New Chirping of a Fledgling

Ling Yi sat up, climbed down from the bed, and walked steadily out of his room into the family courtyard.

At this time, there was no one at home. Whether it was his father, Ling Xiaoshan, or his mother, Zhang Xiaoyu, both had gone to the fields outside the village to prepare for this year's spring plowing.

After more than a year of living together day and night, Ling Yi had not displayed any startling words or actions. However, his obedience and good sense were enough to assure his parents and elders that he could be left at home to play by himself.

His eyes swept across the spacious courtyard, taking in the sea of blue-green covering the ground. Without much hesitation, Ling Yi stepped over the clumps of "Blue Silver Grass" and headed straight for the courtyard wall.

Then, from among the lush green Boston Ivy climbing the wall, Ling Yi casually pulled down a handful of fine yellow vines. Rather than leaving, he sat down on the spot and lowered his head to fiddle with them.

Fortunately, Ling Yi had never caused Zhang Xiaoyu or the others any trouble when it came to hygiene since childhood. That spared him the awkward fate of wearing crotchless pants, and kept the blades of Blue Silver Grass from directly facing a certain tender part of his body.

One by one, he drew out the fine yellow vines in his hands, straightened them, and arranged them with their ends aligned on a patch of bare ground in front of him where no Blue Silver Grass grew.

Boston Ivy vines were generally green and covered in tiny barbs. These clearly were not.

"Dodder Grass" was the name Ling Yi had learned for these yellow vines from his parents. Their exact origin was unknown, but he had heard that the entire Waterwood Principality called them that. Douluo Continent was probably much the same.

Of course, in Ling Yi's eyes, this thing had another name—"Dodder Seed."

It seemed to have been a rather common weed in the rural village of his previous life, often parasitizing plants near field edges, on sunny hillsides, in roadside thickets, and around graves.

Ling Yi still remembered one Qingming Festival before his transmigration, when he had returned to his hometown to pay respects to his ancestors. He had seen quite a few of them along the country roads, and several crooked-necked trees had been parasitized by the stuff until they looked sickly and wilted.

Enough idle chatter. Reflected in Ling Yi's large black-and-white eyes were ten pale pink fingers weaving rapidly through the air. Before long, two objects, one large and one small, appeared before him.

"Whew~~"

Ling Yi let out a soft breath. Looking at the objects resting in his left and right hands, his lips moved, but in the end, he made no sound. Instead, he murmured inwardly, It's been so long since I last made these. My skills have gotten a lot worse—

Still, at least they worked well enough. They just were not very pretty, so Ling Yi did not dwell on it.

He stood up and toddled over to the courtyard gate on his short little legs. Bending over and sticking out his butt, he began fiddling with something again.

The blazing sun continued to radiate its heat, driving away the lingering chill from the earth.

Near noon, a series of footsteps approached from afar and arrived outside the Ling Family's courtyard gate.

Creak—!

The seventy-percent-new wooden gate, its splinters nearly worn smooth, gave a somewhat grating sound as a figure stepped inside.

The newcomer first glanced around at the Blue Silver Grass covering the courtyard floor, helplessness appearing on his face. Then, shaking his head slightly, he continued walking into the yard.

Unexpectedly, before he had taken more than a few steps, something tightened around his ankle. Had he not spent years doing farm work, giving him a strong core and steady footing, he would surely have stumbled.

The man looked down and saw a yellow "rope," as thick as a child's pinky finger, looped around his ankle. A few inches from his foot, a short branch as thick as a thumb had been stuck into the ground, with only a tiny section left above the soil.

"What's this?"

As he spoke, he forcefully lifted the trapped foot. The yellow "rope" around his ankle snapped, and the little branch beside it was pulled partway out of the ground as well.

He kicked his leg a few times to shake off the scraps hanging from his foot, then called out, "Xiao Yi! Come out! I saw you—!"

As he spoke, he looked toward the door of the main house.

The next second, Ling Yi appeared there. He ran toward the courtyard gate with his arms spread wide, calling as he ran, "Uncle, you're here—!"

"Hey—!"

Zhang Dahe hurriedly crouched down and scooped up the charging Ling Yi. His stubbled chin gently rubbed against Ling Yi's soft little cheek. Then, one large and one small pressed their foreheads together and met each other's eyes. "You brat, I was just telling your Lei Ge, that little monkey, how obedient and sensible you were. And this is what you pull on me?"

