Chapter 283: Five Years After the Cataclysm (No male lead, proceed with caution...)
Yunlu Village, Li Family.
Another New Year has arrived, and the Li family, whose members have grown several times over, is enjoying a lively New Year's Eve dinner in the dining room.
At first, everyone was in high spirits, especially Li Tie, who was looking at several younger members of his family.
In the fourth year after the catastrophe, Wu Yinyin gave birth to her second grandson, Li Kangle, and in the second year after the catastrophe ended, she gave birth to her granddaughter, Li Rui.
In the same year, Li Tuo also got married, taking his cousin from the maternal family of the heir apparent of the Marquis of Weiyuan in the capital. Now they have a pair of three-year-old twins.
With Li Kangbao, who is 18 years old this year, and Li Yue's son and daughter, two grandchildren, Li Tie and Miao Jinfeng have a total of seven grandchildren. How could they not be happy with such a prosperous lineage?
While the family was eating and chatting, the topic somehow turned to Lu Xuan.
This mention inevitably caused Li Tie to sigh again.
"It's been five years, and Ah Xuan hasn't come back even once. Since he's going to be gone for so long, why didn't he tell us so we could give him a proper send-off?"
The Li family, including Ning Lan, the second daughter-in-law who had married into the family from the capital, were all used to his frequent sighs and groans, and remained calm and accustomed to it.
Her father-in-law would inevitably mention it several times during holidays and festivals every year, and she was already used to it.
To be honest, Ning Lan had a lot of admiration for Lu Xuan, whom they had only met from afar when the mutated beast tide came during their refuge in the Western Continent. He was a god-like figure who had saved many people single-handedly. She also regretted that he had left when she married him.
Miao Jinfeng served some of her grandchildren their favorite dishes, and said without changing her expression, "You've been nagging me for years about not letting you deliver them. If I really let you, things will get out of control."
All good things must come to an end, and besides, Lu Xuan is a man of great ability; his departure is only a matter of time.
Five years is nothing. Lu Qing said that Lu Xuan might not return for decades, and there's still a long wait ahead.
Miao Jinfeng said, "So many people from the village have gone out to make their way in the world these past few years, just think of Ah Xuan as one of them."
Mentioning this made Li Tie's feelings even more complicated.
There was a time when most people in their village rarely even went to Baisong Town throughout the year, but a disaster brought about too many changes.
Many villagers are used to running away during disasters, and even though it has been peaceful for five years, many people still run away every few days.
Some take buses to various towns to do business, while others buy private boats to fish at the seaside or offer services such as sea fishing, snorkeling, and whale watching.
Some ambitious and driven individuals would go to the capital to buy houses and shops, or try to marry off younger members of their families to people in the capital, hoping to completely connect with the prominent families of the capital and change their social standing.
It's good that the disaster is over, but after the disaster, each family in the village has their own thoughts, and quite a few have gone their separate ways.
There was only one thing that everyone understood perfectly.
They all kept their houses and household registrations in Yunlu Village, and no one changed their household registrations. The reason, of course, was to avoid completely severing ties with the Lu family.
Li Tie suddenly seemed to remember something and said, "Did the Liu family girl also come back to celebrate the festival with her parents today? Or did she come back with her husband and children?"
Wu Yinyin nodded, "Yes, I ran into her this afternoon and we talked for a while."
Li Tie remarked with emotion, "I never expected that on such an important day as the Mid-Autumn Festival, her in-laws would actually allow their son to bring his wife back to her parents' home for the holiday."
Ning Lan smiled and said, "Yunlu Village has a special status. The Xiao family's decision to have them come back for the festival shows their closeness to Yunlu Village. Others will only be envious, so they will naturally be willing."
The Xiao family has quite a few descendants, so losing one son during the festival won't have much of an impact. On the contrary, it will give the in-laws a good impression, and Liu Yu will definitely be willing to bring some benefits to his wife's family from time to time, which is mutually beneficial.
Miao Jinfeng sighed, "Back then, I never imagined that Liu Yu would remarry so well."
