Chapter Fifty-Five: The Legend

"My dad told me about this too. It was an old bachelor from Golden Gate Village who ate the meat of a Great Immortal Yellow Weasel, and later even took its pelt to sell at the market."

"As soon as he got back home from the market, he dropped dead right at his own doorstep, his belly swollen up as round as a ball. My dad said that means the Great Immortal wasn't dead, and was casting spells inside his belly," Liuni'er chimed in.

"Ah? Really?" Xizi's little face instantly turned as white as a sheet.

"Of course it's true! Later on, the Great Immortal ate the old bachelor's heart, lungs, and intestines completely clean, and crawled right out through his throat. Ever since then, nobody in Golden Gate Village dared to mess with the Great Immortal," Liuni'er said with utmost seriousness.

"Mm-hmm, that's right. My grandpa said the exact same thing. It's super scary," Xiaosen also nodded seriously, confirming that Liuni'er was telling the truth.

This only frightened Xizi even more.

The little girl's innocent and naive eyes were filled with thick, heavy terror.

Yet, children love bizarre and eccentric stories the most; the more frightened they are, the more they want to listen, and the deeper they wish to probe.

"Th-Then I'll ask Liu Tiedan on Monday to see if things are really like that in their village," Xizi said with a somewhat trembling voice.

"What does Liu Tiedan know? Besides crying his eyes out, he just tattles on people to the teacher. I don't like playing with him," Liuni'er pouted and let out a huff, her expression extremely displeased.

Then she told Xizi, "Don't you play with him either, Xizi. If you want to hear stories about the Great Immortal, just go back and ask Grandpa Sangui. Grandpa Sangui often goes to Golden Gate Village to do carpentry work, so he knows all about things there."

"Okay, then I'll ask Grandpa at noon today and won't ask Liu Tiedan," Xizi nodded obediently, hanging on Liuni'er's every word.

Watching from the side, Chen Ling couldn't help but want to laugh.

At their age, these little kids were in the very prime of their innocence and simplicity. Today they would have a falling out and swear never to speak to each other again, and tomorrow they would be as thick as thieves, getting along like biological brothers and sisters.

Carefree and without a single worry.

As for the legend of the weasel told by Liuni'er and Xiaosen, he didn't take it to heart at all.

That creature just held a strong grudge; if it were truly as mystical as they claimed, wouldn't the weasels have already taken over the world?

"A-Ling, come help me move the wardrobe."

At this moment, Wang Susu's voice drifted from inside the room.

"Hey, coming!"

Chen Ling hurriedly answered and walked into the house.

The three little kids hopped and skipped along right behind him.

"Aunt Susu, what are you doing?"

Seeing Wang Susu standing on a stool in front of the wardrobe, Xizi couldn't help asking with curiosity.

"The weather is getting warmer, so Auntie is getting ready to air out the bedding, and I accidentally knocked something from the top of the wardrobe into the crack between the wardrobe and the back wall."

Wang Susu stepped down from the stool and gently stroked the top of Xizi's little head.

"What were you all talking about with your Uncle Fugui just now? I heard Liuni'er shouting at the top of her lungs—were you getting criticized at school again?"

"No way! I've been super obedient this week," Liuni'er immediately shouted loudly. "I was telling Uncle Fugui about the Great Immortal..."

And then Liuni'er recounted the story she had just told all over again.

Wang Susu laughed upon hearing it: "You kids... That's just the adults at home trying to scare you..."

"I've also heard about that man from Golden Gate Village. It wasn't the Great Immortal taking revenge on him; he secretly ate raw wheat from someone else's field and got so bloated from eating too many wheat grains that he literally burst to death."

"Ah? Is that so?"

"Then why did he eat raw wheat? Why didn't he cook it first?" the little kids asked with intense curiosity.

"Because people were poor back then, and the famine hadn't been over for very long. Nobody had much food at home. If he secretly took someone else's wheat back with him and got caught, he would have been beaten to death, so he just ate his fill right there in the fields before coming back."

"He was also terrified of starvation—otherwise, why would he have eaten a weasel in the first place?" Wang Susu explained.