As he spoke, Zhang Dahe held Ling Yi with his right arm while using his left hand to pull the remains of the yellow "rope" from his ankle and hold it up before them.

"Huh?"

Before Ling Yi could say anything, Zhang Dahe brought the "rope" closer for a look and said in surprise, "This is... Dodder Grass?"

"Doesn't this stuff snap with one pull? A few strands twisted together nearly tripped me over?"

"And..." Zhang Dahe picked up the little branch from the ground beside them and examined it together with the "rope" in his hand. Then he turned to look at Ling Yi and clicked his tongue. "Did you make this, little fellow?"

Ling Yi nodded, his round eyes wide. "Mm-hm~"

Zhang Dahe asked with great interest, "Do you have any more? Let Uncle take a look~"

"Over there—" Ling Yi leaned against Zhang Dahe's arm and pointed a few steps away. "There's another one..."

Holding Ling Yi, Zhang Dahe stood up and walked toward where Ling Yi pointed. Bending down, he spotted a small yellow net about the size of two palms among several Blue Silver Grass plants.

As the sun set in the west, Ling Xiaoshan and Zhang Xiaoyu returned home under the evening glow. There, they found Zhang Dahe—brother-in-law and elder brother—lying prone in their courtyard, his butt sticking up as he tinkered with something.

Meanwhile, their obedient and sensible son, Ling Yi, sat leaning against the stone steps before the main house not far away, his pale little hands weaving something with rapid movements.

Ling Xiaoshan and Zhang Xiaoyu looked at each other, unable to make sense of what game this uncle-and-nephew pair was playing.

But night was drawing near, and the fatigue of a day's work, along with the hunger in their bellies, urged them to turn their attention to dinner.

At noon, each of them had eaten a flatbread they had brought to the fields. By now, it had long since been completely digested. Whatever questions they had could wait until they were at the dinner table.

"So the thing Xiao Yi wove for fun—the so-called 'Lasso' and 'Vine Net'—can be used to catch pheasants, Wild Rabbits, and even fish?"

Ling Xiaoshan wore a baffled expression as he looked at his grinning brother-in-law, Zhang Dahe, then glanced at his son Ling Yi, who had his head down and was battling his meal at the side. He asked skeptically.

How should he put it? Ling Xiaoshan found the whole thing pretty absurd.

A baby barely over a year old—could some little thing he casually fiddled with in his hands really have that kind of use?

Although his son had started tugging at vines like Boston ivy and dodder grass a few months ago, winding them around and around, wasn't that just playing?

How had it suddenly become a hunting trap and a fishing tool?

Seeing the disbelief on Ling Xiaoshan and Zhang Xiaoyu's faces, Zhang Dahe shook his head. "Don't be so quick to doubt it. Although this thing Xiaoyi made—"

Zhang Dahe pointed at the lasso on the table before him. "I'd never seen one before either, but I experienced it for myself at noon. Dodder grass vines are easy to tear apart, but if you replaced them with Iron Skin Vine, I'm afraid even I'd have to summon my Hoe Martial Soul to cut through it..."

"Besides—" Zhang Dahe pushed the little net beside the lasso forward and continued, "you should recognize this net, right?"

"When we went to market in North River Mouth Town before, the market there sold similar fishing nets. Those ones were just finer and prettier..."

Whether it was the lasso or the fishing net, Ling Xiaoshan, Zhang Dahe, and the others understood their uses.

They had never seen the former, but they had heard of similar beast-catching traps. They just had not expected that such a simple length of rope and forked branch could be made into a trap.

As for fishing nets, nearly every village, town, or city near water had such fishing gear. Some people even had Fishing Net Martial Souls.

Yet one of the obstacles people most easily fell into was the Obstruction of Knowledge and Views.

Likewise, the greatest obstacle to a person's growth was the Obstruction of Knowledge and Views.

In other words, one's current understanding could instead become the barrier that made one's thinking rigid and prevented further progress and growth.

Ling Xiaoshan and Zhang Dahe knew about fishing nets, and they knew that fishing nets could help them catch fish in the water. But they had never considered weaving a fishing net themselves when they could not afford the ones sold in town.

Even if such a fishing net had all sorts of flaws, such as being less wear-resistant and easily damaged.