Chapter 10: Accident
Pigs, cattle and sheep, all one male and one female, plus two extra piglets as a gift.
Thirty chicks, ducklings, and goslings each, and a total of one thousand pounds of fish, shrimp, and crabs.
Five hundred pounds of mountain mushrooms and fungi, one thousand pounds of wild chickens, wild rabbits, wild boars, and the like, and a total of two thousand pounds of fruits.
One hundred pounds each of various grain seeds, ten pounds of vegetable seeds, forty fruit tree saplings.
……
She remembered it filled several full pages of paper, detailed down to the quantity and price of each item marked, with a total amount of two thousand eight hundred sixty-two.
She mentally compared them a bit in her heart; the prices for each category weren’t too high. Su Ning knew this time her luck was good; not only did she buy everything she needed, but the people she met were also reliable and honest.
Although her small coffer was suddenly depleted by more than half, the things she was about to get made her feel no heartache at all.
“Alright, thanks for the trouble, Grandpa Li.”
“Good, good.”
The other half of her suspended heart also settled steadily. Li Dazhu smiled and nodded, asking everyone to help move all the things piled on the roadside grass onto the truck.
“Here’s the money. Have someone count it.”
Watching the large sums of money fall into the accountant’s hands, the busy crowd was even more energized, each one grinning foolishly as they moved things extremely quickly.
After both sides completed the transaction, it was already completely dark. In this situation, it wasn’t good to exchange too many pleasantries. Su Ning sat in the high truck passenger seat, poked her head out to bid farewell to Li Dazhu and the others, and signaled Lu Fei to drive away.
……
Looking through the rearview mirror at the person beside him who was in a very good mood, Lu Fei pursed his lips tightly, glanced once and then shifted his gaze to focus on driving.
There was definitely doubt, but not everything needed to be figured out to the bottom.
“Uncle Lu, rest assured, I won’t do anything bad.”
Lu Fei didn’t doubt this point. Although he didn’t know much about the Su Family, he trusted his old friend.
Even if it really was related to the black market…
In these famine years, even public officials often went there to scrounge for food, and he himself was no exception, so naturally he wouldn’t have any special thoughts.
“Watch out!”
“Screech—”
The screeching friction sound of the emergency-braking tires was especially piercing in the quiet night.
A big dog that darted out from who knows where barked madly a few times at the stopped big truck before turning tail and running.
In the moment of urgency, as if afraid she would be flung out, Lu Fei shouted at the same time as he stretched out a large hand to grab her firmly.
“Xiao Ning, are you okay?”
Ever since she knew that touching others would let her see future scenes, Su Ning had been extremely careful to avoid it.
She had once heard her maternal grandfather say that there were many strange people and events in the world, and possessing some special ability often required paying an equivalent price.
After several peeks into the future, she temporarily hadn’t discovered anything wrong with herself, but she still subconsciously didn’t want to use this unknown ability too much.
In the end… it backfired.
She silently looked at the hand he was using to grip her arm, struggle in her eyes.
“What’s wrong? Did you get hurt or bump somewhere?”
She shook her head. Thinking of the scene she had just seen, Su Ning unconsciously bit her lower lip hard, and determination appeared in her eyes as she raised them.
“Uncle Lu, don’t ask anything. Change course right now and go back to your home!”
“Hm?”
What did that mean? Was she temporarily handing this batch of goods over to him to watch?
“Hurry! Uncle Lu, believe me!”
Her heart raced inexplicably due to the undisguised urgency in her eyes, a bad thought flashing through.
Lu Fei let go of her hand, asked no more and said no more, floored the accelerator, and roared toward home.
……
Just as in the scene she had seen before, in the dim and long alley, restless sounds approached from far to near: urgent exclamations and flustered cries for help.
“Oh my god, Quan Zi, what are we going to do?! Why hasn’t Xiao Luo arrived yet?”
