Yang Zengyue knit her brows. Shi Rongchuan called his own father by his full name, clearly not close to this father, there might even be hatred in his heart.
In that case, the chances that in the past life Meng Yunchong and Meng Chuyang had joined with the Yan family to wipe out the Shi family shot up considerably!
From Jiuxiao she’d learned that the Meng and Shi families counted as old friends over generations, with marriage ties many generations back, though by his own generation there’d been little contact.
It wasn’t until the birth of Shi Baigu’s father that the two families grew close again.
That was how Meng Yunchong had come to know Shi Baigu, as far as Jiuxiao knew, back then Meng Yunchong had been utterly infatuated with Shi Baigu.
But he could hear that Shi Rongchuan’s words meant something other than that.
Shi Rongchuan told Jiuxiao what he’d dug up. “Meng Yunchong is the illegitimate son the Meng family head had with an outside woman. He wasn’t brought back into the Meng family until he was seven.”
Jiuxiao stroked his beard. “So Meng Yunchong married in as a live-in son-in-law because he had his eye on the Shi family, not on your mother.”
Shi Rongchuan nodded.
After realizing this, his mother had cut her losses in time and decisively divorced Meng Yunchong.
Jiuxiao recalled the Meng Chuyang that Zengyue had mentioned. “Is that Meng Chuyang your half-brother, from the same father, different mother?”
Hearing the name, Shi Rongchuan felt intensely uncomfortable. “He’s a half-brother from the same father, different mother, but not a younger brother.”
Meng Chuyang was seven days older than him.
Shopping over on the side, Yang Zengyue looked up at this answer and exchanged a glance with Chen Jia’er, neither had expected Meng Chuyang to be a hidden card, so deeply buried.
In her heart Yang Zengyue had already hacked Meng Yunchong and Meng Chuyang to pieces ten thousand times over.
Both father and son were shameless. They plainly had no connection to the Shi family, yet for the sake of the things in Xingyun Temple, they’d been able to call her “Grand-Aunt” for seven whole years!
Chen Jia’er had thought her own family’s affairs were dramatic enough, she’d never imagined a family like the Shi family could also have such sordid business.
Yang Zengyue, who’d said little all this while, took a drink of water, stroked Nangua’s ears, and then looked toward Shi Rongchuan. “Since the Shi family knew about Meng Yunchong’s doings long ago, why let it slide?”
Under her stare Shi Rongchuan felt a little short of breath. He was startled by this girl’s aura, he simply had no power to push back against it.
Still he steeled himself and answered, “My mother has already handed Meng Yunchong’s matter over to me to deal with. Once I’m back in Nanyuan, I’ll see to it.”
Yang Zengyue raised an eyebrow and asked, weighting her words, “Oh? And how do you plan to deal with it?”
Chen Jia’er, indignant, said, “Scum like that ought to be made to die a miserable death.”
Chen Jia’er’s words made Shi Rongchuan feel these two girls were perhaps a bit too violent.
He could tell Yang Zengyue meant the same thing, they both believed Meng Yunchong and Meng Chuyang should no longer be allowed to live
after everything they’d done.
But this was a society of laws.
Even if some of the two men’s filthy deeds could be found out, they could only be handed over to the law for judgment.
Just then the two of them came back to themselves, this was a society at peace now, only the law could determine whether a person was guilty, whether they deserved to die.
Jiuxiao felt a little helpless.
Having struggled so long in the apocalypse, these two young girls’ way of thinking couldn’t return to that of a peaceful society.
Their first instinct in the face of a problem was to solve it with force, an impulse very dangerous in the present day.
So Jiuxiao cut across the three of them’s separate thoughts. “The main reason your mother sent you here is to take a look at Sikun Mountain’s tourism project, isn’t it? First thing tomorrow, let Zengyue and Jia’er show you around.”
Jiuxiao gave his granddaughter a look, and Yang Zengyue caught his meaning at once.
