A jinx, me? But I bring good fortune to my whole family!

"Mommy, big brother, second brother, isn't Nuannuan amazing?"

Even after they had come out of the alley, Su Xiulan was still in a daze.

"Hehe, they deserved it! Those clothes could be altered and worn out!"

"Mommy, Little Greenie said we can also exchange money on the black market!"

The baby's warm, babyish voice kept babbling away!

Su Xiulan: ! !

Da'an: !!!

Xiao An: !!!

The three of them felt like they must have been dreaming!

Looking at the little girl's rosy cheeks and then at the docile giant snake and the ginseng root bigger than a tree following behind them, the group began to question their existence.

Screw common sense!

There is no such thing as common sense when it comes to Nuannuan.

Su Xiulan composed herself. It seemed her initial decision was indeed correct. Her daughter was capable, but still too young. With Xiao Hei around, she could feel more at ease.

"My Nuannuan is the best!"

Su Xiulan patted Nuannuan's little head. "How about we put them away for now?"

Luckily, no one was around. If someone had seen us, it would have been troublesome.

Nuannuan tiptoed and patted the black snake's slippery body. "Uncle Black Snake is awesome! I'll give you an extra chicken leg later!"

Black snake... What's a chicken leg? Does he eat that?

Little Green also came over, its size much smaller than before.

Su Xiulan patted his leaves, "You're the same, Little Green is the best."

To everyone's astonishment, the mountain-sized snake rapidly shrank, and Little Green vanished in an instant.

They vanished as a dark shadow slipped into the warm sleeve and disappeared without a trace.

"Mom, let's go home."

Nuannuan took her mother's large hand, and Su Xiulan looked down at her daughter, her eyes even more determined. "Let's go home!"

……

After arriving home, Su Xiulan took out the remaining money and bills, as well as the money she had robbed.

Gu Jianguo was taken aback. "Where did all this money come from?"

The key is that some tickets are hard to come by, so to get so many at once is really a windfall.

Su Xiulan recounted the story of selling ginseng peel, and Gu Jianguo sighed, "I knew that stuff was valuable, but I didn't expect it to be worth this much."

Su Xiulan glared at him. "Normally, it would be more than that. I've inquired, and it would only sell for thirty or forty yuan at most. It's because our daughter is smart that she was able to sell it for 200 and even get a lot of money back."

Da'an and Xiao'an were also very excited, especially Xiao'an, who excitedly talked about encountering the robbers.

What was supposed to be a thrilling scene turned into a hilarious tale that had the whole family laughing out loud.

Su Xiulan almost burst out laughing. "Our daughter is quite resourceful. Xiao Lü is even more amazing; she stripped the robbers naked, leaving them only in their underwear in the dead of winter."

Just imagining that scene is inexplicably hilarious.

Nuannuan proudly raised her little head, "Mommy, Daddy should wear the new clothes!"

"Sell the old one!"

Su Xiulan gently rubbed Nuannuan's little head. "Take it apart and wash it; it'll still be wearable!"

Nuannuan scrambled onto the kang (a heated brick bed) using both her hands and feet, snuggled into her father's arms, and boasted, "Daddy, wasn't Nuannuan amazing? She protected brother and mommy!"

Gu Jianguo smiled indulgently, "Yes, my Nuannuan is the best!"

The family's laughter hadn't even faded when the courtyard gate was kicked open. A blast of cold air rushed in, shattering the warmth inside.

"Hand over that brat! My pearl!"

Zhang Aidi rushed in like a madwoman, her hair disheveled, her perfectly good floral cotton-padded jacket torn in several places, and there were several bloodstains on her face.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and as soon as she entered the room, she pounced on Nuannuan on the kang (a heated brick bed), as if she wanted to devour her.

"You jinx! It's all your fault! Come with me! Let's go get my pearls back!"

"Get out of here!"

Before her hand could even touch Nuannuan, Da'an, who had been silent all along, suddenly moved.

Like a little leopard, he charged forward and crashed headfirst into Zhang Aidi's waist.

"Ouch!"

Zhang Aidi was in a state of confusion and lost her footing, falling flat on her face. Her face hit the freshly broken mud crust on the ground, and she screamed in pain.

"What a terrible thing! Murder!"

Old Mrs. Gu, leaning on her cane, followed behind, panting heavily. Seeing her beloved second daughter-in-law, Zhang Aidi, fall, she immediately collapsed to the ground and blurted out:

"Third brother! You're trying to kill your own mother! Hand over the bastard child now to save her life! We can't let your own niece go to her death!"

Gu Jianguo stared at the two men on the ground with a livid face, and asked in a cold voice:

"Second sister-in-law, mother, what are you doing here at my house so late at night? Pearl has been kidnapped, what does that have to do with my Nuannuan? Do you really think Gu Jianguo is dead?!"

Zhang Aidi scrambled to her feet, her face covered in mud and tears, looking more disheveled than ever before. Pointing at Nuannuan, she yelled, "Gu Jianguo! What are you pretending for! Why didn't you just give this brat away as a child bride?!"

"If we had just handed this girl over, everything would have been fine, but you're all protecting this little jinx! The matchmaker came today with her people, saying that if we don't hand her over, we'll have to pay two hundred yuan!"

Zhang Aidi sobbed uncontrollably, "We don't have two hundred yuan! That damned matchmaker... she took my pearls! She said if we couldn't give her Nuannuan or the money, we'd have to pay with the pearls!"

"My pearl is only ten years old! That good-for-nothing second son is still lying in bed. Are you trying to force our second wife's family to their death?!"

The commotion was so great that more and more villagers gathered around to watch, and they were all stunned when they heard this.

"My God, those two old men, Gu and his wife, are so heartless! They sold the child behind their third son's back?"

"You took one hundred but lost two hundred? That's called trying to steal a chicken and losing the rice instead—serves you right!"

Gu Jianguo was trembling with rage, his hand pointing at the two women trembling unsteadily: "You...you dare to sell Nuannuan behind my back? That's a life! How dare you!"

Old Mrs. Gu got up from the ground, her triangular eyes glaring, and started cursing with a bunch of twisted arguments: "So what if we sold her? She's just an adopted bastard, not a member of our Gu family! She eats our food and drinks our water. Now that something's happened to the family, if she doesn't step up, who will?"

"Third brother! Pearl is your own niece! We're connected by blood! Are you really going to just watch your own niece fall into a fire pit for the sake of an outsider?"

"I'll just ask you one question: are you going to befriend this person or not? If you don't, you're being unfilial! You're trying to kill Pearl!"

Faced with his mother's unreasonable coercion, Gu Jianguo felt a tightness in his chest and a sweet, metallic taste in his throat.

Just then, Nuannuan, who had been hiding behind Su Xiulan, stepped forward.

The little girl wore a new cotton-padded jacket that had been altered to be too small, and her face was clean and tidy. She blinked her big eyes and looked at Grandma Gu, but her words were not soft at all.

"You naughty grandma, you've got your accounts wrong, haven't you?"

Nuannuan stretched out her little finger and shook it, her sweet, childlike voice clearly reaching everyone's ears.