Hearing this, the little kids nodded blankly. Though they didn't quite understand notions like famine, they felt that what Wang Susu said made sense.

"Hearing you mention this, Susu, now I know who he was."

"That old bachelor had pulled plenty of ridiculous stunts before. The most famous one was several years ago when people were encouraged to be good citizens and strive to be nameless heroes. His blood boiled when he heard about it, and just to be a nameless hero, he got up at two or three in the morning and secretly slashed down all the unripe corn in someone else's field—three whole acres of corn! It made the owner so furious he beat him half to death."

At this point, Chen Ling pulled the wardrobe aside, tidied up the fallen items, and chimed in.

"I know about nameless heroes; it's Lei Feng! Learn from the good example of Lei Feng, and there's even a commemorative holiday for him on the calendar posters," Liuni'er raised her hand and shouted aloud.

"A holiday to commemorate Lei Feng? Is it on the calendar posters? How come I didn't know?" Wang Susu looked bewildered upon hearing this.

Chen Ling was also stunned for a moment, but he quickly snapped out of it and burst into loud laughter: "You wouldn't know because the one on the calendar is Frost's Descent. This little rascal Liuni'er has only been in school for a few days and hasn't even learned how to read characters properly yet."

Wang Susu froze for a moment, and after a while, realization dawned on her. She immediately laughed so hard that tears streamed down her face.

"Liuni'er, you really are..."

Jokes in later generations came a dime a dozen, raising everyone's threshold for humor.

But back then, without all those fancy bells and whistles, a simple character-reading mistake was enough to make Wang Susu laugh until her stomach hurt.

Having failed to show off, and seeing Wang Susu laughing so hard because of her, Liuni'er just scratched her head and beamed stupidly.

...

"Selling little chicks! Selling little chicks! Exchange your old hens for little chicks~~~"

Just then, a drawn-out cry echoed from outside the wall, sounding from far away and moving closer.

"Oh, is the chick seller here? Come on, let's go out and take a look..."

Hearing this, Chen Ling called out to Wang Susu and headed outside.

The small chicks at home had been decimated by weasels until only a few were left, so it was time to add some more.

Once outside, they saw an old man wearing a straw hat carrying two very flat woven baskets on a shoulder pole, walking down the village street.

"Uncle, how much for the chicks?" Chen Ling called out.

"One old hen for thirteen chicks, or twenty cents each if you're buying them outright."

The old man walked over with his shoulder pole and lifted the lids of the baskets.

Instantly, a couple of hundred tiny chicken heads bobbed and stirred. They were fluffy, some yellow and some black, chirping incessantly.

Liuni'er and the other kids hurriedly crowded around, stretching their necks out and watching with big smiles.

"Grandpa, what kind of chickens are these? How come they don't look like the chicks my mom hatched?"

"They're just standard local chicks, what difference could there be?"

The old man grinned broadly, reaching out his hand to block back two little chicks that were trying to leap out.

Then he looked up at Chen Ling and said, "I'm from Taoshugou. I come to your village every spring to sell chicks, so you can buy with peace of mind. If any die, I'll replace them."

Golden Gate Village and Taoshugou were the two villages closest to Chenwangzhuang.

Golden Gate Village was to the north, and Taoshugou was to the south. Neither of these two villages was large, and neither had its own school, so many little kids from those villages came to the primary school in Chenwangzhuang.

Therefore, people from the three villages interacted quite frequently on ordinary days.

"Alright, pick out twenty for me first."

With his portable dimension, Chen Ling wasn't afraid of the chicks dying.

He turned to ask Wang Susu, "Is twenty fine?"

"Fine, any more and we wouldn't be able to raise them all."

Wang Susu nodded obediently and gave him a gentle smile.

Seeing this, the old man chuckled and said, "You two make a good young couple; you look like you can live a solid life together."

"Go out and take a look these days—it's rare to find a man with two or three kids at home who can still speak so nicely to his wife. You're a blessed young woman."

Hearing this, Wang Susu instantly blushed a deep crimson, and she hurriedly waved her small hands in denial.

"No, no, those are other people's kids playing at our house. We don't have children yet."