Chapter Sixteen: Seeking the Precious Sword at the Carved Boat

  Xiao Di wore a brand new autumn outfit, carrying a pair of large slippers, and trotted from Xiao Wan's room through the hall to Xue Xiang's door. With her small fist clenched, she knocked "bang bang" on Xue Xiang's door.

  Around eight o'clock in the evening, Xue Xiang brought a few people back home from the clothing store. As soon as they arrived, the little one hugged her newly bought pile of clothes and school bag, and ran into the room. During dinner, Xue Xiang called out to her several times, but she ignored him, standing in front of the dressing mirror, admiring her new clothes. Xue Xiang got anxious, picked up the little one, and went to the kitchen. As a result, the little one didn't eat much before putting down her bowl and returning to the room. At that moment, Xue Xiang thought to himself, "Women, whether they're five or fifty years old, loving beauty is forever their innate nature."

  Xue Xiang had gone to bed early, and before dinner, he had told Kang Tong that there would be action tonight. Kang Tong nodded without asking, anyway, in his opinion, as long as Third Brother said what to do, he just did it well. Xue Xiang was thinking that the little guy must have forgotten about the "sleeping together" clause in the unequal treaty he had forced him to sign, and was about to turn off the lamp when he heard a knock at the door. Xue Xiang got up, opened the door, and indeed it was the little guy, who had come to exercise her rights. The pink autumn clothes wrapped around the little guy's small body made her look especially cute, like a flower fairy from a fairy tale, but this flower fairy in front of him was still holding a small pillow.

  The little guy didn't make a sound, and directly crawled into Xue Xiang's arm from the armpit. He ran to the front of the bed, kicked off his slippers with one foot, and then crawled onto the bed from the foot of the bed. Suddenly, the quilt was lifted up in a wave. It turned out that the little guy had crawled from the foot of the bed to the head of the bed inside the quilt. After crawling to the foot of the bed, the little guy lifted up one corner of the quilt, revealing his small face and smiling at Xue Xiang with a crescent moon shape, as if telling Xue Xiang, "Look how smart I am! Crawling over like this won't make me cold!"

  Xue Xiang returned a smile, closed the door, walked to the bedside, and was about to get into bed when he was pushed by the little guy with his small hand. The little guy tilted his head: "I haven't arranged it yet, wait for me to arrange it before you come up." After finishing speaking, the little face turned back, arranging the placement of two pillows. The little guy first placed the two pillows tightly side by side, feeling that they were not close enough, and then pressed his small flower pillow onto half of Xue Xiang's pillow. Feeling that this made the pillow too high, the little guy frowned with his head down.

  Xue Xiang couldn't help but laugh, but he himself was also standing outside the quilt, feeling quite cold. He quickly came up with a plan and said to the little guy, "Little treasure, why don't I lie down and you arrange your pillow? That way, whatever you want me to do, I'll cooperate." The little guy thought this was a good idea and actively lifted the quilt to let Xue Xiang in. After Xue Xiang lay down, the little guy started to fuss over him, first taking one of Xue Xiang's arms and putting it on his stomach to make room for himself; then he turned Xue Xiang's body around so that his face was facing him. After a lot of fussing, finally, he put Xue Xiang's arm around his small flower pillow and put his own leg on Xue Xiang's stomach, holding one of Xue Xiang's legs in his arms before he was satisfied. The little guy lay in Xue Xiang's arms, lifted the quilt to reveal a small opening, showing his face, yawned slightly, and didn't say anything to Xue Xiang. He closed his eyes, unsure if he was sleeping or meditating. The little guy's face was red, and although he had some shy thoughts in his heart, after all, this was the first time he slept with his big brother since he grew up, and it felt a bit unnatural. However, his big brother's arms were much warmer than his second sister's.

  Xue Xiang's body was at the mercy of the little guy, not only did he follow her, but he also had to use his own strength to help the little guy get into the position she wanted. He now looked like he was locked in a cruciform swan lock by the little guy. Xue Xiang didn't dare move, and in her heart, she could feel that the little guy was sleeping very comfortably. She greedily savored this moment of affection and warmth.

  After a while, Xue's nicotine addiction acted up, but the little guy seemed to still be asleep. He could only endure it. He found it difficult to bear and quickly thought of something to shift his attention. He decided to thoroughly review the high school textbooks in his mind. Although he didn't like studying when he was younger, he still remembered what he had learned. Xue relied on his memories to sort out the general depth of several subjects' textbooks and put his mind at ease. It was clear that the difficulty of the current high school textbooks couldn't be compared to those in his past life. The current high school textbooks focused more on conceptual questions, unlike the question-setting experts in his past life who would break down a single question into tiny pieces to torture students. In his past life, Xue had entered Peking University with exceptionally high scores in liberal arts, and although it had been over ten years ago, he knew that if he were to let the top students of Peking University tackle the current high school textbooks, they would be able to pick them up after reviewing the books a few times. They wouldn't have any problem dealing with next year's college entrance exams. Xue knew that next year's college entrance exams would only test five subjects for both liberal arts and science: politics, language, mathematics, history, and geography for liberal arts, and physics, chemistry, and the same first three subjects as liberal arts for science. History, geography, language, and politics were already deeply ingrained in Xue's mind; he just needed to review mathematics, and a high score would be within his grasp.

