Chapter 42 Chapter 42 Return the gift to her.
"Ah Xian, you're back. Did you go to the mountains again?"
An uncle from the Liu family who was related to my aunt Liu Pingniang by blood was the first to speak, his tone inexplicably filled with some kindness, as if Zhang Jingxian was his biological daughter.
"Yes, Uncle San."
Zhang Jingxian paused, waiting for the goose bumps on her arms to subside a little before responding.
She walked forward with her head down when an aunt holding a child called out to her, her manner even more affectionate than that of Uncle Liu. "Ah Xian, you look tired and sweating. Come to my house and have a drink of water."
Zhang Jingxian smiled and declined, pointing to the water bag and saying that she had drunk some water. She dodged her aunt's hand. Fortunately, her aunt was holding the child and it was inconvenient for her to move.
However, just as she dodged, the strong body of a passionate aunt blocked her way on the other side.
"Ah Xian, my aunt has prepared your favorite dinner at home. Come on, follow me!" She pulled Zhang Jingxian's sleeve, trying to "invite" her to her home.
There are several strong women in the village who are as strong as men, and this aunt is one of them.
For a moment, Zhang Jingxian was unable to break free from her pull and her steps staggered slightly.
"Aunt, my uncle's family has already prepared dinner. Let's go another day, another day." She tried hard to pull her sleeves out of her aunt's hands, but before she could take two steps, more people came up.
Zhang Jingxian had never felt that there were so many people in Xishan Village as there were today. They squeezed her in the middle, and everyone wanted her to go to their home.
"Ah Xian, I have the fruit you like at home."
"Ah Xian, I remember you loved eating red bean steamed cakes. My steamed cake making skills are praised by everyone in the village."
"Ah Xian, come to my house."
"My home!"
…
Zhang Jingxian's sleeves were torn to shreds, and she said countless words of refusal, but she still couldn't resist the surging "enthusiasm" of the villagers.
On the left is an aunt, and on the right is an aunt, both of whom are older than her and have good intentions. She cannot treat them like she treated Yang Youhe, and she cannot think of a way to deal with them in a short time.
She had no choice but to focus on the gaps between the crowd, trying to squeeze out and then run away quickly.
At the critical moment, the appearance of a person saved the embarrassed Zhang Jingxian.
"What are you doing to Ah Xian when you are gathered together? Disperse. Can't you see that Ah Xian's sleeve is torn?" Aunt Qin yelled, pushing away the people who were trying to squeeze forward and pulled her out.
The direction she was taken to was not Zhang Jingxian's uncle's house, but the home of Aunt Qin and Uncle Liu in the neighboring valley.
Because they were very close to the nobleman, there were burly men patrolling from time to time, and the villagers did not dare to follow them even though they were jealous.
"Ah Xian, don't misunderstand, Aunt Qin didn't mean anything else. But right now, your uncle and aunt are also blocked by someone, so you'd better not go back." Aunt Qin explained while panting, and received a blank look from Zhang Jingxian.
"Aunt Qin, what happened?" She just went to the mountains for a day, but the whole village had changed. She and her uncle and aunt were surrounded by people.
"Alas, it's that Doctor Meng in the city who caused a misunderstanding. Just by chance, a merchant in the county came to see Doctor Meng for treatment for a broken bone. For some reason, he thought you, Ah Xian, had some kind of magical medicine in your possession, so he immediately drove his horse-drawn carriage to the village to ask for it. He offered ten cartloads of millet and wheat for each herb, and he also said that if it were sold in Jiankang City, its value would increase tenfold or a hundredfold."
Aunt Qin gasped in shock. According to the merchant, as long as they got a medicinal plant, they wouldn't have to work hard in the fields to make a living.
The herbs grew in Yangshan Mountain and were ownerless, so anyone could get them. The only difficulty was the wild animals that might appear in the mountains.
So, the villagers harassed the only two people with hunting experience, Zhang Shuanghu, who used to be a hunter, and his niece.
"They wanted to go into the mountains to collect herbs. Have they forgotten my uncle's injured hand? In the past few years, some people were bitten to death or their bodies were never found after going into the mountains."
They know about Vaccaria!
Zhang Jingxian walked heavily as she told Aunt Qin about the tragic experiences of the past. Because so many people had died, the two villages had tacitly agreed to only farm and not hunt, and they also prohibited children from approaching the mountains.
Zhang Shuanghu was an exception. He was an excellent archer. When he first arrived in Xishan Village, he had no land, so going into the mountains was his only way to survive. But all these years, Zhang Shuanghu was the only one who survived.
As for Zhang Jingxian, in fact, most villagers thought that she went into the mountains for the ten acres of land allocated to her. It was located in the mountains, and she couldn't let it go to waste.
The pheasants, pheasant eggs, wild fruits, honey and other things she brought back were not worth taking risks for.
However, this holy medicine, one plant of which is equivalent to ten carts of millet and wheat, is enough to drive everyone crazy.
