The Little Childhood Friend in a Female-Dominated World (ChatGPT Translated)

Who bullied you?

Note: The translation provided is a direct translation of the text and may not capture the full nuances or cultural references present in the original Chinese text.

Upon hearing this, the yamen runner turned his head and looked into the crowd, shouting, "Where is Ding Bingren?"

Upon hearing someone calling his name, Ding Bingren squeezed out of the crowd and entered the courtyard.

The yamen runner pointed at Ding Bingren and said to Li Shi, "He is the witness. The physical evidence is currently being kept at the Jingzhao Yamen."

Seeing the gaze of the Li family fixed on him, as if trying to penetrate him, Ding Bingren looked embarrassed and said, "It wasn't my intention to harm you. If you didn't agree to let Jia Madam carry Li Langjun as a servant, we could have returned the betrothal gifts as they were. But you shouldn't have taken things from the betrothal gifts."

"Before I came here, I carefully counted the items in the betrothal gifts. When I returned, I found that two jade bracelets, a sheep fat jade hairpin, and a jade ruyi were missing."

Ding Bingren looked at Li Shi with reproach and said, "If you didn't want to be a servant, that's fine. But you shouldn't have touched the betrothal gifts brought by others! I was going to return these things to Jia Madam as they were, but now that they are missing, what am I supposed to do? As a man, I have no choice but to report this to the Jingzhao Yamen."

Hearing these false accusations, Zhang Shi almost fainted. She spat at Ding Bingren and gritted her teeth, "I've lived for over forty years, and this is the first time I've seen someone telling such blatant lies with their eyes wide open! The things you brought were under your own watch, we never touched them. How dare you say we took them!"

"The people I brought with me have all left with me. The things were in your courtyard, and now they're gone. You say you didn't touch them, but can they grow wings and fly away?" Ding Bingren put his hands on his waist and asked the neighbors at the door, "You all saw it just now, I left with people."

This statement was true, but no one paid close attention to how many people Ding Bingren brought with him.

The neighbors at the door looked at each other and asked each other. Indeed, no one had carefully counted how many people Ding Bingren brought when he left the Li family. But after living together for so many years, they stood up and spoke fairly, "Li Madam is not the kind of person who would take your things. Since she said she won't marry her son, she definitely wouldn't touch the betrothal gifts."

"That's right."

"Could it be that you yourself stole the things?"

Ding Bingren glared at everyone and then turned to the yamen runner, saying, "Are you all here just to watch the show?"

The yamen runner sneered and reached out to grab Li Shi.

"Stop, all of you, stop!" A woman's voice came closer, and soon, the crowd at the door was separated to make way for someone. A servant boy pushed people aside to let his master through.

"What's going on?" Jia Shanren looked at Li Shi first when he entered, but seeing that Li Shi didn't even look at him, he turned to Ding Bingren and asked, "What's the situation?"

Ding Bingren then explained the situation to him, saying, "You asked me to come for the marriage proposal, but the Li family refused. However, while I was away, they stole items from the betrothal gifts. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to explain it to you, so I invited the official to mediate."

Seeing Ding Bingren wink at her, Jia Shanren understood that everything was going according to plan. A wave of joy surged in his heart, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up towards his ears.