It's not that I think Liu Yu is bad-looking or anything, it's just that Liu Yu is a divorcee with a child. In the past, it wouldn't be difficult for her to remarry, but she certainly wouldn't be able to find a family with good conditions.
She will most likely find a widower in a similar situation to her.
But what is the reality?
As a special type of superpowered individual, Liu Chun was originally granted the title of viscount by the emperor. During the mutated beast tide, Liu Chun provided buffs and status enhancements to other superpowered individuals, and as a reward for his merits, he was promoted one level and became a count.
Although this supernatural noble title doesn't have the same status and wealth as a proper old-fashioned earl, it cannot be denied that he has the highest title in the entire village besides Lu Xuan.
Despite the fact that Lu Chen, Mei Cheng, and Mei Xue, who were once teenagers, have grown up to be more valued by the Emperor and have a promising future, the Liu family still has considerable value in the eyes of others.
Liu Yugao's marriage was naturally easy; she married a proper first wife, not a second wife.
As for being married and having children?
What's the problem? Having given birth means she's healthy and capable of having children!
In fact, after Liu Yu married into the Xiao family, which was also composed of earls, she also gave birth to a son and a daughter for the Xiao family's youngest son.
Moreover, the dowry given by the Liu family was quite substantial.
Although Lu Xuan left a lot of things for the Lu family when he left, and the village can still exchange them for some treasures they need, it's not the same as before when they could replenish their stock indefinitely.
The villagers rarely trade rare items anymore. The good old days when a few dozen kilograms of grain could be exchanged for a bio-clothes, and a thousand or eight hundred kilograms of grain could be exchanged for a spatial ring, are gone forever.
Nowadays, even a simple flashlight is something no one would be willing to part with; they keep it as a family heirloom.
If a family can provide even one item as a dowry when their daughter gets married, they can easily arrange a good marriage even if their family is not prominent.
Needless to say, every household in Yunlu Village can prepare a huge amount of supplies.
This was the case when Liu Yu's family was around.
Besides the usual gold, silver, jewelry, and farmhouses, spatial rings, bio-clothes, various life-saving medicines, energy stones, holographic helmets, air conditioners, and refrigerators were all included as part of the dowry.
This gave her confidence and allowed her to stand tall in her husband's family even after her second marriage.
The Xiao family would not treat Liu Yu, their daughter-in-law, as a godmother, nor would the mother-in-law ever set rules or look down on her daughter-in-law because of her rural background.
Liu Yu was living a very comfortable life in her husband's family. Fang Yuan, whom she brought with her, was also a legitimate young master in the Xiao family. No one would bully him because he wasn't of Xiao family blood.
It was precisely because of the Xiao family's attitude that Liu Yu reciprocated even more, and was willing to ask her own family for help whenever her husband's family needed anything.
To be honest, if it weren't for the nationwide floating buses that make traveling long distances easier, a daughter who marries far away might never be able to return to her parents' home more than a few times in her entire life. The Liu family might not have been willing to marry her off to such a far place as Beijing.
Wu Yinyin sighed, "You know what, these past few years, the younger generation in our village has had no trouble getting married at all. If one of them announces that he is getting married, families who want to take him away will line up to compete for him."
Li Tuo and Ning Lan's situation is a little special; the two became 'brothers' while playing games in a holographic world.
When Ning Lan was playing games, she created a male character for herself. When Li Tuo first met her, he genuinely treated her like a brother.
When I finally met her in person, I realized she was a girl, and I felt awkward for quite a while.
However, the fact that the two were able to play well together in the game indicated that they were compatible. After bickering for a few months, the two quickly confessed their feelings for each other and then got engaged and married in a short time.
Ning Lan initially genuinely didn't know that Li Tuo was from Yunlu Village, but others were different; many people were targeting the younger generation of the village because of Yunlu Village's reputation.
After all, Yunlu Village still has the most superhumans among all villages and towns.
Each one is at least level three, and the highest level is level four.
Not everyone knows that the lifespan of people with superpowers is different from that of ordinary people.
