Chapter 61: Moonlit Night Thoughts

  Song Jian walked up to the rooftop, where Xu Si was standing with his eyes fixed on the distance. The moonlight poured down like a thin layer of gauze, shrouding Xu Si's figure.

  "Are you awake too?" Song Jian walked over and asked softly.

  Xu Si was startled for a moment, turned her head to see that it was Song Jian, and let out a sigh of relief. She nodded and said: "The Qiantang River tide is originally just so beautiful, even from such a distance."

  Song Jian stood beside Xu Si and also looked in the direction where the sound came from.

  The distant rumbling sound is incessant, like the galloping of ten thousand horses, and also like the howling of a mountain flood, shaking this land to tremble with a buzzing noise.

  This sound is the voice of Qiantang River tide, Jiande County is located in the middle and upper reaches of Qiantang River. In Lianhua Town, although you can't see the big tide of Qiantang River, you can feel the momentum of that mighty wave.

  "When I was very young, I once watched the big tide by the river. It was in August of the lunar calendar and there were many people going to the river to watch the tide," Xu Si said softly, her voice like a oriole on a black night. "At that time, my mother was still by my side, holding me tightly, even with such high waves, I wasn't afraid..."

  As she spoke, Xu Si's voice was tinged with sobs. Her mother had passed away very early on, and after her mother's death, her father Xu Qiangsan became a different person altogether, spending his days idling about, indulging in food and drink, whoring and gambling to numb himself.

  Song Jian turned his head and looked at the woman beside him. It turned out that she, who had always been calm and strong, could also cry.

  Xu Si's shoulders slightly shrugged.

  At this moment, a protective impulse sprouted in Song Jian's heart. The Xus he saw before him made Song Jian involuntarily think of his own wife from a thousand years ago, who had been beheaded and burned to death because of the elixir. Their lives as widows and orphans must have been so difficult, was there anyone bullying them? Was there anyone pitying them? Was there anyone sending charcoal fire to them in the cold winter with flying snow?

  He rubbed his eyes with his hand, Song Jian took off his own coat and put it on Xu Si's shoulders.

  Xu Si's body tensed up, but she didn't refuse. On a deep night in this season, it was indeed very chilly.

  Song Jian stretched out his arm and blocked Xu Si's shoulder, letting Xu Si stick tightly to his side.

  "Don't be sad, the sun will shine again," Song Jian said softly, both to comfort Xu Si and to remind himself.

  Xu Si didn't expect Song Jian to be so bold, she tried to struggle free, but found that Song Jian's hold was so firm.

  To Xu Si, Song Jian is her nominal fiancé, a lodger in her family home, the company's driver, and now also her business partner.

  But to Song Jian, Xu Si was his only family. From the moment he came into this world, Song Jian became a lonely person, and his only relative was the woman in front of him, who did not abandon him even when he was in trouble.

  Song Jian would certainly hold her tight, not just at this moment, but also in the years to come, he would tightly wrap his arms around this woman, not letting her get hurt in any way.

  Xu Si stopped struggling, warmth began to sprout from her heart, as if relying on the man in front of her could make her no longer cold.

  The sound of the distant tide gradually faded away, leaving only a faint whispering sound. On this clear and cold moonlit night, it adds a few more melancholic feelings.

  "Song Jian, you... let me go." Xu Si said with a red face.

  "It's late at night, let's go back to our rooms and rest."

  "Hmm," Xu Si lowered his head and didn't look at Song Jian, hastily walking downstairs.

  Song Jian looked at Xu Si's back, and several different emotions arose in his heart. He raised his head to look at the bright moon in the sky again, turned around and went downstairs to return to his room.

  The next morning, Song Jian woke up early and practiced Wuji Qigong in the courtyard. The fresh air made him feel invigorated all over, and his efficiency seemed to have improved a lot. This made Song Jian feel a strong urge to return to nature.

  Xu Si got up early as usual, wearing simple jeans and a casual warm sportswear jacket, standing on the second floor corridor, exercising her limbs.

  Song Jian slowly punched, like an old man practicing Tai Chi, but Song Jian's posture was not quite like ordinary Tai Chi, um, a bit uglier than Tai Chi.

  Xu Si couldn't help but laugh at Song Jian's clumsy movements, she really couldn't understand why Song Jian would choose this set of exercises, and Xia Lin that little girl even followed along every day to practice these exercises.

  Soon, Song Jian put away his fists and feet, let out a mouthful of stale air, and walked towards his own room.

  Xu suddenly remembered that she hadn't returned Song Jian's clothes yesterday, so she called out to Song Jian who was downstairs, "Hey, wait a minute, Song Jian."

  Song Jian raised his head and looked at Xu Si with a puzzled expression.

  Xu Si quickly ran back to his own room, took Song Jian's coat and threw it down.

  "Thanks for your clothes," said Xu Si.

  Song Jian took over the clothes and nodded slightly before walking towards his own room. He lowered his head, only to find Wang Yang staring at him with a mixture of shock and anger on his face.

  "You... why is your clothes at XiXi's place?" Wang Yang held a toothbrush in one hand, and was about to block Song Jian with the other.

  Song Jian didn't say a word and walked into the room, slamming the door shut with a bang.

