The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 254 - 243: For the Sake of

Chapter 254: Chapter 243: For the Sake of

"My mother is very hospitable," Manbao thought it was perfectly normal for her to invite friends over to stay at her home.

Bai Shanbao didn’t know what to say for a moment. After thinking it over, he put down the snacks, ran to the bookshelf, and began searching for a book. Shortly after, he found a thin volume, and whispered, "This is my dad’s diary from when he was a child, you can’t tell anyone else."

Manbao exclaimed in surprise and leaned over to look. She then realized the cover was blank, just pasted over with a thick layer of paper. Upon opening it, she saw it was filled with bound scraps of paper, the writing on them was very childish.

"I found this in a miscellaneous book called ’History of the Former Dynasty,’ Grandma said it’s mostly fabrications by the common folk, nine parts false, one part true, not credible, but I still find it makes for interesting reading as a story," Bai Shanbao said.

Actually, it was Ms. Liu who didn’t want him to read such books, fearing they would lead him astray. As for miscellaneous records that detailed local customs and geography, Ms. Liu still allowed him to read those.

But stories that were clearly made up, especially those filled with love and hatred, she did not permit him to read. For this reason, she had searched the study, gathering such books she had missed and stuffing them back into the bookcase.

However, after Bai Shanbao read the beginning of this particular volume, he was so intrigued that he couldn’t resist. So, taking the chance while Grandma went next door to visit Bai Erlang’s household, he searched again and discovered this notebook tucked away at the back.

The miscellaneous book was thick and wide, but this diary was clearly hand-bound, a little small in size, and almost invisible at the back.

Once Bai Shanbao discovered this diary, he lost interest in the other book and ran off with the diary.

This was his own secret, the diary belonged to his dad when he was a boy, and he hadn’t even told Grandma or his mother, but now he was showing it to Manbao, whispering, "Look."

Given how mischievous Bai Shanbao was, and how gentle Ms. Zheng was, there was a high probability that his father, Bai Qi, had also been a naughty boy.

Indeed, Bai Qi was even more disruptive than Bai Shanbao when he was young.

At age seven, he dared to imitate adults by kissing pretty girls when visiting their homes. Of course, in the end, he was fiercely punished by Ms. Liu, quite severely at that.

"My dad said, kissing girls would get you spanked by Grandma, ’Book of Rites’ also says men and women should be differentiated, and there should be a distance," Bai Shanbao explained.

Of course, these weren’t Bai Shanbao’s words, he couldn’t understand intricate books like ’Book of Rites’. This was a line written in the notebook, the neat script obviously added by Bai Qi after he had grown up and revisited the diary, adding his own comments.

The two children huddled together, sneakily reading their ancestor’s diary, verbally acknowledging the need for distance, but clearly not taking it to heart.

The diary covered many subjects, chronicling Bai Qi’s life from the ages of seven to ten. Naturally, he didn’t document every day, mostly just writing when significant events occurred from his perspective.

For instance, there were entries about being beaten by Ms. Liu; receiving praise from his teacher; and getting into a brawl at school that resulted in overturning the teacher’s desk...

Old Master Bai paced over and saw the two children huddled together, quietly talking and bursting into laughter while reading a book, totally engrossed in whatever amusing things it contained.

Old Master Bai studied Bai Shanbao intently.

In fact, he and Bai Qi were quite alike, he even looked a bit better than his father and was a tad more mischievous, but he was also more intelligent.

Because of the close relationship between their fathers, the two families, despite being somewhat distant, were on good terms.

They were of similar age, so they attended school together. back then, the Bai Li family lived in Longzhou, his father had specially moved back from Mianzhou for his sake, hoping to get him into the clan school for a better future.

He actually quite enjoyed studying, even if his grades weren’t the best.

Bai Qi, on the contrary, was not very fond of studying as a child and was a bit more mischievous, but he was very smart. For the same lesson, he might have to read it over a dozen times to remember, whereas Bai Qi could memorize it after three or four repetitions.

It was just that he was lazy, so neither of them were the teacher’s favorite students, until their fathers passed away one after the other.

When the two were studying at the clan school, they were often bullied. And so, Bai Qi slowly shed his laziness. When he focused, he was formidable. Starting from age ten, his progress was astounding, taking Old Master Bai a step further as well.

And Bai Shanbao was evidently a bit more formidable than his father, for he truly loved reading books.

Old Master Bai could see that, at least there was no other child who could stay in the study all day long without adult supervision.

Such a promising and refined talent would be wasted if not advanced further.

Old Master Bai stood for a while, then turning, he went to find Ms. Liu and asked, "Aunt, have you decided yet?"

Ms. Liu looked at him, "How about you?"

"I am willing to make a trip to the county in person, to meet Lord Wei myself," he replied.

Ms. Liu’s prayer beads slid swiftly through her fingers, and after a long moment, she said, "Alright, go."

This meant she agreed to hand the person over to Wei Zhi.

Old Master Bai sighed with relief, bowed, and withdrew.

As soon as Old Master Bai left, Ms. Liu got up and headed for the yard where the three captives were held.

Daji was also there.

The two people who had been stunned had not seen anyone since regaining consciousness. They could hear footsteps outside, and they could see shadows passing by, but no one entered the room to check on them.

They were kept isolated, waking up to find themselves alone in the room, tied up, with their mouths gagged. There was no food and no water, and after a whole day, they felt extremely weak. This uncertainty was driving them to despair.

So when the door opened, the eyes of the person lying on the ground flared with hope, as he desperately tried to raise his head to see the person standing at the doorway.

No matter whether it was to be killed or skinned, at least it was interaction with someone.

Against the light, the person on the ground saw Ms. Liu, was momentarily baffled, then quickly realized their cover had been blown.

The room was empty, totally void of anything. Daji moved a chair inside for Ms. Liu to sit down.

Seated on the chair, Ms. Liu loomed above the man on the floor, took a sip of tea that Daji presented, and noticing the other’s desperate reddened eyes and several swallowing motions, she held the cup in her hand and asked, "Would you like some water?"

The other nodded vigorously.

"Then I have a question for you," Ms. Liu leaned forward slightly, staring into his eyes, "Who sent you?"

The person collapsed back to the ground, unresponsive.

Seeing this, Ms. Liu turned back to her seat, took another sip of water, and said, "It seems you don’t want to speak. Well, you can suffer thirst for another day."

With that, she got up to leave.

He had not expected her to just walk away. He struggled violently, moaning through his gag.

Ms. Liu turned back and looked at him coldly.

"Did you think we would let you live?" Daji asked.

The man’s pupils contracted.

"There are many ways to live, and many ways to die. Being swiftly beheaded is indeed quick, but what about starving or dying of thirst?" Daji queried.