Chapter 124: Assistance
The actions that the youth was doing had been rather astonishing to the eyes of everyone else. But when Bai Yunfei started to walk towards the two, everyone else had realized what was happening and followed behind.
On the way, Bai Yunfei’s eyes looked around the area before finally settling back onto the two figures in the corner. But then his body suddenly gave a whirl towards the left.
“Eh? Brother Bai, aren’t you….”
His sudden action had confused everyone. Tianming’s words had seemingly been ignored by Bai Yunfei who disappeared into the crowd. Tianming had stopped dead in his tracks to look back to Jing Mingfeng and the others, unsure of what to do.
“Brother Bai….is he not going to help those two? Shouldn’t we….follow him then?” Tianming asked.
Tang Xinyun looked off to where Bai Yunfei disappeared to with furrowed eyebrows. There had been a disappointed look on her face as she looked to the old and young pair. A sympathetic look had been on her face; but after biting her lips in indecision, she finally decided to walk over to them.
When they reached the youth however, the youth had started with fear and paranoia. Subconsciously shrinking away and pursing up his lips, his frail but determined body immediately moved to protect the elder woman behind him.
There had been a pained look in Tang Xinyun’s eyes at that sight, but she managed to give a small smile filled with warmth. “Little brother, don’t be afraid. We won’t harm you–we’re here to help.”
Then she looked the frail woman behind the youth, “Is that your grandmother?”
The youth seemed to loosened up just a bit when he saw the honest goodwill behind Tang Xinyun’s eyes. With some hesitation, he replied with a nod of his head, “Yes.”
Giving it some thought, Tang Xinyun shook her right hand so three gold pieces came out from her space ring. Handing them to the child, she spoke, “Take these coins. Your grandmother is very ill; take this to go buy medicine and have her eat it. She’ll get better soon.”
When she took out the three gold, Zhao Mancha had looked as if she wanted to say something but thought against it when she saw the earnest look on Tang Xinyun’s face and closed her mouth.
“Xi-Xiao Hu, don’t…don’t take it….” A frail voice could be heard from behind the youth as the woman behind him struggled to speak.
“Ma’am, please don’t decline it. Just take it, it’ll help your future.” Tang Xinyun spoke to the elder woman with the same warm-hearted smile.
Dazed, the youth took the gold pieces from her while seemingly ignoring the voice of his grandmother behind him. Taking the coins ‘fiercely’, he then stuffed them into his clothes so that no one else would see.
Falling to the ground with a ‘plopping’ sound, the child kowtowed his head to Tang Xinyun to give his thanks. Hurriedly moving to pick him up, Tang Xinyun shook her head, “Don’t be like this. Hurry and go help your grandmother. You’ll be able to take care of her with more care later, okay?”
For a few seconds, the young boy stared at Tang Xinyun as if trying to burn her image into his mind before finally speaking out honestly, “Thank you!”
Revealing a happy smile, Tang Xinyun spoke, “Haha, there’s no need to thank me. This is something I should ha–”
“What are you all doing here?” Before she could even finish, a sound from behind had interrupted her. Turning around, Tang Xinyun could only see Bai Yunfei with two items in his hand as he stared at them curiously.
“Brother Bai? Didn’t you leave?” Tianming asked in befuddlement.
“Leave? Where would I go to?” Bai Yunfei was equally confused. But then a smile appeared on his face afterwards, “I only went to buy something, didn’t I tell you all to wait here for a second?”
“Where did you go? None of us heard you say anything.”
“Eh…forget about it. The crowd probably drowned out my words.” Bai Yunfei shook his head before walking to the young boy. Opening up one of the oil paper bags he had, there were several steaming hot steamed buns in there for the young boy to eat.
“Have some to eat first. It’ll fill your stomach and give you energy to take care of your grandmother.” Bai Yunfei spoke before handing the other bag over, “This is some medicine that are used to treat the common illnesses. Find a place to boil it and then feed it to your grandmother.”
Seeing the vacant look on the youngster’s face, Bai Yunfei laughed before handing several copper coins strung together. Hiding them into the folds of the boy’s clothes, Bai Yunfei spoke quietly, “Take this money and take of your grandmother, got it?”
It was only at this point that the youngster had realized what was happening. His reaction had been bigger than when he received the three gold coins, and when he put down the items, the young child immediately fell to the floor once more before kowtowing his head thrice while speaking out with a quavering voice, “Thank you….thank you….”
Bai Yunfei had done nothing to stop him and allowed him to finish his actions. Then holding up his grandmother, the two of them slowly hobbled to the left side of the street before ultimately disappearing from sight. With the same smile on his face when he was talking to the child, Bai Yunfei addressed everyone, “Well now that everything is done, we should continue on our way.”
……
And now with everyone continuing on the roads, not a single one of them were as happy as before. Instead, there was rather subdued look on each one of their faces.
“Tianming, do you treat your grandmother with the same piety as that child?” Bai Yunfei suddenly asked Tianming.
“Wha? How could I? My home isn’t like that, and my grandmother has plenty of servants looking after her….”
