Chapter 28 Midnight Horror

As night fell on the willow branches, the couple by the wall, each holding a wood-chopping knife, quietly crept towards the locust tree. Hearing the noise, Liu Ye sat up abruptly, picked up the wood-chopping knife beside her, and looked sharply at the couple.

"What do you want to do!"

Bai Zilin also sat up, gripping his wood-chopping knife, his gaze equally sharp as he stared at them. Old Huang, his face contorted with malice, pointed the knife at Bai Zilin and whispered a warning: "You'd better let us take our things, or I'll kill you. Choose one—life or death!"

Liu Yeteng stood up abruptly from the mat, holding a wood-chopping knife and pointing it at Huang Laogou: "Those who know what's good for them, get out of here. Those who don't, leave your lives behind. It's a choice between two options, so choose for yourselves!"

The skinny, donkey-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips, her neck stiff, and arrogantly looked at Liu Ye, saying, "You big idiot, how dare you imitate my husband's speech! Husband, kill this big idiot first, then kill that cripple!"

Without a word, Huang Laogou raised his wood-chopping knife and slashed at Liu Ye. Bai Zilin quickly threw his own wood-chopping knife, hitting Huang Laogou in the heart. Huang Laogou's eyes widened, and the wood-chopping knife fell to the ground with a thud. He lay there dead.

Liu Ye put down the wood-chopping knife she had just raised, turned and pointed at the skinny, donkey-faced woman: "It's your turn!"

The skinny, donkey-faced woman, seeing her husband dead, realized she'd really messed up today. She turned and ran, yelling, "Ah! Murder! Da Ya, Er Ya, Hu Zi, run!"

The three children with the skinny donkey-like faces quickly got up from the ground and followed the skinny donkey-like-faced woman as she ran towards the edge of the village, disappearing from sight in no time.

Liu Ye looked around curiously. They had made such a commotion, yet the people sleeping nearby were still asleep, not one of them getting up to see what was going on. It seemed they were pretending to be asleep!

She then looked at the corpse on the ground: "Brother Bai, what should we do with this man's body?"

Bai Zilin glanced coldly at the corpse and said in a flat voice, "Just leave it there. Let's go back to sleep."

After saying that, Bai Zilin lay down to sleep.

Liu Ye grabbed two handfuls of messy hair. Brother Bai is so calm, as if this isn't his first time killing someone: "Oh, then just throw it away. Anyway, he was the one who wanted to kill us, so it's not wrong for us to kill him back."

She lay back down on the mat, but couldn't fall asleep for a long time with her eyes closed. With a corpse lying next to her, who could sleep? Before long, Bai Zilin started snoring.

Listening to Bai Zilin's snoring, Liu Ye eventually fell asleep as well. She was awakened by the sound of hurried footsteps the next day. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes, and said, "Brother Bai is up."

In fact, Bai Zilin had already woken up, but he was lying there without moving. He stretched and got up from the ground with his cane: "We're not in a hurry, we'll leave after we finish eating."

Liu Ye put the bamboo mat and wood-chopping knife on the cart, took an apple from her basket and gave it to Bai Zilin, then took one for herself and squatted down to eat it: "Brother Bai, tonight we won't hang out with them. Let's go to a secluded place to rest, so that no one will think we're easy to bully and try to take advantage of us."

Bai Zilin nodded, he thought so too. After finishing their meal, the two of them pushed the cart and set off. Because there were too many people on the road and the road was narrow, Liu Ye could not walk fast while pulling the cart. When she encountered horse-drawn carriages or ox-drawn carts, she had to move aside to let them pass first before she could continue forward.

While everyone else was resting at noon, Liu Ye pushed her cart a little further and found a tree where there were fewer people to rest under: "Brother Bai, you go ahead and eat. I'm going to relieve myself in the woods over there."

Bai Zilin, leaning on his crutch, got on and off the cart: "Be careful, watch out for snakes."

"knew."

Liu Ye slipped into a nearby grove of trees, found a secluded corner to urinate, and then flashed into her spatial dimension. As soon as she entered, she hurried to pick chestnuts from the black soil. The chestnut shells were covered in thorns, which pricked her hands several times.

The 20 apples were almost gone, with six left in the basket and ten wild duck eggs. She couldn't take any more apples out for now, and she'd have to wait for another chance to take the wild duck eggs. She saw that there were about 10 jin of chestnuts in her skirt. Okay, that should be enough for them to eat for a few days. They could deal with the rest later; there was still grain to eat.

Liu Ye flashed out of the space and emerged from the woods with a skirt full of chestnuts. Some sharp-eyed villagers saw her and thought she had found a chestnut tree in the mountains, so they quickly ran into the forest.

Liu Ye poured the chestnuts onto the ground: "Brother Bai, look what I found!"

Bai Zilin immediately recognized them as chestnuts—and they were huge! The little girl was indeed lucky: "Wow, such big chestnuts! You found a chestnut tree. Are there any more?"

Liu Ye laughed and said, "That's all. That's all that grew on the tree. I picked them all. Look, my hands are all pricked."

Bai Zilin gently grasped Liu Ye's hand with heartache and blew on it, asking, "Does it not hurt anymore?"

Liu Ye nodded blankly, her mind a little foggy: "Hehehe, it doesn't hurt anymore."

She shyly withdrew her hand. What was Brother Bai up to? The way he blew on her hand just now was so ambiguous... Luckily, she wouldn't overthink it, otherwise she would have thought that Brother Bai had feelings for her.

Bai Zilin picked up the chestnuts from the ground and began to peel them: "Go get a basin, I'll wrap the chestnuts, you don't need to do anything. The better the chestnuts are, the harder their thorns are. In good years, I've picked quite a few chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, and there are also a lot of mushrooms on the mountain. If we pick them and dry them at home, we can sell them for money."

Liu Ye took a half-sized basin from her basket and placed it in front of Bai Zilin: "Chestnuts don't taste good raw, shouldn't we boil them in water?"

Bai Zilin said with a smile, "Who said that? Not only can you boil it in water, you can also stir-fry it with pebbles. You've never tried it, have you? I'll tell you how to stir-fry it after I finish wrapping it."

Liu Ye thought to herself, "It's just roasted chestnuts, what haven't I eaten before?" She replied, "Great! As soon as Brother Bai mentioned it, I knew it would be delicious. Brother Bai, you really know a lot."

Bai Zilin was flattered by the praise and didn't even feel the pain when his hands were pricked by the chestnut peels several times. In no time, he had peeled all the chestnuts and filled a whole basin. "Liu Ye, look, there are quite a lot, about seven or eight pounds. I'll teach you how to stir-fry them tonight. Actually, they taste good raw too. You should try them if you don't believe me."

Liu Ye peeled a chestnut and popped it into her mouth: "Hmm, it's pretty good, sweet, a bit like sweet potato. Brother Bai, you should try some too."

Bai Zilin also peeled and ate three or five raw chestnuts. The more he ate, the more delicious they tasted. They were quite different from the chestnuts he used to pick on the mountain. The chestnuts Liu Ye picked were juicy, large, and sweet. They became more fragrant the more he chewed them. After finishing one, he wanted to eat another.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Liu Ye stuffed another handful of raw chestnuts into his hand: "Raw chestnuts are delicious too, Brother Bai, eat more, consider it lunch."

Bai Zilin agreed, and without being polite, he continued eating chestnuts. The people who ran into the mountains to find chestnut trees soon returned, unsurprisingly empty-handed, having found no chestnut trees.