In ancient times, people aged faster due to environmental factors than in modern times. However, after five years of disaster and five years of peace, a total of ten years had passed. Li Jing, Zhang Chengming, and others were already in their thirties, and even their children, such as Li Kangbao, Lu Chen, and Xiong Dabao, had grown into young men. Yet, their parents still looked no different from those in their early twenties. How could this not attract the attention of some clever people?
Including a small number of people who awakened their supernatural abilities in their forties or fifties, who should be at the age of knowing their destiny, but in recent years they seem to be aging in reverse and returning to their youth.
The new emperor instructed Marquis Weiyuan and the Bai family to contact Li Tie and the Lu family to probe their intentions.
Sure enough, he learned about the concept of lifespan from Lu Qingleiyan.
Since the new emperor has no special abilities, he naturally cannot live to be 150 or 160 years old like those with special abilities.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't disappointed.
Fortunately, the Crown Prince has superpowers and is of good character and ability. He also has a good relationship with Lu Chen because they often play games in the holographic world. The Crown Prince even follows Lu Chen around like a shadow in the game.
As long as Lu Chen is willing to assist the Crown Prince, the dynasty will not have to worry about turmoil for a long time to come.
In order to completely bind Lu Chen to the royal family, the new emperor even considered whether to let Lu Chen marry a princess.
Lu Xuan is out of the question, but the level four gravity ability is still very tempting.
It's definitely better to give something to someone else than to give it to them for free.
Unfortunately, Lu Chen was a man of his own mind and had no intention of becoming a prince consort. The new emperor could not force him and could only give up the idea.
Of course, many years later, the new emperor discovered that although Lu Chen was unwilling to become the emperor's son-in-law, it did not mean that he would not become family with the new emperor.
Now, let's get back to the present.
Because Yunlu Village has many superhumans, and they are of high rank, each with a noble title.
Li Miao and Lin Man, these half-grown superhumans who were only eleven or twelve years old at the beginning of the cataclysm, became incredibly popular after they grew up.
Although Lu Xuan never made a similar statement, many people subconsciously believe that marrying a person with superpowers will greatly increase the probability of having children with superpowers in the future.
There are countless families with no superpowered individuals, or families with superpowered individuals, who want to combine their strengths to increase their chances of success.
Li Miao and Lin Man didn't have many such thoughts, but in the end, they both married beautiful women from distinguished families whom they never dared to dream of before.
Even the villagers without superpowers were still fellow villagers of Lu Xuan, and were equally sought after by outsiders.
For example, Gao Dalin, who joined the village later, had accumulated a lot of wealth. Even though he was almost fifty years old, he used to frequently seek out female workers among the disaster victims brought by Huo Jiajun. His reputation in the village was not very good. Now, he married a young lady from a scholarly family with a better background than Ji Xiuling without much effort.
However, there is one thing that is good about Gao Dalin.
Regardless of whether a man is single or not, if he only stays with his wife and the son she bore him after getting married, then he is still considered to have principles.
In comparison, the superhumans from prominent families in the capital that Ning Lan mentioned were not as good.
Young men from aristocratic families were already used to having multiple wives and concubines. After gaining supernatural abilities, they felt even more extraordinary and wanted to pass on their bloodline as much as possible. Many of them frantically took concubines and had children.
It's not just people from the capital; there are also people like this in Luochuan and Licheng.
The reason these people didn't think about whether they could obtain the evolution fluid in the future was because Lei Xiao, who is already nine years old this year, is the first person to naturally awaken his superpower without taking the evolution fluid, and he has the same lightning-type superpower as his father, Lei Yan.
What does this mean?
This means that superpowers can indeed be passed down through bloodlines!
As a result, people with special abilities received more attention than ordinary people with special abilities.
Even if someone now possesses supernatural abilities, the emperor will no longer bestow titles upon them. They will only receive honorary official positions with salaries but no real power. It is still a secure job, and everyone would be envious of it.
Unfortunately, special ability users are not so easy to win over.
