Seeing that Huo Yan insisted on making his family return the betrothal gifts—and had spoken so bluntly about it—Wang Chen gathered his courage and raised his head.
“Huo Yan, sending someone else in my place was my fault. But now I’ve come back. No matter how much he looks like me, he’s not me. I’m willing to marry you.”
To be honest, this was also something Luo Mingchen had been worried about.
Huo Yan treated him so well…
Could it be because he looked so much like Wang Chen?
If that were true, Luo Mingchen found the whole thing rather disgusting.
After listening, Huo Yan said, “The reason I wanted to marry you before was simply because the matchmaker said you were good at taking care of children. You were also reasonably pleasant to look at. It was never a matter of having to marry you specifically. I appreciate you sending Mingchen here, but in my eyes, you and Mingchen are very different people. Even if he didn’t have this face, I’d still be willing to marry him.”
Wang Chen stared blankly at Huo Yan.
This was completely different from what he had imagined.
He had thought that as long as he came back, Huo Yan would definitely accept him.
After all, aside from him, nobody was willing to accept Huo Yan’s fierce reputation. People even said he had killed someone.
So it turned out that he wasn’t irreplaceable…
Mother Wang tugged at Wang Chen’s sleeve and said to Huo Yan, “Huo Dalang, since you’ve already found someone you care about, then we’ll do as you said regarding the betrothal gifts. We’ll repay everything within two years. After we sell next month’s vegetables, we’ll bring over the first payment.”
Huo Yan nodded slightly.
“Good.”
Afterward, Huo Yan pulled the ox cart into the courtyard and wrote them an IOU.
Since none of the Wang family members could write, they each pressed a thumbprint onto the document.
Only then was the matter finally settled.
Before leaving, Wang Chen still felt a little unwilling to give up. He stopped and looked fixedly at Luo Mingchen.
“Huo Yan has killed people.”
Luo Mingchen didn’t understand what he meant.
“And?”
Mainly because, to Luo Mingchen, killing people had been an ordinary occurrence in the lawless era he came from. He had also killed zombies every day, and those zombies had once been human beings too, so he didn’t immediately grasp the implication.
To Wang Chen, however, Luo Mingchen’s response sounded as though he liked Huo Yan so much that even the fact that he had killed people didn’t matter.
After thinking for a moment, Luo Mingchen guessed Wang Chen was trying to say that Huo Yan was ruthless.
“He’s killed people, but if he’d broken the law, the authorities would have punished him. Since the government hasn’t arrested him, it means the people he killed deserved to die.”
Wang Chen hadn’t expected such an answer.
He was actually rather impressed by Luo Mingchen’s courage.
“Then… I wish the two of you happiness.”
“…Thank you.”
Luo Mingchen only found him baffling.
After the Wang family left, Luo Mingchen noticed that the spectators still hadn’t dispersed.
Confused, he asked, “Do you all need something else?”
One of the young men in a gray short-sleeved shirt smiled and said, “Huo family’s husband, we’re looking for Huo Dalang. We want him to come into the mountains with us.”
That form of address…
Luo Mingchen felt a little awkward hearing it.
“To the mountains?”
The village chief’s son explained, “We’ve found traces of a wild boar. If it comes down the mountain in the middle of the night, we’re afraid we won’t be able to stop it. My father asked us to gather some people and head up the mountain to take a look. If we can corner the boar in a ravine and eliminate it there, that would be best. Brother Huo is strong and knows martial arts, so we’ve come to ask for his help.”
Who would have thought they’d run into the Wang family and end up witnessing such juicy gossip first…
“Oh.”
Since they were asking Huo Yan, Luo Mingchen naturally had no objections.
Nor would he agree or refuse on Huo Yan’s behalf.
Huo Yan asked, “Right now?”
“Brother Huo, it’s better to deal with this sooner rather than later. It’s not far—it’s on the mountain behind your house.”
Precisely because it wasn’t far away, they were taking it so seriously.
Wild boars were highly destructive, and adult boars were extremely ferocious. People being injured by them was common.
