CH 57.2

translator: baumkuchen

Lu Qingjiu watched for another while longer before turning his gaze away. This person seemed to be a celebrity. However, he wasn’t the fanboy type, and he rarely watched shows in his everyday life, so for most celebrities, he knew of their names but not their faces.

Seeing that both Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun still hadn’t had their fill, Lu Qingjiu said, “You guys keep eating, I’ll go buy some seeds.”

“I’ve had enough.” Yin Xun had eaten more than twenty already, his stomach so full that it was bulging slightly. “I’ll go with you.”

“Then Yuehu, you just keep eating,” Lu Qingjiu said, “I’ll come find you in a while after we’re done buying stuff.”

Bai Yuehu nodded.

Lu Qingjiu first went over to the owner and paid him several hundred yuan, then went over to the place where they were selling seeds with Yin Xun. This year, Lu Qingjiu was rich, so he was planning on collecting back all the land he’d rented out for his own planting. Of course, he’d asked Bai Yuehu about this in advance. Bai Yuehu had said that a few extra pieces of land wouldn’t be any problem for him, letting Lu Qingjiu do as he wished.

There were many things that Lu Qingjiu wanted to grow, and the things Bai Yuehu grew were more delicious than those bought in town. Last year’s tomatoes and cucumbers were the best example of this.

Lu Qingjiu bought many seeds and seedlings, and even asked the shop owner if he had any fruit tree saplings. The owner said that they didn’t have any right now, they should come back later. Lu Qingjiu left him his phone number, so the owner could call him after their stock arrived.

After they were done buying their stuff, Lu Qingjiu thought of something. He pulled out his phone and gave Zhu Miaomiao a call, to tell her that the snow had melted over here.

Zhu Miaomiao said, “You really worried me. You disappeared just like that for two months, there wasn’t even any noise from you during the New Year.”

“I forgot…” Lu Qingjiu said, “The signal in the village is intermittent, sometimes there is a signal and sometimes there isn’t. There just happened to be no signal over the New Year. There’s no need to worry about me, I’m doing well.”

Zhu Miaomiao said, “Then fine, when I get some time off, I’ll come visit you.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Hey, mail me more of that candy, we finished all the stock in the house.”

Zhu Miaomiao said half laughingly, half angrily, “I see that you only ever call me after you run out of candy, does it taste that good?”

Lu Qingjiu replied honestly, “They’re really delicious.” Everyone really liked them, even the pickup truck enjoyed them very much.

Zhu Miaomiao let out a “fine”, then hung up.

Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun returned to the xiaolongbao store with their stuff in hand. After collecting Bai Yuehu, they prepared to return home. It was just that before returning home, Lu Qingjiu noticed that there seemed to be some altercation between that noisy group from before and the town’s police. Hu Shu was also among them. He seemed to be arguing with them about something, his eyebrows furrowed, looking very unhappy. Pang Ziqi, off to the side, almost made a move several times, and was held back by Hu Shu every time.

“What’s that about?” Lu Qingjiu couldn’t get a good idea of what was happening just from looking.

“I don’t know.” Yin Xun shook his head, expressing that he didn’t know either.

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Seeing that spring had arrived, even though there were a lot of things to do at home, Lu Qingjiu was in a very good mood. After all, he didn’t need to spend every day stuck to the charcoal basin to live. Furthermore, after taking off the thick, heavy winter clothes, he became a lot more agile.

Taking advantage of the good weather, Lu Qingjiu cleaned up the entire house, including the well in the inner courtyard. He cleaned up all the moss and dirt on the surface of the well, and even replaced the old offerings and incense sticks with new ones.

After winter had ended, the power line and the internet cable had been fixed. Lu Qingjiu’s Taobao shop opened up again. Even though he had long since mentally prepared himself, when he opened his chatting app, he was still shocked by the huge amount of messages. He didn’t dare to open any of them, instead, he simply edited the description of his shop, saying that his shop would open up again in the middle third of the month. This time, because it had been closed for two months, he would make up for the last two months and put up three hundred bottles for sale just this once.

