Early morning, main room.
Julie sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, practicing her skills. She had been stuck at the third level for a long time. Recently, she felt the energy in her dantian starting to gather into a ball. Early morning was when the spiritual energy was the strongest.
Suddenly, she heard a loud scream.
It was Lorrie's voice.
Julie quickly opened her eyes, ran to Lorrie's room, and kicked the door open.
As soon as she entered, she saw Lorrie covering his chest with both hands.
When Lorrie saw it was Julie who came in, he felt both shy and angry, but in the end, he didn't tell her to leave.
He just buried his head under the blanket.
Haven and Bailee heard the noise too. Worried about their younger brother, they rushed over.
They saw their wife at the door and were stunned.
After greeting her, they went inside towards Lorrie.
Seeing that Lorrie kept hiding under the blanket, they got worried and tried to pull it away.
Lorrie thought that Julie was still there and grabbed the blanket tightly, refusing to let go.
He wondered if she had seen everything just now.
So embarrassing.
Every time he did something awkward, she always happened to see it.
He felt ashamed and angry at the same time.
Julie saw that he was fine, so she turned around and left, returning to her room.
After she left, Haven spoke with some annoyance, "Alright, the wife is gone. Stop hiding. What's wrong?" As he spoke, he pulled on Lorrie's blanket.
When Lorrie heard that Julie had left, he felt a mix of disappointment and relief.
His hand naturally loosened.
When Haven and Bailee saw their little brother's chest, they didn't know what to say.
So it was just this?
He screamed so loud early in the morning. They thought a thief had broken in.
Lorrie was already fifteen years old. He hadn't started developing before, so it was normal for his chest to show some changes now.
After all, he was still young. As he grew taller, his chest would become firm, and his body would turn slim and good-looking.
The three brothers were all good-looking, just with different styles.
Lorrie had felt his chest heating up in the morning, which scared him into screaming. Now that he had calmed down, he realized he had made a fuss over nothing.
But he was still curious about what his big brother and second brother looked like.
He reached out with his small hands to pull at their clothes.
Haven pushed him away with a disgusted look.
Even if they were brothers, he couldn't just let him pull his clothes off.
Bailee was always patient and tolerant with his younger brother, but he could only look at him helplessly.
Lorrie looked at his big brother, then looked at his own chest, pouted, and said nothing.
No wonder that woman had kissed his big brother.
Big brother really did have a great body.
But he was still young. He would grow up and be like that too.
Lorrie silently cheered himself up in his heart.
Julie didn't know about any of this.
She hadn't gone up the mountain for several days.
She greeted the three brothers, gave Mr. Leng a few instructions, then carried her bamboo basket and machete and went into the mountains.
This time, she took a different path.
She didn't find anything rare, but she saw a silly deer and a wild rabbit, and killed them both on the spot.
She put the rabbit in the bamboo basket and the deer into her space.
She kept walking and found a large field of Chinese yams.
At first, she didn't have much experience and broke a lot of the yams while digging.
Later, as she got the hang of it, she managed to dig out longer, more complete ones.
She dug up a few dozen pounds and stopped.
The broken pieces she put in the basket. The good ones went into her space.
She thought about the pork ribs at home and decided yam and pork rib soup would taste delicious.
Seeing that it was getting late, she decided not to go any further.
She headed home.
When she got close to home, she saw a man and a woman arguing.
More accurately, the woman was trying to cling to the man, while the man looked cold and a bit impatient.
Julie looked at their faces and realized she knew them.
It was Xu Hui, one of the original owner's so-called "good friends."
The original owner had two "friends." She had already seen Liu Hongjuan before.
This was the first time she saw Xu Hui.
She also knew the man—Haven, the second son of the Gu family.
She was very curious about what they had to talk about.
She also wanted to see Haven's attitude.
Since she married them, she had been feeding and treating them well.
If they had a conscience, they should know how to behave.
Even raising a dog, the dog would guard the house.
If it was a traitor she raised, it would just be the farmer and the snake story all over again.
Julie had never been a fool.
Her eyes flashed with a thought.
She held her breath, gathered her energy, and moved close to the side wall where she could hear their conversation clearly without being seen.
"Haven, you've gotten thinner. You must have suffered." Xu Hui looked at Haven with deep affection.
Someone who didn't know better might think they were secretly involved.
"Our wife treats us very well. I haven't suffered. Are you here to find our wife? She went up the mountain and hasn't come back yet. You can come back later." Haven didn't think about letting her inside.
The house was full of men. It wouldn't be convenient for her to enter.
This woman was the scholar of the village. Normally, she thought very highly of herself, believing she was different from the other women in the village, as if she was better than them.
She had been studying for years but only stayed at the level of a scholar.
She never passed the provincial exam and kept finding excuses. At first, she said the journey was too far, and because she didn't have enough money to rent a carriage, she missed one of the exams.
Later, she said she didn't have enough silver, so she had to use the cheapest brushes and ink, which affected her performance.
At first, when the village found out that they had a scholar, they were all very excited.
They hoped she would pass the next level and even go higher.
But after many years of failing, they lost hope.
Now that she was already twenty-five, the villagers just let her do whatever she wanted.
As long as she didn't ask them for money, they didn't care.
Julie had been tricked by Xu Hui's sweet words back then. Liu Hongjuan also helped her. The two of them worked together and fooled Julie into giving them two taels of silver.
Xu Hui never mentioned paying it back.
Later, when she wanted to trick Julie for more silver, she found out that Julie had already spent all her remaining silver to buy Bailee, Haven, and Lorrie.
Xu Hui was furious.
The silver she thought she could get just disappeared. Of course, she was unhappy. She also hated seeing Julie doing well.
Part of it was jealousy because Julie now had three incredibly handsome husbands.
While Xu Hui's mother had arranged a husband for her when she was still alive — a rough man who wasn't even good-looking.
Another part was that she believed Julie's silver should have belonged to her, but now it was all gone.
Because Julie had listened to Xu Hui and Liu Hongjuan before, Xu Hui kept encouraging her to treat her husbands harshly, telling her that if she was cruel, they would be more obedient. Julie really believed it and treated them badly.
But later, Xu Hui noticed that Julie changed, like she had become a completely different person, and was no longer easy to fool.
She also heard about how badly Liu Hongjuan was treated after visiting Julie's home, and started to hesitate.
But deep inside, she still couldn't let go.
She needed silver for the upcoming provincial exam next month, but she had no idea where to get the money.
Seeing that Julie was now living in a nice brick house and even became the village chief, she believed Julie must still have extra silver.
But Xu Hui didn't dare go directly to Julie anymore.
Even Li Yajun, who was strong and big, got nothing from Julie.
Xu Hui was just a weak scholar. She knew she wasn't a match for Julie.
So she thought she should find a different target.
She thought for a long time and decided that Lorrie was the best choice.
She had actually planned to wait for Lorrie to come outside.
In her eyes, Bailee looked like an immortal, pure and distant, but boring and stubborn. Every time he saw her, he just ignored her.
Haven was beautiful like a fairy, charming and gentle — exactly the kind of man Xu Hui dreamed of having.
Lorrie was delicate and cute, simple and easy to control.
That's why she chose Lorrie as her target.