CH 16

translator: baumkuchen  editor: ellabells 

The person speaking was a young man who looked to only be in his twenties. He was probably around the same age as Lu Qingjiu.

“What did you say?” Lu Qingjiu’s eyes went wide. He thought he had heard wrong.

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“I said, I want all of them.” The young man casually picked up a tomato from the back of Lu Qingjiu’s pickup truck and gave it a quick rub on his shirt before taking a big bite. He continued in a muffled voice, “Right, it’s exactly this taste.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Are you sure you want to buy them all? There’s more than a few hundred jin here.” A few hundred jin was an estimate from Lu Qingjiu, he also didn’t know exactly how much there was.

“En,” The young man nodded. He finished the tomato in three bites, then dug out a business card from his pocket and handed it to Lu Qingjiu, “I have a restaurant in the city. A few days ago, my friend tried one of your tomatoes, and said they tasted really good.”

Lu Qingjiu had his misgivings, “Your friend said the tomatoes really good? But I’ve only sold them once…” He took a look at the business card. On the card was written the three words “Chao Qianyu”, and below was written the position of general manager for a restaurant.

“En,” Chao Qianyu said, “It was that time.”

Lu Qingjiu replied, “Can you finish all this stuff? I still have quite a lot at home.” 

“You still have a lot at home?” Hearing this, Chao Qianyu’s expression turned a little strange. He asked, “Where do you live?”

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“Shuifu village.” Lu Qingjiu didn’t bother hiding his address. This town was so small, everyone’s news spread really quickly. Even if he didn’t tell him, Chao Qianyu would find out sooner or later.

“Can I come by and check it out?” Chao Qianyu said, “If it’s suitable, I could buy out all the tomatoes in your home.”

Lu Qingjiu replied, “That works.” Selling his crops in bulk was naturally more convenient than trying to sell them at the market. 

“Then I’ll find a time when I’m next free and drop by your place,” Chao Qianyu waved a hand. Two people appeared from behind him and started to unload the goods from the truck, “Let’s pass them over the scale.”

After weighing the tomatoes, there was more than four hundred jin in total. Chao Qianyu directly paid Lu Qingjiu in cash. Lu QIngjiu happily tucked more than a thousand yuan into his wallet, thinking that they could have a big dinner tonight.

It was just that throughout the whole exchange, the usually talkative Yin Xun hadn’t spoken a single word. Only when Lu Qingjiu was driving back home in his truck did he speak, “Qingjiu, don’t you think it was a little bad to just let him come over like that?”

Lu Qingjiu replied, “What’s wrong?” 

Yin Xun’s expression was a little strange as he asked, “Uhm… Have you ever heard of this legend?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “What legend?”

“It’s said that the entrance to your home is a kind of barrier which keeps unclean things from being able to just come in,” Yin Xun said, “Unless, you give them an invitation.”

Oe Hlcuple, “…Dea.” 

Tlc Wec gfqilfv, “Dea ktja?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “But it seems like there’s already something unclean inside my house’s inner courtyard.”

Lfjglcu atlr, Tlc Wec ibbxfv jr lo tf’v yffc ragemx ys ilutaclcu. Llr ilqr rilutais agfwyifv jr tf jrxfv, “Vb jgf sbe cba ja jii rmjgfv?”

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Oe Hlcuple, “Yo mbegrf P’w rmjgfv. Dea P vbc’a tjnf atf wbcfs ab yes j vloofgfca tberf.” 

Yin Xun, “…”

Lu Qingjiu gripped the steering wheel as he let out a regretful sigh, “I think I understand why those horror movie protagonists who refuse to move out of their haunted mansions now…” Who the f*ck doesn’t want to move? The ones complaining didn’t know what it was like to be poor. Thankfully, that Miss Female Ghost in his inner courtyard was of really good quality, she doesn’t usually come out for a stroll and occasionally even helped people grow their hair. She could be said to be an environmentally-friendly ghost.

Yin Xun curled up beside him in despair, muttering, “Jiu-er, I really do admire you.”

Lu Qingjiu thought, I really admire myself too. 

They earned a lot of money today so Lu Qingjiu decided to prepare a big meal. He went with Yin Xun to the nearby meat market and bought a whole ton of meat, saying that tonight they were going to have barbeque.

After returning home, Yin Xun volunteered to start the fire while Lu Qingjiu was responsible for marinating the meat. Bai Yuehu also came over and stood by Lu Qingjiu, watching him cut the meat up into little pieces. He asked, “Was the truck useful?”

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

“En?” Lu Qingjiu said, “The truck? It’s really useful.” This pickup truck was much more comfortable than the car he used to drive. It also had much more horsepower, making it easy to drive on even the steep, winding mountain roads.

Bai Yuehu nodded, but after asking his question, he still didn’t leave. Instead, he looked over Lu Qingjiu before suddenly aaking, “Did you bump into any strange people today?” 

Lu Qingjiu’s movements stilled. He turned his head and asked, “What do you mean?”

Bai Yuehu said, “I mean exactly what I asked.”

“Strange people?” Lu Qingjiu speared the beef onto a wooden skewer as he thought it over, “No.” Seeming to have thought of something, he hesitated, “But there was a big customer who bought all of our tomatoes, that’s why we came back so early.”

“Oh,” Bai Yuehu responded, then turned and left. Lu Qingjiu didn’t understand what he meant by that. 

