Seeing that Liu Yu truly did not want them, the group stared at the package of snacks on the ground, eager to make a move.
As for how they were eventually divided up, Liu Yu did not care in the slightest. He only knew that after waking up from an afternoon nap, Liu Wensheng was already surrounded by a group of children under the old tree in front of his house.
“Line up properly! One by one!” Liu Wensheng commanded with an air of authority.
After Liu Yu went inside, Liu Limin and the others had spread out the snacks on the ground to carefully divide them.
Because Liu Wensheng had made a contribution by acting as a witness, he was granted first pick.
Without a moment of hesitation, he chose the canned powdered milk, which was only half-full, along with some coffee candies.
Living in the world meant valuing brotherhood—this was the foundation of his status as the village boss.
Though he loved eating, he was not one to hog good things all to himself, and when he had good things, he wanted to let his gang of brothers share a bit of the joy.
Take this can of powdered milk, for instance. Liu Yu had treated him to it twice, but none of his brothers had ever tasted it before, so he wanted them to try it as well.
As for the coffee candies, compared to sweet milk hard candies, he did not really care for them. But his older brother loved them, claiming that popping one when feeling sleepy during class would instantly wake him up.
Liu Wensheng harbored doubts about his brother’s claim. To take a step back, when he felt sleepy during class, he could just rest his head on the desk and fall right asleep; why would he ever want to wake himself up?
This was Liu Yu’s first time seeing such a large group of little imps standing neatly in a single file line, and he found the sight utterly hilarious.
He slowly approached the tree, wanting to see what kind of scheme they were running.
To his surprise, the moment he drew near, the whole bunch of kids turned to look at him in unison.
The next second, they dropped to their knees in unison.
“Big Brother! Please accept this bow from your younger brothers!”
Liu Yu: “…”
His scalp went completely numb from this sudden, bizarre turn of events.
He turned to look at Liu Wensheng in absolute disbelief, hoping to get an explanation from him.
Unfortunately, Liu Wensheng completely missed the meaning in his gaze and was thoroughly pleased with his brothers’ actions.
He lifted his chin proudly and said, “Brother Heqing, they have drunk the milk you gave them, so from now on they are your little brothers too. If Liu Gui ever dares to bully you, just tell them, and they will beat that guy to a pulp in no time!”
In theory that worked, but it really was not necessary! Liu Yu wailed inwardly in a wave of agony.
Still, he forced his expression to remain rigid as he said, “Get up, all of you!”
“Thank you, Big Brother!” Hearing the command, the little fellows stood up holding their bowls.
“You guys go play. I have things to do, so I will be heading off.” Terrified that they might pull off something else beyond normal human comprehension, Liu Yu grabbed an excuse and bolted.
“Big Brother looks so domineering when he keeps a straight face!”
“Just like the principal!”
As they watched Liu Yu’s retreating figure nearly fleeing in a panic, the crowd chimed in with various opinions.
“Stop making a fuss, do you still want your milk or not?” Liu Wensheng scooped two spoonfuls into the bowl of the person at the front of the line using a wooden spoon.
Hearing this, the group immediately fell silent.
Hiding in the corner of the room and peeking through the window at this scene, Liu Yu almost crushed the water glass in his hand.
Well played, Liu Wensheng—making him lose face while turning around to build up his own prestige. Just wait until his older brother got back; he was going to make sure he tattled on him properly.
Life drifted by in a tranquil rhythm, and in the blink of an eye, the Spring Equinox arrived.
By now, the shop business had long since stabilized, and Aunt Pang’s son had become increasingly skilled at his tasks, occasionally even having spare time to help fry spring rolls and fried dough sticks for him.
As a result, Liu Yu had sufficient energy to tend to his small vegetable garden.
The only slight flaw was that Aunt Guifang kept saying she needed more time to consider his job offer.
Liu Yu had previously maintained an indifferent attitude, but since he and Zhou Yu had agreed early on to head to J-City to visit after the Qingming Festival, and seeing that the date was drawing closer and closer while Aunt Guifang’s side showed no movement, he inevitably grew a bit anxious.
