Chapter 94: Someone At The Village Entrance
Shang Wan stared at the fresh Bok Choy in the Spiritual Field for a long while, and suddenly an idea popped into her mind.
Back in the Apocalypse, she had experimented with watering the Spiritual Field with Spiritual Spring Water.
The conclusion at that time was that Spiritual Spring Water could only improve the quality of crops planted in the Spiritual Field, but could not speed up their maturation.
At that time, Shang Wan’s Ability was improving quickly, and the Spiritual Field itself had an astonishing Time Flow Rate, so it didn’t matter whether Spiritual Spring assisted or not.
Now perhaps she could try again; what if it worked?
Having made up her mind, Shang Wan planned to wait for this batch of Bok Choy to mature, then plant another batch and water it with Spiritual Spring Water to see the effect.
Withdrawing her mind from the Space, Shang Wan leaned against Xiao Hui and yawned, planning to nap for a bit before going into the mountains to catch game.
Unexpectedly, before her eyelids even closed, Li Xiaoshan led several half-grown boys from the Village running over. Before they even got close, a crisp voice called out first, “Sis! Someone at the Village Entrance is looking for Brother-in-law!”
Shang Wan leaned against Xiao Hui, too lazy to get up, and pointed with her hand at Lu Chengjing who was practicing calligraphy with his head down not far away, “Go over there and talk.”
“Oh.” Li Xiaoshan eyed the Gray Wolf covetously; he still wanted to pet it.
The other three boys had also come to pet the wolf.
Now, however, they could only look on eagerly; even Xiaoshan couldn’t pet it, let alone them.
Shang Wan took in the expressions of the several children, chuckling to herself: were they really treating the wolf like a dog to play with?
She patted Xiao Hui’s head, letting it look at the children.
Xiao Hui lifted its eyelids, glanced once, then closed them again, its tail sweeping over Shang Wan’s skirt hem as it continued dozing.
Shang Wan didn’t force it, tilting her ear to listen for Movement at the Village Entrance, her hand stroking the Gray Wolf’s thick fur over and over.
“Qiao?” Lu Chengjing set down the Writing Brush and looked up at Li Xiaoshan in front of him.
Li Xiaoshan nodded repeatedly, “He has really fine clothes, and his lackey is leading a sheep.”
From this description, being his fellow student and leading a sheep, it must be Qiao Yu’an for sure.
Li Xiaoshan said: “That sheep ate the vegetables in Liu Family’s Field and trampled quite a bit too. Brother Liu Cheng is blocking the people and Reasoning with them.”
Hearing this, Lu Chengjing was quite helpless, “I’ll go to the Village Entrance and take a look.”
“Brother-in-law, I’ll push you.” Li Xiaoshan went behind the Wheelchair and pushed Lu Chengjing toward the Village Entrance together with his little friends.
Since it wasn’t a big deal either way, Shang Wan didn’t go along, but Yuan Yuan really wanted to see the excitement.
With her mount Xiao Hui occupied by her mother, Yuan Yuan immediately set her sights on Liang Liang who was playing with her.
Her small hand tugged at Liang Liang’s clothes, “Go!”
Liang Liang withdrew his gaze from the stacked Stones and asked puzzledly: “Go where?”
Yuan Yuan raised her hand pointing at the direction where Lu Chengjing had left, repeating: “Go!”
“Can’t run around.” Liang Liang remembered his own Daddy’s instructions: be obedient at the Host Family, don’t run around.
“Go!” Yuan Yuan climbed into Little Brother’s lap and sat properly, tilting up her little face with sparkling big eyes full of expectation.
Liang Liang looked at the little one in his lap for a moment, somewhat unable to resist. But he glanced toward his Daddy’s direction, still shaking his head and repeating, “Can’t run around.”
Yuan Yuan puffed her cheeks in dissatisfaction, her eyes rolling around once, a flash of something extraordinary passing through.
A passing Sparrow suddenly dove down from the sky, its sharp beak lightly pecking Liang Liang’s little head.
Liang Liang felt the pain, covering his head with one hand and waving the other to shoo it.
After being pecked several times, he worried that Yuan Yuan would be pecked by the Sparrow too, so he hurriedly picked up Yuan Yuan and ran in the opposite direction from the Sparrow’s pursuit, which was the direction Lu Chengjing and the others had gone.
