, as if to put them at ease.

Sun Jiaming glanced at him. He could feel the pressure emanating from the man and saw the manager’s displeased expression, but he stood ramrod straight. No matter who stood before him, he would not yield.

"We came to the back courtyard, and he offered us a price of twenty cents a jin. We refused because the price was too low. Yes, wild boar meat isn’t worth as much as domestic pork, but the current market price for it is still around seventy or eighty cents. So we tried to negotiate, which is perfectly normal. A transaction requires both the buyer and the seller to be satisfied for it to be successful. His offer was too low, so of course, we wouldn’t sell. If he thought our price was too high and wanted to bargain, we had no problem with that. If we couldn’t agree, we would simply not sell. But what he shouldn’t have done was insult us. We may be from the village, and we may not have high status, but we are still human beings, and we are no one’s inferior! We came here to sell something we earned through our own labor. There’s no shame in that. He insulted us, so naturally, I demanded an apology. Not only did he refuse, he even threatened to kill us. So I have to ask: Is there no law? Does murder not require a life in return? Or are city people a class above, free to kill as they please? Or perhaps this hotel is so powerful that it doesn’t care about common folk like us and can just get rid of us whenever it wants? Manager, is that how it is?"

Sun Jiaming’s voice was loud and clear, neither servile nor overbearing. If one listened closely, it even held a hint of sternness.

Gu’er looked at Sun Jiaming in astonishment. She never knew he could be so eloquent. He was speaking the truth, but he framed it in a way that was much more advantageous to them. She knew that when Xiao Li threatened to ’kill them,’ he was just trying to be intimidating and didn’t actually mean it. But for Sun Jiaming to bring it up now—right after Xiao Li had cried about ’no law’ and after the manager’s lukewarm admonishment—gave it a completely different weight. ’These are questions,’ she thought, ’that they will surely be unable to answer.’

Just as she expected, the manager shot Xiao Li a furious glare. ’This useless idiot who only makes things worse! How did he manage to screw things up this badly? Now that I’m being questioned directly, what can I even say?’ All he could do was force a smile; he felt like he was about to burst from the suppressed anger.

The dignified middle-aged man hadn’t expected such a speech from Sun Jiaming either. His eyes flickered as he looked at him. ’These villagers are interesting.’

"Haha, this young man must be joking. How could we be so unreasonable? This isn’t the old days, and even back then, people couldn’t just kill others randomly. Xiao Li was just kidding. He spouts nonsense without thinking; his mouth has no filter. I hope you won’t take him seriously, young man."

The manager plastered on a smile, trying to defuse Sun Jiaming’s accusations with a joke.

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Thank you to Super Assassin and Pacific Stone Monkey for the monthly tickets, thank you to Ning Zhihai for the ’like’, and thank you all for your support. My husband is on vacation and my kid is on break from school, so I’m busy all day having to take care of these two ’children’—one big and one small. I’m not feeling well and I’m limping when I walk, but I still have to run to the bookstore several times a day to buy books for my kid. Waaah, I don’t like vacations, I can’t even find time to write.