Chapter 17: Naughty Kid

After she sat down, Guo Xiang took a good look at the train.

It was her first time taking this kind of green train, and it was a slow train.

In her previous life, she had grown up in Beijing, and her university was also in Beijing. When she went out, she usually drove by herself. When she needed to travel, she would either take a plane or a high-speed train. At the very least, it was a fast train. She had never taken this kind of green train before.

This train was old and dilapidated. There were too many people, the ventilation was bad, and the speed was slow. It would stop at any small station. Once they reached the intersection, they would have to let the other trains go first. It was time-consuming and difficult.

However, she had no choice. This was the only train that would stop in this small county. Otherwise, she would have to go to the city to change trains, which would be even more troublesome. Moreover, with the current technology, even an express train would not be much faster.

People began to get off the train and board the train one after another. New passengers replace the old passengers quite fast. 

When it was almost dark, an old woman in her fifties came up from the opposite side with a seven or eight-year-old child. It must have been the child's first time on a train. He was jumping up and down and was really noisy. 

Guo Xiang wanted to say something, but after thinking about it, she did not want to cause trouble. She could only turn a blind eye.

However, she was really annoyed by the noise. When she saw that there were books for sale on the trolley of the train attendant, she was ready to buy one and read it. Her heart would usually calm down whenever she read. 

Unfortunately, she didn't have a lot of options, so she bought a book called "Story Club".

As she was reading, she suddenly felt a pair of sticky hands touching her legs. Out of reflex, she kicked her legs, only to then hear cries under the table. It turned out that the naughty child was hiding under the table.

"Darling dear, what's wrong?" The old woman cried out in panic and lowered her head to look for the child.

The brat crawled out from under the small table. While sobbing, he pointed at Guo Xiang, "she... she kicked me!"

"What's wrong with you? Why are you randomly kicking people? What if my grandson got hurt?" The old woman glared at Guo Xiang. She hugged the child and coaxed, "Let Grandma see, where did she kick you?"

"Here, she kicked me here," the brat pointed at his chest and glared at Guo Xiang.

Guo Xiang did not say anything. If the brat hadn't touched her, she wouldn't have kicked him. 

"Little girl, what's wrong with you? You didn't even apologize after kicking someone? Why are you so rude?" The old woman pointed at Guo Xiang and scolded.

Guo Xiang frowned. She didn't even say anything, why this person actually blamed her?

She stood up and looked down at the old woman. The old woman was only 1.5 meters tall. Guo Xiang was a lot taller than her. Now, Guo Xiang was looking down on the old woman. 

"If this brat didn't touch my leg, I wouldn't have kicked him," Guo Xiang said coldly.

"What nonsense are you talking about? My grandson would never touch other people! Don't slander me!" The old woman's face was full of wrinkles, and her drooping eyelids stared fiercely at Guo Xiang.

"He didn't touch me? Then what is this?" Guo Xiang raised her leg, and her trouser leg was pulled up, revealing a pale calf with two black handprints on it.

Then she looked at the brat's hands, which were black.

"Look at this kid, how did he learn to be a hooligan at such a young age?" Someone at the side joked.

"He even chose to touch a little girl's leg, haha..."

"What hooligan? He's still young. He doesn't know anything!" The old woman rebuked angrily.

"If he doesn't know, then he has to learn. He's already old enough to understand what he can and can't touch. Even if the child doesn't know, the adult should," Guo Xiang said coldly.

"That's right. Why didn't he touch me?" The Grandpa beside Guo Xiang said, "he touched the little girl because he thought she's pretty!"

"The little girl did nothing wrong. If I were her, I would be angry if somebody touched me too," someone on the side also chimed in.

"So what? He's still a child. What's wrong with him touching you?" The old woman argued. "He touches you because he likes you, otherwise he wouldn't even get close to you."

"Hmph..." Guo Xiang snorted. "So he touched me because he thought I was worth touching? Should I feel honored?"

After saying that, her face darkened. "I really can't stand his bad habits. If you don't teach him, I'll teach him what he should and shouldn't do for you!" After saying that, she reached out her hand.

"What do you want to do?" The old woman turned pale with fright and protected her grandson. "She's hitting a child! Help! Train attendant, you have to help us..."

