fox spirit
In the afternoon alley, four people stood in the only shaded spot, three on one side and one on the other.
Liu Hainan nudged the person next to him: "Is he Gu boy?"
"Who else could it be but him?"
Li Cheng, who had been stabbed, spoke coldly. He was still thinking about how Zhou Lexing had abandoned them, and no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't get over it.
Mushroom Head: "When did he become so close to Brother Le?"
Li Cheng: "How would I know!"
The alley suddenly fell silent again.
Li Cheng was in a bad mood. He stared at Gu Jiansheng's fox-like face for a long time before suddenly realizing something.
"Could it be that Brother Le quit because of him?"
Thinking about it carefully, Le Ge's change did indeed happen after he met Gu Jiansheng. The last time they tried to scare Gu Jiansheng with their bicycles, Le Ge even hit them. The scratches on the bicycles are still there, and they were directly deprived of their right to use bicycles by their families.
Mushroom Head glanced at his brothers, whose faces were full of ferocity, then at the quiet, unassuming young man standing there, and whispered, "Really? He doesn't even know Liu Wu."
Liu Hainan thought about it more and more and felt that it made more sense: "He doesn't need to know Liu Wu. Think about it, this guy is a notorious coward in Zhoujia Village. This time, even Zhou Bobo, the toughest one among us, fell into Liu Wu's trap. Won't this kid Gu worry that he will be next? If he uses himself to threaten Brother Le, can Brother Le do it?"
Mushroom Head opened his mouth, somewhat dumbfounded: "What can he threaten Brother Le with?"
Liu Hainan: "For example, if Brother Le gets into another fight, he'll break off all ties with him. Brother Le values relationships the most, and this kid is so good-looking, he's definitely up to no good! Brother Le has him wrapped around his little finger!" He saw it clearly when Brother Le tried to help this kid carry his bamboo basket!
That's Brother Lok! The Brother Lok who'll crack someone's head open at the drop of a hat! How could he possibly help someone carry things? Especially such a coward like him!
"As the old saying goes, 'One who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black.' Brother Le has definitely been corrupted by this kid!"
As Li Cheng was speaking, he was about to step forward when Mushroom Head quickly stopped him: "Brother Cheng, what are you doing!"
Li Cheng said fiercely, "I'm going to teach this kid a lesson!"
Liu Hainan then intervened, saying, "No way. Xiaobing is right. Who knows how many bad things this coward is up to? What if he turns around and tells Brother Le?"
Mushroom-headed Zhou Xiaobing: Huh? Did I say that?
Liu Hainan continued, "We want to get back at him, but we don't want to lose Brother Le. We need to think about this carefully."
As soon as he finished speaking, they heard a series of hurried footsteps coming towards them. The next second, Zhou Lexing appeared in the alley with a big smile on his face.
"Huh? You're still here?"
Zhou Lexing wore a straw hat, and his axe and handsaw were tied together with rope and draped over his shoulder. He also had a military green aluminum canteen and a bag of food hanging on his head, which contained peanuts and cornbread that Zhou Lexing had grabbed at random.
Gu Jiansheng arrived suddenly and refused to go home with him, insisting on waiting outside. Zhou Lexing didn't dare to force him, fearing he would scare him away, so he could only go back by himself and pack his things as quickly as possible. However, he didn't expect that while he was listening to Zhou Yuanxiang's instructions for a few minutes, his cheap underlings would still be there and come up with a twisted logic.
"Here, take this." Zhou Lexing placed the straw hat on Gu Jiansheng's head, and added, afraid that he would refuse, "This is something you have to return. In this hot weather, you don't want to get heatstroke on the way."
As Zhou Lexing spoke, he took down the army green water bottle and handed it to him: "Your lips are all chapped. Take a sip first, and then we'll leave."
The three underlings who were brainstorming and thinking about how to answer Zhou Lexing's question were speechless.
Mushroom Head: What did he see? Is this still the same Brother Le who punches people at the drop of a hat? Is he hallucinating from heatstroke?
Li Cheng: Damn it! It really is that damned vixen! Look at how much she's brainwashed Brother Le! She even helped him uncork the bottle!
Liu Hainan: Sure enough, he's the smartest among these brothers; only he saw through the essence of things. This kid Gu is no simpleton.
Zhou Lexing watched Gu Jiansheng drink the water, then pressed the stopper back in with satisfaction. He turned back and greeted his three underlings, "We'll be going now. We'll talk about it later."
Zhou Lexing thought that his three underlings wanted to continue persuading him, and this guess was not wrong to some extent.
The three underlings watched as Zhou Lexing led Gu Jiansheng away.
The shockwaves from their actions lingered for quite some time.
"What do they want from you?" Gu Jiansheng asked, thinking of Li Jianshan, who had plotted to harm Zhou Lexing.
Zhou Lexing was quite surprised: "You're concerned about me?"
Seeing Gu Jiansheng unconsciously purse his lips again, Zhou Lexing immediately changed the subject and replied with a smile, "They invited me to visit the next village, but I'm not going."
Zhou Lexing stopped there, and sure enough, not long after, Gu Jiansheng asked softly, "Why?"
Zhou Lexing smiled, his eyes crinkling, and the sun-bleached backdrop behind him seemed to add a warm filter to him: "I'm a top-notch laborer. You think you can trick me into working without even a meal? That would be a huge loss for me."
Gu Jiansheng remained silent for a while before suddenly saying, "I'll treat you to a meal."