“Then, when your grandmother is sick, do you take care of her?”
“Are-aren’t there other people for that? Even if I went, it’d be….”
“Do you ever attempt at conversation with her?”
“I….”
For a good while, Tianming was silent. Finally turning to tilt his head up to Bai Yunfei, his next words were spoken in a low voice, “Brother Bai, I-I think I understand now….”
“Then all is well.” Bai Yunfei smiled. “When you go home, remember to treat your mother and grandmother with the piety they deserve. I can guarantee that if you do as you should, then life will be drastically different for you….”
“Got it!” Tianming nodded before a smile reappeared on his face. “Brother Bai, when you left back then, we all thought that you weren’t going to help those two! But none of us thought that you’d come back with medicine and food!”
“Haha, when I saw them, there was no way I couldn’t help them. I could only give them what they need for now, but….it’s completely up to that kid for their future now. We can only help them temporarily, but our money should help them for a few days or so. When he eats his fill though, he should be able to find the energy to find a way to earn some money….”
Giving a small laugh, Tianming answered, “Yea, when you came back, miss Xinyun already gave them three gold pieces! That should be enough for them to live for an even longer amount of time….”
Bai Yunfei had been so astounded at those words that he came to a standstill, “What did you say?!”
The abrupt reaction had scared even Tianming and was at a loss for words. “I…I said that miss Xinyun gave them three gold pieces, it should be enough for them for a while….”
Bai Yunfei’s eyes immediately swiveled to look at Tang Xinyun.
“Yes? Mister Bai, did I….did I do something wrong?” Tang Xinyun had been at a loss as well and didn’t understand what was happening.
Bai Yunfei’s eyebrows had narrowed together in anger before he turned his eyes towards Zhao Mancha and Jing Mingfeng right next to her.
For some reason when Bai Yunfei looked to the two, both of them had been unable to meet his glance and shifted their eyes away. And on their faces had been….embarrassment?
“Hmph!!”
Bai Yunfei let out a cold snort, but no words came out after that. It was with a quick pace that Bai Yunfei then started to walk towards the direction where the child and his grandmother were headed towards.
“But….aunty Zhao, why is mister Bai acting this way? Was there a problem?” Tang Xinyun had been completely bewildered by Bai Yunfei’s reaction.
There had been some hesitation in the older woman’s face as she sighed. “Young miss….sigh. You’ll understand in a moment if you go take a look….”
……
It had not taken even a minute before Bai Yunfei had reached one of the alleyways of the streets with great haste. With his soulsense spread out to track down the two, he started to comb the area for them.
A sudden movement had caused his eyes to light up, but then his joy had turned into fury in the next moment. Frost entered his eyes just briefly before his body flickered away down a narrow pathway with a gust of wind trailing behind him.
Within this alleyway, four fiendish men were kicking and punching at a small and frail figure. Several steamed buns and medicinal ingredients could be seen scattered to the side and an extremely frail-looking woman pushed to the side where her body was quivering nonstop and unable to move as if someone had pushed her down forcefully.
“Pl-please! Don’t hit–don’t hit him anymore. Xia–Xiao Hu, give them the money….” The woman let out a pleading whimper to their assailants while the young child with her hugged at his chest to prevent the coins from being taken.
“No! I won’t give it up!” The young child was curled in a ball with his hands across his chest as if he was resolved to protect the coins to his death.
“What was that? You won’t give it up? Then we’ll beat you to death!” One of the men landed a vicious kick onto the child’s stomach while swearing at him, “You little beggar! Just a few copper coins would be enough for you, what use is there for gold coins! You’d only buy some measly steamed buns and rotting vegetables! Don’t be an idiot and hand them over or we’ll beat you to death and pry the coins from your dead body!!”
The elderly woman had finally managed to shift herself over to one of the men. With a trembling hand, she held onto his trouser legs and began to beg. “Please–please don’t hurt him anymore. You’ll kill him! We’ll give you the money–we don’t need it! Please….don’t hurt him anymore….”
“Disgusting old crone, let go of me!” The man had glared viciously at her. A single kick had been enough to separate the two of them, but as if he was unsatisfied with just that, the man’s leg wound up for another kick.
“Hmph!!”
A sneer suddenly made itself known. And in the next moment, the man suddenly felt a stinging pain originating from his leg. When he looked down to look, all he could see was a thumb-sized thing suddenly come flying out from the side of his leg with what appeared to be blood flying off of it….
“Aah!!” It had only taken half a second for the man to suddenly come to his senses and clutch at his bleeding right leg before collapsing to the ground. But before he could fall down, Bai Yunfei had already struck at his belly with a kick of his own, sending the man flying ten meters away.
Seemingly at the same time, three separate slamming sounds could be heard as the other three men were sent flying by Jing Mingfeng who stood protectively over the young boy with a grim expression.
At the entrance of the alleyway, Tang Xinyun had stood dumbfounded from start to finish. With how things were unfolding right in front of her, she had absolutely no idea how to react….