Chapter 58

Qing Mengzhu: "Then you should rest for a bit. We'll have dinner when Ming Chunxi comes back."

The stove in Qing Mengzhu's house had a particularly strong fire, so once the ingredients were prepared, the cooking was incredibly fast.

They usually start cooking only after both of them have arrived home, otherwise the food won't taste good if left out for too long.

After Ming Chunxi moved in, he hired a driver to pick him up and drop him off. As he said, the one-hour drive each way wasn't long.

Often, Ming Chunxi would return first, and the task of cooking and preparing side dishes would usually fall to him.

After moving in together, Qing Mengzhu's life became easier than before. At the very least, she no longer had to eat whatever she could find.

Zhao Hexi had no objections. "I'm furious, and I'm not hungry right now."

Qing Mengzhu comforted him, "Knowing there are particularly fierce fish in the river, you can go fishing again tomorrow during the day. It's not a bad thing."

Zhao Hexi: "That's what I was thinking too. Tomorrow I'll bring a few more hooks and use thicker fishing line."

Ming Chunxi returned quickly, and the three of them had a sumptuous dinner, chatted for a while, and then went back to their rooms to sleep.

The next day, Saturday, Ming Chunxi of energy, went with Qing Mengzhu to tidy up the vegetable garden.

Zhao Hexi said he wanted to get up early to go fishing, but he couldn't get up at all and didn't get up until after nine o'clock in the morning to have breakfast.

After finishing his meal, he left a message for Qing Mengzhu, saying he was going fishing and didn't need to prepare lunch for him.

Zhao Hexi spent the whole day fishing.

The daytime was alright. Although I didn't catch any mandarin fish, I did catch some carp, crucian carp, grass carp, and other river fish, so the harvest was decent.

By evening, his fishing line kept breaking, and even if he wanted to continue, he couldn't.

He carried the fish back to Qing Mengzhu's house and saw Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi sitting in the courtyard drinking tea. Looking depressed, he sat down, poured himself a cup, drank it all, and said, "I wonder if the feng shui of this village is not suitable for me? Why do my fishing lines start breaking as soon as I get here?"

Qing Mengzhu: "What?"

Zhao Hexi recounted the incident. "In short, the fishing line breaks particularly easily in the evening. I suspect it wasn't a snakehead fish; a snakehead fish biting the hook shouldn't feel like that."

Upon hearing this, Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi exchanged a glance.

Zhao Hexi couldn't decipher their meaning at all, and couldn't help but say, "Just say what you have to say, don't discriminate against single people."

Qing Mengzhu pondered for a moment, then said, "I've thought of a possibility."

Zhao Hexi: "What?"

Qing Mengzhu: "The thing that bit your hook might not be a fish, but an otter. Otters are particularly active at dawn and dusk, and we've made enemies with three otters. They might be deliberately diving into the water to bite your fishing line."

Zhao Hexi: "Wait! Feud? With an otter? You mean the otter, the wild animal, not a person nicknamed 'Otter'?"

Qing Mengzhu nodded and explained the whole story to him, with Ming Chunxi adding to it from the side.

Zhao Hexi's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Your lives are so exciting?!"

Qing Mengzhu: "With a better ecology and more wild animals, we're more likely to encounter all sorts of problems."

Zhao Hexi: "Are those three otters really that smart? They even know I'm your friend and came specifically to seek revenge."

Qing Mengzhu: "I don't know, I'm just guessing. You'll know when you go fishing tomorrow if I call the otters along."

Zhao Hexi slapped his thigh. "Why wait until tomorrow? Let's go today! I still have fishing line and spare hooks in my bag."

Qing Mengzhu: "Then I'll go see if the otter is still in its burrow?"

The two split up. Qing Mengzhu quickly called out the otter, and after communicating with it, she let it go fishing with Zhao Hexi.

The otter was going, and the red fox and the dogs followed behind.

Zhao Hexi led four animals on a grand "fishing" trip.

Seeing his proud and arrogant demeanor from behind, Qing Mengzhu said to Ming Chunxi, "Why don't we go over and watch the excitement?"

We won't be eating anytime soon, let's go check it out first.

Ming Chunxi agreed, "A new type of animal performance."

The two strolled over slowly. Qing Mengzhu had asked Zhao Hexi to take the otters fishing, just in case.

