"Xu Kuo, here's the money from selling the sweet potatoes. Count it." The village chief quickly came to the pond to watch Xu Kuo raise fish.
Xu Kuo held the money in his hand and looked at the village chief. The village chief felt a little uneasy under his gaze. He had taken a small kickback from the money; Xu Kuo probably didn't know anything about it.
Xu Kuo smiled to himself. He didn't care about the small amount of money, but the village chief had many connections, so he didn't need to bother finding someone to buy it.
Now I need to focus my attention on the fishpond. There are no suitable seeds for the empty land there, so I might as well do the village chief a favor.
"Thank you so much, Village Chief! You've been a great help. I don't need the wasteland I reclaimed for now, but you can set aside half of it for planting if you need it!"
"What? Xu Kuo gave the village chief the wasteland he had reclaimed?"
"Xu Kuo must be crazy to think that such big sweet potatoes could grow on that land."
The village chief had originally planned to return part of the kickback, but he didn't expect to hear Xu Kuo say such a thing.
He was overjoyed. "Alright, Xu Kuo, you can focus on raising fish. If you don't know where to sell them, I'll make the trip for you."
After saying this, the village chief rushed home to report the good news, much to the envy of the villagers nearby.
Xu Kuo turned his head and began to focus on raising fish. In order to better observe the growth of the fish fry, he simply moved a chair and sat under a big tree by the water pit, his eyes fixed on the water surface.
He even built a makeshift shed in the tree and guarded it day and night, like a miser, afraid of missing the slightest sound.
His obsession with it was even greater than when he was tending to sweet potatoes.
In the dead of night, Xu Kuo was immersed in a sweet dream.
Suddenly, a rustling sound broke the silence of the night.
Having taken the enhanced version of the body-strengthening pills, he was no longer the same as before. Not only was his physique strong, but his five senses were also exceptionally sharp, so this subtle movement naturally did not escape his ears.
"Who?" Xu Kuo's heart skipped a beat, and he secretly became more vigilant.
The sound clearly came from the water pit he guarded day and night!
Recently, she's been planting sweet potatoes and raising fish, making quite a stir, which inevitably attracts envy.
Xu Kuo wanted to see who was so blind as to dare to mess with him!
He got up silently and crept towards the sound.
Under the moonlight, several furtive figures were gathered around the puddle, each carrying a bulging bag, the contents of which were unknown.
Xu Kuo took a closer look and immediately burst into laughter.
These people were none other than Zhang Laosan and his gang, notorious hooligans in the village!
These guys are idle all day long, doing nothing productive, just petty theft and other despicable acts.
It wasn't enough that he cleared the wasteland for me last time; now he's going to watch over my fishpond too.
"In the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, you come here to cause trouble?" Xu Kuo sneered inwardly, already guessing what was going on.
They saw Zhang Laosan and his men sneakily preparing to pour something into the puddle.
What's in that bag is probably not something good!
"Stop!" Xu Kuo shouted, his voice like a thunderclap, making the men tremble.
Zhang Laosan and the others were so frightened that the bags in their hands fell to the ground with a "thud," scattering white powder all over the ground.
They never dreamed that Xu Kuo would appear here!
"Run!" Someone shouted, and several people turned and ran, wishing their parents had given them two fewer legs.
How could Xu Kuo let them escape? He moved with lightning speed, catching up in a few strides and knocking them to the ground with a single punch each.
"Ouch! That hurts so much!"
"Xu Kuo, you...you mustn't do anything reckless!"
"We...we didn't do anything!"
Zhang Laosan and his men clutched their heads, curled up on the ground, and wailed in pain. Where was the slightest trace of their previous arrogance?
Xu Kuo dragged the men back to the tree, and by the moonlight, he saw clearly what was in the bag—it was a packet of poison!
Luckily, I discovered it early.
Otherwise, all of my fish fry would be poisoned to death.
"Speak! Who sent you?" Xu Kuo's face was ashen, his tone icy, exuding authority without anger.
"No...no one instructed us, we just...we just..." Zhang Laosan stammered, his eyes darting around, not daring to meet Xu Kuo's gaze.
"Still dare to lie?" Xu Kuo's eyes widened, and his large, fan-like hand grabbed Zhang Laosan's neck.
"No...no...I'll talk! I'll talk!" Zhang Laosan was terrified, his face pale and his whole body trembling. He hurriedly begged for mercy, "It was...it was someone else who made us do it, we didn't dare disobey!"
"Who?" Xu Kuo tightened his grip slightly.
“I…we don’t know who he is. He gave us money and told us to…pour this medicine into your fishpond…” Zhang Laosan explained haltingly.
"Hmph, keep making things up!" Xu Kuo didn't believe it at all. "You lot usually spend all your money on eating, drinking, gambling, and whoring. How could you possibly be willing to buy such expensive medicine? If you don't tell the truth, believe me, I'll throw you into this puddle to feed the fish."
"No, no, no! I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything!" Zhang Laosan completely broke down and spilled the beans, revealing the whole story.
It turned out that the Xu family had a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes, and when the village chief was selling the sweet potatoes on behalf of Xu Kuo, he was spotted by a grain merchant named Zhao Ming from the town.
Zhao Ming, relying on his family's wealth and power, usually acts arrogantly and domineeringly, and has done a lot of things like bullying, extortion, and plunder.
His path to wealth was based on the word "grab." Whoever had good land and could grow good crops, he would try every means to seize the land and cultivate it himself.
Zhao Ming sent someone to inquire and discovered that the sweet potatoes and fishpond belonged to Xu Kuo.
Seeing that Xu Kuo had managed to raise fish in an abandoned pond, he was seized by evil intentions and wanted to use the same trick to take over Xu Kuo's fishpond.
This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