Leaving Lu Chen aside, there are the siblings Mei Cheng and Mei Xue. The former is engaged to Zhang Chengming's daughter, Zhang Xiuxiu, while the latter is married to Zhang Dafu. Both siblings are related to the Zhang family through marriage. Mei Xue and Zhang Dafu are even more special cases of internal marriage.
Incidentally, Zhang Xiaofu married Wei Xiang's daughter, Wei Yunyun.
Most families in the village will find a husband or wife from outside the village if they can find a suitable match. Only if there is no suitable match will they consider marrying a wife from outside the village or marrying out of the village.
Regardless of the type, the village requires that men not take concubines, and sons-in-law must be devoted to their daughters.
Since their families have the ability and the right to demand these things, they naturally don't need to make their children suffer, which makes the lives of most of the younger generation in the village quite comfortable.
Although Li Tie still regretted that Lu Xuan would never return, he thought of the benefits Lu Xuan had brought to the village and the whole world, and felt that he shouldn't ask for anything more.
The next morning, villagers began visiting each other to exchange New Year's greetings.
Whenever I visit my neighbors, we inevitably chat about everyday things, talk about the younger generation, and discuss this year's harvest.
Despite being over seventy years old, Mr. Zhang, who still looks like he's only in his fifties, said, "In recent years, I've seen the village and the surrounding area change more and more."
In the past, after countless volcanic eruptions, the sky was overcast for eight out of ten days due to volcanic ash. But in the last two years, perhaps because the volcanic ash has finally dissipated, the days have been sunny and bright without the continuous disasters, which makes people feel good.
Even the mutated plants and animals, after being wiped out by the mutated beast tide back then, the remaining ones were not enough to cause much trouble for human settlements.
If there's anything to regret, it's that the grain yield in the fields has clearly decreased.
No one knows why. It's not that the seeds or fertilizers are bad, but that the yield of all mutated grains in the world has slowed down. The average yield per mu has decreased from 1,500-1,800 jin when Lu Xuan was there to 1,200 jin, and in some places it can barely reach 1,000 jin.
The growth cycle has also been extended to three months.
Fortunately, last month the yield of 1,000 jin per mu seemed to have reached its limit, and this figure has been relatively stable in the past two years without any more alarming changes.
Even if taxes were reinstated after the world was at peace, this yield would actually be enough for farmers. However, having experienced years with even greater yields, people inevitably miss the past from time to time.
The men mainly talked about the harvest, while the women focused more on marriage and other private matters.
In particular, Liu Yu, who married far away to the capital, and Ning Lan, who married from the capital, are the focus of everyone's attention.
Although Su Ying was in the capital spending the New Year with Xiong Mao and several children, it didn't stop her from using a communicator to contact her close friends in the village and chat with them remotely.
As the group of women were chatting, one of them suddenly asked Ji Xiuling, "By the way, I heard that your ex-husband's family came looking for you a few days ago. How did it go? Was it resolved?"
Ji Xiuling's eyebrows furrowed slightly as she thought of her ex-husband's family.
I don't know what kind of luck that family had. When they abandoned her, she was clearly on the verge of starvation, but after all these years, only the mother-in-law has passed away, while the father-in-law and the younger brother-in-law and his wife have both survived.
She didn't wish her ex-husband's family to all die; she just believed that since he had abandoned her, she had no further connection with them.
Unexpectedly, that family did not think so. After learning that she was still alive and had remarried in Yunlu Village to have children, they came to cause trouble, or rather, to take advantage of her.
If Yunlu Village were just an ordinary small village, she might have been entangled for a long time, and Chen Rong might have had to suffer along with her.
But things are different now. Chen Rong is a minor nobleman with a title. Besides, they are not her blood relatives, so they can't use kinship to accuse her. Chen Rong quickly dealt with them so that they dared not approach her again.
The others were relieved to learn that Chen Rong had made all the arrangements.
Although Ji Xiuling was also an outsider, as a female teacher, she had a good personality and everyone liked her. Naturally, no one wanted to see her being bullied by outsiders.
It's because Yunlu Village has such a great reputation that all sorts of strange and evil people have come out to cause trouble.
