Heading into Town

"Little Flower, you too-what did you see in this guy?" Ye Huan asked Little Flower.

"Woof~" Saihu said. You're going too far! Ours is pure love, a love freely chosen.

"Like hell I believe you~~" Ye Huan gave Saihu a disdainful look.

"Little Tangyuan, could you give Uncle one of Little Flower's puppies when the time comes? Would that be all right?" Ye Huan asked the little girl in his arms.

"Of course! Grandpa said he only needs to keep one, and all the others have to be given away. They're so pitiful." Little Tangyuan pouted as she spoke, unhappy that Grandpa was giving all the puppies away.

"Don't worry. Uncle will take all the others home when the time comes!" Ye Huan coaxed her.

"Mm! Uncle's the best! Mwah~" Little Tangyuan's eyes narrowed into smiling slits, and she kissed Ye Huan on the cheek.

"Hahaha~" Ye Huan laughed happily.

After taking Little Tangyuan home, Little Flower was home too. Ye Huan told Tangyuan's grandpa, his own second eldest paternal uncle, about Little Flower's puppies. Tangyuan's grandpa said he understood and would let him know when Little Flower gave birth.

They had come as two people and two dogs, and returned as one person and one dog. Saihu led the way, with Ye Huan behind him. In the quiet mountain village, the chirping insects, croaking frogs, and clear moonlight played a harmonious country nocturne.

He took Saihu for a stroll around the mountain behind the house and watered a few fruit trees with spirit spring water. It wasn't that he didn't want to water them all, but his parents had planted far too many fruit trees when they were home, so he could only choose a few to water.

All kinds of vegetables grew in the fertile patch of land at the foot of the mountain. Whenever he had some free time, he would carry over a bucket and gently water them.

At first, he had used the precious spirit spring water directly. As though blessed by the gods, the vegetables shot up twenty or thirty centimeters overnight. Even he was shocked by this strange phenomenon.

He secretly counted himself lucky that he alone had discovered this miracle. Otherwise, he truly wouldn't have known how to explain it to the villagers.

So he began trying different methods, exploring the best ratio for using the spirit spring water. He mixed it carefully, experimenting again and again until he found the perfect proportions.

One liter of spirit spring water mixed with twenty liters of clear mountain spring water retained the spirit spring's miraculous effects while preventing the vegetables from growing too quickly and attracting unnecessary attention.

Now, a large vat stood quietly in his backyard, filled with this specially blended spring water.

Whenever sunlight fell on the vegetables, he would pick up that bucket of mixed water and gently water these living things, as though singing them a silent ballad, hoping they would grow strong and flourish in the most brilliant colors.

Once the backyard vegetables ripened again, he picked some and packed them into a carrying basket. There weren't many, but there were several varieties. In the morning, he set off on the little electric scooter he had bought after coming back.

"Saihu, go home. It's inconvenient to take you to the county town. You'd need a leash, too. Too much trouble~" Ye Huan stopped and spoke to Saihu, who was chasing after him.

"Woof~~" Saihu's meaning was simple: Are you sneaking out alone to eat something tasty without me?

"Of course not! I really have business to take care of. Look, I brought vegetables." Ye Huan was speechless. I've got it so hard.

Saihu looked at the basket, then gave his young master a doubtful look before heading home.

"Heh, you little rascal. As if I couldn't fool you~ Hehe~" Ye Huan smiled and set off on his scooter. The road out of the village was riddled with potholes, so he could only ride slowly and carefully.

Because of the road, this little mountain village had never been able to develop. Neither the county nor the town could possibly spend several million, or even ten million, to build a road for such a tiny village. It simply wasn't worth it.

"Good thing they haven't built a road, too. Who knows what kind of mess the village would've been ruined into otherwise!" Ye Huan muttered as he rode.

He knew what a mess those so-called road-trippers and hiking enthusiasts had made of many little mountain villages elsewhere. It was fine if they were well-behaved, but when they weren't, the villagers felt like killing them.

So he would rather his village stayed simple. Ever since obtaining the space, he had begun keeping many of his ideas low-key. He even felt it would be best to become a hermit.

Of course, he wouldn't mind having three or five close friends over to get a little tipsy. But in the first part of his life, he had been practically invisible at school. Coming from the countryside had made him rather self-conscious, so he hadn't made many good friends.

As for after he started working, that went without saying. What sane person treated coworkers as friends??

As for his childhood friends in the village, so many years had passed. Even if they had been close as children, those feelings had faded over the years while he was away studying and working. Hadn't he stayed away from gatherings and gambling whenever he came back for the Spring Festival? He genuinely disliked those things.

Of course, if he had to name any, there really were two. One was called Man Niu, a childhood friend his own age and an orphan from the village. He had followed Ye Huan around since they were little, eating and sleeping at his house. After all, Ye Huan's grandpa's circumstances back then were no joke by village standards.

"He's drifting around Hengdian in Zhe Province now, I think? He mentioned it~" Ye Huan muttered to himself. Man Niu was tall and sturdy. He had mentioned before that he worked as an extra in Hengdian. He wouldn't starve, since the production crews provided meals. Many stars didn't like boxed lunches, so he often told Ye Huan that his record was eight boxed lunches in one meal.

He was even a somewhat well-known extra in Hengdian, not because of his acting, but because of his nickname: Boxed Lunch God of War. Plenty of production crews were willing to give him a chance, too. After all, he now had a few hundred thousand followers.

After all, a few extra boxed lunches earned them attention from netizens. In the film and television industry, having traffic was better than having none.

Besides, those brainless wish-fulfillment dramas had exploded in popularity starting this year, and even more small production crews had gathered in Hengdian. Man Niu didn't have to worry about finding work. As long as he had work, he had boxed lunches to eat. What short-drama director would turn down a Boxed Lunch God of War who came with hundreds of thousands of followers?

Ye Huan wasn't worried about Man Niu. He had been independent since childhood and had firm ideas of his own. The one he worried about was his other childhood friend, who was supposedly running with some boss now. He, too, had learned a few martial arts moves from Ye Huan's grandpa as a child and had some real skills.

Ye Huan worried that he might get carried away and land himself in trouble. After all, he had a foundation in martial arts but not much in the way of brains, making him easy to fool.

"Ah~ Once I'm doing better, I'll call him back. I really can't rest easy with him out there!" Ye Huan kept his two good childhood friends in mind.

It took over an hour to reach the town-truly slower than running. But the little electric scooter was much faster on the stretch from the town to the county town. Ye Huan didn't stop in the town. He didn't think its little restaurants would be willing to pay a high price for organic vegetables.

Before looking for a big hotel, however, he first visited a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy.

Yes, on his first trip into the mountains after coming back, his luck had gone through the roof, and he had come across a wild ginseng plant. Having roamed the mountains with his grandpa since childhood, how could he fail to recognize wild ginseng over a hundred years old?

So he had brought the wild ginseng home. Since he was making a rare trip into town today, he had brought it along to sell, intending to save some money to renovate the house. First on the list was the bathroom. He really couldn't get used to using a dry latrine anymore.