Chapter 136: Poisoning
Shang Wan timely gave him a sweet date. She touched the child’s soft hair, “Once the house is repaired, you’ll get your own room.”
Chu Xu glanced at her. Due to grievance, his cat-like eyes glistened with a layer of watery light. He pouted and reluctantly agreed, “Alright.”
“Rest well and sleep more to recover faster.” Shang Wan helped him lie down, “Shi Tou will help you wash up in a bit and carry you to the compartment to sleep.”
Chu Xu reached out and grabbed Shang Wan’s arm.
Shang Wan looked down at him, “What’s wrong?”
“I… I…” Chu Xu hemmed and hawed for a long time, squeezing out a few words in a voice as soft as a mosquito’s, “I want to eat meat tomorrow.”
He had no money, but he tried his best to thicken his skin.
The young master had never imagined there’d be a day when he worried about not being able to eat meat.
The child’s face flushed red with shame, but his small hand gripped Shang Wan’s arm tightly, as if he wouldn’t let go unless she agreed.
“Okay.” Shang Wan removed his small hand and pinched his cheek, “You can eat meat. I’ll record however much you eat on the accounts, and you’ll pay it back later.”
“Good, record it all on the accounts. I want to eat Eight Treasure Duck.” Chu Xu’s cat-like eyes curved. Compared to freeloading, recording on accounts was easier for him to accept, and he made his request boldly.
“No Eight Treasure Duck. Whatever’s made is what you eat, no ordering.” Shang Wan patted him. This kid was great at pushing his luck.
Chu Xu pouted aggrievedly, “Can’t we go buy it?”
“No.” Shang Wan draped a thin quilt over him, “Close your eyes and sleep. Anything you want in your dreams.”
Chu Xu: …Hmph!
Shang Wan pushed Lu Chengjing out and first went to check on that ewe.
The ewe had had poor appetite since morning, as if sick.
This was important rations for her own kid. Shang Wan fed the ewe a drop of Spiritual Spring Water. Now it seemed better, having eaten all the fodder in the feed trough clean.
She added fodder to the feed troughs for the ewe and the yellow ox. Shang Wan casually picked two small yellow wildflowers and tucked them into Lu Chengjing’s hair by his temple.
She examined him solemnly for a moment and nodded, “Mm, very charming.”
Lu Chengjing: “…”
“Niangzi.”
His tone was full of helplessness, yet he didn’t lift his hand to remove the flowers.
Shang Wan leaned down to fiddle with the two small flowers by his temple. Her fair fingers lightly tapped the thin red corner of his eye, “You’ve had a unhappy face since earlier. What’s wrong, worried those assassins will come knocking?”
“Indeed worried.” In front of Shang Wan, Lu Chengjing tried to be honest, “But not worried about those assassins, rather the person behind them.”
He took Shang Wan’s hand and gently held it in his palm, “Open arrows can be guarded against; hidden arrows wound people.”
“It hasn’t come to that.” Shang Wan was very relaxed and comforted him, “Worry less. Worrying ages you fast and gives you wrinkles.”
Lu Chengjing: “…”
Everyday worry: becoming ugly and then being abandoned by his wife.
Shang Wan poked her own fox’s face, “Why aren’t you talking?”
Lu Chengjing sighed, “I’m thinking about how to live forever.”
Shang Wan: ?
“You really want to turn into a fox spirit?”
“…” Lu Chengjing, “Niangzi, have you heard the saying: those who serve others with beauty won’t last long.”
Shang Wan felt inexplicably puzzled, “So?”
Lu Chengjing raised his eyes, his dark eyes staring at her intently.
Shang Wan inexplicably sensed a flavor of looking at a heartless man. She blinked and only then realized that what Lu Chengjing had just said was pointing at her.
But… so what if she liked looking at beautiful people? Beautiful people were easy on the eyes. Wasn’t she allowed a hobby?
She hadn’t even collected them all to keep at home. How was that heartless?
“Ahem, living forever is impossible. Don’t think about it.” Shang Wan changed the subject, “I need to go to the mountains for a turn in a bit to look for those assassins’ tracks. You sleep first, don’t wait for me.”
Lu Chengjing: “…”
All was silent, the moon climbing higher and higher.
Nocturnal animals crawled out from their nests, their eerie green pupils searching for targets in the mountain forest.
“So, where did you pop out from?” Shang Wan looked down at the spirited Yuan Yuan, whose eyes were wide round.
Shouldn’t this kid be sleeping with Xiao Huan? When did she run to the mountains?
Yuan Yuan grinned with her small mouth, brushed the leaves off her small face, crawled over and hugged her mother’s leg, then sat her little butt on the instep of her shoe, determined to be a pendant.
Shang Wan helplessly picked her up and pinched her soft tender little face, “Say it, what do you want to do?”
Staying up late at night instead of sleeping, she definitely wanted to make trouble.
Yuan Yuan leaned in and planted several affectionate kisses on her own mother’s face, then pointed her small hand toward the depths of the mountain forest, “There!”
Her mountain had unwanted things in it!
She wanted mother to help!
Holding the child, Shang Wan leaped into the air, stepping on branches and leaves, running several dozen feet.
The direction Yuan Yuan pointed kept changing. Mother and daughter finally stopped at the tip of a tree nearly sixty feet tall.
Her small hand turned a corner, pointing downward.
Shang Wan leaped down, landing lightly like a cat on the branch closest to the ground. The branch didn’t even sway.
She looked down and found the ground below full of corpses of various small animals.
No one around, she leaped down from the tree. Shang Wan held her own kid in one arm while crouching to check the corpses.
Yuan Yuan also frowned her little brow and tilted her little head to look.
Except for that deer with only half its body left, the other dead animals had no external wounds, but white foam around their mouths.
“Poisoned?” Shang Wan murmured. Just as she was about to check carefully, her ears suddenly caught very faint footsteps approaching from afar.
Her figure flickered, leaping back onto the tree. Her green robe perfectly blended into the dense leaves.
Yuan Yuan obediently made no sound. One arm around her mother’s neck, one hand covering her small mouth, she hung her little head and looked down curiously.
A man in black clothes and a black mask entered view. Under the bright moonlight, the dagger in his hand reflected eerie light, looking extremely sharp just from sight.
The man was tall and moved almost silently.
He vigilantly scanned around, checking each animal corpse, yet found nothing unusual.
“Damn it, made me run for nothing!” The man angrily kicked the wild rabbit corpse in front of him flying, grumbling discontentedly, “Clearly heard noise here. The little bastard runs pretty fast.”
The man searched the surroundings, even looked above his head, but still found nothing.
He angrily kicked the tree trunk twice and returned the way he came.
Yuan Yuan immediately released her small hand from her mouth and tugged at her mother’s collar, wanting to go down.
Shang Wan didn’t move and nodded toward below the tree.
Yuan Yuan looked down. That man had returned, wandered another circle before leaving.
Yuan Yuan blinked her eyes, pointed her small hand downward. Can we go down now?
Shang Wan shook her head and took her to hide in another tree.
Not long after, that man came back again, straight to the tree where the mother and daughter had hidden earlier. With a tap of his toe, he leaped onto the tree and stabbed around with his dagger.
The gleaming dagger occasionally peeked through the dense branches and leaves, making Yuan Yuan’s eyes go wide. Her small hand subconsciously hugged her mother’s neck tightly.
Shang Wan comfortingly stroked her little head. Only when the man finally gave up and left did she carry her daughter down the tree to continue checking those animal corpses.
Indeed poisoned to death.
What was the point of poisoning small animals out of nowhere?