Furthermore, if the boar charged into the fields and trampled the crops at this time of year, wouldn’t all their hard work be wasted?
“Alright.”
After agreeing, Huo Yan turned to Luo Mingchen and said, “I’ll be back soon.”
Luo Mingchen blinked.
Seeing that Huo Yan had specifically said it to him, and noticing everyone looking at him, he felt somewhat uncomfortable.
“Then… I’ll save lunch for you.”
“Okay.”
After the group left, Luo Mingchen thought back on their conversation.
It really had sounded like a newlywed couple talking to each other…
Shaking his head, he threw the thought aside.
After casually closing the gate, he took a small child’s chair out of his space and sat Huo Xinyue on it while he went to soak soybeans.
The stone mill still needed a proper place to be installed, and it would need a wooden frame as well. They had only purchased the carved millstones.
Luo Mingchen didn’t know how to build wooden frames.
Since Huo Yan had previously said he would make him a stone mill, he assumed Huo Yan knew how to build the frame too, so he didn’t bother worrying about it.
Instead, he took out some loofah seedlings from his space and planted them beside the courtyard wall.
Afterward, seeing that it was still early, he grabbed a hoe and went to turn the soil.
That morning, he had noticed that the vegetable seedlings he’d planted earlier had survived.
So he wanted to plant the remaining four mu of land as well—two mu for rice, one mu for corn, and one mu for Chinese cabbage.
Truthfully, Luo Mingchen had no idea about the exact planting seasons for those vegetables.
In his space, he could plant anything at any time and have food whenever he wanted, so he had never paid attention to such details.
Seeing the seedlings survive, he assumed everything else could be planted too and hadn’t considered the issue of weather at all.
As the sun climbed higher, the heat became intense.
Even though Luo Mingchen used his ability to create a thin mist around Huo Xinyue, it wasn’t enough to keep the heat away.
Afraid the child would suffer from the heat, Luo Mingchen hoisted the hoe onto his shoulder and decided to let Huo Yan watch her in the afternoon while he returned to the fields.
“Yueyue, let’s go home.”
Putting the little stool Huo Xinyue had been sitting on back into his space, Luo Mingchen smiled and took her soft little hand.
Huo Xinyue gave him a sweet smile and raised her other hand to show him the small flower she was holding.
“Daddy, fafa.”
“Pfft… That’s a flower.”
Luo Mingchen couldn’t help laughing.
Huo Xinyue tilted her little head and looked up at him in confusion.
“Fafa?”
“Flower.”
Luo Mingchen deliberately slowed his speech so she could watch his mouth.
“Flower?”
“That’s right. Yueyue is so smart.”
Seeing Luo Mingchen smile, Huo Xinyue happily repeated the word “flower” several more times.
They had just arrived at the front gate.
Luo Mingchen set down the hoe and took out the key when he suddenly heard a rapid series of footsteps accompanied by the roar of a beast.
Turning around, he saw a huge wild boar charging recklessly down the mountain.
Its destination was the field he had just spent so much effort tilling.
If it rushed through there, wouldn’t all the vegetables he had painstakingly planted be ruined?
Without thinking much about it, his body reacted before his mind did.
As the enormous boar charged straight at him, Luo Mingchen concentrated his ability into his right fist and punched directly at its head.
The massive wild boar collapsed on the spot.
Huo Xinyue, standing near the gate, was completely stunned.
From her perspective, Luo Mingchen had been beside her one moment and instantly appeared in front of the boar the next.
After knocking the wild boar to death, Luo Mingchen looked up—
And saw Huo Yan.
Several hunters were standing behind him.
Luo Mingchen slowly withdrew his fist and froze.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to do.
It seemed…
He had exposed himself.
After pausing for a moment, Huo Yan walked over and asked, “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Luo Mingchen looked at the dumbfounded hunters behind him.
“What… exactly did they see?”
Huo Yan replied, “They saw you punch a wild boar to death.”
Luo Mingchen: “…”
Should he be grateful that he hadn’t used a water rope?