The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 296 - 285: A Piece of Yo (Additional update for 500 monthly tickets)

Chapter 296: Chapter 285: A Piece of Yo (Additional update for 500 monthly tickets)

Zhou SiLang broke off the thorn branches with the hoe, carefully pulling them out and tossing them aside before proceeding to hoe at the roots of the thornbush.

He didn’t uproot the thornbush but simply broke it and moved it to the side to make it easier for people to come and go.

Manbao took the opportunity to stuff the plants she was holding into Keke’s hands, then stretched and yawned as she looked around.

There were many small animals in the mountains, and she spotted a rather pretty wild chicken flapping its wings and landing not far away. Sensing her gaze, it clucked and flew up to the trees, quickly disappearing from sight.

Zhou SiLang turned to look and glanced at the vanished wild chicken. He said, "Don’t even think about it, no one in our village except Zhou Hu can catch wild chickens."

"Didn’t Third Brother catch one before?"

"That was a blind cat running into a dead rat," Zhou SiLang, working hard, replied: "At the time, Dalang was trying to catch a wild chicken. He pounced, and as the chicken took flight, flying right over our heads, Second Brother hit it with a stick, striking its wing, and then it fell right in front of Third Brother, who just lifted his foot and stomped it to death."

Manbao: ...

"See, besides that time, when have we ever caught a wild chicken?"

Manbao sighed. "It seems our family has no destiny with wild chickens."

That wasn’t exactly true; when he was younger, they did have such fate, but only with his little uncle.

But Zhou SiLang had his moments of pride as well. He said with a smile, "But we’re destined for bird eggs."

When it came to climbing trees and raiding nests, Zhou SiLang was unrivaled, famously known as the Bird Tyrant of the village.

After clearing a path, Zhou SiLang clapped his hands in satisfaction, saying, "All right, let’s see, where is the China root?"

The three pine trees were all large, resulting in a relatively spacious clearing around them, with another pine tree only about ten steps away.

Being small, Manbao scrambled up from the ground and wormed her way inside.

Zhou SiLang followed behind her. As for the wild grasses and vines she had been holding, well, they were obviously discarded.

Manbao walked in and began to search for China root under the pine tree roots among the fallen leaves.

The layer of fallen leaves here was thicker than in other places, possibly because of the thornbush barrier or perhaps it was mixed with the leaves from those thornbushes.

Thanks to Keke’s scanning in advance, Manbao’s search was almost unfailingly successful.

The exposed China root this time was not small. Zhou SiLang watched it with joy, squatted down, and started to scrape away the leaves, pushing them aside only to find it wrapped around half of this pine tree.

Zhou SiLang couldn’t contain his happiness. "Heh," he chuckled, "if the old Jia Family knew we found so many China roots in the mountains, they’d be green with envy. They might even die of anger, hahahahaha..."

Manbao looked around nervously and whispered, "SiLang, lower your voice, don’t attract other people."

"Everyone should be at home eating dinner right now, who would come here?" he replied.

"No, by this time, everyone should have finished dinner and started working again, right?"

Zhou SiLang then looked up at the sky and, with a start, exclaimed, "Oh no, it’s getting dark, we need to hurry."

Zhou SiLang reached for the hoe close behind him, but his hand seemed to press against something. The feeling was vaguely familiar, and upon clearing the leaves, he fell silent.

Manbao saw it too and, too lazy to get up, crawled over methodically, and together they cleared the leaves all the way to the base of another pine tree, where they indeed found another patch of China root.

Zhou SiLang turned to look at the last pine tree and directly crawled over to search it.

After a while, he cleared an area of leaves and showed Manbao his findings.

Manbao’s eyes sparkled. "Keke, you didn’t say there was so much," she said.

Keke: "The host would have discovered it eventually."

Keke paused and then added, "Host, collect more of this soil."

Manbao nodded in agreement and then looked at Zhou SiLang.

Zhou SiLang was covering his mouth with dirt-smeared hands, silently laughing his heart out, tears streaming down his face.

After a moment of silence, Manbao crawled up and wiped away his tears with her own filthy little hands, consoling him, "SiLang, don’t get too excited, we’re taking revenge here."

Zhou SiLang shuddered with laughter. After having his fill of laughter, he took a deep breath, wiped away his tears, and said, "It’s because we’re taking revenge that I’m so happy."

Looking at the patch of China root, Zhou SiLang ambitiously rolled up his sleeves and declared, "I’m going to dig them all up. Manbao, you wait for SiLang outside."

Manbao agreed without issue and crawled out, not going too far, and sat down beside a pine tree.

Zhou SiLang, no longer feeling pain in his back or hips, spat twice into his hands and started hoeing with vigor but stopped halfway, easing up a bit to start digging properly.

Sure enough, this patch of China root was different from what they had dug before; it was very shallow, and he didn’t have to dig deep before uncovering a piece, and about three feet down, he found where it intertwined with the roots of the pine trees.

Zhou SiLang was elated, vigorously hoeing away.

Manbao, watching the effort, decided to take charge from the outside.

Following her instructions, Zhou SiLang dug as told and soon uncovered a large patch.

Manbao then crawled in to gently extract the loosened China root and also collected some soil.

By the time they packed everything into the backpack, dusk was upon them.

As Zhou SiLang casually refilled the hole, he did not bother to cover it with dead leaves for camouflage.

He glanced at the darkening sky, realizing that folks at home were probably getting anxious. Without wasting time, he shouldered the backpack, hoisted the hoe, took Manbao’s hand, and headed down the mountain.

Luckily, they hadn’t ventured deep into the forest but had traveled sideways, so they reached the foot of the mountain quickly.

Just as they followed along the base of the mountain back to where they had entered, they saw Zhou Dalang leading his three brothers, carrying hoes and looking mighty menacing. Seeing the grimy Zhou SiLang holding an equally filthy Manbao, the four brothers came to a halt.

Zhou Dalang frowned and asked, "Did you run into the Jia brothers?"

Their muddy appearance seemed more due to play than a result of a fight.

Without hesitation, Zhou SiLang replied, "No, I’m not foolish. Plus, I had Manbao with me. We only stayed on this side; we didn’t go over there."

Zhou Dalang and his brothers’ expressions eased a bit, and he asked, "Why so late? And why is Manbao with you? What if you scared the child?"

Typically, as soon as it got dark, the villagers preferred not to let children run around outside. What if they were frightened or encountered some evil spirit?

So children usually returned home before it got dark.

Zhou SiLang motioned for them to look at the backpack and chuckled, "Big Brother, you’ll never guess how much good stuff we’ve found."

Zhou Er had already taken a peek, lifting the top layer of leaves to look inside, his eyes gleaming.

He regarded Zhou SiLang approvingly and said, "Well done."