Night deepened.
Chen Yuan moved the table into the courtyard and enjoyed dinner with Grandpa and the little ones.
Tonight's dinner was lavish: a steamed spirit fish, braised assorted delicacies, and lamb-blood vermicelli soup.
As Chen Yuan ate with gusto, he listened to Grandpa recount what had happened yesterday.
"When I returned to the farm yesterday evening, I was shocked too. The ground was covered in craters, and feathers were scattered everywhere."
"Good thing you weren't at the farm then." Chen Yuan smiled.
Grandpa first shot Chen Yuan a glare, then said, "What haven't I seen? They were just a bunch of birds."
Chen Yuan nodded with a grin. "Yes, yes. It's already been a week since I last heard the story of how Grandpa single-handedly fought a lone wolf when he was twenty."
Whenever there was a gathering and the baijiu started flowing, Grandpa could never resist boasting about it—when he was young, he had entered the mountains alone and encountered a lone wolf crazed with hunger, earning the heroic record of killing it single-handedly with a single blade.
The incident had even made the local news.
From then on, everyone else at the drinking table could only obediently listen to him brag.
Grandpa gave him an annoyed look, then suddenly seemed to recall something. His gaze turned complicated, and he sighed softly. "This world is changing too quickly. I don't know whether it's a good thing for you to stay here anymore."
"And the mountains are too dangerous. Why don't you—"
Chen Yuan smiled and shook his head. Pointing at the little ones who were wolfing down their food, he said, "Grandpa, with them here, we're safe."
"We didn't encounter any danger during this trip into the mountains either, so don't worry."
Grandpa merely sighed and did not