“Second Fool! Stop banging that damn thing!”
“Yes!”
Xiang Xi got up from the long bench, feeling more energetic than ever. She was also getting a little hungry.
“Go start the fire. Let’s cook something to eat.”
“Wife, what are we having today?”
“What else would we have for breakfast?” Xiang Xi said. “Just boil some eggs and make do.”
“Eggs! Eggs!” Liu Er happily threw the copper basin in his hands onto the ground. “I know where Mom hides the eggs. I’ll go get them!”
After running two steps, he turned around and asked, “How many should I get?”
“I’ll eat five. Take however many you want, and bring some brown sugar too.”
“Then I’ll eat ten!”
Madam Lü’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Oh no, oh no!
This crazy woman was really rebelling!
Last night, she had already ruined one of her hens, and now, first thing in the morning, she was going after her eggs too.
And not just a few—fifteen eggs!
Where was justice?
Where was the law?
“Mm! Mm! Mm!”
“Make another sound and I’ll plug your nose too.”
Madam Lü immediately stopped making any noise.
She believed ordinary people wouldn’t, and wouldn’t dare, do something like that.
But this crazy woman was a lunatic!
What if she really plugged her nose?
Wouldn’t she suffocate to death?
Xiang Xi went to the kitchen and made a pot of poached eggs, along with two large bowls of ginger and brown sugar water.
Ginger, brown sugar, and poached eggs were both nutritious and warming.
The original owner’s body was far too weak. She absolutely had to nourish it properly.
“Mom! Mom!” This was the first time in Liu Er’s life that he had eaten so many eggs at once, and he was incredibly excited. He carried his bowl straight over to Madam Lü. “Mom, look! My wife cooked these eggs for me! Ten! Ten eggs!”
Madam Lü saw the bowl overflowing with eggs and nearly fainted from anger.
She wanted to curse Xiang Xi out, but with a stinky sock still stuffed in her mouth, all she could do was glare furiously.
“Mm! Mm! Mm!”
“Haha… Mom, do you want some?”
“Mm! Mm! Mm!”
“I won’t give you any. They’re all mine!”
Madam Lü: “…”
…
After eating five poached eggs, Xiang Xi was pretty much full.
What should she do next?
There didn’t seem to be anything fun to do in the village.
Sigh.
Life in ancient times really was dull and boring!
Then she might as well think about what to eat for lunch.
Cluck-cluck!
Just then, a hen laid an egg and proudly announced her achievement.
That suddenly gave Xiang Xi an idea.
She had decided.
She was going to slaughter another chicken for lunch!
However, this hen was a little old. It wouldn’t taste very good stewed, and there weren’t enough seasonings for braising it.
The cucumbers and eggplants growing in the field outside the door didn’t pair very well with it either.
There were, however, several long chili peppers growing nearby, and they were thriving quite nicely.
Xiang Xi didn’t know why there were chili peppers in this ancient world, but that certainly didn’t stop her from loving good food.
Stir-fried chicken with green peppers…
If she could find some wild mushrooms too…
One word:
Awesome!
“Second Fool!”
“Present!”
“Put the basket on your back. We’re going into the mountains to pick mushrooms!”
“Yes!”
The moment he heard they were going mushroom picking, Liu Er’s face practically split into a grin. He grabbed an enormous basket from beneath the eaves and slammed the front door shut with a bang.
The people left tied up inside the house: “…”
You little bastard!
At least untie us before you leave!
Liu Er was cheerful and innocent the entire way.
“We’re picking mushrooms! Hahaha… We’re picking mushrooms to stir-fry with the hen! Hehehe…”
As soon as they reached the foot of the mountain, they encountered several village women.
When they saw the two of them heading into the mountains, one of the women asked, “Liu Er, why are you carrying such a huge basket?”
“To pick mushrooms!”
“Hahaha…”
The women burst into laughter.
Seeing them laugh, Liu Er foolishly laughed along with them.
“Hehehe…”
“Liu Er, let Auntie tell you something. Mushrooms can be sold for money.”
Liu Er tilted his head.
“Sold for money?”
“That’s right!” the woman said. “If you fill that entire basket, you can sell it for several taels of silver!”
“Really?”
“I’m not lying to you!” the woman laughed. “But you have to fill the whole basket. If it’s not full, no one will buy it.”
Liu Er immediately rushed over to Xiang Xi.
“Wife, wife! Mushrooms can be sold for silver! If we fill a basket, we’ll get lots of silver!”
Xiang Xi: “…”
If you said he was stupid, he at least knew that silver was a good thing. His eyes were practically glowing green.
But if you said he wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t even tell that those women were making fun of him for being a fool.
Mushrooms weren’t wild grass. How could someone just fill an entire basket with them?
Those women clearly had ulterior motives.
Since that was the case, then fine.
Xiang Xi joined in, waving her arms excitedly.
“Fill a whole basket! Sell it for silver!”
