Li Baoling shot Lin Mingyuan a look—Say hello? She’s staring at you.
What could Lin Mingyuan say? She was just a neighbor. Still, he nodded slightly.
It was Li Yunxia, seeing that the couple had no intention of speaking to her, who finally couldn’t hold back and spoke first. “Brother Mingyuan, is this your wife?”
“I was at my older brother’s place a few days ago. I just got back and heard you got married. I was really surprised.”
“You… you got married so fast…” Li Yunxia felt miserable and spoke just to have something to say.
This time Lin Mingyuan couldn’t just nod. He introduced them, “Yes. You can call her Sister Baoling. Baoling, this is Yunxia. She lives across from us.”
Li Baoling could tell the girl was forcing a smile, so she took the initiative. “Hello, Yunxia. I’m Li Baoling. We’ll be neighbors from now on.”
“Mmm, okay.” Li Yunxia was on the verge of tears. She quickly added, “Are you heading out? Go on then, I’m going home too.”
“Alright, we’ll be going.” Li Baoling pulled Lin Mingyuan away, afraid they might make the girl cry.
What they didn’t know was that as Li Yunxia watched the two of them walking away together in harmony, she finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. She turned around and tears streamed down her face.
Once she got home, her expression became frighteningly grim.
“Yunxia, didn’t Mom tell you already? Lin Mingyuan isn’t worthy of you. We’ll definitely find someone better in the future.” Li Xiuli looked at her sobbing daughter, furious that she wouldn’t live up to expectations.
“You still dare say that? It’s all your fault! If it weren’t for you, would I be like this today?” Li Yunxia shouted at her mother through her tears, no longer holding back.
“You’re the one who always looked down on Brother Mingyuan. He’s not stupid—how could he not tell? That’s why he went and found someone else.”
“You knew I liked him. Something as big as him getting married, and he didn’t even tell me. Little brother too—wasn’t he always trying to set me up with Brother Mingyuan? But when it really mattered, he didn’t even pass along a word.”
“And big brother—why did you have me go look after the child at that time? If I hadn’t gone to the city, I… I… I might still have…”
“It’s all your fault! All of it is your fault!”
“Ahhhhh!”
Li Yunxia felt like she was going crazy. One moment she reminded herself that she was a young woman and couldn’t behave like this; the next moment she thought about how there was no longer any possibility between her and Brother Mingyuan, and despair filled her heart. All she could do was cry and make a scene—what else could she do?
“Enough, enough. Keep it down. The neighbors in front and back are just waiting to see our family make a spectacle of ourselves.” Li Xiuli regretted it a little too. She hadn’t expected her daughter to be this heartbroken, but now it was too late to say anything.
“You think I’m embarrassing you again, don’t you? Every time it’s like this. You want everything to be perfect, afraid people will laugh at you. Our family is already doing well enough, but for you it’s still not enough—you’re just vain!”
Li Yunxia seemed to deliberately oppose her mother, crying even louder.
Li Shitou stood off to the side, at a complete loss. In all his years, this was the first time he’d seen his sister in such pain.
“What are you standing there for? Hurry up and close the front gate and the house doors!” Li Xiuli had no way to deal with her daughter, so she vented her anger on her son instead.
“And you too—what nonsense were you stirring up, trying to set your sister up with Lin Mingyuan? Look at the mess you caused!”
“I just thought Yunxia liked Mingyuan, and Mingyuan grew up with me—we’re brothers. Wouldn’t it be great if they were together? But you were the one who never agreed. Besides, I only found out about Mingyuan getting married after I came back. If anything, it’s still you and Dad’s fault,” Li Shitou retorted stubbornly.
Smack. Li Xiuli slapped his arm angrily. “Blame me and your father? From dating to marriage it only took them a few days. Even if I’d said something, what difference would it have made? And Yunxia is foolish—can’t you tell that Mingyuan never had any interest in her!” Having these two foolish children was driving Li Xiuli mad.
How could Li Shitou not know? He still muttered, “Feelings can be cultivated. Maybe he didn’t like her at first, but if they were together, he might have.”
Smack. Another slap. This time Li Xiuli used real force. Li Shitou yelped in pain—saying this now was just provoking Yunxia.
Sure enough, hearing their conversation, Li Yunxia slammed her bedroom door shut with a bang and locked it from the inside. She didn’t want to deal with anyone.
Li Xiuli and Li Shitou fell silent, worried and at a loss over what to do next.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Baoling and Mingyuan were trudging through the forest, searching.
“This forest is huge, and you can’t even see the end once you go in. Where did Shen Xiangyang even find it?” Li Baoling said as she searched.
“Why aren’t the two of us the protagonists? What are we lacking compared to Shen Xiangyang?” Lin Mingyuan grumbled. He had height, looks—what a fine young man. And Li Baoling was pretty too, and even held the script in her hands. Shouldn’t they be the main characters without question?
Heaven really had no eye for talent.
“Logically, Shen Xiangyang isn’t local, and he’s an educated youth from a big city. He definitely wouldn’t dare go too deep. He’d just search around the outskirts.”
“Wait—could it be that thing recognizes its owner? That it’ll only appear once Shen Xiangyang shows up?”
“You might be right!” Lin Mingyuan agreed.
Li Baoling complained, “The author too—why make someone with such bad character the protagonist? If Shen Xiangyang were a good person, we could at least work hard to build a relationship and cling to his coattails. But look at him—he’s a complete petty villain!”