The proposal from when the tourism company had come to discuss cooperation was still around, Yang Zengyue planned to use that to fob off Shi Rongchuan for now.
Whether it would fool him she didn’t care in the slightest.
It was just going through the motions, proving her master hadn’t been swindled but that there really was such a thing.
Yang Zengyue agreed readily.
She’d take Shi Rongchuan over to Fan Jinggang and have Brother Jinggang look after him.
Her own time was extremely tight.
She had to check on the fieldwork tomorrow, and to learn from Second Uncle Fan how to plow and sow.
She’d only ever grown herbs and a few vegetables, this was her first time growing rice herself.
She’d only helped out at Fan Jinggang’s family before, she could cut rice and transplant seedlings, but she’d never actually done the sowing or prepared a seedbed herself.
After chatting for a while, Yang Zengyue got a call from Second Uncle Fan, who reported the day’s work to her.
In a single day’s effort, more than ten machines had finished working the land, right on schedule, but since these fields had been planted with herbs before, they had to be flooded so the soil could soak for a few days, and manure had to be steeped in as well.
Second Uncle Fan had already prepared the fields for raising the seedlings, though.
Yang Zengyue rose and went over by the pomegranate tree to talk with Second Uncle Fan. “Second Uncle, how much rice seed will I need for these forty mu?”
Second Uncle Fan told Yang Zengyue the ratio, then asked whether she had time now to come down and bring the seed along, that way they could soak it tonight, and once the rice seed sprouted they could start raising the seedlings.
Yang Zengyue checked the time, past eight in the evening, and Second Uncle Fan hadn’t turned in yet. Best to get things done early, so she and Chen Jia’er went to the warehouse and loaded the seed onto the pickup.
They were growing ordinary conventional rice, which required a large amount of seed.
Fortunately they’d bought plenty.
They left Jiuxiao and Shi Rongchuan to watch the house.
Nangua excitedly leaped into the cargo bed, Yang Zengyue started the car, and she and Chen Jia’er drove out the courtyard gate, out of sight in no time.
Shi Rongchuan was puzzled. “Great-Grandfather Jiu, you’re going to grow rice?”
Jiuxiao nodded.
Shi Rongchuan asked again, “Mom already transferred your money into your account.”
The implication being: there’s plenty of money.
Just buy grain.
At your age, why grow it?
Jiuxiao gave Shi Rongchuan a sidelong glance. “That money has its own uses. Growing grain is Zengyue’s idea. She wants to build a farm, and a farm-stay resort. Once the tourism development project is finished and the foot traffic here picks up, she can make a business of it, and still stay close to look after me. Right now it’s the experimental stage.”
Saying this, Jiuxiao’s face actually broke into a broad smile, he told the tale without a single seam.
Shi Rongchuan guessed that surely wasn’t the real reason, but it wasn’t a bad opportunity for a start-up either.
Sikun Mountain’s scenery really was beautiful.
If tourism really could take off, a farm-stay and farm built here would only draw more and more visitors, never fewer.
The two chatted a while longer, and then Jiuxiao decided to rest. He told Shi Rongchuan to go wash up, not to wait for Zengyue and the others,
and told him that tomorrow morning he wanted to test his skills.
Jiuxiao locked the main gate from the inside, Zengyue had a key and would let herself in when she got back.
He switched on the courtyard path lights, and having done all this, went back to his room and lay down.
Shi Rongchuan went up to the third floor. Opening the door, he found the room already cleaned, the quilt and mat, the kettle and cup all freshly changed.
He switched on the air conditioner and lay in this unfamiliar room, discovering that the mountain night was lively.
Unnamed insects chirped from all around, and there were the calls of night owls, the sound of wind brushing through leaves, and the sound of the wind itself, a thousand strange sounds gathered together, and listening long, he actually felt as if something had settled within him.
And so he slipped into dreamland.