Chapter 35 – Life contract
Li Shu crossed his arms and sneered as he asked, “So if a girl is pretty, has white skin, slender and delicate hands, that automatically makes her a brothel girl? How ridiculous. Our village’s Mudan is also pretty, has white skin, slender and delicate hands. Based on your words, is she a brothel girl too?”
Xing-niang was struck dumb. “I… I didn’t say that. Besides, she… how can she be compared to Mudan?”
Li Mo stopped paying attention to her. He directly said to the village head, “Village Head, it’s true that I brought her here, but I didn’t buy her from a brothel. Of course, she’s not an ordinary family’s daughter either -”
Acting as if she had gotten information that could be used against them, Xiang-niang immediately hooted,”Yo, so I was right.”
Li Mo didn’t even bother looking at her. He continued, “She was a servant girl from a noble family.”
As soon as these words were said, everyone’s gaze uniformly went towards Li Man.
Li Man was at loss of what to do. Why were they all looking at her? Could it be that these people had discerning eyes and could tell that she a soul from a different world? Had they really been planning on executing her that night?
Reassuringly squeezing her hand, Li Mo added, “I’m not sure about the specifics, but that noble family did something wrong, and the entire family was sent to exile. On the day all of the servants were being sold off, I happened to meet her by chance at the market and saved her.”
“Oh.” Everyone nodded. This type of things wasn’t considered strange in the Goddess’s Ravine. They had seen women from noble families that had fallen onto hard times being taken into the local landlord’s estate.
Moreover, anyone would be willing to add this type of woman into his household. A woman that was born in a noble household, even if she had only been servant, would still be more well-mannered and intelligent than a daughter from an ordinary family. It was only that this type of opportunity rarely came along. They couldn’t help thinking that Li Mo had been very lucky to be given the opportunity of meeting such a satisfactory and agreeable woman by chance.
The crowd’s gaze disdainful gaze turned into an envious one. Their gazes made Li Man feel quite alarmed. What were they planning on doing to her? She hadn’t said anything. Why were they looking at her?
“A servant girl from noble family?” Xing-niang would have never guessed that the truth would turn out like this.
Chunni had been looking forward to watching an entertaining show, but in the end, it turned out to be like this. She could only blame Xing-niang for being too stupid, so she could only ask the question herself, “You want us to believe this story without any proof?”
“I don’t care if you don’t believe it,” Li Shu said.
Li Mo ordered Li Hua, “Fourth brother, go home and bring back the life contract.”
In this time period, taking a servant into your household was considered a big deal, so there would be a life contract to document this matter. This way, if the servant ran away, it would be easier to find him or her.
The life contracts would be vary based on the individual person’s status. This would be clearly documented on the life contracts.
Li Hua assented, turned around, and started walking out.
Looking at his back figure, Li Man didn’t know why he was leaving, but she wanted to follow after him. But, it was to no avail. Li Mo had her hand grasped in his. Since everyone was watching them, she was scared of doing anything would cause any unnecessary trouble and could only hold her breath as she obediently stood by Li Mo’s side. She was hoping that no one would pay attention to her.
The village head led everyone to patiently wait. It didn’t take long before Li Hua returned with the life contract. Moreover, he opened it and let everyone examine it.
Everyone looked at it. Although they couldn’t read a single word on it, they didn’t think it was possible to fake a life contract. Besides, since they dared to take it out, it was even less likely for it to be fake.
Since there was even a life contract as proof, everyone believed in Li Mo’s words even more.
The village head nodded and said, “Li family’s fourth son, you can put the life contract away.” Then, he turned and glared at Xing-niang, “Gossiping woman, you went around babbling nonsense and sowing discord. What do you have to say for yourself now?”
Xing-niang gradually lost her vigor and her somewhat unpleasant gaze drifted over to Chunni. That rotten girl had been the one that told her this originally. “Village Head, this isn’t my fault. I heard this from Chunni.”
