Dawn is breaking.
Wu Chun followed his grandfather and set off for the market in the neighbouring village.
As there is a lot of dew in the summer, Wu Chun tied plastic bags around his feet before leaving.
Grandfather said, “The neighbouring village is far away; we have to take the small path, which is full of grass. At this time, I’m afraid your feet might be uncomfortable.”
Due to the mountainous terrain, the distance between villages is quite long. Each village has a market every four days, and transportation is mostly by cart. The carts are large with a huge wheel in the middle, and the rest are made of wood. On both sides of the wheel, two large wooden structures called “kuanglou” can be placed. The cart handle is tied with a hemp rope, and one holds the two handles with the rope around the neck.
They set off from their home before dawn, pushing two Kuanglou loaded with goods to arrive at the market on time. They set up their stalls and waited for customers to come and make purchases.
“Can we really make it work like this?”
Wu Chun unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck. It started to feel sore after only a glance.
“Yes, this is much easier.” Grandfather said this as he occasionally helped passing cars by pulling them along.
Wu Chun followed behind with a small bag on his back.
He had wanted to help, but the person in charge had declined his offer with a smile after sizing him up.
“This is my grandson who got accepted to college.”
“Oh, I see,” the other person suddenly realized. “Going to college is good. You don’t have to suffer like this anymore. You can sit in an office, and the money will come. What does your child want to do in the future?”
“Be a teacher,” Grandfather answered before Wu Chun had a chance to speak.
Wu Chun didn’t say anything; he didn’t have a clear idea of his future yet. He had thought about it before; his father worked in a factory, and his mother was a teacher.
Perhaps because his mother was a teacher, she hoped that Wu Chun could also become a teacher. She instilled this idea in him from a young age, to the point where Wu Chun’s college application was only for a normal university.
With his hands in his pockets, Wu Chun turned his head and could vaguely see Shili Mountain. A smile unconsciously appeared on his face.
“Chun Chun, keep up,” said his grandfather.
“Coming,” Wu Chun replied, taking another glance at the mountaintop before turning around and following his grandfather.
The sun was quietly rising over the mountain…
This is not the first time Wu Chun has been to a market. When he was young, he followed his grandfather here a few times. Although it’s a different village, the market is mostly the same: a grain area, a fabric area, a vegetable area, a fruit area, clothes and shoes, and some market snacks.
At the moment, Wu Chun is sitting at a small stall selling pan-fried buns.
Next to him is a large stove, and the person in charge of the fire is holding an iron shovel, pushing the nearby corn stalks into the fire, the flames burning fiercely. Not far from the stove is a large table with a grandmother sitting on one side, one person responsible for rolling out the dough, and one person responsible for wrapping. In front of them is a large filling bowl, which seems to have three kinds of fillings.
“What does Chun Chun want to eat?”
Wu Chun slightly raised his head and replied, “Something vegetarian.”
“Do you want to plant eggplants?”
Wu Chun nodded.
“Is there anything else you want to plant?”
Wu Chun thought for a moment; he didn’t know what to plant. Eggplants were suggested by Xu Shi Yao last night, and that area had poor soil quality. “What has a high survival rate?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Nothing has a high survival rate in that area.”
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…
An hour later, Wu Chun and Grandpa set off on the road back to the village.
It was still only around 9 o’clock in the morning, and the sunlight was not yet too intense. Wu Chun held a small box of seedlings in one hand and a few flowers in the other.
Wu Chun couldn’t even name the flower; although it was a bit plain-looking and unsophisticated, the flower vendor said it was easy to care for.
In the village, flowers were not in short supply, especially in the spring when wildflowers covered the hillsides, but there were none where Xu Shi Yao was.
During the day, Xu Shi Yao was trapped in the pine trees, his vision blocked by layers of pine needles, unable to see the spectacular display of wildflowers outside the mountain. At night, the flowers went to sleep.
There were many flowers, but not a single one had bloomed for Xu Shi Yao.
“This flower is very delicate, and it’s not easy to grow in that environment,” Grandfather reminded him again. He didn’t know what had gotten into his grandson lately, but if the child was happy, he didn’t want to spoil his mood.
“Don’t worry, Grandpa, I have a way,” said Wu Chun confidently.
Without even entering his house, Wu Chun grabbed his tools from the yard and headed off.
When he arrived at the foot of the mountain, ten miles away, Wu Chun first dug up a basket of soil. The soil there was too thin, so he had to add some extra soil by hand and also prevent rainwater from washing it away. It was a difficult task.
As the sunlight grew stronger, some of the plants on the roadside had already dropped their heads, but Wu Chun didn’t feel the heat today.
