Chapter 48: Boxing

Liu Yuting was completely consumed by her act as she took another step forward and grabbed Li Qi’s arm.
"I’ve been through so much hardship. Now, only you can give me a good life. I know I wasn't good to you before. If you still hold a grudge against me, just slap me across the face. Will you?"
Li Qi snapped his head up.
*Crack!* A crisp slap echoed through the air!
Liu Yuting clutched her cheek and took two steps back, staring at Li Qi in absolute disbelief.
Li Qi shook his wrist.
"Though I never hit women, since you’re begging me so sincerely, it’d be rude of me not to oblige. You asked me to hit you, right? Once this is done, are we even now?"
Tian Miao mentally cheered like crazy for Li Qi. How utterly manly!
Liu Yuting, however, felt like she was losing her mind. After cursing Li Qi’s entire ancestral lineage a dozen times over in her heart, she finally managed to calm her emotions and said with a pitiful, delicate expression,
"So, since you hit me, does that mean you've forgiven me? Can you give me the 8,888 bride price to marry me now?"
Li Qi thought for a moment and shook his head decisively.
"Nope. My family is so poor right now we're practically eating dirt. When we have no vegetables, I go to the market at night to pick up discarded cabbage leaves, shred them, and mix them with salted vegetables, and even the steamed cornbread has to be rationed. Forget 8,888, scrounging up 8 yuan would be a struggle. If you genuinely want to marry me, let's skip the wedding banquet and forget about buying gifts. I'll give you eight yuan, spread out the bedding on the northern brick bed at my place, and you can just come over tonight."
For a moment, Liu Yuting couldn't believe her ears.
What did he mean by giving her eight yuan and jumping into bed tonight?
Wasn't this the monthly rate for the village girls right next to the mining area?
What kind of person did Li Qi take her for?!
Her face twisted in utter fury.
Noticing that Liu Yuting’s expression looked wrong, Li Qi asked with genuine concern,
"Liu Yuting, did a door latch smack you in the face or something? Why is it twitching like that? Maybe you should go see Doctor Lao Ding and get it checked out while it's still mild, before it turns into facial paralysis. Such a pretty young woman, what a shame. But let's get one thing straight: if you end up with facial paralysis, you won't even get those eight yuan."
Li Qi pondered for a moment and added,
"And we won't be able to use the brick bed anymore either. At best, we'll have to make do with the grassy field. We working-class folk are all about plain and simple living."
Liu Yuting was on the verge of shattering.
She truly never expected that Li Qi, whom she had always managed to wrap around her little finger, would talk to her like this.
She finally dropped the act.
"Li Qi, you absolute moron, what the hell are you babbling about? Eight yuan? A grassy field? Why don't you take a piss and look at your pathetic reflection in it? Which decent girl would ever want you?"
"Only me, I suppose, remembering all our years of history and willing to let you have a taste of the good life. Give me a straight answer today: is that 8,888 bride price happening or not? I'm telling you, this is my final chance for you. If you keep running your mouth like that, don't ever come looking for me again!"
Liu Yuting played the game of playing hard to get. Based on her understanding of Li Qi, the outcome was already decided.
Li Qi was bound to back down.
Instead, Li Qi's eyes lit up.
"Such a good deal exists? Are you absolutely sure? You don't agree to the 8-yuan bride price? Does that mean we never have to see each other again?"
Liu Yuting was about to be driven to fury.
"Are you out of your mind? Can you understand human speech at all? I want 8,888! What decent person gets married for an 8-yuan bride price?"
"I'm willing to marry him!"
Tian Miao had enjoyed enough of the show and could clearly see that Li Qi had zero interest in this village-belle-type girl.
So she decided to end this farce.
She gracefully stepped out from behind Li Qi and naturally took his hand.
Li Qi stood at one meter eighty, and standing beside him, she felt a profound sense of complete security.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Tian Miao, twenty-two years old, and I'm a reporter for the Ning Provincial Daily. I am willing to accept an 8-yuan bride price and marry Li Qi."