The Sparrow relentlessly chased after the two.
Shang Wan watched with a tsk tsk; using the Ability more made the little one increasingly proficient in controlling it.
By the time Liang Liang realized, he had already caught up to Lu Chengjing holding Yuan Yuan, and the Sparrow had flown away at some point.
“Daddy!” Yuan Yuan happily pounced into Lu Chengjing’s lap; Li Xiaoshan and the little friends curiously sized up the stranger Liang Liang.
Liang Liang shrugged his shoulders and moved a small step to the side.
Hu Zi, with a small patch of pockmarks on his cheek, asked: “Who are you?”
Liang Liang hung his head and didn’t speak.
The shortest Jin Shun found it strange, “Why aren’t you talking?”
“Duoduo!” Yuan Yuan stuck out her little head and called; Liang Liang turned to look at her.
“Four Duoduo!” Yuan Yuan pointed at Liang Liang, saying to the other children, “Turtle turtle, play!”
The children: ???
Li Xiaoshan automatically acted as translator, “Yuan Yuan is saying that Liang Liang is like us, a Little Brother who plays with her.”
“Four!” Yuan Yuan quickly nodded her little head in agreement.
Li Xiaoshan looked at Liang Liang and introduced proactively, “I’m Xiaoshan, they’re Hu Zi, Da Zhu, Jin Shun.”
He pointed to each little friend one by one, finally asking Liang Liang: “What’s your name? Let’s play together from now on.”
Liang Liang looked up at him once, then quickly lowered his head again, mumbling softly: “Liang… Liang Liang, my name is Liang Liang.”
“Liang Liang, we’re going to play Marbles later, wanna play?” Li Xiaoshan saw that Liang Liang was a bit shy, so he invited him proactively.
Liang Liang pursed his lips with both hands clenched tight; before he could speak, a sweet milky voice answered for him: “Play!”
Yuan Yuan raised her small hand, very enthusiastic.
Liang Liang: “…”
Although he hadn’t said yes, he also didn’t object.
The children took it as his default agreement, pushing Lu Chengjing toward the Village Entrance on one side while discussing Marbles techniques on the other.
Li Xiaoshan occasionally passed words to Liang Liang; gradually, Liang Liang wasn’t so nervous anymore, and for every ten sentences others said, he could say one.
Yuan Yuan was quite invested in the discussion, though exactly what she said only she herself knew.
Discussing as they went, they arrived at the Village Entrance, where a circle of people, men and women, had gathered; occasionally “baa baa” sheep calls came from inside.
Lu Chengjing was pushed by Li Xiaoshan into the Crowd, and he saw the scene inside clearly.
Liu Cheng, in coarse hemp clothes, had his hand behind A Le, Qiao Yu’an’s servant, “No compensation, no leaving!”
Qiao Yu’an was wearing a cyan round-collar robe today, jade belt at his waist, with quite a few Sachet pendants and such hanging; he explained urgently, “I’ve said it already, these vegetables weren’t trampled by us! Do you even reason?”
“The moment you came, half the vegetables in the Field were ruined; if not you, then who?” Liu Cheng added two points of strength to his grip; A Le immediately cried “ow ow” and shouted, “Young Master save me!”
“Let go of A Le!” Qiao Yu’an stuck the Folding Fan into the collar behind his neck, about to roll up his sleeves to save his servant, when he suddenly spotted Lu Chengjing.
His eyes lit up, and he shouted: “Chengjing!”
Lu Chengjing nodded to him and said to Liu Cheng: “Big Brother Liu, let’s talk slowly if there’s something. These two have ties with me; can you let go of the person first?”
Hearing this, Liu Cheng hesitated a moment then released his hand.
A Le hurriedly ran back to Qiao Yu’an’s side, baring his teeth and rubbing his shoulder.
“Xiucai Scholar, it’s not that I’m unreasonable about this.” Liu Cheng pointed to the messy Vegetable Patch nearby, “Look at the vegetables in the Field; trampled by their sheep so they’re inedible. You have to give me an Explanation, right?”
“It wasn’t our sheep that trampled them.” A Le tugged at the Hemp Rope around the sheep’s neck, “I was holding it the whole time without letting go; how could it have trampled your Field?”