A coolness slowly spread from the chest throughout the body. Wu Chun took out the pinecone pendant that he had hidden under his clothes.
“Is it you who helped me again?”
Wu Chun whispered to the pinecone. The only person with such ability is Xu Shi Yao.
Carrying the box of soil, Wu Chun climbed up to the empty space on the mountain and ran back and forth more than a dozen times before finally covering the empty space with a thin layer of soil.
“I can’t go on. I’m too exhausted.”
Wu Chun slumped directly to the ground. Grandfather said it’s best to plant in the afternoon, as the morning sun is too intense and the survival rate won’t be very high.
Wu Chun’s task this morning was to make this place look slightly less barren.
He underestimated this job.
Thinking back to his refusal of Grandfather’s help earlier, he knew he had to do it alone. However, in this weather, he couldn’t let the elderly man work too hard.
Turning his head to look at the pine tree behind him, he soon ran over and hugged the tree tightly.
“I’m really tired, Xu Shi Yao.”
Wailing while embracing the tree, he looked like he had just been bullied.
The two branches of this pine tree had grown thicker. Wu Chun had already taken off his shoes and climbed up. He leaned against the trunk now, took out an apple from his pocket, rubbed it on his clothes, and took a bite, sighing with satisfaction.
As expected, there’s nowhere as comfortable as being by Xu Shi Yao’s side.
Summer nights were hot and humid, and Wuchun woke up several times in the middle of the night drenched in sweat.
“You know, I bet it would be really comfortable to sleep at your place,” Wu Chun said. Each time he woke up from a deep sleep, he began thinking of ways to convince his grandfather to let him sleep outside.
After waking up in the cemetery that one time, Wu Chun came up with a long list of excuses to try to convince his grandfather to let him stay outside.
“Or maybe you could come to my house and sleep with me.”
But then Wu Chun had another thought: the people who secretly came to cut down trees in the village had no fixed time, and Xu Shi Yao had to stay here during the period from just entering the night until the sun was about to come up, and he couldn’t go anywhere.
“Ah, I want to see him but I can’t.”
Wu Chun said, then took a bite of the apple in frustration. After finishing the apple in his hand, Wu Chun lingered on the tree for a while before returning to work.
“Indeed, people cannot rest.”
Just after resting for a short while, Wu Chun felt that his arm no longer belonged to him. Not only was it sore and numb, but he also couldn’t exert any strength.
After continuing to move things several more times, Wu Chun felt like he had blisters on the soles of his feet. However, since the place finally looked like a place where vegetables could be grown, Wu Chun gathered some stones from around the area and blocked the surroundings with them, even filling in the gaps between the stones with small stones.
Although his grandfather said he didn’t know when the next rain would come, Wu Chun still worried that a single rainfall would wash away all the results of his morning’s hard work.
After cleaning up the area in the morning, in the afternoon, during sunset, Wu Chun finally planted the seedlings and carried countless buckets of water back and forth. After completing the planting work, Wu Chun laid on a pine tree, too tired to even keep his eyes open.
“I’ll sleep for a while.”
Wu Chun wasn’t worried at all about falling off the tree. As long as he was close to Xu Shi Yao, his sense of security would skyrocket. He lay on the pine tree and soon fell asleep.
Wu Chun was woken up by someone pinching him.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on Xu Shi Yao’s lap. The other person was holding his arm and gently massaging it.
Wu Chun noticed that there was something different in Xu Shi Yao’s eyes, which used to be emotionless.
“I’m really tired, Xu Shi Yao.”
Wu Chun suddenly stood up while holding onto the neck of Xu Shi Yao and said with a grievance, “Look at my hands, they’ve all become callused, and so are my feet and shoulders; look.”
As Wu Chun spoke, he pulled down his collar, exposing his white shoulders in front of Xu Shi Yao, which had several criss-crossed red marks from the bamboo pole.
Wu Chun gently pressed on his shoulder with his hand and couldn’t help but inhale sharply due to the pain.
“Uh oh, tomorrow it will probably swell up so high.”
At this moment, Wu Chun was only focused on telling Xu Shi Yao how tired he was, completely ignoring the fact that his current posture was inappropriate. He was now sitting completely on top of Xu Shi Yao, with one hand still hooked around the back of his neck.
“Let go,” the other person said flatly.
“You’re so heartless!” Hearing him say that, Wu Chun became angry. He immediately let go of Xu Shi Yao, moved away from him, and sat on the side. He turned his head away as if he were not looking at Xu Shi Yao, but in fact, he secretly looked at his reaction from the corner of his eye.