After spearing all the marinated meat onto skewers, they started barbequing. Lu Qingjiu’s barbequing skills were only average, but Yin Xun was quite the expert.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

When barbequing meat, they needed to pick half-fatty, half-lean ones. When the fatty meat was roasted over the fire, they let out a sizzling noise. Oil oozed out of the roasting meat, making hissing and popping noises when they dripped into the fire pit. The rich aroma of meat filled the entire house.

As Lu Qingjiu had his head lowered, his attention focused on barbequing, he felt something tugging at his pants. When he looked over, he saw two little black pigs sitting next to him, staring back with shining eyes.

“What the f*ck!” Lu Qingjiu was given a huge shock, “How did you guys get out?” 

Xiao Hua grunted, then made a jumping gesture, showing how it had gotten out by itself.

Next to him, Yin Xun let out a bewildered shout, “Woah, Lu Qingjiu, your pigs are revolting. They can even jump out of the pigsty now.”

Hearing that, Xiao Hua rushed over and kicked Yin Xun’s leg.

Lu Qingjiu already knew that his family’s pigs weren’t normal. He said, “What did you two come out for? We’re barbequeing pork, it’s not like you two can eat it, right?” 

Xiao Hua made an angry grunt.

Lu Qingjiu didn’t understand, so he simply grabbed two corn cobs and placed them in front on the pigs. Xiao Hua, finally appeased, nuzzled its head against Lu Qingjiu’s leg, then started eating happily.

Bai Yuehu had gone into the house to grab seasonings. When he came back out, he saw the two pigs gnawing on the corn cobs. His eyes turned cold. Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua, who had been happily gnawing on the cobs, instantly turned rigid. The older brother, Xiao Hua stood his ground somewhat, while its younger sister, Xiao Hei, directly flipped onto her back, an image of “I’ve already dropped dead”.

“Pfff——” Upon seeing this, Yin Xun who had been drinking water off to the side, sprayed out a mouthful of water, choking half to death. 

Xiao Hua put down the corn cob in his mouth, aggrieved. It bit its sister on the leg, then inched back slightly, as if planning on returning to the pigsty.

Lu Qingjiu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He turned towards Bai Yuehu, saying, “Okay, don’t scare them anymore.”

Bai Yuehu looked back at Lu Qingjiu. He frowned, and said seriously, “They’re eating my food.”

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Lu Qingjiu, “…It’s okay, today we bought a lot of meat. There’s enough. You can have all the meat, so just let them have these two corn cobs. You don’t like eating them anyways, right?” As he spoke, he passed a plate of freshly barbequed meat to Bai Yuehu. 

Now satisfied, Bai Yuehu let off the two piglets, focusing on the meat instead.

Yin Xun had even specially bought quite a few chicken feet. After barbecuing, they turned incredibly soft. You could just brush them with come special condiments and pop them into your mouth one by one. There was no need to bother removing the bones, they would just come off with one bite.

Happily eating, Lu Qingjiu also cracked open a few bottles of beer. The three of them enjoyed themselves to their hearts’ content.

After they were done eating, they didn’t clean up due to the late hour, simply returning to their own rooms to sleep and planned on cleaning everything up tomorrow. 

Lu Qingjiu had had a little too much to drink. When he lay down onto the bed, his head felt woozy but he felt abnormally awake, unable to fall asleep. Outside, the sky had turned dark, the entire sky was covered by a curtain of night.

After an unknown amount of time, Lu Qingjiu suddenly heard a strange noise from the courtyard, as if there was something dragging on the ground.

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Lu Qingjiu roughly shook his head, unsure if he was hallucinating because he was too drunk. He slowly climbed over to the side of the bed and saw that a strange, white figure had appeared in his courtyard. It looked like there was a giant animal standing outside. That animal was covered in white feathers and its head also looked like that of a bird. From the area where its mouth should be extended a long, blood-red beak. It was just that no bird could be that big. It was about two meters tall, even blocking out the moonlight.

Lu Qingjiu rubbed his eyes hard. 

That thing seemed to have noticed Lu Qingjiu’s gaze. Its mouth slowly split open, revealing a strange smile. It spread its wings and directly pounced at Lu Qingjiu. Lu Qingjiu jumped in fear before spotting a black fog hovering in the sky. It engulfed the bird in an instant.

“Ah——” Lu Qingjiu heard a sharp screech, before the sound of bones being crushed and meat being chewed started up. Through the black fog, Lu Qingjiu caught a glimpse of a giant eye that could only belong to a beast. That eye made Lu Qingjiu’s entire body freeze up. He couldn’t quite explain how he felt in that instant. It was as if every instinct he had was telling him if he even moved an inch, he would die right here.

A few minutes later, the eye disappeared back into the fog. Slowly, the black fog faded away and the little courtyard became calm once more.

It was just that the ground of the courtyard now had a layer of blood-drenched feathers. Lu Qingjiu blinked and found that the feathers had also disappeared. 

He returned to bed in a daze, wondering if he was drunk, was still dreaming, or if everything that he just saw had really happened. If a two-meter tall bird had really stepped into his home, and then something else had… He gulped and stopped that line of thought.

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Was it the fox spirit in his home? But the beast in the black fog, no matter how he looked at it, didn’t seem like a fox at all…