The people beside her shook their heads. Protecting her grandson like this was doing nothing but harming the child!

Seeing that no one was coming to help her, the old woman sat on the ground and cried, "you little girl, how can you be so vicious at such a young age? You're bullying an old woman like me, and all of you too..."

She pointed at the people around her, "all of you are helping her! You have no conscience!"

The people beside her were furious, "old lady, how can you say that? Your own grandson was in the wrong first, but you don't let anybody else say anything about it? Why are you shouting abuse at everyone like you're crazy?"

"That's right, why don't you reflect on yourself first..."

"The little girl deserves an apology for it."

"The kid's rude, and the guardian is unreasonable too!"

"Why is that old lady so evil? Is this how people behave when they are old?"A little girl beside her said to her companion.

"It's not that the old people have become bad, but that the bad people have become old!" Her companion pouted at the old woman.

The young girl burst out laughing, "that makes sense!"

All the chaos attracted the conductor. 

"What happened?" The conductor asked.

Someone told him what had happened just now. The conductor looked at Guo Xiang and then at the old woman sitting on the ground.

Seeing that Guo Xiang was easier to talk to, he said to Guo Xiang, "Miss, I think it's better to let it go. This child probably didn't do it on purpose."

"Who knows whether it was on purpose or not? Surely the adult should understand what the kid did wrong! Not only did she not apologize, she also scolded me. She even asked me to apologize to her. What kind of nonsense was that?" Guo Xiang said.

"Why should I apologize to you?" The old woman stood up suddenly. "I haven't asked you to compensate me yet. Look, look at him. You kicked my grandson and now his clothes are dirty. I don't know if he has internal injuries or not either. What if you broke him? You have to compensate me!"

"Look..." Guo Xiang snorted and looked at the conductor.

The conductor was getting a headache from all this commotion. When it comes to dealing with unreasonable people, he didn't know what to do, "Auntie, I think you should stop shouting. The child is in the wrong too. You can't just go around touching others. She is a young girl too. You're lucky that she has a good temper. If the kid touched somebody else, they would've hit him too."

"She wouldn't dare!" The old woman shouted, "She can try! If she dares to hit my grandson, I'll fight her!"

"I wouldn't dare?" Guo Xiang was furious for real this time.

"Auntie, please stop talking. You know who's in the right here," the conductor was also getting angry. "If she was your daughter, would you let other people touch her?"

The old woman choked, "my grandson didn't do it on purpose... he was reliant on breastmilk for a very long time, and his father is almost never home to take care of him. He could only fall asleep by touching his mother's breasts. What's wrong with touching her leg?"

The conductor looked at the old woman in disbelief. "Are you saying that he could..."

He could really feel Guo Xiang's anger right now. It would be strange if she didn't get angry.

"How shameless!"

"How shameless!"

"Are all the children in the countryside raised like this?"

"No, our children are not like this..."

Guo Xiang didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Conductor, I want to change seats. What if the kid comes and touches me at night when I sleep..."

"I'll change seats for you right away!" The conductor said immediately.

"You don't have to!"The old woman's face turned red, "I... I'm almost at my stop..."

"Let me see your ticket!" The conductor said.

The old woman handed the ticket to the conductor. She was telling the truth. They would have to get off after two more stops. He said, "I think it's okay. They are getting off soon. They won't stay here for the night."

Guo Xiang exhaled. Oh well, she would just have to endure it for a little longer.

"Okay!"

"Alright, nothing to see here now. Please be nice, everyone. The journey will be more enjoyable that way!" The conductor said.

The bystanders soon walked away. The old woman looked at Guo Xiang and held the child in her arms, scared that Guo Xiang would come and hit them.

Guo Xiang rolled her eyes and sat down.

Her stomach growled. She had eaten two sweet potatoes in the afternoon and was really hungry now.

She took out a sweet potato from her bag. Pausing for a little while, she then decided to take out two eggs.

She originally didn't want to eat the eggs, but in this hot weather, the eggs would go bad by tomorrow if she didn't eat them. The living conditions were tough and she couldn't bring herself to waste food. 

"I want to eat eggs!" The brat sitting on the opposite side shouted again and stretched out his hand to grab the eggs.