Rice Thieves

This person didn't act tough, so they must be decent. Liu Xiaolou watched them leave, filled with respect, and cupped his hands in a bow behind them.

But as evening fell and darkness crept in, those with less upright character appeared. They suddenly rushed out from the woods, reached the fields, and used their sickles to cut a few handfuls before turning and fleeing, too fast to be caught.

Liu Xiaolou, at the third level of Qi Refining, hadn't reached the stage where he could wield his flying sword detached from his body. He could only roar at their retreating backs, stamping his feet and cursing them as "bastards."

He finished harvesting his last spirit field in a state of extreme frustration, having been robbed over ten times. The last time was particularly disheartening. The other party's cultivation was clearly a couple of levels higher. They lingered by the field, refusing to leave. Liu Xiaolou charged forward to fight them several times, but to no avail.

He couldn't defeat them, and his curses were useless. The other party simply wore black scarves and harvested silently. They took two fen of his land before slowly and methodically bundling it up and taking it away. He was completely helpless.

Fortunately, this was his last contracted spirit field. He had lost about twenty catties in total, which wasn't a major setback. He considered it as feeding the dogs.

After submitting his spirit grain that night, he was still about a hundred catties short of the delivery quota. He had four bags of spirit grain buried in a hidden spot, totaling over three hundred catties. Of course, he couldn't submit it all at once. He planned to submit another thirty to fifty catties tomorrow evening, the last day for grain delivery. For the remaining amount, he would use silver to compensate, essentially buying the rice. The price was high, two taels of silver per catty of spirit rice, but it wasn't something one could easily acquire.

Returning to the fields, Liu Xiaolou meditated for half an hour. Under the cover of the dark and windy night, he put on a black scarf and donned a bamboo hat.

What others can do, I can do too!

His target was already chosen. It was at the southeastern end of the valley. Every night when delivering grain, Liu Xiaolou had to pass by the mountain, where he could see which spirit fields in the valley had not yet been harvested. At the southeastern end, there was a large spirit field, over four mu in size. The spirit rice was still growing neatly, making it quite conspicuous.

From his position halfway up the mountain, he watched for a long time under the moonlight. The spirit field was quiet and still, with no one around. He didn't know if the Zang family hadn't assigned any helpers, or if the helpers assigned to this area hadn't had time to harvest it. In any case, this was the one!

He patiently waited for a while longer. When a dark cloud drifted by, obscuring the bright moonlight, the night instantly deepened. The valley below became even darker, almost pitch black.

"Let's go!" Liu Xiaolou encouraged himself and leaped down. His movements were swift and powerful, like a tiger!

In just a few leaps, he reached the foot of the mountain. Bending over, he dashed forward swiftly and soon arrived at the edge of the field.

Indeed, it was pitch black, the perfect time for stealing rice.

Liu Xiaolou tiptoed into the field. He couldn't tell where he was. Enduring the prickling of the rice stalks, he threw out his Misty Incense Tendon and immediately began to pull up the rice. He would pull up a clump and throw it into the basket behind him. Before long, it was full.

He took a few steps back out of the paddy, almost tripping over the ridge behind him, looking quite clumsy. But he couldn't afford to bother with that now. He dumped the rice stalks from the basket, tied them up with a stalk, and temporarily piled them on the field ridge.

He returned to the field and continued working, going back and forth multiple times, harvesting five or six bundles.

While working, he also looked up at the sky. The dark cloud overhead was about to drift away, and the moonlight would soon reappear. At that point, it would be best to retreat back to the mountainside and wait for a better opportunity to descend again.

As he was contemplating this, he swung his Misty Incense Tendon forward, but it missed, not catching any rice stalks.

Without time to think, he swung the Misty Incense Tendon further away. This time it caught something. Liu Xiaolou poured his true essence into the tendon and pulled it back...

A soft cry sounded from beneath his feet: "Ouch..."

Liu Xiaolou froze. He looked closely and saw that what he had pulled back was not rice stalks, but a human figure!

The dark cloud had passed, and the moonlight shone down again. This time, he could see clearly. It was a person, with his Misty Incense Tendon wrapped around their ankle.

Then, looking into the rice field, he saw thieves wearing black scarves everywhere, like headless flies, scurrying about in panic under the moonlight.

The person whose ankle was entangled sat up halfway and reached for the Misty Incense Tendon, exclaiming in anger at Liu Xiaolou, "You blind idiot, don't you have eyes?"

Liu Xiaolou was equally shocked and had no time to argue. He retracted his tendon, returned to the field ridge in a few steps, grabbed the rice stalks he had harvested, stuffed most of them into his basket, and carried the rest in his hands as he quickly ran into the forest.

Climbing to the mountainside, he looked back down, panting. The rice field below was now empty. It had been haphazardly harvested. The once neat rows of rice stalks, full of grain, now only had about half left, looking as if a dog had gnawed at it.

"These damn rice thieves, there are so many of them!" Liu Xiaolou spat hatefully, looking at the ruined rice field with regret. After a moment of hesitation, he finally left.

Too many thieves were eyeing this spirit field, and it was possible they might alert the owner. If he were caught with stolen goods, the loss would outweigh the gain.

He found a secluded spot to count his harvest. There were five bundles in his basket, and three bundles in each hand, a total of eleven bundles. It was a good haul!

Huh? Eleven bundles? If he remembered correctly, he had only harvested five or six bundles himself.

Upon closer inspection, he confirmed that six bundles were pulled up by the roots – that was his work. The remaining five bundles were cut halfway up the stalks, clearly much shorter. He had no idea who had done that.

This unexpected gain soothed Liu Xiaolou's panicked feelings, and his mood improved considerably.

He immediately began to process the harvest, removing the grains and sifting out the chaff. He got about seven or eight catties, which he happily put into his basket and headed for his next target.

The next spirit field was slightly more secluded, hidden in a corner of the mountain. It was only a little over an mu and quite narrow. From the mountain above, it was obscured by a large patch of trees, making it difficult to spot. If Liu Xiaolou hadn't stopped to relieve himself the day before yesterday, he wouldn't have found it at all.

Reaching the spirit field, Liu Xiaolou leaped down and landed on a tree branch, gently pushing aside the branches to check for any movement.

Upon seeing this, his heart sank.

Someone had already arrived at this spirit field. They had just started, harvesting about one fen of land.

Liu Xiaolou felt a pang of annoyance and a bit of unwillingness. He squinted in the moonlight and saw that the person was a female cultivator. Her age was indistinguishable, but her figure was graceful. More importantly, she wasn't wearing a black scarf to cover her face and was openly harvesting with her long sword.

Since she wasn't masked, it meant this spirit field was contracted to her. Her technique wasn't aerial sword control, indicating her cultivation hadn't reached the advanced stages of Qi Refining, meaning she wasn't past the eighth level. Of course, even experts at the eighth level of Qi Refining were rarely willing to help with such work.

He watched for a bit longer and noticed that her long sword had never emitted any sword energy. Otherwise, harvesting the rice stalks wouldn't be so clumsy. This meant her cultivation hadn't reached the intermediate stage of Qi Refining, meaning she wasn't past the fifth level.

If that was the case...

Could this be another good opportunity?

Liu Xiaolou re-covered his face with the black scarf and quietly leaped down from the tree trunk. He tiptoed to the edge of the field.

Still several zhang away from the field ridge, he crouched down and crawled forward on all fours.