She looked up, gazing at Li Qi's profile.
Bathed in the sunlight, she felt as though Li Qi was enveloped in a layer of radiance.
"Darling, I have no objections to an 8-yuan bride price, but using the northern brick bed can wait. My workplace assigned me an apartment, so how about we live at my place from now on?"
Watching Tian Miao clasp Li Qi's hand and hearing her naturally address Li Qi as "darling," Liu Yuting felt her entire world crumble.
What on earth was going on?
How could this woman, who at a single glance clearly belonged to an entirely different world from them, possibly call Li Qi "darling"?
"Li Qi, who is she? What is your relationship? How could you do something like this? Didn't you say you only loved me? If you really think it's too much, 6,666 is fine too! Or even five thousand, but not a penny less!"
Liu Yuting was so desperate she had started bargaining against herself.
Li Qi smiled with utter contempt.
"A brain is a wonderful thing, too bad you don't have one. Still asking? This is the wife I'm taking home for 8 yuan. From now on, we don't need to keep in touch anymore; I'm afraid my wife will be upset. Wife, let's go, let's head home and eat those steamed buns my older sister made."
Pushing his bicycle with one hand and holding Tian Miao's hand with the other, Li Qi turned directly into a small alley.
Fuming with rage, Liu Yuting stamped her feet behind them and shouted,
"Li Qi, don't you regret this! I won't give you another chance. No matter how you beg me, it's useless. Come back here right now!"
However, Li Qi did not even look back. After gnashing her teeth in place for a long while and finding herself completely helpless, she finally huffed away.
As for Hu Delu, watching Li Qi enter the narrow alley where his car couldn't fit, he had no choice but to turn off the engine and wait for the next opportunity.
At that moment, Li Qi was standing at the entrance of the small alley, completely motionless.
He had heard that car engine cut out.
His suspicions deepened even further.
Could the other party really be this bold?
This was most likely arranged by Uncle Manjiang. After all, having lived two lives, he never hesitated to attribute the most malicious intentions when guessing certain people's motives.
Tian Miao, however, felt her cheeks flush slightly.
"Let go of my hand already. Haven't you taken enough advantage of me?"
Despite being a mature young woman, no matter how much she liked Li Qi, having her hand held by a man like this for the very first time in her life still made her heart flutter wildly.
Coming to his senses, Li Qi quickly let go and apologized.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was a bit nervous and slipped my mind. Thank you for today."
Tian Miao shot him a sidelong glance with her pretty eyes.
"Why are you being so polite with me? You big dummy. It's not like I wouldn't let you hold it, it's just, it's just..."
Tian Miao fumbled over her words for a moment without making any real sense, so she simply changed the subject.
"What's wrong with you? Something on your mind?"
Li Qi nodded without offering an explanation. Instead, he pushed his bicycle back out onto the main road.
Tian Miao was puzzled, but from the look in Li Qi's eyes, she sensed something was up. So she obediently cooperated with him, smiling as she let him go back and forth.
Not only did she show no sign of impatience, but in the end, she even submissively rested her hands around Li Qi's waist.
*(Think about it, chew on the details.)*
Finally turning into the entrance of his own alley, Li Qi confirmed beyond a doubt that that car had been tailing him.
In the era of information explosion in the future, some utterly conscience-free operations had been exposed, and these kinds of seemingly random yet precisely tailored organ-disappearance cases occasionally appeared in news reports.
What virtue or ability did he possess to encounter such a problem in this era?
What should he do?
Just hide from it? Li Qi quickly dismissed the thought.
There is no such logic as being on guard against thieves a thousand days.
Strike hard once to avoid a hundred punches later.
Since Tian Miao happened to be here, with proper execution, he could completely resolve this matter cleanly today and also settle scores with Li Manjiang and his wife Wang Yue all at once.
Although he would have to take a slight risk, his current physical constitution was extraordinary, giving him a very high probability of turning the tables on them.
Thinking up to this point, Li Qi hesitated no longer and spoke directly to Tian Miao.