Chapter 169: Kowtowing and Admitting Fault

Li Guifen hurriedly pulled her son over. “Xiaobao, why does your wound look kind of blue?”

Zhang Xiaobao was stunned. “Huh? How could that be...”

He turned his head and saw that the arrow wound on his shoulder really was tinged blue beneath the red.

He opened his mouth and shouted, “Why is my blood blue?!”

He glanced over and saw that his mother’s shoulder wound looked the same.

Before he could say anything, Li Guifen was already anxiously pulling down his pants. “Let Mom see how the wound on your butt is doing!”

One look, and Li Guifen grew even more nervous. “The wound on your butt is blue too!”

She asked anxiously, “Son, do you feel unwell anywhere? Why is your blood coming out blue?”

Zhang Xiaobao looked at her shoulder, then at her calf, and finally understood. He gritted his teeth and said, “Mom, the arrows were poisoned.”

Li Guifen’s eyes widened. “What?”

She turned her head to look at the wound on her own shoulder, then lifted her leg to check.

Sure enough, the arrow wound was blue, but the spot where the dog bit her was still normal red.

Li Guifen was so angry her neck thickened. “That shrew! She actually smeared poison on her arrows! She really wants us dead!”

Then came a wave of fear. “What do we do? Son, what are we going to do?”

In her mind, being poisoned meant you didn’t have long to live.

Zhang Xiaobao was even more anxious than she was. “What else can we do? We have to go upstairs and ask them for the antidote!”

Li Guifen hurriedly stopped him. “Son, don’t go! If you go, you’ll die even faster!”

Hearing this, Zhang Xiaobao’s feet were glued to the spot.

That’s right. Just now, they’d been lucky—the old lady’s archery skills were mediocre, so she hadn’t hit any vital spots. If they went to her now, wouldn’t they just be giving her another chance to hurt them?

He paced around anxiously. “What are we going to do?! I haven’t even gotten married yet, I can’t die now!!”

Li Guifen started to cry. “There’s not a single normal person in this building! Every one of them is dangerous—hurting people at the drop of a hat!”

Afraid of dying from the poison and not knowing what to do, the two of them started wailing.

In stark contrast to the panic downstairs, apartment 1402 was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

Maybe it was because An Nan had set good rules, or maybe it was because the two little ones had grown smarter from drinking spring water every day, but now the chicken and the dog got along harmoniously.

There was no more chaos in the house.

An Nan was curled up on the sofa, sorting through supplies she’d brought back from the mountains and the base. When she turned around, she saw Fugui lying at her feet, with Laifu sprawled on its back.

Seeing how well-behaved and peaceful they were, An Nan took some spiritual spring water out of her space and fed it to them.

Then she pulled out a pile of surveillance equipment.

She’d found all this gear in Hou Jianming and Zhu Dazhuang’s villa.

She’d originally worried there might be bugs in the inner villas, but it turned out they’d installed all the surveillance in their own place.

She picked a simple one to install outside the hallway door.

That way, she could know what was happening outside without leaving home—much more convenient than peeking through the peephole.

Meanwhile, after much discussion, Li Guifen and her son finally decided to go to the top floor and beg for the antidote.

Maybe it was psychological, but ever since they noticed their wounds turning blue, the spots started itching like crazy.

Afraid to scratch, they hurried upstairs to admit their mistake, tails between their legs.

As they passed the fourteenth floor, they ran into An Nan, who had just finished installing the camera and was heading home.

An Nan looked curiously at the two of them, rushing by as if mourning a death.

What are these two up to now?

This time, Zhang Xiaobao didn’t even have the energy to flirt with An Nan. He forced a smile uglier than crying and hurried upstairs.

An Nan glanced at the blue-tinged wounds on his face, closed the door thoughtfully.

Those two idiots must have been dealt with by Zhao Ping’an and Aunt Hu.

Serves them right.

15th floor.

This time, Zhang Xiaobao and Li Guifen didn’t dare say anything nasty, and even knocked on the door much more gently.

Li Guifen hunched over. “Big sister, please open the door. We’re here to admit our fault.”

Zhang Xiaobao shrank behind her, terrified another arrow would come flying out.

They knocked for a long time, but the door didn’t open. Instead, the shooting slot that had been closed slid open again.

As soon as Zhang Xiaobao saw it, he turned and ran downstairs, only stopping at the corner where he was out of the line of fire.

Li Guifen dropped to her knees with a thud.

“Please! Don’t shoot us! We’re not here to cause trouble this time—we’re here to apologize!”

“Please, big sister, have mercy and give us the antidote!”

She pressed her palms together and bowed deeply toward the door.

A voice came from inside—it was Hu Cuilan. “How do you plan to apologize?”

Li Guifen, seeing a glimmer of hope, immediately started slapping herself in the face, tears streaming down.

Left slap: “I’m not even human!”

Right slap: “I have a filthy mouth!”

Left slap: “I talk nonsense!”

Right slap: “I wronged good people!”

She kept slapping herself back and forth for a while, but there was still no response from inside. She could only keep begging through her tears.

“Please, for the sake of my sincere repentance, give me the antidote! Xiaobao is the only son of our Zhang family. You’re a mother too—you must understand how I feel. Please, I beg you, have mercy!”

Finally, Hu Cuilan’s voice came from inside again.

“Who’s Xiaobao? I haven’t seen your Xiaobao.”

Li Guifen quickly turned around and called for her son. “Son, come here and apologize to your aunt!”

Zhang Xiaobao poked his head out. “I’m scared... What if she tricks me into coming out and shoots me again?”

Li Guifen was frantic. “What are you saying! If she wants to shoot you, then let her—if you did something wrong, you deserve it! Get over here!”

She winked at her son as she spoke.

Seeing him still hesitating, she grew furious. “What, do you want to just go home and wait to die?”

They’d never seen this kind of blue poison in their village—who knew how long they had before it killed them?

Li Guifen was beside herself with worry, terrified that if they waited any longer, it would be too late for any cure.

Zhang Xiaobao glanced again at the blue wound on his shoulder.

He gritted his teeth, hurried over, and knelt down like his mother.

Dead is dead—maybe apologizing would give him a slim chance.

“Auntie, I was wrong. Please forgive me. I’ll never talk nonsense again.”

Hearing no response from inside, Li Guifen grew anxious. Had they taken too long and made the people inside angry again?

She grabbed her son’s head and forced him to kowtow. “Hurry up and kowtow to your aunt and apologize!”

Bang, bang, bang—they knocked their heads on the floor several times before a voice finally came from inside.

“You can go back now. There’s no antidote.”

Li Guifen, her face covered in tears, pleaded, “Big sister, please don’t do this. We really know we were wrong. We don’t deserve to die for it!”"