“Hey, hey, look—doesn’t that look like Shen Xiangyang?” Lin Mingyuan tugged her arm and pointed.
Someone really was coming. Li Baoling looked more closely—damn, it really did look like Shen Xiangyang. She quickly pulled Lin Mingyuan to hide.
“Why is he here instead of working? Is the plot starting? He’s not going to find the ginseng here, is he?” Seeing him approaching, Li Baoling immediately shut her mouth.
Shen Xiangyang didn’t notice anyone. He was in an extremely foul mood. If he’d known life at the educated youth point would be like this, he would never have gone to the countryside, not even if it killed him.
Every day he worked himself to death, and there was no food. Even when there was, it was just a little—not nearly enough to fill him up. When the hell would this ever end?
And he didn’t know what was going on, but lately the female educated youths had stopped paying him any attention. He had to find time to ask Zhang Lihua about it. Otherwise, how was he supposed to get money? As for the village girls, they were all dirt poor. When they saw him, they just blushed and stammered, but didn’t have a single cent to their name—what use were they?
“And that bitch Li Baoling—she ran off herself. Damn it, damn it, damn it! And she took all the money with her! Bitch!”
Hearing this from behind the tree, Li Baoling wanted nothing more than to slap him. That despicable, cowardly waste of space—always dreaming of living off women.
“Didn’t they say there were wild chickens and rabbits here? Where the hell are they? This is so damn annoying!” Shen Xiangyang couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he’d eaten meat. Forget meat—he hadn’t even had a drop of oil. He felt like he was on the verge of collapse.
The reason he’d come today was that he’d heard someone had caught a wild rabbit in this forest. He’d taken leave on the excuse of feeling unwell just so he could come here and try his luck. Otherwise, he really wouldn’t be able to hold on.
Li Baoling and Lin Mingyuan exchanged a look. Now they understood—Shen Xiangyang was here to hunt wild chickens.
“Ahhhhh! You can all go to hell!” Forget wild chickens—Shen Xiangyang hadn’t even seen a single feather. What was the point of searching?
After venting his anger, he was about to keep going when suddenly his foot caught on something. Shen Xiangyang fell hard onto his backside.
He was about to curse again when something darted through the grass. He looked more closely—it was a rabbit! He knew it! Heaven hadn’t treated him too badly after all!
“Don’t run! Stop right there!” Shen Xiangyang shouted, not caring whether the rabbit could understand. He scrambled to his feet and chased after it. If he caught it, he could roast it—just thinking about it made his mouth water.
Once his figure disappeared from sight, Baoling and Mingyuan finally emerged from behind the tree.
“That bastard Shen Xiangyang—he really did run into a rabbit.” They’d been searching for so long and hadn’t seen a thing.
“So this is the novel’s male lead?” Lin Mingyuan said enviously. He wanted to eat rabbit too—his mother’s braised rabbit was unbeatable.
“Do you think he’ll catch it? With how clumsy he is, probably not. Should we follow him?”
Before Lin Mingyuan could finish, Li Baoling said, “Of course. This is just a rabbit—what if he runs into ginseng?”
“Wait—where did he fall just now? In novels, when something like this happens, could ginseng appear right where he fell?” The chance was small, but what if?
Li Baoling hurried to the spot where Shen Xiangyang had fallen. The grass there had been flattened by him—it was obvious.
“Hurry, look around.”
The two of them searched carefully, parting the grass in front of them. Luckily it was only early May, and the grass wasn’t very tall yet.
“Holy shit, look at this—isn’t it?!” Li Baoling rushed forward and dropped to her knees. Who didn’t recognize ginseng? Not only were there plenty of pictures online, her grandfather had some too.
Lin Mingyuan had seen it as well. This was clearly it. Following Li Baoling had truly been the right choice!
“Worthy of the male lead!”
“We’ve struck it rich, we’ve struck it rich!”
The two of them carefully began to dig, making sure not to break a single root hair.
“How many years old do you think it is?” Lin Mingyuan asked. He recognized it, but didn’t know how to judge its age.
Li Baoling shook her head. She was an amateur too.
“What if we get cheated when we sell it?” Lin Mingyuan worried.
“Who was this supposed to belong to?”
“The male lead, Shen Xiangyang.”
“Exactly. As long as it’s the male lead’s plotline, the author writes it in great detail. So even though I’ve forgotten how many years old it is, I remember how much it sold for. This was the male lead’s first pot of gold,” Li Baoling said smugly.
“If the male lead could sell it for that much, that’s definitely the ceiling.”
“Let me say it again—following you, I really followed the right person!”
The next day, the two of them took a ride to the county town.
They’d planned to sell the ginseng at the purchasing station first, but by coincidence the station was right next to the Revolutionary Committee. As soon as they arrived, they ran into someone familiar. Though he looked disheveled, they still recognized him.
“Fang Daming just got fished out today?” Li Baoling said with schadenfreude.
“Judging by how he looks, he didn’t have a good time in there.”
Fang Daming no longer had the fresh, neat appearance he’d had when they last saw him. His clothes were filthy and wrinkled, his hair greasy, and his whole body reeked.
“Hurry up and move it! Everyone’s waiting for you at home.” Fang Yuejin’s tone was extremely bad.
Fang Daming didn’t dare say a word. He obediently followed behind, knowing there would definitely be another fight once they got home.
“Hurry, hurry—we should dress up a bit and secretly follow them to watch the show, hehe!”
What a stroke of luck!