In the past, even if the person was still alive, the other party might never be able to find Ji Xiuling in their lifetime.
After the villagers exchanged New Year's greetings, it was the turn of families with in-laws in the village to arrive one after another in hovercars to pay their respects to their in-laws.
Others with personal connections to the Lu family, such as Ye Feiluan, Chen Bing, and Bai Xuefeng, also sent New Year's gifts or came to pay their respects in person.
One noteworthy point is that although Lady Yu did not come, Qiu Qi and Du Chenghai brought their youngest son.
The son was naturally born to Yu Niangzi, so it was fair that each family got one.
Yu Niangzi ultimately did not marry either of them, yet she was universally recognized as the mistress of the house by both the Du family and their enemies.
The sons of the two men call the other man "Second Uncle." The two families are as close as one, and they even spend the Lunar New Year together.
This story remains a fascinating tale in Feng County, and Lady Yu is considered the most extraordinary woman, inspiring envy in many women.
In other families, it's the men who enjoy the blessings of having multiple wives, but in her case, it's her who enjoys this blessing. Tell me, aren't you impressed?
While the two of them brought their child to wish the Lu family a Happy New Year, they, like Bai Xuefeng and the others, inevitably asked if there was any news about Lu Xuan and when he would return.
Lu Qing and Lei Yan gave them the same answer as last year: "No news, we don't know when they will be back."
Lu Chen, who had grown up, said, "Didn't I say before that my brother might not come back for decades? You ask every year, and the answer will never change."
Bai Xuefeng sighed, "I was just thinking that maybe he'd miss home and come back early."
Ye Feiluan and Chen Bing nodded in agreement.
Decades is a really long time. Even though they knew that asking more questions wouldn't bring Lu Xuan back, they still couldn't control their mouths.
Lu Qing and Lei Yan didn't actually feel impatient.
Since Lu Xuan wasn't around, having these friends who were close to him come over every year to chat about the past helped alleviate their longing for their loved ones.
However, sometimes, after chatting for a long time, when only Lu family members are left after everyone else has left, he sometimes feels empty.
Not to mention, there's also their little daughter, Lei Shuang, who was born three years ago. From a young age, she'd heard stories about her eldest uncle, Lu Xuan, from her older brother, younger uncle, and other grandparents, uncles, and aunts in the village. She was incredibly adoring and curious about him. Hugging her parents' necks, she asked dejectedly, "Isn't my eldest uncle coming back this year? Doesn't he want to see Shuang Shuang?"
My family felt incredibly sad when they heard this.
Lei Xiao stroked his sister's head and comforted her, "Uncle must also want to see Shuangshuang, but he has other things to do in heaven, so he can't come back for the time being."
Lei Shuang, who bears a striking resemblance to Lu Qing, tilted her head curiously and asked, "What is Uncle doing outside? Can't you take Shuang Shuang with you?"
Lu Qing smiled gently, "You're still so young. Your uncle can't do anything with you, his little burden. Be good, baby. When you grow up in a few years, your uncle will come back. Then we'll have him tell you about his experiences outside, and he'll bring you gifts, okay?"
Lei Shuang said with a mix of disappointment and anticipation, "Then Shuangshuang should eat more and grow up quickly so that Uncle can come back soon."
Lu Chen patted his little niece's head, then said to his sister and brother-in-law, "When my brother comes back, as punishment for his long absence, we'll make him tell us about the Immortal Realm for three days and three nights!"
Lu Qing and Lei Yan exchanged a smile. "Alright, let him talk for three days and three nights without letting him go!"
Lei Xiao nodded in agreement.
The family couldn't help but laugh as they talked, then turned their heads to look out the half-open window at the distant blue sky, praying for Lu Xuan's safety and hoping for his early return.
Then, their family will be able to sit together and spend every festival together.
Even as time goes by, the greatest fortune is to have loved ones still by your side.
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Author's Note: The next chapter will begin the interstellar side story. The side story will be updated according to the rankings, around 15,000 words per week, and the update time is not fixed.
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Thank you to the following readers for their continued support of this article.
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