“Morning. I forgot to get you a change of clothes last night. There are some of my clothes in the chest at the head of the bed they might be a bit big, so just make do for now. Once we’re back from the mountain, I’ll take you to the county town to buy you a couple of outfits.”
Qi Yanxuan wanted to go too. “Brother Shen, take me with you up the mountain later. I want to go.”
Hearing this, Shen Yanqing cast a look at Qi Yanxuan’s head. The meaning went without saying.
“It’s fine, my head doesn’t hurt anymore. I’ve only lost my memories that doesn’t affect my movements.” As he said this, he rubbed his nose. Lying felt a little embarrassing.
“Eat first.” With that, he turned and headed to the main room.
Qi Yanxuan’s eyebrows lifted. So that meant yes!
He went back to his room and changed into Shen Yanqing’s clothes. Qi Yanxuan was only 175 centimeters tall, a good half head shorter than Shen Yanqing, so the dark blue fitted outfit hung loose and baggy on him.
When he came to the main room and saw Shen Yanqing sitting at the table, he only then noticed that Shen was wearing the same style of clothing as he was he hadn’t paid much attention earlier except Shen’s was black.
Seeing Qi Yanxuan arrive, Old Man Shen beckoned him over to hurry up and eat. “A-Xuan, you’re awake. Come and eat.”
“Okay, thank you, Uncle,” Qi Yanxuan said, the picture of meek obedience.
On the table were three bowls of porridge and a plate of pickled vegetables.
It seemed this family was living rather frugally. His arrival was probably adding to their burden. He ought to find time to trade supplies from his space for some silver at the very least, he had to cover his own keep.
After breakfast, Qi Yanxuan followed Shen Yanqing up the mountain.
Along the way, they passed quite a few villagers also heading up to gather wild vegetables. Everyone eyed the short-haired Qi Yanxuan with curiosity, whispering to one another in twos and threes.
Qi Yanxuan had no desire to be gawked at like a monkey on display, so he took Shen Yanqing’s hand and hurried them along.
When they reached a spot with no one around, Qi Yanxuan reluctantly released Shen Yanqing’s hand.
No one knew that Qi Yanxuan actually liked men. Before the apocalypse, he’d never met anyone he liked, and after it started, he spent all day, every day killing zombies and running missions to this day, he was still a single dog.
The days ahead were long. No rush.
When they reached the traps, while Shen Yanqing went to check for game, Qi Yanxuan said to him, “Brother Shen, I’m going to take a look over there. I’ll come find you in a bit.”
“All right, don’t wander too far,” Shen Yanqing cautioned.
After walking a fair distance, Qi Yanxuan released the Bloodthirsty Vine, channeling his ability to communicate with it, ordering it to go out, find prey, and drag it back to him.
Receiving its master’s command, the Bloodthirsty Vine whooshed off in search of prey.
This Bloodthirsty Vine was a mutant plant he had tamed during the apocalypse. It had fought at his side countless times a first-rate hand at both scouting and combat alike.
A quarter of an hour later, the vine dragged back a roe deer. Qi Yanxuan directed the Bloodthirsty Vine to fling the deer against a tree to finish it off, then dragged it toward Shen Yanqing, the vine burrowing back into Qi Yanxuan’s body.
Meanwhile, Shen Yanqing had checked several traps, all of them empty; the last one held two pheasants and three rabbits.
He had just hauled them out when he saw Qi Yanxuan walking over, dragging a roe deer. Slightly startled, he asked, “You caught that?”
“Nope. I was just walking along over there, and it ran headfirst into a tree all by itself.” Qi Yanxuan wore the expression of a man who had done nothing of the sort.
Shen Yanqing’s brow arched slightly, but he said nothing more. He handed the two trussed pheasants to Qi Yanxuan, took the roe deer from his hands, and carried it as they headed for home.
Back at the house, they loaded the game into a bamboo back-basket, and the two of them set off toward the village entrance.
Climbing onto the ox cart, several elderly women on board stared at Qi Yanxuan. One of them, a plump, round-faced lady, asked with a smile, “Yanqing, is this person beside you a relative of yours? I’ve never seen him before.”
“Mm, a distant cousin,” Shen Yanqing replied flatly.
Seeing that Shen Yanqing didn’t feel like chatting, the women dropped the subject.
An hour later, they arrived at Qi County.
Shen Yanqing led Qi Yanxuan to the back door of the Keyunlai Restaurant. When the waiter saw that it was Shen Yanqing, he ushered them inside and went to fetch the manager.
The manager was a chubby, kindly-looking man in his forties. When he saw the game Shen Yanqing had brought, his eyes crinkled into smiles.
“Young Master Shen, I’ll give you 100 wen per pheasant, 200 wen per rabbit, and 3 taels for the roe deer. That comes to three taels and eight qian in total.”
“Mm.” Shen Yanqing took the money and handed three taels of silver to Qi Yanxuan.
Qi Yanxuan hadn’t expected him to give him the money, and handed it back. “Brother Shen, since I’m eating and living at your place, I should be paying you. You don’t need to give me this just consider it my food money.”
Hearing this, Shen Yanqing didn’t insist. He could always spend it on him later.
The two first went to a clothing shop and picked out two sets of clothes and two pairs of shoes for Qi Yanxuan, then headed to the rice shop to buy grain.
After buying thirty jin of brown rice and twenty jin of white flour, they made their way to the gathering point by the city gate.
After dinner, everyone returned to their rooms.
Qi Yanxuan entered his space, bathed in the river, and changed into the clothes he’d bought that day a cyan cross-collared robe that gave him the air of a handsome man from ancient times, though his short hair looked rather out of place.
After admiring himself, he got down to business. With his mind, Qi Yanxuan took out one purple crystal core and one green crystal core, both sixth-tier, from the crystal core warehouse.
The purple core was lightning-attribute. Sitting cross-legged, he held the purple core in his hands, closed his eyes, and began to absorb it. As the energy within the core was drawn out, purple lightning swirled around Qi Yanxuan’s body.
An hour later, the core had turned to powder, and the lightning around him stopped flickering.
Then he picked up the green, wood-attribute core and absorbed it as well, a shimmering green glow enveloping his body.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the rice and wheat had all ripened. With a thought, Qi Yanxuan harvested, hulled, ground the wheat into flour, and bagged everything. Fortunately, all of this could be done with mere thought otherwise, hulling and milling the wheat alone would have been no easy task.
With everything done, Qi Yanxuan left the space, lay down on his bed, and went to sleep.
The next day
Qi Yanxuan was still asleep when he heard knocking at the courtyard gate.