“I got up early this morning to buy things, then filled soil and carried water. I’ve never done this kind of work before. My grandfather said he would come to help me, but I had to persuade him so much that he didn’t come. Oh, and I fell while carrying water.”
Wu Chun rolled up his pants and revealed a big bruise on his knee.
On his first attempt at carrying water, Wu Chun had no experience and stumbled after just a few steps. The bamboo pole hit his back, and the two buckets of water spilled all over him. Fortunately, the sun was still strong and quickly dried his wet clothes.
Now, Wu Chun’s pants legs were covered in dried mud. He had expected things to go wrong when he declined his grandfather’s help, but he couldn’t bear to see his grandfather’s back bent like that.
Despite having blisters on his hands and feet from the work, Wu Chun didn’t feel sorry for himself until he heard the words “Xu Shi Yao” just now, and a strong sense of grievance surged up in his heart.
Tears flowed uncontrollably.
Wu Chun felt that he was becoming more and more sentimental. In front of Xu Shi Yao, his tear ducts seemed to be out of control, falling at the slightest provocation, even over trivial matters.
Besides, these were things he was supposed to do himself.
Wu Chun wiped away his tears and forcefully slapped himself in the face, trying to stabilize his emotions. But the next second, he felt Xu Shi Yao leaning over behind him.
The temperature dropped noticeably.
Wu Chun turned his head and saw Xu Shi Yao looking at him apologetically. “I’m sorry, I just…”
Xu Shi Yao still didn’t know how to say the words he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Wu Chun that every time he hugged him and rubbed against him, he would feel a different kind of sensation. For this reason, Xu Shi Yao injected a bit of power into Wu Chun’s pineal gland, which could maintain a cool temperature around him. However, it seemed to have no effect, as Wu Chun still hugged him as before.
When Wu Chun fell just now, it was the first real close contact between the two of them, and Xu Shi Yao’s strange feeling became even more apparent. That’s why he said those two words.
When Wu Chun brought up the first bucket of water this afternoon, Xu Shi Yao saw that Wu Chun was soaked all over and guessed that something must have happened.
Wu Chun’s behavior was appreciated by Xu Shi Yao, but every time he tried to express it in words, it turned into a different feeling.
He had not spoken for too long, and he was even nervous when he first communicated with Wu Chun.
“I’ll help you,” Xu Shi Yao said as he leaned closer to Wu Chun.
Wu Chun had not yet realized how Xu Shi Yao would help him, but the next second he felt a slight coolness on his shoulder. Wu Chun saw that Xu Shi Yao’s head was slightly lowered, blowing gently on the swollen red area of his shoulder.
Wu Chun could easily turn his head and touch Xu Shi Yao.
Wu Chun dared not move, not even daring to breathe, sitting there stiffly, allowing Xu Shi Yao to “help” him.
As strange as Xu Shi Yao’s move looked, it actually worked a little.
Wu Chun felt that the soreness in his shoulders had eased a lot.
“Is it better now?”
Wu Chun nodded awkwardly, “Mm, much better.”
“Give me your leg.”
Wu Chun was like a puppet, doing whatever Xu Shi Yao said. Before he realized it, his feet were already gripped in Xu Shi Yao’s palms.
With the unique coolness on his body, Xu Shi Yao indeed alleviated the soreness on his body.
Besides that, there was also a slight itching sensation…
“Well…” Just as Wu Chun was about to say it was enough, before he could finish his sentence, he saw the other person suddenly become nervous. His brows furrowed, and in the next moment, Wu Chun only felt a flash of white in front of his eyes. There was still a lingering sentence in the air, “Someone is cutting trees, wait for me.”
Yi Zhi Mao Dou :
How rude! Someone always appears to disturb the little couple!
…Why are they cutting trees, seeing that the root system helps prevent landslides, only to then refuse to plant more trees to further prevent accidents?
Also Wu Chun is getting real flirty with Xu Shiyao, almost stripping in front of him… And all the crying also has an explanation: Wu Chun feels safe with Xu Shiyao, so his body relaxes, and all the stress that builds up over the day is squeezed out as tears.
Thank you for the update~!
So as not to die from the cold! A landslide is a problem of spring and it can be attributed, for example, but no one wants to die from the cold
These people are playing hide and seek with landslide.. Requirement of fire woods is understandable.. But people always neglect to plant trees causing irreversible damages.. sigh..
They are so cute!!!!!
Thank you for your translation 💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝💝
».. and Wuchun woke up several times in the middle..« & ».. to sleep at your place,” Wuchun said.« & ».. Wuchun came up with a long list of excuses..« Wu Chun
Yeah, all your crying starts to feel a bit annoying.. but I hope it will get better and not worse over time.
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)