  Xue Xiang was thinking contentedly, and soon the soft snoring sound of the little guy came from beside her ear. It turned out that the little guy had fallen asleep. Xue Xiang called out to the little treasure a few times, but there was no reaction. Only then did Xue Xiang carefully remove his two arms from around her body. Xue Xiang quickly lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, satisfying his craving for nicotine. He picked up the watch on the bedside table and saw that it was already past 11 o'clock - time to make a move. Xue Xiang put on his clothes, left the room, walked to Kang Tong's door, and knocked lightly twice. A few seconds later, Kang Tong's door opened. Xue Xiang was somewhat curious about how this guy could respond so quickly. Upon closer inspection, he saw that Kang Tong was fully dressed, even wearing shoes - it seemed that this little scamp had just lain down on the bed for a bit.

  Xue Xiang entered the storage room, took out a canvas bag, two iron shovels, and two flashlights. He handed one flashlight and shovel to Kang Tong, and they rode their bikes out of the military district compound. The moonlight was good for these two nights, casting a bright glow over the entire alleyway, illuminating the frost-covered ground, making it crystal clear, so there was no need to use the flashlights to light the way. Neither of them spoke, Xue Xiang led the way in front, while Kang Tong quietly followed behind, the only sound being the clanging of their bicycles as they rode through the alleyway. As they exited the alleyway and entered the main street, the wide asphalt road was empty, with not a single person in sight. The dim streetlights seemed to be afraid to compete with the bright moonlight, weakly emitting a faint glow. The two men picked up speed on the wide road, flying along for over ten minutes before turning a corner and continuing to ride. However, the road conditions worsened, forcing them to turn on their flashlights to light the way. By this time, Xue Xiang and Kang Tong had arrived at the outer perimeter of the Northern Suburbs' chaotic burial grounds. They carefully rode their bikes, the poor road conditions causing the iron shovels tied to the back seat to clatter loudly, suddenly breaking the silence of the burial grounds.

  As they entered the early spring, the weather was still cold, and the trees in the Luojia Gang, although not lush, had become a wintering ground for some birds. The noise made by the two of them startled the birds in the forest, which flew away in a flurry, and then there was no sound. The road ahead was really too difficult to walk on, with potholes getting worse and worse, so the two of them got off the car and pushed it forward. Around Luojia Gang, except for a piece of woodland and weeds, there were only some intact or broken stone monuments standing scattered. Since the birds flew out of the forest earlier, except for the sound of the two pushing the cart, there was no other sound around, and the surroundings were dead silent.

  The bright moon, the desolate wilderness, the startled birds, the tombstones, and the stone monuments all gathered together should have outlined a gloomy and terrifying scene. However, Xue Yang and the other person viewed it with indifference, their mouths puffing on cigarettes as they pushed their cart forward in big strides. Thinking about it, this was an era of turmoil, where the winds and clouds were stirred up, and the thunderbolts shook the five continents. Sweeping away all cowards and evil spirits had become the loudest slogan of this era. This was also an era of great audacity, with no respect for ghosts or gods. If a small ghost were to jump out, Kang Tong would probably be overjoyed, thinking it would be perfect to catch one and bring it back for exhibition. Of course, Xue Yang came from a later generation and had experienced the unexplainable event of time-traveling, so he wasn't as dismissive of ghosts and gods. However, he was naturally bold, and with someone by his side, he didn't have any thoughts in that direction to begin with.

  Xue Xiang followed Kang Tong over several ridges and around a few trees. He stopped the car, motioned for Kang Tong to do the same, and beckoned him closer, saying: "Little Kang, you're getting colder by the day. I brought you to this wild burial mound, but I haven't seen any curiosity or questions from you."

  Kang Tong said: "Why ask so many questions, just follow me and it's fine, you won't harm me, will you? Are you going to cheat me out of my money and kill me? Besides, how much money do I have, you know best." It was rare for Kang Tong to say so much in one go, and even rarer for him to crack a joke.

  Xue said with a smile: "This is right, being cold-faced all day, aren't you tired of yourself?"

  "Get out!"

  Got it, back to normal. Xue Xiang didn't plan on dwelling on the topic either and said to Kang Tong: "I called you out tonight to dig something up. Eight years ago, I buried a trunk here. Now I think there might be some fun stuff inside. If we can find it, who knows, maybe we can exchange it for a lot of money. Later, let's split up and search around this area for a crooked-necked tree."

  Kang Tong didn't waste any words and nodded as he left. Xue Xiang was able to guarantee finding the thing because his impression of the crooked-neck tree from back then was too deep. The trunk of that crooked-neck tree was only as thick as an arm, with the lower half and upper half of the tree growing in a parallel direction, connected by a horizontal trunk in the middle. At the time, Xue Xiang had said to his companions who were watching the fire together, if the lower half of this tree stretched upwards and the upper half stretched downwards, removing the excess branches and leaves, it would be a perfect "H".

  Xue Xiang and Kang Tong split up to search, shining their flashlights. They quickly scanned the trees by their shapes. Half an hour passed, and they gathered back together, each sitting on a car seat smoking. Xue Xiang was puzzled, thinking that they had first searched for trees within a ten-meter radius, then expanded their range, but still couldn't find the tree he mentioned after searching all the trees within a hundred meters. He smoked silently, wondering why this was happening. Had someone cut down the tree for firewood? Unlikely - there were trees everywhere in the suburbs, and even if they wanted to cut some down, they wouldn't come here; it was several miles away from the nearest village. Besides, cutting down a tree next to a person's body would be unlucky, wouldn't it? Had it been struck by lightning? Xue Xiang shook his head - this wasn't some fantasy world where trees had spirits that could avoid calamity; what were the chances of that happening?

  Xue Xiang thought hard but to no avail, making a great effort to recall the appearance of that tree. Finally, Xue Xiang laughed, thinking himself foolish for not understanding such a simple principle, which was just like searching for a sword by carving a boat.

  Xue got off the car seat and instructed Kang Tong in this way.

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