In the crowd of people the bull had nowhere to go and stopped. Yang Guo wanted to tease the young girl and see her angry face; he lay on the ground and called out, âMy chest hurts, youâre beating me to death!â The townâs people all gathered around and asked why.
The girl was going to take this chance of being surrounded by people and slip into the crowd and escape; but she didnât foresee that Yang Guo would pick himself up and hold onto her right leg. He called out, âDonât go⌠donât go!â Yang Guo called out, âSheâs my wife; she doesnât want me and beats me.â
A person said, âA wife beating her husband, what is the world coming to?â
The girlâs eyebrows raised and she kicked out with her left leg. Yang Guo clambered up to the side of a burly man and gave him a push; the kick landed on his waist. The burly man shouted, âLittle Bitch, kicking people?â He raised his massive fist. The young girl held the manâs elbow and used his strength to fling him away. The hundred kilo body flew into the crowd, causing the people in the crowd to scream and shout, making quite a scene. The girl used all her strength to pull free but how could she when Yang Guo was holding on with all his life? She saw that another five or six people were coming up towards her, adding to her problems. She could only lower hear head and say, âIâll take you away, quickly let go.â
Yang Guo said, âAre you still going to beat me?â
The young girl said, âFine, I wonât!â Yang Guo loosened his hand and stood up. The two of them rushed out of the crowd and headed out of the town. They heard shouting from behind. Yang Guo had managed to hold on to the bull.
Yang Guo laughed, and said, âPeople say that the wife cannot beat the husband.â
The young girl angrily said, âStupid Sha Dan [Dumb Egg]! If you keep on talking this rubbish, saying Iâm your wife and what not, just watch me cut your head off.â She raised her saber as she said this.
Yang Guo held his head and jumped to the side and pleaded, âMiss, I wonât say it anymore.â
The girl said, âLook at you, even an ugly old hag wouldnât marry you.â Yang Guo laughed foolishly and didnât reply.
Now, the sky was dark, the two stood in the unkempt land; they turned around, and saw smoke from cooking rising up from the town and both felt hungry.
The young girl said, âSha Dan, go to the market and buy ten buns.â
Yang Guo shook his head and said, âI wonât go.â The young girlâs face turned angry and she said, âWhy not?â Yang Guo said, âI wonât go! You are tricking me to go buy some buns so you could sneak off.â The young girl said, âI said I wonât slip away so I wonât.â Yang Guo shook his head. The girl curled up her fist wanting to hit him but he quickly jumped to the side. The two of them ran around the bull like they were playing hide and seek. The girl was lame and it wasnât easy for her to move. She saw the boy tripping up in front of her crying and shouting out, yet, although she possessed lightness kung fu, she was still unable to catch up with him.
The girl was furious, she thought about her martial arts, yet for some reason, she had allowed an ugly and smelly country bumpkin Sha Dan to stay on her tail. She had no way to escape, it might be said that she was incompetent. Yang Guo had made himself so much like the character he was supposed to be that when the girl failed three or four times to kill the Sha Dan, she was not suspicious. She followed the main road south and she saw that Yang Guo was holding onto the bull and catching up. She thought that she must find a way to kill him unexpectedly. In the short time it takes to cook rice, the sky had become even darker. She saw an old and run down stone house; it looked abandoned and thought, âTonight Iâll sleep here and when that idiot is sleeping in the middle of the night, Iâll kill him with one slash.â She walked towards the house and entered, dust entered her nose, the chairs and tables were broken and it appeared that this house was deserted long ago. She cut some grass and wiped a long table clean; she lay on the table, closed her eyes and rested. She saw that Yang Guo hadnât followed her, and called out, âSha Dan! Sha Dan!â She didnât hear a reply and thought, âCould it be that the fool knows that I was going to kill him and left!â She wasnât concerned with it, and after a while she fell asleep. Suddenly the smell of cooking meat entered her nose. She got up and went outside. She saw Yang Guo sitting in the moonlight holding a piece of meat and opening his mouth to bite into it. Before him was a fire, on top of the fire was an array of branches, meat was roasting on it, the smell of it floating towards her.
Yang Guo saw her come out and laughed, and said, âYou want some?â He picked up a roasted piece of the meat and threw it towards her. She caught it with her hand and looked at it, it was a shank of meat, and she was hungry and started to eat it. Although it had no salt, it was still tasty. She sat by the fire and politely ate the meat. She first tore the meat off the shank, and then placed it into her mouth slowly, but she saw Yang Guo munching noisily, annoying her. She was hungry so she turned around and looked away from him. When she finished her meat, Yang Guo gave her another piece.
The young girl said, âSha Dan, whatâs your name?â
Yang Guo said, âAre you an angel? How do you know Iâm called Sha Dan?â
The young girl laughed and said, âHa, so your name is Sha Dan. Where are your parents?â
Yang Guo said, âTheyâve been dead a long time. Whatâs your name?â
The young girl said, âI donât know. Why are you asking?â
Yang Guo thought, âSince you wonât say then Iâll anger you.â He said brashly, âI know, you are called Sha Dan too, thatâs why you wonât say.â
The young girl got angry. She got up and punched him in the head and scolded, âWho said Iâm called Sha Dan? You are the Sha Dan.â
Yang Guo cried out and covered his head and said, âWhen someone asks me what Iâm called, I say I donât know so other people call me Sha Dan; since you donât know, that means you are a Sha Dan as well.â
The young girl said, âWho says I donât know? I just donât want to tell you. Do you know that my surname is Lu?â
This young girl was the little girl who was picking lotuses in Jiaxingâs South Lake, Lu Wushuang. When she was plucking flowers with her cousin Cheng Ying and the Wu brothers, she broke her leg. While Madam Wu was helping to set her leg bones back together, Hong Lingbo arrived to take their lives, so her leg bones werenât set properly. When it healed, her left leg was shorter by an inch or so. Because of this she walks like a lame person. Although her skin was not white, she was still beautiful. When she was grown up she was even more so, but because her leg was lame, she was hateful.