He himself never expected that it was really those three otters biting Zhao Hexi's fishing line.

As they strolled over, their own small animals were already fighting with the three otters.

The small animals fought their way from the water to the shore, and then they started fighting amongst themselves.

Zhao Hexi was also seeing such a lively scene for the first time, and she shouted encouragement to her team's animals from the sidelines.

By the time Qing Mengzhu and the others arrived, the outcome was already decided. Their pets had won a great victory; the three otters had been chased away and jumped into the river, not daring to show themselves at all.

Zhao Hexi's eyes lit up, and as soon as he saw Qing Mengzhu and Ming Chunxi approaching, he said, "Shall we give the little ones an extra treat? I'll pay."

Qing Mengzhu: "Huh?"

Zhao Hexi: "A reward for our heroes!"

The otter, the red fox, and the two dogs squatted nearby, looking up at them with their heads held high and chests puffed out, their little expressions incredibly smug.

Ming Chunxi touched Qing Mengzhu's hand.

Seeing that both of them wanted to reward the little ones, Qing Mengzhu said, "Alright."

Zhao Hexi, holding up her phone, said, "I sent you a red envelope, hurry up and accept it. What delicious treats are you going to buy for the little ones?"

Qing Mengzhu took out her phone and saw that he had sent her a large red envelope containing 888 yuan. "Buy some seafood, they've been craving shrimp lately, but unfortunately the shrimp are still too small to eat now."

Zhao Hexi sent another big red envelope of 888 yuan. "So, besides seafood, what else should we buy besides lobsters?"

Ming Chunxi: "I'm buying a king crab to treat myself."

Qing Mengzhu looked at Zhao Hexi, who was clearly intoxicated, and then at Ming Chunxi and said, "They eat chicken, duck, fish, pork, beef, and lamb all the time. If we really want to treat them—let's make hazelnut soup tomorrow. We've raised them for so long, the hazelnuts should be ready to eat."

Zhao Hexi immediately replied, "Hazelnut and lotus seed soup? I'll cook the hazelnut."

Qing Mengzhu: "Okay, we can do it tomorrow. Let's go home for dinner today."

Chapter 58

The lotus seeds at Qing Mengzhu's house are a mix of young and old. Today, he specifically picked the older lotus pods to make soup.

The old lotus pods have turned a deep green color and feel heavy in your hand; each one weighs almost a pound.

Ming Chunxi and Qing Mengzhu rowed the boat to a spot deep within the lotus leaves. "How many do you want to pick?"

Smelling the fragrance of the lotus flowers, Qing Mengzhu used a sickle to hook a lotus pod from a distance. "Everyone seems to prefer meat, so how about we add more hazelnuts and less lotus seeds? Let's pick three."

Ming Chunxi showed Qing Mengzhu the lotus pods she was holding. "I have two here."

Qing Mengzhu held the lotus stem and showed the lotus pods to Ming Chunxi: "I have two here. It's okay, we can eat the rest if we don't use them all for soup."

After picking the lotus pods, they rowed back to shore, their clothes filled with the fragrance of lotus blossoms.

Just then, Feng Ningxiang and the others came over after picking vegetables and saw them smiling as they emerged from the depths of the lotus pond. Ming Chunxi went ashore first and turned around to reach out and pull Qing Mengzhu, in the kind of pull where Qing Mengzhu placed her palm in Ming Chunxi's palm.

The atmosphere between the two was clearly different.

Feng Ningxiang and the other two were talking when they saw this scene. They exchanged a knowing glance and immediately understood what was going on.

Feng Ningxiang greeted them first, "Mengzhu, have you come to pick lotus flowers?"

Qing Mengzhu grabbed a lotus seedpod and shook it. "Yes, let's pick some to make soup. We'll head back now, see you tomorrow."

Feng Ningxiang nodded repeatedly, "Then we'll go back too."

The two groups separated, Qing Mengzhu excitedly, "He Xi should be up by now. We'll kill the hazel grouse when we get back. I asked Brother Zhou, Brother Zhou said the hazel grouse has thin skin, so we don't need to stew it for that long. It'll be just right for us to kill it now."

Ming Chunxi: "You even asked that on purpose?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Yes! I feel that the quality of hazel grouse now is better than the ones I've had before. I should ask around to avoid wasting ingredients."