He even started seriously pondering whether to hold an open recruitment drive if Aunt Guifang turned him down, letting the most capable candidate take the job.
Fortunately, this anxious mood did not last long before Zhang Guifang took the initiative to approach him.
“Heqing, I have thought it over during this time, and I have decided to take up the job,” Zhang Guifang said, standing outside the fence of Liu Yu’s vegetable garden.
“That is wonderful, Auntie. I have just been waiting for those words from you,” Liu Yu said, his mood instantly clearing up. “How about this—whenever you are free over the next couple of days, come over to my shop in the afternoon to learn how to make breakfast. Once you get the hang of these items, they are quite easy to make.”
“It will not be too difficult, will it?” Zhang Guifang asked with some trepidation. She had only ever eaten breakfast foods, never made them; making flour-based foods was one thing, but she had heard that controlling the heat was crucial.
Seeing this, Liu Yu patted his chest to offer a guarantee: “Don’t worry, it is very easy. I promise you will pick it up in two days.”
Once he confirmed someone could take over his duties, Liu Yu felt an immense sense of relief wash over him.
There was only a little over half a month left until after the Qingming Festival, and during this period, he needed to properly prepare some local specialties to bring along for Zhou Yu.
He had heard that people in big cities had long since grown tired of rare delicacies and mountain treasures, and instead grew deeply interested in rural game and wild specialties.
Aside from gathering plenty of dried mushrooms, this time he also led a bunch of little imps into the bamboo forest to dig up a large haul of spring bamboo shoots.
Compared to winter bamboo shoots, spring shoots lacked a bit of tenderness, but having them was better than nothing, and drying them into dried bamboo shoots did not make much difference in the end.
Liu Yu had tried stir-frying them once with pork belly, which won unanimous praise from Liu Wensheng and the others.
On the day of the Qingming Festival, after Liu Yu went to pay his respects one by one to the original owner’s parents, maternal grandfather, and uncle, he settled the shop and home affairs that very day.
The next morning, after packing up all his large and small bags of luggage, he was seen off to the city-bound bus by Aunt Guifang’s family.
As he was leaving, Liu Wensheng tugged on his arm with a reluctant expression.
“Brother, don’t worry. After you leave, the guys and I will definitely guard your house well,” he promised with a bitter face.
Liu Yu wanted to offer a few comforting words, but found it amusing instead, so he simply patted the boy’s head and promised: “When I get back, I will definitely bring you something delicious.”
And thus, Liu Yu arrived in the city all by himself.
The 3:30 PM tickets to J-City were already sold out, and the next available departure was not until 9:20 the following morning. Even for that train, tickets were running low, so Liu Yu bought one without hesitation.
Carrying the proof of identity issued by the village head, he checked into a fairly decent inn. When the front desk clerk saw how young he looked, she initially suspected he was a runaway youth, but upon seeing him pull out a certificate stamped with a red seal, she finally felt reassured.
Nighttime in the city was indeed vastly different from the town.
At 7:00 PM, Liu Yu was still sitting at a roadside stall trying to solve his dinner problem.
Although the urban area at this hour was not dazzlingly bright with lights, the bustling flow of people made it lively enough.
Aside from small restaurants, both sides of the street were lined with numerous clothing stores, featuring styles much trendier than those back home.
On top of all that, prices were also quite shocking. For instance, the bowl of egg fried rice in his hand—a large bowl the size of two palms where one could barely spot a trace of egg—was priced as high as fifty cents, which would be considered an astronomical price for egg fried rice back where he came from.
At that moment, he deeply regretted not packing some dry rations for himself instead of sitting here eating such overpriced, mediocre food.
After lingering in the city for the night, early the next morning Liu Yu dragged his luggage to the railway station to wait in advance.
Around 9:00 AM, his train pulled into the station, and Liu Yu was among the first to board and locate his seat.