After finishing up with the shop, Lu Qingjiu turned off his computer. He had too many things to do, he didn’t have any time to rest.

The courtyard needed to be carefully cleaned up one more time, the part of the chicken pen which had broken from the weight of the snow needed to be fixed, and all the bedding in the house needed to be dragged out into the courtyard to be sterilized in the heat of the sun. To sum up, spring was the busiest time of the year.

The entire village had come back to life, with none of the silence of winter, hustle and bustle all around.

Lu Qingjiu was researching how to repair his chicken coop when he heard a loud commotion coming from outside. It seemed like there was a big crowd of people talking. Just then, Yin Xun came back from outside, so Lu Qingjiu asked him about what was going on.

“Do you still remember that group of people we saw outside the dumpling shop that day?” Yin Xun said, “They’ve come running over to our village.”

“Ah?” Lu Qingjiu was stunned. “What did they come here for?”

“I don’t know.” Yin Xun also found it rather inexplicable. “There’s really a lot of them, about twenty or thirty, and they’re all carrying video cameras…”

Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu walked over to the door to take a look, and saw that the group of people were gathered at an old house not far from their home. All the people that had been living in that house had left Shuifu village, and it had been left unoccupied for a very long time. From how that group of people looked, it seemed like they were going to be living there.

The other villagers were also watching the group from afar, some wary, others curious. Shuifu village’s connection to the outside world was very weak. It had already been a very long time since so many strangers had suddenly come to visit.

Lu Qingjiu watched for a while. Suddenly, he felt that one of those faces was a little familiar, but he couldn’t think of why, so he simply took a picture with his phone and sent it to Zhu Miaomiao over WeChat, asking her if she knew them. Zhu Miaomiao was the type to fan over celebrities, and thus knew a lot about the entertainment industry.

Not long after, Zhu Miaomiao sent Lu Qingjiu a response, saying that the person in Lu Qingjiu’s picture was a celebrity, and asking Lu Qingjiu where he had taken said picture.

“In the village,” Lu Qingjiu said, “A group of people came to Shuifu village. They’re really incredibly noisy.”

“He’s gone to Shuifu village?!” Zhu Miaomiao exclaimed in shock, “I heard that he seemed to have picked up a large-scale variety show… He actually came to Shuifu village to shoot it?”

“Seems like it,” Lu Qingjiu said, “I saw the film crew.”

Hearing this, Zhu Miaomiao rubbed her palms together. “That’s great, I’ll find some time to come over, I want to see it too hahaha.” These kinds of variety shows were always filmed in very remote areas, and the location would be kept confidential over the entire process, or else it would be easy for a scenario like being surrounded by fans to occur, leading to a situation where the programme wouldn’t be able to go on.

Lu Qingjiu wasn’t at all interested in celebrities. He just thought that this group of people was a little noisy, completely at odds with the quiet Shuifu village. He looked on for a little longer, then went back to his work.

A few days later, Lu Qingjiu heard some gossip from Uncle Li next door. Apparently, they seemed to have rented the right to use that house for three months, and were using it specifically for their programme. The village head had even gone over to ask them to leave, but in the end, he had failed. The crew said that they had paid for the right to stay here, and said that they wouldn’t disrupt the villagers’ usual lives…

Helpless, the village head could only let them do as they wished.

When Lu Qingjiu heard what Uncle Li said, he thought of how when he saw that group a few days ago, Hu Shu seemed to have been arguing with them, but he didn’t know what they had been arguing about. After thinking about it for a while, he called Hu Shu, wanting to ask about it.

After picking up, Hu Shu let out a string of complaints to Lu Qingjiu, saying that they had advised that group to not go to Shuifu village, but they didn’t listen to them at all. They had even told them that Shuifu village wasn’t a place where it would be suitable for outsiders to enter, and if too many people went in, some accident might happen, but that group completely ignored Hu Shu and Pang Ziqi’s advice, and directly entered Shuifu village a few days later.