Zhou Lexing, who was walking side by side with Gu Jiansheng, paused for a moment, then couldn't help but chuckle: "Okay, then I'll wait."
The two walked quietly for a while longer, when Zhou Lexing suddenly spoke up: "Hey, let me tell you a riddle?"
He really tried his best to control himself, but if he didn't say anything, Zhou Lexing felt that he would definitely think about it over and over again when he got home tonight. That feeling of regret was not pleasant. Besides, he had already been quiet for a while.
Yes, Zhou Lexing appeared relaxed when Gu Jiansheng proposed to 'break off relations,' but he had actually been reflecting on it in private. The conclusion was that for an introverted person, he talked too much and needed to control himself, but controlling himself didn't mean shutting up.
Gu Jiansheng: "..."
Zhou Lexing asked in high spirits, as if he were going on a spring outing: "Do you know what kind of egg looks good but doesn't taste good?"
Gu Jiansheng looked at him coldly, feeling that there was something hidden in the man's words.
Zhou Lexing looked at him expectantly for a while, then finally answered on his own: "That is—the face!"
Gu Jiansheng: "..." He hadn't misunderstood anything; this guy was definitely doing it on purpose!
The two chatted as they walked toward the mountain pass, though most of the time only one person's enthusiastic voice could be heard.
Since it was already quite late, Zhou Lexing didn't dare to take Gu Jiansheng too far. He estimated the size of the storage rack, quickly selected a tree at a slope, and got to work.
He first cut the wood into sections, and then, based on his rough idea, divided it into short pieces of roughly equal length to make it easier to carry down the mountain.
Gu Jiansheng lent him a hand from time to time, and with Zhou Lexing's astonishing strength, it was still daylight when Zhou Lexing finished tying the short logs together with hemp rope.
Zhou Lexing didn't feel particularly tired, but worried that the mountain path would be difficult to walk on as it got dark, so he still spoke up.
"Sit down and have some water first. I also brought some food. We'll go down the mountain after we eat."
The saying "looking at the mountain makes a horse run itself to death" applies here. Even though you can still see a corner of the village from here, it will still take at least two hours to get there and back.
Gu Jiansheng did not object, and even leisurely found a rock to sit on, eating his steamed bun in small bites.
Zhou Lexing looked at him, then quickly finished off a steamed bun in his hand. He then grabbed another one and ate it in a few bites, right next to Gu Jiansheng's face.
Gu Jiansheng: "..."
Unaffected, Gu Jiansheng took more than half an hour to stand up from the rock: "Let's go."
Zhou Lexing was still a little worried: "Do you want me to carry you?" In his opinion, Gu Jiansheng was so tired that he didn't even have the energy to eat. How tired he must be!
Sure enough, he shouldn't have taken him with him when he went out to work, but Zhou Lexing had to admit that having someone accompany him made a difference, like the huge gap between going to work and going on a spring outing.
Gu Jiansheng: "No need."
Gu Jiansheng understood this clearly: Zhou Lexing was full of strength and energy, and he still looked very energetic. If Zhou Lexing carried him down the mountain, the journey would probably be half as fast, which would not be in line with his plan.
Zhou Lexing didn't insist; he simply carried the bundled logs on his shoulder.
Although Zhou Lexing looked broad-shouldered and thick-backed, the weight of the bundle of short logs made him appear as if he were carrying a small mountain, giving him a somewhat top-heavy appearance. However, he didn't seem to mind and could even reach out to support Gu Jiansheng from time to time.
At first, Gu Jiansheng was not used to his touch, but apart from having gone into the mountains to explore the routes for Li Jianshan's life, he rarely went out, let alone walked mountain roads. In addition, he deliberately delayed and took a detour several times, so the road conditions became more and more rugged, and his speed slowed down again. After several dangerous moments of being helped, Gu Jiansheng actually got used to the arm that would support his body from time to time.
One of them deliberately delayed, while the other was fully focused on matching his pace. By the time they actually reached the dirt road leading into the village, the setting sun had long since left only a faint afterglow.
Zhou Lexing: "Do you want to rest a bit more?"
Gu Jiansheng glanced at the sky, thought for a moment, and shook his head in refusal: "No need."
In addition to the tools he needed for the day, his basket also contained several bundles of wild vegetables and a handful of wild strawberries.
This trip was quite fruitful, but Gu Jiansheng knew that the real challenges were yet to come.
Gu Jiansheng's house was closer, so the two put their things down first, and then it got completely dark.
"Don't touch these, I'll come over and take care of them tomorrow."
Making cabinets at Gu Jiansheng's house will count as spending a considerable amount of time there, and it will be another day of obediently fulfilling Zhou Ma's instructions, except...
Did you tell Aunt Lan about this?
The light was dim, and Zhou Lexing couldn't see Gu Jiansheng's expression clearly, but he could sense that his tone had turned cold: "Hmm."
“…Okay, I’ll be going then.” Zhou Lexing didn’t ask any more questions and left first.
Gu Jiansheng watched him walk away in silence, then stared blankly at the bundle of short wood for a while, as if he had just realized that he had spent another day doing something unrelated to revenge, and frowned.
Zhou Lexing walked home familiarly. There were only a few streetlights in the village, which made his house, which was brightly lit by a few flashlights not far away, look particularly glaring.
Zhou Lexing was stunned for a moment, then quickly rushed over: "What's wrong? What happened?"
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