“Big Aunt, don’t worry. Xiao Luo is definitely on his way. He’ll be here any moment!”
“Little Stone, Little Stone, don’t sleep. Look at Grandmother. Little Stone, don’t scare Grandmother~”
Lu Fei, who had pulled over and stopped steadily, didn’t have time to think, didn’t even pull out the truck key, instinctively pushed open the door and leaped out, running toward the increasingly familiar voices.
He flashed into the alley at extreme speed and soon collided with a group of people.
“Mom, what’s wrong with Quan Zi?!”
“Da Fei? Waa, you’re finally back! That’s great, hurry, Da Fei, drive fast and take Little Stone to the hospital!”
“Fei Bro, Little Stone fell from that big tree in front of the hall, he’s bleeding a lot. We need to rush him to the hospital!”
“Let’s go!”
Looking at her son with eyes tightly closed, his small face mixed with large patches of blood pale as paper, the whole person motionless as if he had stopped breathing.
Lu Fei tried hard to steady his mind, bent down to carefully take him from his childhood friend’s hands, turned, and bolted toward the truck.
“Uncle Lu, get in the truck quick!”
Lu Fei, with his mind a blank, instinctively hugged his son upon hearing the voice and climbed through the wide-open door to bend down and sit.
Taking a quick glance at the child lying silently in his arms, if not for the slight rise and fall of his chest…
Thinking of the little guy who would lose his life due to not being sent to the hospital in time, Su Ning’s face turned solemn. Without a word, she drove the truck to its fastest speed. Now it was a race against time, snatching him from the King of Hell!
“Rumble—vroom vroom~”
Until the big truck stopped at the hospital entrance and the son was successfully sent into the emergency room.
His hands stained with bloodstains still trembled uncontrollably, and with his legs going soft and unsteady, Lu Fei finally regained some clarity: Who was driving just now?
Right, where was Xiao Ning?
He, where was the truck?!
……
Following and running around, watching the little guy smoothly enter the operating room this time and advancing enough medical expenses, the relieved Su Ning quietly left and drove the truck to an uninhabited ruined area.
Shifted gears, turned off the engine.
It had been a long time since she drove, and only then did her heart start pounding with belated nervousness. She patted her chest, took several deep breaths, and then opened the door to get out.
She placed her hand against the rear carriage and unobtrusively put all the things inside into the space.
Su Ning crouched down taking advantage of the darkness, using the truck’s blind spot to follow into the space.
Seeds, fruit trees, wild game, and such were temporarily piled on the empty ground outside the small courtyard.
First, she checked each container of live animals one by one. Some of the fish, shrimp, and crabs had turned belly up and died, while the others were just a bit listless.
The several large buckets containing fish, shrimp, and crabs truly took her a lot of effort to successfully push into the small stream.
Without stopping, she then herded the several big pigs, cattle, and sheep one by one into the temporarily fenced area, and put the chicks, ducklings, and goslings along with their baskets into the courtyard.
Her figure paused when going out. As if possessed, Su Ning entered the kitchen and took a large meat bun from the stove that she had bought that afternoon at the state-run restaurant.
The steamed bun was still emitting its unique meat aroma, not hot to the touch, but genuinely warm.
Could it be?
Things placed in the kitchen could still stay in their original state?
“Hiss—”
Surprises always came so suddenly. She took a big bite of the large meat bun in her hand. Mmm~ freshly steamed things are the best!
She left one bag continuing on the stove and took the other bag out of the kitchen.
She needed to do an experiment to see if her guess was right.
She placed one or two large meat buns in each room, and didn’t miss the corners inside and outside the courtyard.
Then she took out vegetable and radish seeds, plus a few grains each of rice, wheat, and corn seeds from the purchased seeds, went to that small patch of black soil near the courtyard, dug up the soil casually, planted them, and sprinkled some stream water.
As for the result, she just needed to wait quietly until tomorrow to find out!