“Qingjiu, please keep more of an eye on them, I keep having a bad feeling,” Hu Shu said, “I feel like these people are going to incur some great disaster.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “How can I keep an eye on so many people?”

“Ai, that’s true. I guess we can only let them do as they please,” Hu Shu said, “It really is ‘kind words can’t persuade idiots who are determined to die’…”

Lu Qingjiu, “Why were they so firm about shooting in Shuifu village?”

Hu Shu said, “I don’t know who told them this, but they were told that Shuifu village had a nice environment, and was very remote, they were unlikely to be noticed by fans, so they just decided just like that?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Oh, so it’s like that, huh.” Thinking about it carefully, it did seem like there was some truth to their words. “But since they’ve come, they’ve come. Shuifu village is very safe, there’s nowhere that’s dangerous here.”

Hu Shu, “…” It used to be that way, but now, that wasn’t for sure. He didn’t dare to say those words out loud, only vaguely glossing over it with a bunch of ‘mm’s and ‘ah’s.

Lu Qingjiu didn’t think too much about it. After chatting with Hu Shu for a little while longer, he hung up.

Shuifu villages wasn’t very big. It was only a twenty minute walk from one end of the village to the other. The news that the group of people were staying in the village soon spread, with the villagers all casting curious glances on that old house.

Lu Qingjiu also learned from Zhu Miaomiao that what they were going to film was a programme about rural life. It was probably that the guests on the show would need to find their own food and cook for themselves, and the crew wouldn’t provide any food.

After Yin Xun found out, he felt that these people really had nothing better to do. They had a perfectly fucking good life, why did they have to come over to this little place to suffer.

Bai Yuehu didn’t say anything, but Lu Qingjiu keenly felt that his mood didn’t seem to be very good. He lay on his chair, his eyes closed as he rested.

Yin Xun said, “Also, why did someone rent out their old house… It really is strange.”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “Who used to stay there?”

“You don’t remember? It was the Liu family,” Yin Xun said, “One time, they went to the city to play around, and in the end, their child got into a car accident and died just like that. After that, they left Shuifu village… I don’t know where they went.” He was just Shuifu village’s mountain god.

Lu Qingjiu, “Have they ever come back?”

“No,” Yin Xun said, “I didn’t see them ever again.”

Lu Qingjiu felt like this was indeed a little strange. If the Liu family had left this place, who was it that rented their house to the programme crew? If they hadn’t left, then why didn’t Yin Xun ever see them again? Or had they just moved to a bit past the town?

Lu Qingjiu said, “Alright, don’t bother with them anymore. Go was the rice, I’m going to go make dinner.”

“Okay.” Yin Xun happily went off to wash rice. Who cared about what that group of people was going to do, whether he would be able to eat delicious food was what he cared about most.

After Yin Xun left, just as Lu Qingjiu was about to ask Bai Yuehu what he wanted to eat, he heard someone knock on the door. He walked over and opened the door, and was met with an unfamiliar face. That person said, “Excuse me, mister villager, can I borrow a bit of rice?”

Lu Qingjiu, “Borrow rice?”

That person said, “Yeah, we want to cook, but we don’t have any more rice.”

Lu Qingjiu, seeing the camera behind him, knew that these people were filming their programme. He thought for a moment, then got Yin Xun to put a bit of rice in a plastic bag from where he was inside the house. He then passed it to him. “I’d advise you not to go door to door to ask for things like this. This place is rather wary of outsiders, you won’t be able to borrow anything like this.”

That person took the bag of rice and thanked him with a smile, but clearly didn’t take Lu Qingjiu’s words to heart. After all, hadn’t he just managed to borrow something just like this?

Lu Qingjiu closed the door after him, then saw Bai Yuehu, whose eyes had originally been closed as he rested, had opened his eyes, which were filled with gloominess. Lu Qingjiu suddenly realised… It’s over, his family’s fox spirit wasn’t an ordinary level of protective over food.