Fantasy Farm

Chapter 14 - Animal Planet

…is it good to watch?

translator: baumkuchen  editor: ellabells

Because the vegetables couldn’t be left for too long, Lu Qingjiu went and harvested all the fully ripe tomatoes and cucumbers from the fields with Bai Yuehu. Every tomato was smooth, plump, bright-red and bulging, looking incredibly tasty. After he was done picking them, Lu Qingjiu planned on going with Uncle Chen in his car to town the next day to sell the vegetables while also sending Zhu Miaomiao back on the way.

Zhu Miaomiao’s four day leave was already over so she needed to return to the city for work. Despite her reluctance to go, in the end she couldn’t throw away her job. After all, she couldn’t just drop everything and return to this little remote village like Lu Qingjiu.

This was Lu Qingjiu’s first time selling his crops and he had no prior experience. So he dragged along Yin Xun to help out, leaving Bai Yuehu alone at home to watch the house.

For the past few days, Yin Xun had been quite out of it, seemingly still affected by his experience on the mountain. Before, Lu Qingjiu had even joked about perhaps inviting a shaman over to help Yin Xun. Hearing this, Yin Xun had waved a hand in dismissal, saying that the village shaman who has grown hair wasn’t that same shaman anymore.

Lu Qingjiu, “…What does her hair have to do with anything?”

“Now that she has hair, she experiences earthly desires. Her methods definitely won’t be effective as before,” Yin Xun replied.

Lu Qingjiu gave Yin Xun a suspicious look. “Really?”

“No,” Yin Xun said sadly, “To tell you the truth, I went to see her yesterday. Her family said that she stopped doing these kinds of things ever since she remarried.”

Lu Qingjiu, “…”

“So it’s all the fault of that well behind your house,” Yin Xun felt incredibly wronged.

Lu Qingjiu also didn’t know what to say. He reached out a hand, patted Yin Xun on the head and then shoved a cucumber into his mouth. Yin Xun originally still had more to say, but finding that the cucumber in his mouth tasted rather good, he simply shut up and obediently chewed on the cucumber.

Lu Qingjiu sent Zhu Miaomiao over to the train station first when they reached town.

Zhu Miaomiao was rather reluctant to part with Lu Qingjiu, grabbing ahold of his hand, sobbing out quite a few words before she reluctantly got onto the train. Yin Xun stood to the side, pretending to be a plastic stool. Only when Zhu Miaomiao left, did he quietly ask, “Qingjiu, does this lady have any intentions towards you?”

Lu Qingjiu just looked at him and said nothing.

“If she’s not interested in you, why else would she come all the way here to see you?” Yin Xun asked.

Lu Qingjiu replied, “Didn’t I also come all the way here to visit you once in a while too?”

Yin Xun shamelessly said, “Oh, then you might also be interested in me.”

Lu Qingjiu stared at Yin Xun, his eyes filled with pity. “Don’t think too much, I just think of myself as an irresponsible father who only occasionally comes back to visit his family’s left-behind child.”

Yin Xun, “…”

After sending Zhu Miaomiao on her way, Lu Qingjiu led his left-behind child to the vegetable market.

By now, the early market rush was already over, so there were much less people buying vegetables. The two of them found a stall by the side of the road, spread some oiled paper over the table and laid out their vegetables to sell.

Yin Xun went over to the stall next to them to ask after the price of tomatoes. When he returned, he told Lu Qingjiu to sell them for three yuan per jin. Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu was a little surprised, “Three yuan per jin? That’s so expensive, would anyone buy these?”

Yin Xun replied, “I’ve tasted your tomatoes. They taste incredibly good. You could just eat them like fruit. Even though three yuan per jin is expensive, there’ll definitely be someone willing to buy them.”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “How much are they charging at the next stall?”

Yin Xun, “One and a half.”

Lu Qingjiu, “…” He felt it was a bit wrong.

However, Yin Xun obviously had much more experience than Lu Qingjiu. He split open a tomato and placed it next to him. Before long, an auntie came along to ask about the price. The moment she heard “three yuan per jin”, she “tsk”-ed and asked, “Was this tomato planted in gold? Why so expensive?”

“Taste it.” Yin Xun passed her a piece.

After trying a piece, the auntie seemed to think it tasted good, and started trying to bargain for a lower price. However, Yin Xun refused to budge on the price of three yuan per jin, saying, “Auntie, it’s not that I don’t want to give you a cheaper price, but that’s our lowest price already. This is what we farmers grew and eat ourselves, it’s only because there was a little extra that we’ve put it out for sale. You’ve tried this tomato. Doesn’t it taste so much better than the others? No pesticides were used, it’s absolutely safe and healthy to eat.”

This was Lu Qingjiu’s first time seeing Yin Xun so well-spoken. He felt a little shocked but didn’t say anything, simply acting as background behind him until finally, the auntie actually bought two jin of tomatoes under Yin Xun’s persuasion. After that, business began to improve.

Some people just turned around and left immediately after hearing the price, but most who stuck around and tried a piece of the tomatoes would buy at least a few. Soon, they’d managed to sell off almost all of the big sacks of tomatoes they brought. Lu Qingjiu had never thought it would be this popular. They had brought two hundred jin of tomatoes, making a total of six hundred yuan after selling it all.