  Wang Yang didn't even bother brushing his teeth, throwing his toothbrush on the ground and banging hard on Song Jian's door.

  "Song Jian! I'm telling you, you're just a small driver! Do you know what you're doing now? Speak quickly, what's going on with your clothes?"

  Another door opened and two burly bodyguards walked over.

  "What's going on, boss?" one of the bodyguards asked.

  Wang Yang kicked the door of the house with a loud bang, waved his hand and said: "Nothing for now, wait till I get back to find an opportunity to teach that damned driver a lesson."

  On the other side, the truck driver had already taken out an electronic scale and placed it at the entrance of the courtyard. Wang Qianshan and Wang Wanshan, two brothers, also unfolded a large red cloth with the banner "Tusizi Purchase Station" fluttering in the mountain wind.

  Wang Qianshan's elderly mother had cooked a good breakfast, and everyone was eating when some villagers arrived carrying bamboo baskets.

  Wang Qianshan put down his chopsticks and said, "Come on, come on, weigh it here, after weighing, you can get the money."

  The first villager put down a bamboo basket, the bamboo basket was full of wild Polygonum multiflorum, Wang Qianshan checked it slightly and then weighed it on an electronic scale.

  "Fifty-three catties and two taels, minus three catties and two taels for the bamboo basket, that's a total of fifty catties. You should get five hundred yuan." Wang Qianshan said loudly.

  Song Jian stood aside, with a briefcase by his hand. He opened the case and inside were stacks of brand new banknotes: 100s, 50s, and piles of 10s.

  "Here, five hundred," Song Jian handed the money over to the villager.

  When he really received 500 yuan, the villager let out a loud "Oh!" and startled the birds in the distant mountains into flight.

  "How much wild vegetables do you want? Do you still want some?" The villager asked in a rough voice, speaking in dialect.

  Song Jian nodded, "As long as it's delivered before tonight, I want them all."

  "Whoa!" The villager let out another loud shout, grabbed the bamboo basket and took off in a sprint, apparently he couldn't be bothered with lunch anymore.

  Soon, more villagers came to hand over the dodder, these villagers all went up the mountain overnight to cut and collect it. Because there were few people at night, the dodder at the foot of the mountain was not cut by anyone, so the amount taken by this first batch of people was particularly large.

  Wang Qianshan paid as agreed, Song Jian handed over the money, and soon received two thousand catties of dodder seeds.

  Song Jian took a look at the situation and secretly let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that he could complete the acquisition task before dusk.

  The day passed in a flurry of activity.

  The villagers of Xilong Mountain carried bamboo baskets and searched for dodder in the mountains. The early-rising villagers had an advantage, as the dodder at the foot of the mountain was easy to find. However, the late-rising villagers regretted it, as the easily picked dodder had all been harvested, and later everyone could only climb halfway up the mountain to pick dodder.

  Shi Wen and Shi Wu, brothers from the Xilongshan area, were notorious rascals. The two brothers refused to cultivate land or learn a trade, and after their father's death, they occupied the old house, got hold of a hunting rifle, and spent their days roaming the mountains shooting wild game to sell for food. When there was little game to be found, the brothers would moonlight as petty thieves, targeting the homes of elderly widows and widowers. They managed to scrape by until they were in their thirties without starving to death.

  Yesterday evening, they heard that someone was buying wild Tribulus terrestris at a high price. The two brothers thought it was a scam and, being very lazy, didn't pay attention to it.

  Today, I slept until the sun shone on my butt. When my two brothers got up, they suddenly heard that Wang Ma Zi next door had harvested over 180 catties of dodder seedlings overnight and exchanged them for 1,800 yuan.

  Upon hearing this news, the two brothers could no longer hold back, picked up their sickles and carried their bamboo baskets as they ran up the mountain.

  Unfortunately, after a night and morning of harvesting, most of the dodder seeds in the Xilongshan area have been harvested. From now on, we can only carry bamboo baskets and search for them all over the mountains.

  Shi Wen and Shi Wu brothers, carrying bamboo baskets and holding sickles, searched for a whole afternoon and only picked more than 10 catties of dodder.

  More than ten catties of dodder seed cost over a hundred yuan, but thinking of Wang Ma Zi making nearly two thousand yuan overnight, Shi Wen and Shi Wu cursed incessantly.

  As the sun was about to set, Shi Wen threw away his sickle and spat, saying: "Damn it, who can find Angelica? Which idiot would come to harvest this stuff, has their head been kicked by a donkey?"

  Shi Wu was also waving the sickle in his hand, his eyes were red, "Mazi, you want to come and collect Angelica dahurica without saying a word in advance, now all the grass on the mountain has been cut off, what can we brothers do?"

  The two brothers cursed, but they had no choice, so they carried the bamboo baskets weighing over 10 kilograms and prepared to exchange them for money at Song Jian's place.

  In the distance, a middle-aged man wearing Adidas sportswear walked over. The middle-aged man was relatively short but very sturdy, with a round face and although he was fat, all that flesh was solid muscle.

  "Are you Shi brothers?" The middle-aged man with a Northeastern accent asked the Shi Wen and Shi Wu brothers.

  －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

  Yes, there should be one more, strive to get the update ticket.

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