Chapter 114:
“Meow~”
A familiar meow sounded. Yun Jiao, resting on her older brother’s shoulder, looked up, thinking she had misheard.
But in the next second, the bushes to her front left rustled, and a very familiar tabby cat emerged.
Yun Jiao’s eyes widened.
“Boss.”
Everyone else had also seen it.
Yun Chenxi exclaimed in surprise, “Oh, this cat actually followed us.”
Yun Xiao Wu asked, “Sister, do you think it wants to come home with us?”
Yun Jiao didn’t know either. She asked her big brother to put her down.
“Boss, do you want to come home with us?”
The tabby cat walked up to her, rubbed its head against her ankle, and its tail hooked around her other foot.
Holding her big brother’s hand, she took a few steps forward. The tabby cat, with its tail held high, calmly followed.
Her eyes lit up instantly, “Boss really is coming home with us!”
No one was keeping the tabby cat in Shen Family Village anymore, so it was good that it was leaving with them.
It got along well with Yun Jiao.
Yun Jiao’s family members welcomed this new addition.
The tabby cat followed them all the way down the mountain. During the journey, it caught a bird and offered it to Yun Jiao. When she didn’t eat it, the tabby cat ate it itself.
A happy Yun Jiao hummed a song, thinking that the birds in the mountains didn’t sound as nice as she did.
On the way down the mountain, her big brother and second brother kept fighting to carry her or hold her.
Each took turns carrying her for a section of the path, making her journey completely effortless.
“We’re home.”
Finally, they reached the village entrance. Yun Jiao picked up the tabby cat.
“Boss, take a look. This is where you’ll be living from now on.”
“Around here, fishing should be quite simple for you. If you can swim and aren’t afraid of water, I can even take you on a boat ride.”
“Meow.”
The old women and aunties working and chatting at the village entrance greeted them.
“Lin Hai is back. You’ve returned so early this year.”
It was clear that they were accustomed to them returning every year to help with work at their wife’s maternal home.
Yun Linhai nodded with a look of an honest man.
Someone stretched their neck to look into their backpacks.
“You’ve brought back a lot of things from your wife’s family again this year. Your in-laws are truly generous.”
Shen Yunlian smiled, “They’re just some common wild goods from around there.”
“Well, your parents are happy to give them too.”
Shen Yunlian replied, “My parents-in-law also asked me to bring a lot of things to my parents.”
“That’s true. Both your families are very generous, have a good relationship, and are close.”
Without chatting much longer, they quickly left the village entrance and went home.
The group of people at the village entrance, however, continued their conversation.
“There aren’t many father-in-laws and mothers-in-law as generous as Lin Hai’s.”
“That’s for sure. I saw it myself; they were carrying two full backpacks when they left.”
“One can only say that both families are generous and not stingy. Unlike my family, my mother-in-law watches me like a hawk every time I go back to my maternal home, afraid I’ll take even an egg.”
“It’s through this give-and-take that the relationship between the two families gets better. Look at so-and-so’s family; they married a daughter-in-law who’s practically a house thief, wanting to move all of her in-laws’ belongings to her own home, yet her maternal family gives nothing. Who could stand that?”
“When choosing a wife for our sons in the future, we need to be more discerning. Marrying someone like that would truly be seven kinds of bad luck.”
“Wasn’t she beaten? Hasn’t she learned her lesson yet?”
“She was only well-behaved for a few days. She’s been secretly sending things to her maternal home again lately. I heard she even took food and clothes meant for her own child to give to her nephew.”
“Mazu protect me. My son is almost of marrying age, please don’t let me encounter someone like that.”
Yun Jiao and the others were unaware of the later conversation among the aunties; they had already returned home.
Seeing the wild boar meat in the backpacks, Grandpa Yun and Grandma Yun were astonished.
“This, this… how did you bring back so much meat?”
Pork was not cheap, and they had brought back so much at once.
Yun Linhai grinned, “This wild boar was killed by Jiao Jiao.”
“What? Jiao Jiao?”
Both elders looked towards Yun Jiao.
At this time, Yun Jiao was feeding the tabby cat dried fish from home.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you…”
Yun Xiao Jiu raised his hand, “Sister and I were fishing by the river. Sister caught a really big fish, and she even pulled out a giant turtle from the river.”
He raised his arm and exaggerated, “It was even bigger than our sea turtle.”
Yun Xiao Wu asked, “What? We didn’t see it?”
Yun Xiao Liu nodded and said slowly, “I didn’t see it.”
“Jiao Jiao released it. Jiao Jiao said that the giant turtle had spiritual energy and she didn’t want to eat it.”
“It also had some golden color, and it was very beautiful. It’s just that its shell was different from a turtle’s, it was a large, flat piece, and its head was also different, a bit like a loach’s head.”
Yun Chenxi mused, “That wasn’t a turtle.”
“Listening to your description, it sounds like a soft-shelled turtle.”
Yun Xiao Jiu scratched his head; he had never seen a soft-shelled turtle.
“I don’t know.”
Yun Xiao Wu wondered, “Was there really such a big soft-shelled turtle?”
Yun Jiao nodded, “Bigger than Gui Gui.”
Grandma Yun clicked her tongue in amazement, “Good heavens, how many years must it have lived?”
Yun Xiao Jiu bounced excitedly, “I still have something to say! After Sister released the giant turtle, no, the soft-shelled turtle, she said she was going to look for other things in the river. Then she dived into the river. Not long after, wild boars came, several of them, and they ran towards where I was standing. At that moment…”
Yun Xiao Jiu’s expressions were lively as he recounted the story, vividly describing the perilous scene at the time.
His family’s expressions shifted with his words.
When he finished, describing how Yun Jiao pinned the wild boar in the water and fought it, everyone gained a new understanding of Yun Jiao’s strength.
But how to put it? Although rationally they knew she was very strong, not weak.
She simply looked too much like a fragile porcelain doll; words like beautiful and delicate seemed to be her defining characteristics.
At first glance, she inspired a desire to protect her.
Anyone who didn’t know her strength would never guess the immense power contained within such a delicate and beautiful body.
“Is Jiao Jiao okay? Is she injured?”
Yun Jiao shook her head and held out her hands for them to see.
Both the palms and backs of her hands were fine, her skin was a healthy rosy white, with no wounds at all.
“I’m fine.”
“Good, good, good… Our Jiao Jiao is truly amazing.”
Grandma Yun praised her.
“But you can’t just rely on your strength and go to dangerous places on purpose.”
Yun Jiao nodded obediently, “I know.”
“What’s going on with this cat?”
Grandma Yun’s gaze fell upon the tabby cat, whom she had been ignoring.
Yun Xiao Jiu had something more to say, “Grandma, you don’t know. This tabby cat is called Boss. It’s amazing; it can catch wild chickens. It caught two wild chickens, and one was given to Jiao Jiao to eat.”
Cousin Xiu Yuan said that the person who used to own it was a lonely old man who had difficulty moving and had no food. Boss would go into the mountains to catch wild chickens and rabbits to exchange for food for the old man. It was very intelligent…
