Chapter 83: Why would you hit me with a fish?
The huge fish slapped across Wei Ranshu’s face with such force that for one terrible and beautiful second, the whole world seemed to stop and watch.
The sound was crisp.
Too crisp.
So crisp that even the lion cubs in Shi Yan’s basket went still and stared with their round little eyes, as if their tiny cub souls had just witnessed history being written in front of them.
And really, that was exactly what had happened.
Because this was not just any random fish slap.
This was the rat princess, the same rat princess who had chased this peacock beastman for years like she had lost her mind, standing in the middle of the village path and slapping him across the face with a fish.
A bird.
Slapped by a fish.
Even the heavens should have laughed.
Wei Ranshu staggered from the force of it, and because the fish still had small sharp bones along one side, one of them scratched a little cut across his cheek. It was not deep, but it was enough to sting and enough to make his pride bleed much more than his skin did. He nearly lost his footing from shock, and when he finally steadied himself, he only stood there looking at Lin Huahua as if his soul had been beaten out of his body and had not yet returned.
Around them, the whole village had gone silent.
Not normal silent either.
The kind of silence that happened when every single person nearby was too shocked to even breathe properly. Shi Yan stared. The lion cubs stared. Shi Yan’s males stared. Su Yanrong and her own males stared. Even the ordinary tribe members nearby, the ones skinning prey, sorting hides, carrying baskets, cutting herbs, all of them had turned to look.
For a moment, the world truly was shocked.
Because no one had expected this.
Not in ten years.
Not in one hundred years.
If someone had told them that one day the rat princess would slap Wei Ranshu with a fish in public, they would have laughed that person out of the village.
Yet here it was.
Right in front of their eyes.
Wei Ranshu slowly lifted one hand and touched the side of his face, then stared at the smear of moisture and the thin line of blood on his fingers as if he could not understand how life had become like this.
Then he looked at Lin Huahua again, his face full of disbelief and outrage, and pointed at her with a trembling hand.
"You..." he said, and his voice shook with injured pride more than pain. "Why would you hit me with a fish?"
That stupid question made Lin Huahua even angrier.
Actually angrier.
To the point where the tiny little remaining thread of patience she still had inside her completely snapped.
The first to recover from the shock were her males.
And among them, Feng Yiren was the happiest.
The fox beastman had been standing there with bee stings all over him, some still red and raised on his skin, and the moment he realized what had actually happened, his whole fox face lit up so brightly that if someone did not know better, they would think he had been personally blessed by the beast god.
He did not even try to hide it. He smiled. He actually smiled. No, smiling was not enough. He was beaming. His fox ears stood high, his tail swayed behind him with open delight, and his red eyes looked so pleased that even the pain from the bee stings could not suppress it.
Served him right.
That was what Feng Yiren was thinking.
Served him right for showing his ugly peacock face again.
Mu Qingyi and Hu Baiyu were no less happy inside, but their reactions were different. Mu Qingyi’s chest felt light in a way it had not felt for a very long time, and Hu Baiyu’s lion ears twitched with such obvious satisfaction that even he himself probably did not realize how much he had exposed.
But Lin Huahua was beyond that point now.
She was furious.
The fish was still in her hand, and the more she looked at Wei Ranshu’s stupid face, the more every ugly memory attached to him rose up in her mind one after another. Her placeholder had neglected these powerful handsome males because of him.
Her placeholder had humiliated them because of him. Her placeholder had made them suffer because of him. Her placeholder had even sent Long Xuan into that horrible cursed place because she was still fixated on this useless peacock.
And now he still had the nerve to stand there and ask why?
Lin Huahua nearly lost her mind.
So she lifted her hand again and slapped him.
This time it was not with the fish.
It was with her own palm.
Pah!
The slap landed, but the moment her hand hit his face, Lin Huahua immediately realized something very important.
This was still a beastman.
A beastman with hard skin, solid bones, and enough physical strength that even being weak among beastmen still made him stronger than her by a stupid amount.
So instead of looking fierce, Lin Huahua’s little face twisted for one second because her own hand hurt.
Badly.
Her males noticed at once.
Of course they did.
The second she winced, all three of them moved on instinct, because they did not care whether the peacock deserved death or not at that moment. Their first concern was the female’s hand.
Mu Qingyi took one step.
Hu Baiyu took two.
Feng Yiren’s smile vanished at once.
But before any of them could reach her, Lin Huahua, now even angrier because her own slap had hurt her, decided to use her leg instead.
"Because of you, you stupid beastman!" Lin Huahua shouted, and then she kicked at him.
Or rather, she tried to kick at him.
Because the moment her foot lifted, all three of her males had already reached her and were trying to hold her back before she hurt herself again.
The whole scene became even funnier now, because Lin Huahua was truly angry, truly trying to attack, but she was so small and her males were so huge that the picture looked less like a dangerous fight and more like three shirtless muscular beasts trying to restrain one furious little white rat dumpling before she injured her own hands and feet in her own rage.