A Single Flower Of The Village - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Business at the village was as good as ever. Many stalls even had signs saying “Internet Famous XX,” and living people coming to check in and take photos were endless.

Having many people is usually a good thing, but sometimes it affects business. Living people who just want to eat something get impatient seeing long queues and move on to other places. There are also those who look down on “Internet-famous” culture, believing it to be over-hyped, assuming those in line are all shills. For people who don’t visit often, it is indeed difficult to tell which shop is actually the best.

Lu Shouqiu didn’t have such worries. She was an old glutton. Pulling Ruan Jingluo, she turned left and right until they arrived at a very quiet and simple stilt house. There was no sign at the entrance, and it didn’t look like it was open for business, but once inside, one could smell an extremely rich aroma of milk and flowers.

As she walked inside, she introduced it to Ruan Jingluo: “The owner here is Auntie A-Mei. She specializes in pastries. Her Guan-Guan (pot-roasted) milk tea is also the most delicious in the whole village, but Auntie A-Mei doesn’t like promotion, so few people know about it.”

Ruan Jingluo had been to the village before, but only halfway down the main street. She had randomly bought a portion of mixed potatoes from a stall on the side and went back. If Lu Shouqiu hadn’t brought her today, she wouldn’t have known such a place was hidden inside. The aroma wafting out made her lose the heart to examine the surroundings. After just a few glances, she saw it was no different from any other stilt house.

There was a small hall on the second floor of the stilt house. A young woman with brightly colored clothes, long black hair piled in a high bun, and silver jewelry was cooking on a high, small stove to the side—this was the Guan-Guan roasted milk tea Lu Shouqiu had been talking about all the way here. She used a small, round-bellied pottery pot with a handle to boil dried roses, longan, brown sugar, red dates, and wolfberry with a little water first, then poured in fresh milk bought from the herdsmen.

The method was simple. The reason it was more fragrant and sweet than other small shops was that this charming Auntie A-Mei was never bothered by the trouble of going to the Underworld’s Nether Spring every day to fetch water. The spring eye was deep in the netherworld, hence its name. The spring water was clear and sweet, several times better than the water of the Milky Way.

Not only that, but the dried roses and other materials used were quite particular. Also, because the ingredients were limited, the amount made each day was limited. Only old customers who knew their way around had the fortune to drink it. However, the pastries were not limited. There were many displayed in the small compartments on the counter, such as common things like Yunnan ham mooncakes, flower cakes, and Posu buns. Looking at the styles, they were also handmade and fresh out of the oven, still hot.

There were also rare ones, such as termite mushroom and ham pastries, rose buckwheat pastries, plum cake pastries, butter milk biscuits, goat milk cheese cakes, and grilled rushan (milk cake). There were still many varieties. Guan-Guan roasted milk tea was just a specialty of the small shop. Fragrant Pu’er tea was the treasure of the shop, but Lu Shouqiu considered herself a “very vulgar ghost” who couldn’t appreciate fine tea, so she didn’t mention it to Ruan Jingluo.

There were other guests in the hall. Lu Shouqiu picked a window seat based on her face. This was Auntie A-Mei’s small table for sitting alone daily, and she didn’t like guests sitting there. Lu Shouqiu was an exception. Seeing her come, Auntie A-Mei was very happy, smilingly serving her the freshly roasted Guan-Guan milk tea first; the fragrance of red dates and roses was the strongest.

Although Ruan Jingluo was a face of a living person, Auntie A-Mei knew the news about the new gatekeeper. Seeing that they were together and seemed to have a good relationship, she smiled and said: “It seems Qiuqiu likes her new employee very much. I haven’t seen you bring anyone else to hang out here before. This is the first one.” Her gaze shifted to ask Ruan Jingluo: “What is the little girl’s name?”

Ruan Jingluo said her name, but she was skeptical about Auntie A-Mei saying Lu Shouqiu didn’t bring others here. Based on her understanding of Lu Shouqiu, this person had an outgoing, social-butterfly personality—someone who could chat for half an hour upon seeing a dog on the side of the road. Everyone on the farm was familiar with her; how could she have never brought anyone else here?

She muttered her thoughts. When Auntie A-Mei heard this, she was slightly stunned, then laughed loudly: “Oh, Qiuqiu, the little girl you found is a vinegar jar! She’s jealous of your past connections.”

“Who’s jealous!” Ruan Jingluo jumped up to refute, her face turning bright red.

Lu Shouqiu hurriedly protected the milk tea on the table, grinning at her: “Auntie A-Mei is right. You are the only person I’ve brought here. Sit down, sit down… why so excited? You almost knocked the table over.”

Ruan Jingluo made a fist, warning fiercely: “Stop talking nonsense. It’s truly unbearable.”

