Chapter 10 Let's Go into the Mountains Together

Chapter 10 Let's Go into the Mountains Together

Xie Wanniang nodded with a smile, "I know a lot. You'll see as we spend more time together."

Unexpectedly, Jiang Yuan heard his rapid and intense heartbeat again, and at the same time, the words "having spent a lot of time together" kept echoing in his mind.

Jiang Yuan lowered his eyes and softly hummed in agreement.

When Xie Wanniang saw that he did not refute her statement about "spending time together", she took it as his acceptance that she could stay at his house for a long time, and her smile became even brighter.

After Jiang Yuan locked the house door and the courtyard gate with a copper lock, Xie Wanniang carried the small basket she had borrowed from Jiang Yuan, along with the smallest sickle and pickaxe that Jiang Yuan had found at her request, and followed Jiang Yuan to the low hill closest to his house.

Jiang Yuan's house was at the end of the village. To the east was a neighboring family, the village head's second son and daughter-in-law, and to the west was a wasteland.

Right now is the time for farmers to weed, thin out seedlings, water, and fertilize, so apart from the morning, noon, and evening, villagers basically work in the fields during the day.

Jiang Yuan doesn't need to do this because he doesn't own any land. The land owned by his cousin, the "Uncle Hao" he mentioned, has always been leased to other families in the village.

The kinship between the uncle and nephew was unknown to everyone in Mingfu Village, including Wang Xiaozhi and her parents. What they did know was that Hao Yu had always favored Jiang Yuan.

When Jiang Yuan was a child, because he was not the biological son of Wang Xiaozhi's parents, the Wang family always looked down on him. Not only did his peers, such as Wang Sanhu, bully him, but the elders of the Wang family also always beat and scolded him.

Fortunately, the Wang family had already split up by then, and Wang Xiaozhi's parents lived at the far end of the village, far from the old house. Even if the Wang family wanted to target Jiang Yuan, Jiang Yuan could avoid them most of the time.

On the rare occasions when he couldn't avoid it, Wang Xiaozhi, her parents, and Hao Yu, who "accidentally" encountered Jiang Yuan being bullied, would promptly protect the then-small Jiang Yuan.

By protecting Jiang Yuan, Hao Yu successfully built a closer relationship with her neighbor, and then naturally offered to teach Jiang Yuan how to hunt.

With him as a role model who lived a very comfortable life because of his hunting skills, Jiang Yuan's adoptive parents accepted this windfall without hesitation.

From then on, Hao Yu's house became the place Jiang Yuan visited most often, and Hao Yu herself became the person Jiang Yuan's adoptive parents were most grateful to.

After Jiang Yuan's adoptive parents passed away one after another, the Wang family wanted to take away the money, houses and land they left behind. So they stormed to the end of the village and tried to drive Jiang Yuan away by claiming that he was not a descendant of the Wang family and relying on their numbers.

As they wished, Jiang Yuan left his adoptive parents' house empty-handed, but the Wang family did not get the benefit they wanted.

It turned out that Jiang Yuan had already persuaded his adoptive father to sell the family house and land to Chen Lizheng's family while his adoptive father was ill.

After using the money he earned to treat his adoptive father's illness and pay for his funeral, he secretly gave the rest to his sister, Wang Xiaozhi.

The valuables, such as grain, farm tools, kitchen knives, and iron pots, which were inconvenient to smuggle to his sister, were moved by him to Hao Yu's house next door under the cover of night.

In the end, the Wang family only received a few old clothes, some basins, buckets, bowls, chopsticks, and two old wooden boxes.

Jiang Yuan, whom they desperately wanted to kill, ended up living a better life than when he was an adopted son in the Wang family, thanks to being taken in by Hao Yu, who had always treated him very well.

The Wang family was furious and would try to provoke Jiang Yuan whenever they had the chance, but because they were not good enough, they always ended up suffering the loss.

Then they began to regret for forcing Jiang Yuan to leave with nothing on the grounds that he was not of the Wang family bloodline.

It wasn't that they finally had a change of heart, but rather that Jiang Yuan, who had anticipated their actions, followed their lead and used a severance document to completely cut ties with them, in front of the village head and many villagers, so that they could no longer take advantage of Jiang Yuan with a clear conscience.

They had been eyeing Jiang Yuan's adoptive parents' wealth for years, but in the end they only got a tiny bit of junk, which was a huge loss.

If that were all, it wouldn't be so bad, but Jiang Yuan seemed to be deliberately trying to make them angry at his blindness. After moving into Hao Yu's house, he stopped pretending to be just a freeloader.

Every time he went into the mountains alone and returned to the village with a full load of wild game, the Wang family members wished they could just grab it and take it all away.

Those things, those things originally belonged to them!

The Wang family, always filled with greed and regret, were convinced that Jiang Yuan was deliberately trying to anger them, unaware that Jiang Yuan had never taken them seriously at all.

He used to focus on studying hard and being filial to his parents. Later, he focused on living a peaceful life. Now, he is eagerly awaiting Hao Yu's return so that he can repay this respectable elder who has protected him for nearly fifteen years in the long years to come.

Xie Wanniang, who is currently unaware of these matters, is enjoying the fresh air of the wilderness.

Although she was curious as to why Jiang Yuan's sister was named Wang Xiaozhi, she and Jiang Yuan had only just met, so it was really inappropriate for her to pry into his family affairs.

Following closely behind Jiang Yuan, Xie Wanniang walked across the wasteland and climbed a gently sloping, nameless hill. Standing on the hillside, she looked down at the village with curiosity.

Jiang Yuan noticed that she had stopped, so he also stopped, turned around, and asked her, "Are you tired?"

Xie Wanniang shook her head, "I just want to see the village from a high place."

Jiang Yuan hummed in agreement and stood there waiting for her.

Xie Wanniang looked around quickly, estimating the approximate size of the village in her mind, before turning to Jiang Yuan and asking, "Which town is closest to the village?"

Jiang Yuan replied, "It's Baihe Town."

Xie Wanniang raised her eyebrows in surprise. Although she had indeed used all her strength to escape, she still did not expect that she could drift from Xiejia Village near Qingxu Mountain to Mingfu Village near Baihe Town in one go.

She's drifted forty or fifty miles; she's amazing!

With a sigh, "Desperate situations really can unleash a person's unlimited potential," Xie Wanniang smiled and walked towards Jiang Yuan. "I've made my decision. Let's continue."

Jiang Yuan nodded and led Xie Wanniang for a while longer. When several apricot trees came into view, Jiang Yuan stopped and pointed to the apricot trees not far away, saying to Xie Wanniang, "Wait for me here, I'm going hunting."

Xie Wanniang nodded, "Okay."

From the foot of the mountain to here, the two of them were walking on narrow mountain paths that were not covered by weeds, which shows that the villagers of Mingfu Village often traveled this section of the road from the apricot tree to the foot of the mountain.

Further in from the area where the apricot trees are located, however, the relatively easy, narrow mountain paths disappear. Jiang Yuan has to trek through the wild, overgrown weeds to go hunting.