At first, Lu Qingjiu wanted to give Yin Xun a share but Yin Xun declined, saying that he hadn’t paid Lu Qingjiu back for all the food and drink he had at his house every day. And anyways, rather than paying him, the money would be better used buying more meat for them to eat.

Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu found him quite reasonable, so on his way back home, he stopped by the butcher’s and bought a hunk of pork and several jin of beef home.

Of course, Lu Qingjiu didn’t forget to give Uncle Chen, who’d brought them to town, a red envelope. Actually, he was thinking of buying a small truck himself, but at the moment he didn’t need to transport very many things, so this just remained an idea.

When Lu Qingjiu returned along the meat he’d bought, he saw Bai Yuehu sitting in the outer courtyard, head raised towards the sky. He seemed to have seen something. Hearing Lu Qingjiu come in through the main entrance, he finally spoke, “You’re back?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “I’m back, even bought back a lot of meat for you.”

Bai Yuehu replied, “Do you want a mount?”

Upon hearing his question, Lu QIngjiu was stunned, “What do you mean? A mount? Do you mean a car?”

Bai Yuehu blinked, affirming Lu Qingjiu’s words, “Yes, a car.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “I was just discussing this with Yin Xun just now, but I don’t think we need to go to town that often, so it isn’t very necessary.”

Bai Yuehu replied, “I…” After starting to speak, he then paused, as if searching for the appropriate words, “My friend, sent me a… car, but I don’t like it. You can have it.”

A car? Lu Qingjiu found the way he said that rather strange, but didn’t think too much of it. He said, “What kind of car?”

Bai Yuehu said, “I don’t know. What kind of car do you want? Could you show me a picture?”

Lu Qingjiu furrowed his eyebrows. He walked up to Bai Yuehu’s side, asking in a low voice, “Is it really a car? Or is it some kind of strange thing?”

Bai Yuehu looked back at Lu Qingjiu, an innocent look in his dark eyes, “It’s not, probably.”

Lu Qingjiu, “…” Why did you have to add that probably.

Bai Yuehu asked, “Do you want it?”

Lu Qingjiu, now on alert, said, “Let me have a look at it first.”

Bai Yuehu let out an imperceptible sigh, “Alright.”

That night’s dinner consisted of sweet and sour pork ribs and beef with pepper steak stir-fry. In the past, Lu Qingjiu loved eating sweet and sour pork ribs and often made some for himself at home. This could be said to be a specialty dish of his. As such, the sweet and sour pork ribs turned out very successful. The sweet and saltiness were perfectly balanced and the pork ribs were soft and fatty, not overly lean. When bitten into, the meat juices oozed out into one’s mouth. The pepper steak was also very tender. The peppers were picked straight from the fields, making them incredibly fresh and extremely spicy, a perfect match with the tender beef.

After the meal, Bai Yuehu, who had finished washing the dishes, unexpectedly didn’t go to bed right away, instead running off to the computer to browse the internet for a while.

He very rarely used electronics, neither watching TV nor owning a cellphone, so Lu Qingjiu was rather curious about what he was doing.

Yin Xun made a bet with Lu Qingjiu, saying that Bai Yuehu was definitely watching porn.

Lu Qingjiu replied, “What kind of nonsense are you spouting…” Bai Yuehu was a fox, if he wanted to watch porn all he needed to do was watch Animal Planet.

Yin Xun said, “Why don’t we wait till he leaves, and then go check his browsing history?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “That’s not good, we’d be invading his privacy.”

Yin Xun said, “Aiya, satisfy my curiosity just this once, won’t you? Don’t you see how he maintains that divine poise and saint-like appearance every day? This is the first time he’s ever used the computer, aren’t you curious as to what this immortal-like man is using the computer for!”  

To tell the truth, Lu Qingjiu was also incredibly curious. So, with Yin Xun’s urging, the two of them committed a sin, opening up his browsing history to check out what exactly Bai Yuehu had been looking at.

Who knew that it would be so disappointing. His browsing records showed that he had only visited a few automobile forums. He hadn’t looked at any porn flicks or any Animal Planet.

“What’s he looking at cars for?” Yin Xun scratched his head, confused, “Could it be that he’s planning on buying a car?”

Lu Qingjiu fell silent, thinking of the conversation he’d had with Bai Yuehu earlier that day about whether he wanted a “mount”… Oh wait no, he had meant a car. Faced with this browsing history, he had a bad feeling.

“What’s wrong? Qingjiu?” Yin Xun noticed the weird look on Lu Qingjiu’s face.

Lu Qingjiu shook his head, expressing that he was okay.

After that, Yin Xun went home. Lu Qingjiu shut down the computer and climbed onto his bed. He turned on his phone and saw Zhu Miaomiao showing off her beautiful new head of hair in their friend group. Most of the comments below were asking about here she got her hair transplant to have such good results. Thinking of the well in his inner courtyard, Lu Qingjiu let out a helpless smile. He also would never have thought that that cursed female ghost would have this kind of power…

As he scrolled through the comments, Lu Qingjiu slowly drifted off to sleep. He thought that this matter was already long since over. But then, one morning a few days later, he was shocked awake by a sharp shriek.

The author has something to say:

After watching Animal Planet, Bai Yuehu descended into silence.

Lu Qingjiu: Why does my butt feel a little cold…