Auntie A-Mei turned to serve them two plates of pastries. Lu Shouqiu took a small, puffy, soft biscuit, broke it in half, and shared it with Ruan Jingluo.

Her movements were natural, and Ruan Jingluo didn’t think too much, lowering her head to take a bite.

The fermented and leavened dough not only looked white as snow, but the texture was fluffy and dense, and the taste was a mix of sweet and salty, not abrupt, and actually quite delicious.

After finishing the half in her hand, Ruan Jingluo took another one herself. Paired with the rose-scented Guan-Guan milk tea, it made her mood—which had been irritable and resentful due to the call from her hometown—improve quite a bit.

“Eating sweets makes people feel better.” Lu Shouqiu suddenly said that.

Ruan Jingluo’s action of drinking milk tea paused. She lowered her eyes and gave a fuzzy “Mmh.” Indeed.

Lu Shouqiu looked at her and smiled, asking: “How is it? It’s pretty good here, right? Don’t want to leave now, do you?”

“It’s alright, I guess.” Ruan Jingluo muttered reluctantly.

She thought she would run away within three days, but now she was actually a bit unwilling to leave. But she wouldn’t let Lu Shouqiu see that.

Lu Shouqiu was too lazy to expose her: “What do you mean ‘it’s alright’? Your standards are way too high. Is it you working for me or me working for you?”

“You don’t pay a cent, yet you want to hear nice words? You miser.”

Lu Shouqiu squinted at her: “I heard you earned a lot of money selling fresh produce at the gate.”

Ruan Jingluo quickly covered her wallet with the posture of fighting to the death if she dared to touch her money: “What do you want? You already gave those things to me; how I deal with them is my business. The money earned is also mine. Don’t you get greedy and want a cut. Let me tell you, there’s no way!”

She had seen people who loved money, but never someone who loved it this much. Lu Shouqiu was speechless, rolling her eyes in imitation of her: “You hurry up and hide it well; don’t lose it.” Her tone was extremely disdainful: “I’m truly convinced. If someone didn’t know, they’d think you had hundreds of millions in your pocket, terrified someone would rob you.”

The cash in her bag wasn’t much—just a few hundred yuan given by a few grandmas who didn’t know how to use online payment. Ruan Jingluo kept it precious. This was her guarantee for survival. A rich lady like Lu Shouqiu, who sat on millions of acres of farmland, wouldn’t understand. Talking to her was like playing the lute to a cow.

Ruan Jingluo continued to eat and ignored her.

Lu Shouqiu asked Auntie A-Mei for another serving of jasmine-flavored milk tea. The two of them created a small world of their own under the window, bickering. Not only did Auntie A-Mei, an old ghost of several hundred years, find it interesting, but other guests also couldn’t help but reveal smiles, saying they were a pair of bickering sweethearts.

When they left, Auntie A-Mei packed many pastries for them, saying: “Come again tomorrow night; I’ll make Nyonya cakes for you.”

Other guests heard and started to jeer: “We want to eat too. The hostess can’t be biased.”

“Go away, you’re everywhere.” Auntie A-Mei giggled and waved her hand. The silver jewelry on her wrist collided and made a crisp sound, making her look even more charming and attractive.

In fact, many living people came here to eat with other purposes. Once, a big boss wanted to keep Auntie A-Mei as a mistress. After being rejected, he still didn’t give up, sending gold, silver, and jewels to the small shop as if they were free. Auntie A-Mei wouldn’t even look at them and sent them all back the same way they came.

There were many gossips on the farm, and this was just one of them. On the way back, Lu Shouqiu told Ruan Jingluo the story: “Auntie A-Mei never married and has become an old maid. She has been running this small shop by herself for many years.”

Ruan Jingluo was not a person who loved gossip: “You just ate so much of people’s food, and they didn’t charge you, yet you turn around and talk about other people’s private matters. And you call her an ‘old maid.’ How old are you? Not respecting people like that—your character is really bad.”

Her mouth had offended who knows how many people. Back when she was working, her bosses and colleagues often made things difficult for her because of this, saying she was unsociable, cold, and aloof. She didn’t understand—it was just a stupid job; why be sociable? Who wants to be sociable with that trash?

Under the dim, flickering lights, Lu Shouqiu rolled her eyes one after another. In terms of seniority, Auntie A-Mei would have to call her “Old Ancestor.” However, she couldn’t say this to Ruan Jingluo now.

She yawned and said lazily: “Yes, yes, yes… my character is bad, and I have no morals.”

Seeing her feeling sleepy after being full, Ruan Jingluo remembered her own life of distress and fear these past few days and felt a rush of anger. She sneered: “Heh… you must be exhausted from going out to play. You lied to me saying you were going to deep mountains and old forests, but clearly you went to eat, drink, and be merry. Is a luxury yacht comfortable? Why didn’t you fall into the sea and drown?”

