Shen Jiaqi was still in the middle of her suffering when Lu Zheng suddenly hauled her up without mercy and dumped her onto a large rock.
“It hurts… it hurts…” Shen Jiaqi bared her teeth in pain.
Lu Zheng could neither stand there nor leave, clearly rather at a loss.
“Sorry, I was in a hurry to save you just now, I didn’t touch you on purpose…”
This Lu Zheng’s sense of boundaries was far too strong!
Shen Jiaqi gritted her teeth. “I understand. With the fire at your eyebrows, who has attention to spare for anything else?”
“It’s only a shame that you could save me once but not a second time. I’m about to die of the venom…”
Lu Zheng turned around awkwardly, took a quick glance at that bleeding wound, and then looked at the snake on the ground, long since stone dead.
“That’s a water snake, non-venomous. Rest a bit, wash the wound and put medicine on it and you’ll be fine.”
Shen Jiaqi let out a breath of relief. Fortunately the snake wasn’t venomous, otherwise she didn’t dare imagine the shameful scene of Lu Zheng sucking the venom out of her.
“Thank you…” Shen Jiaqi lay weakly on the big rock, waiting for her body to slowly recover.
Her limbs couldn’t move, but her gaze was never idle for a moment, sweeping back and forth over Lu Zheng.
What a handsome man, a tough yet clean face, and a first-rate build too.
Covered in muscle without looking bulky, the classic case of looking slim in clothes and packing meat out of them.
If she hadn’t put her hands on it herself, she’d never have known that eight-pack abs were hidden under that washed-out gray cloth shirt…
Top quality…
Shen Jiaqi narrowed her eyes. He was her type…
Lu Zheng’s brows pressed down over his eyelids. This was the first time a girl had dared stare at him this openly, her eyes full of stars.
He looked rather fierce and his temperament was cold, he’d made children cry before.
Apart from Ye Zhaozhao, not a single girl in the village dared deal with him.
Even though he and Ye Zhaozhao were childhood sweethearts, deep down Ye Zhaozhao was a little afraid of him too.
At the thought of Ye Zhaozhao, his gaze grew colder and deeper.
To break the awkwardness, he coughed unnaturally twice. “So late at night, what are you doing up the mountain alone?”
Shen Jiaqi glanced at the wild ginger and wild greens she hadn’t yet had time to put into the space.
“I caught a chill going into the river, and there’s no money at home to buy medicine, so I thought I’d come up the mountain and dig some wild ginger to boil and drink, and dig some wild greens while I was at it.”
Lu Zheng turned his head to look, and a flicker of hard-to-notice surprise passed through his eyes.
“There’s actually wild ginger here.”
Shen Jiaqi made a sound of agreement. Hearing how heavily his voice was clogged as he spoke, she guessed that going into the river to save her today had given him a chill as well.
She felt bad about it, and picked up a rather plump piece of ginger and handed it to Lu Zheng.
“Sorry about that, I made you catch a chill today. Take some back to boil ginger soup and you’ll be well soon.”
Lu Zheng looked down, and at a glance saw those slender little hands caked in mud, red and swollen underneath.
Then he looked at those few pieces of wild ginger and the few sparse wild greens on the ground, and his heart sank.
She really was delicate…
He took the wild ginger and tossed it into his back basket. “Thanks.”
“No, no, no, it’s me who should thank you. There’s no way to repay a life saved. What’s a bit of ginger? If you ever need my help, just say the word.”
Shen Jiaqi regretted it as soon as she’d said it. It seemed… she had nothing she could help him with either.
On the contrary, every time she saw him she had to trouble him to come to the rescue.
Lu Zheng didn’t take her words to heart. It was a small effort, and he didn’t expect Shen Jiaqi to thank him.
With her reputation in the village, if she didn’t repay kindness with enmity and curse him out, that would count as gratitude.
Lu Zheng didn’t want to get involved with her. He got up silently, walked to another patch of wild grass that hadn’t been dug, and began swinging his hoe and digging too, without a word.
But what he dug up he didn’t throw into his own back basket, he threw it into Shen Jiaqi’s.
Before long, hers was stuffed full.
In that time Shen Jiaqi had recovered a good deal. She crouched leisurely by the stream washing a handkerchief and reached back to wipe the blood on her trousers.
With Lu Zheng still here she couldn’t very well take her trousers off to clean it, so she just dabbed at it through the cloth.