“Hahaha…”
The women laughed even more brightly.
“They really are both fools.”
…
Soon, the group entered the mountains.
The mountains in ancient times were completely untouched by civilization, covered with trees and weeds. A person could probably disappear into the forest and even a dog wouldn’t be able to find them, so finding mushrooms hidden among all that vegetation was even more difficult.
The women had plenty of experience. As soon as they reached their destination, they split up and began searching, digging through the weeds where mushrooms were most likely to grow.
Before long, some of them had already found mushrooms.
Seeing everyone else picking mushrooms while his basket remained empty, Liu Er grew anxious.
“Wife, let’s hurry and pick mushrooms!”
“Don’t rush.” Xiang Xi broke off a tree branch. “From now on, I’m the great general, and you’re my little soldier! Wherever I tell you to pick, you go there!”
“Yes!”
The women burst into laughter again.
“This crazy woman wants to be a great general!”
“She’ll just stand there giving orders. I’m afraid she won’t pick even one mushroom today.”
…
Xiang Xi ignored the women and used her ability on them.
Everything that would happen within the next minute instantly became clear to her.
She pointed the branch toward a patch of weeds ahead.
“Over there!”
“Yes!”
Liu Er rushed over. He pulled apart the grass and, sure enough, found a large bluish-black mushroom.
He jumped three feet into the air in excitement.
“Mushroom! Mushroom! I found a mushroom!”
The women looked up.
When they saw that he really had found one, they suddenly felt a little bitter.
“They say fools are blessed with good luck. His luck really is too good.”
“Picking mushrooms isn’t entirely about luck. Just wait. With them searching like this, they won’t find more than a few in an entire day.”
…
But what happened next was completely beyond their expectations.
Xiang Xi kept pointing her branch in different directions, while Liu Er acted like the most loyal little soldier imaginable.
Wherever the branch pointed, he charged over at the speed of a hungry wolf.
And every single time, he found something!
“Second Fool, over there!”
“Yes!”
“This way!”
“Coming!”
“There are a bunch of big ones over there too!”
“Hahahaha!” Liu Er threw his head back and let out a triumphant howl. “So many mushrooms! So many mushrooms!”
The women’s faces practically twisted apart with frustration.
What the hell?
How could these two fools have such ridiculously good luck?
They hadn’t even gone very far, yet they already had at least two or three jin of mushrooms!
And that wasn’t even the most infuriating part.
The most infuriating thing was that all the mushrooms Liu Er picked were right along the path they were taking.
Usually, they would be just a few steps away from reaching the mushrooms themselves, only for that crazy woman to point her branch, and Liu Er would thunder over and snatch them right from under their noses!
The whole strategy was basically:
Pick everyone else’s mushrooms and leave everyone else with none to pick.
After crossing two mountains, it was almost noon.
The women’s baskets were still completely empty, while Liu Er had already filled half of his.
The women felt like crying.
This was way too strange.
It was stranger than a monster!
It was as if that crazy woman’s eyes could see straight through the grass and knew exactly where the mushrooms were hiding.
“Liu Er,” one of the women said, seeing how many mushrooms he had picked and getting a devious idea. “Look how many you’ve picked while we haven’t found any. Why don’t you give me some? Auntie will pick two cucumbers for you when we get home!”
Liu Er blinked.
“Cucumbers?”
Seeing that he seemed interested, the woman continued to coax him.
“That’s right. Big cucumbers!”
“No way!” Liu Er turned his head away.
“Why not?” the woman asked. “Don’t you love eating cucumbers?”
“Mushrooms can be sold for money, but cucumbers can’t!” Liu Er looked at her as though she were an idiot. “Are you stupid?”
The woman: “…”
What the hell…
Who the hell told him that mushrooms could be sold for money?
Come out!
I promise I won’t beat you to death!
“Besides, you’ve picked enough,” the woman said. “You can’t eat all of those. Hurry up and go home.”
Her scheme was already playing out perfectly in her head.
As long as Liu Er stopped picking mushrooms, they would be able to pick them themselves.
But she hadn’t expected Liu Er to immediately tilt his nose toward the sky and mutter, “Didn’t you just say we had to fill the whole basket before we could sell them?”
The woman: “…”
The women were genuinely ready to kill someone.
It must be that their luck was bad today.
It had to be.
“We’re not picking anymore. Let’s go home.”
Continuing to pick would just be a waste of time.
Seeing the women leave angrily, Xiang Xi also decided it was time to head home.
Mushrooms were mushrooms. It was enough to have enough to eat.
Why pick so many?
“Second Fool.”
“Present!”
“Let’s go home and slaughter a chicken! We’ll have mushroom stir-fried chicken for lunch!”
“Okay! Chicken! Chicken! Mushrooms! Mushrooms! …”
Hearing Liu Er’s cheerful cries, the women could only scream internally.
“Ahhh…!!!”