The news is only in Xishan Village now, and will soon spread to Dongshan Village and Xiaoyang Village. More and more people will want to go into the mountains to try their luck at getting rich.
"Besides, Yangshan is so vast, how can they guarantee that they will find the holy medicine that the merchant mentioned?"
"Isn't this... you, Ah Xian? Everyone has seen the noble's injury, and they all say that you can collect the holy medicine." Aunt Qin's subconscious question made Zhang Jingxian's heart chilled. She closed her eyes with difficulty and asked softly about the noble's whereabouts.
The apparent cause of this incident was Dr. Meng's slip of the tongue, but she couldn't help but suspect that there was someone else involved.
Hearing her question, Aunt Qin was in a dilemma. How could she, a country woman, dare to spy on the whereabouts of the nobleman, even though her family was the closest to the nobleman in the village?
"I only know that the strong men under the noble are packing their things, as if they are preparing to leave."
"Um."
"By the way, not long ago, the nobleman got a chariot from Wuyang County. He liked it very much and asked everyone one by one what they thought of it."
"...The chariot. So he left and returned to get the chariot. Perhaps I really misunderstood him."
Zhang Jingxian spoke in a dry tone and followed Aunt Qin to her home.
Through the trees, she could not hear any sound coming from the small fenced yard, and it seemed even quieter than when she lived alone.
After some hesitation, Zhang Jingxian approached her occupied home. From afar, she saw Yi Yu and others moving things onto the carriage with their heads down, as if what happened in Xishan Village had nothing to do with them.
Xie Yun is really going to leave here.
She felt a little relieved and returned to Aunt Qin's house.
Aunt Qin made some wheat cakes, which she ate in a hurry. Late at night, Zhang Jingxian figured everyone at her uncle's house had left, so she headed down the mountain stream.
The cool moonlight made the stream shimmer. Halfway through her walk, she suddenly stopped. A figure sat on a rock, a candlestick beside him.
Zhang Jingxian was very familiar with the faint firelight. She had used it to dispel the darkness many times.
"It's late at night, why are you sitting here?"
Strangely enough, Zhang Jingxian recognized him instantly, even though his face was completely hidden in the darkness. Her heart was beating so fast that she didn't notice the rock he was standing on was the same one she had jumped from.
"There's something I forgot to tell Ah Xian, so I came here to tell you now." Xie Yun's voice was cold, sounding colder than the moonlight.
"What?" Zhang Jingxian was stunned. He was here in the middle of the night just to stop her and tell her something.
It was inexplicably a bit strange, but when she thought about it, it was consistent with his character. Whether it was in the past life or in the brief time they had spent together in this life, he would always appear in front of her when she least expected it.
The girl was startled for only a moment before her breathing returned to normal. She looked up at him, her expression clean and... hatefully innocent.
Xie Yun lowered his eyes, looked at her intently, then came down from the rock without saying a word.
It looked like his legs were fully healed, and he walked towards her calmly without pausing or needing any help.
Zhang Jingxian's eyes were uncontrollably attracted by his long legs, and a sense of joy flashed through her heart. She naively thought that this was what Xie Yun wanted to tell her.
After all, she had put a lot of effort into his legs, learning acupuncture from Doctor Meng, searching for Vaccaria, and custom-making a sedan chair for him in Wuyang County.
Xie Yun walked straight in front of her, his tall body covering her face, reflecting the bright moon hanging high behind her, and the eerie feeling became stronger and stronger.
Youqiong, he pulled the corners of his mouth and smiled faintly at her.
Zhang Jingxian asked again, "What does your Excellency want to tell me?"
She began to sense a chill that penetrated her bones, emanating from him.
"I don't really like Ah Xian's gift." Xie Yun lowered his voice and said very calmly.
He was not satisfied with the gift Zhang Jingxian gave him, so he had to return it to her.
“…Oh, I see.”
Zhang Jingxian forced a smile and quietly moved to where the moonlight was shining. She continued, "If you don't like the chariot, you can have it sent to my uncle's house. Or you can just leave it in the yard, anywhere, and I'll pick it up."
There's no need to, just give it back to her in the middle of the night.
As she thought about it, she didn't notice that she stepped on something raised. Looking at it in the moonlight, Zhang Jingxian recognized it as broken pieces of wood, scattered in her path.
Suddenly, her eyelids twitched uneasily.
"Ah Xian, can't you recognize it? Your gift is this pile of things, and the wood that feels redundant under your feet." Xie Yun's eyes were calm, and then he took out a piece of linen from his body and threw it on the candlestick in front of Zhang Jingxian.
Soon, the linen was burned to ashes by the fire. The mountain wind blew, and the white ashes fell on a pile of waste wood.
It seemed like a merciless mockery, but also like an indifferent response.
The love he blurted out that day no longer counts.
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The author has something to say: Kisses, second update before 12 o'clock.
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