While she tidied herself up, she stared blankly at Lu Zheng’s brisk figure from behind.
Coming up the mountain this late, he must be here to dig wild greens and hunt game too!
The Lu family looked like a lot of mouths, but in fact he was the only one who could earn work points.
Above him were his sick parents and his widowed sister with her fatherless child, below him were his younger brother and sister. All those mouths in the household depended on him alone.
Besides feeding the whole family, he also had to secretly deliver grain to Ye Zhaozhao.
Without some sort of side line, he’d have been squeezed dry long ago.
The book had indeed mentioned it in passing, saying Lu Zheng would quietly take mountain delicacies and game to the black market to trade for rice and oil.
No wonder he’d turn up on the mountain this late.
Shen Jiaqi was absently wringing out her handkerchief when a splash of water suddenly startled her so badly she nearly jumped up.
Bitten by a snake once, afraid of well ropes for ten years!
After that business just now, Shen Jiaqi had become a bird startled by the bow, terrified another water snake would dart out of the water.
She was just getting up when she caught sight of a gray shape flashing past. “Fish…”
Not just one, three fish!!!
Three plump grass carp, appearing from who knew where, frolicking to their hearts’ content in the crystal-clear little stream.
These fish weren’t the least bit shy of strangers!
“Lu Zheng, Lu Zheng, there are fish in the river.” Shen Jiaqi was so excited her voice shook.
In these famine years, the fish and shrimp and crabs in the rivers had all been scooped out, not even a toad was left.
And she was actually seeing three big fish at once!
If the snake that bit her hadn’t been non-venomous, she’d have suspected she was poisoned and hallucinating.
“The plot truly doesn’t deceive me. There really are fish…”
Lu Zheng was digging away hard, and at her shout his brows furrowed slightly.
Fish?
What nonsense was she talking.
He didn’t really believe it, but he turned his head all the same.
At a glance he saw Shen Jiaqi had gone into the river and was bent over wrestling with something alive in the water, water splashing everywhere.
Watching her clumsy movements, she wouldn’t catch a fish but might well knock herself over. Without a second thought he jumped into the river, rolled up his sleeves to bare his strong arms, and clamped both hands down, steady, accurate, ruthless.
Very quickly a fish was caught and tossed up onto the bank.
Then the second…
The third…
Several live fish thrashed on the riverbank, but he didn’t even look at them, instead he stared straight at the smiling face in front of him.
Sweet, like a brilliant little sun.
Even the water droplets hanging on her face were so dazzling.
Lu Zheng was dazed for a moment, then quickly and discreetly shifted his gaze away and, taking her arm, brought her up onto the bank.
“Your luck isn’t bad,” he said.
“My best luck was running into you tonight!”
Without Lu Zheng, all her good luck was so much floating cloud.
The big fish she couldn’t manage cost Lu Zheng not the slightest effort.
He was simply her benefactor!
Without Lu Zheng tonight, even if she’d come across big fish she could only have stared helplessly, and might even have frightened them away.
His face red, Lu Zheng pulled up a few strands of wild grass and wove them into a cord, threaded it through the fish’s gills to hang them in a string, tied a fine double knot, and of his own accord fastened it to Shen Jiaqi’s back basket.
Shen Jiaqi sat at ease on the ground, airing her snow-white feet.
Seeing that at some point he had filled her back basket and even strung the fish up for her, Shen Jiaqi was startled.
“Why have you given it all to me?”
“It was yours to begin with.”
Shen Jiaqi didn’t expect Lu Zheng to be this honest.
“But you saved me, and you put in the effort catching the fish!”
Without further discussion, she divided off half the wild ginger and the largest fish for him.
Following his gaze, she looked at the snake on the ground, cut in two.
“Take the snake if you want it, I certainly don’t, but you must accept this fish and ginger.”
Lu Zheng, however, still wouldn’t take them, looking like a man who kept people a thousand miles off.
“What are you afraid of? I’m not a flood or a wild beast…”
“No need.”
“Aiya, just count it as payment from me, for you to carry my things down the mountain and home…”
Shen Jiaqi’s voice was muffled and thick, and at first hearing it really did sound a little like wheedling.
Lu Zheng was silent a moment, then turned his face aside and held out his arm to her, while his other hand deftly picked up the firewood knife and the snake from the ground and hoisted both back baskets.
“Let’s go!”
Seeing that he was about to leave, Shen Jiaqi didn’t think twice and reached out to take hold of him.