It was a second-tier sleeper berth with a very narrow bed; if someone were slightly plump, lying down might make it impossible to roll over.
He neatly arranged his luggage and then began organizing his bed. Before long, the passengers assigned to the other three berths in the small compartment filed in one after another.
One of them was a male high school student, while the other two berths belonged to a couple and their young daughter.
Through casual chatting, Liu Yu learned that apart from himself, everyone else would be getting off during the second half of the journey.
Hearing that Liu Yu was heading to J-City, the high school student’s eyes lit up with intense interest as he asked, “Are you going to J-City to visit relatives?”
Liu Yu nodded: “Sort of!” Assuming Brother Zhou could be counted as a relative of his.
“I heard that everyone living in J-City is either ridiculously rich or high-ranking officials. Your relatives must be super wealthy, right?” the high school student continued to ask.
The couple nearby had finished tidying up their things by then and sat on the bed listening with keen interest.
The question felt a bit awkward to answer, and Liu Yu did not really want to elaborate, so he joked: “That is totally demonizing J-City. Every city has poor people and rich people; it is not like all the wealthy people in the country gathered in J-City while everyone else back home is poor.”
The couple agreed wholeheartedly, nodding in agreement as they said, “Exactly! A distant relative of ours also lives in J-City and is not particularly well-off, yet every time they come back to visit us, they put on airs of supreme superiority.”
After chatting a bit more, seeing their child start yawning and growing sleepy, the group tacitly fell silent and stopped talking.
Perhaps because he was sleeping restlessly on the train, Liu Yu found himself slipping into that dream once again.
This time, drawing on his previous experience, he did not waste time on futile efforts. He simply floated over to Liu Heqing’s side and quietly watched the contents within the book.
Though he did not gather any information concerning Zhou Yu this time, he caught sight of an important plotline involving the protagonist.
The plot roughly detailed that on the protagonist Zhou Zhaoxing’s twenty-seventh birthday, he announced the acquisition of the Wenxu Group at a banquet. The moment the news broke, public opinion erupted into a frenzy. Zhou Zhaoxing bribed all major newspapers in J-City to barely manage the public narrative. That very afternoon, a middle-aged man surnamed Zhuang leaped to his death from the Wenxu Group building.
When Liu Yu woke up from the dream, it was already past 4:00 PM. The compartment was quiet, save for the couple whispering softly to coax their child to sleep.
Seeing him wake up, the man smiled and said to his wife, “Young folks really are different—one more capable of sleeping than the other.”
Liu Yu glanced sideways and noticed that the high school student was also rubbing his sleepy eyes, clearly having just woken up right around the same time as him. The two of them exchanged an embarrassed, knowing smile.
Liu Yu’s nap had caused him to skip lunch, and the realization hit him that he was now ravenously hungry.
He climbed down from the bed, reached into his luggage bag, and pulled out a fragrant melon to crunch on. The melon was very tender and did not even need peeling, because it would not have survived long enough to mature before Liu Wensheng picked and ate it anyway.
He ate carefully, avoiding dripping sticky juices everywhere. Halfway through, he raised his head and noticed the rest of the passengers were staring right at him.
The little girl leaned forward, drool practically dripping down onto the floor.
He opened his bag once more and handed them two melons as well. He did not have any more to spare; this stuff was heavy and took up space, and he had only brought a few along because he was afraid the train air would smell unpleasant and wanted something to freshen it up.
After thanking him, the couple offered Liu Yu some food in return, pushing two boiled eggs toward him. By all rights, eggs were more expensive than melons, but who asked their precious baby girl to hate eggs and love melons instead?
The high school student handed him a square block of chocolate, which Liu Yu ate and found quite decent.
For the remainder of the journey, the group got along quite harmoniously.
Around 3:00 or 4:00 AM, the rest of the passengers reached their stops and got off, leaving Liu Yu as the sole occupant of the compartment.
He drifted back into a deep sleep, knowing full well that when he woke up, the train would have arrived within the borders of J-City.
He would soon be able to see Brother Zhou…