Lu Shouqiu slammed the brakes on her feet, turned around, and blocked her path. She was half a head shorter than Ruan Jingluo, tilted her head, widened her eyes, and looked at the other person, asking very seriously: “Did I have a grudge against you in my previous life?”

Ruan Jingluo had a major opinion of her. If it weren’t for a grudge in the previous life, it wouldn’t make sense. But she didn’t remember much about her previous life—which wasn’t strange; it was normal not to remember. She didn’t even remember how old she was. In short, she was very, very old. She existed even before Pangu split heaven and earth.

Later, when the Underworld was created, she went to be reincarnated when she had nothing better to do. But the pot of soup Meng Po brewed didn’t work on her. Even after reincarnation, she still remembered the events of the past—it was just like changing a shell. She felt it was very boring. After her last life ended, she hadn’t been reincarnated again.

The name Lu Shouqiu was given by her parents in her previous life. She was born in the seventh lunar month. An ancient saying goes: “The seventh month is Mengqiu, also called Chuxiu or Shouqiu.”

So, she was named Shouqiu.

Her current identity was indeed a vicious ghost. She hadn’t reported to the Underworld for so many years after dying; the Ten Yama Kings could only give her such a label.

Her face was suddenly enlarged, and the small fuzz on her face was clearly visible.

Ruan Jingluo, who had never been so close to anyone, felt a bit uncomfortable, stepped back, and said with disgust: “Forget it. I don’t want to have any entanglements with a psycho like you for two lifetimes. Move away; don’t get so close to me.”

Lu Shouqiu pushed her luck. The more Ruan Jingluo didn’t let her get close, the more she wanted to lean in, her mouth almost touching her: “What, what, what? You dislike me? Am I not good-looking?”

“Mmh, not good-looking, ugly to death.” Ruan Jingluo pushed her away.

There were many living people coming and going on the road. A few young men and women who looked like college students came running over from the front, laughing and joking. Lu Shouqiu was facing away from them. When they were about to collide, her footsteps slid to the right, and in the blink of an eye, she took Ruan Jingluo away, letting the group pass by them. She seemed not to notice, still maintaining her previous posture and talking to Ruan Jingluo.

Ruan Jingluo reached out to support her, her hand stopping in mid-air. The emotions in the bottom of her eyes changed rapidly. She was sure she hadn’t seen wrong.

“I’m ugly? Ha? Giving you one last chance to say it again.” Lu Shouqiu was obsessed with the issue of appearance and pointed at herself: “My face, beautiful like a flower, and you say I’m ugly? If there’s something wrong with your eyes, go check the small clinic in the back village, okay? You can cut the line if you report my name, and you can even be exempt from the consultation fee. I’m laughing to death. You say I’m ugly? You’re the ugly one, the world’s number one ugly person.”

Ruan Jingluo retracted her hand and acted as if nothing had happened. Whether Lu Shouqiu was a martial arts master had nothing to do with her. How does that saying go? The more you know, the faster you die.

“Fine, fine, fine… I’m ugly, okay? Can you just walk properly? If you fall and die, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Don’t curse me.” Lu Shouqiu was hopping around in front, her long braids swinging—very lively.

The light shone on her silver jewelry, blindingly bright. The complex Miao embroidery totems on her skirt were vivid and lifelike. Coupled with the ding-ding-dong-dong sound, it seemed like ancient chanting, overlapping with the images Ruan Jingluo mistook for a dream, making her involuntarily trance-like.

“Lu Shouqiu,” she called softly.

“Ah?” Ruan Jingluo had never called her in this tone. After Lu Shouqiu answered, she was vigilant, her hands held in front of her chest in a defensive stance: “What? I sell my skills, not my body. If you dare to mess around, I’m going to scream!”

Instantly, the atmosphere was gone. Ruan Jingluo’s face turned black: “I’ll be angered to death by you sooner or later.”

If she ever got serious with Lu Shouqiu again, she wasn’t human.

Ruan Jingluo walked ahead with fast steps. Lu Shouqiu caught up, chattering non-stop: “Slow down, why are you walking so fast? So what if your legs are long? A-Luo, wait for me. Oh… I can’t walk anymore; I’m going to fall; my foot is broken.”

Even when it reached this point, Ruan Jingluo didn’t stop. Lu Shouqiu pouted and started acting with exaggerated skills. First, she squatted on the ground, holding her ankle and crying out in pain, squeezing out two drops of tears hypocritically. Many passing people stopped to watch the excitement—a beautiful girl crying like this was quite pitiful.

The moment she started calling out, Ruan Jingluo had deliberately slowed her pace. She was the one dawdling and couldn’t keep up, with so many lies, and now she’s playing pitiful.

Ruan Jingluo stood still, her hands at her sides clenched into fists. She chanted “Don’t be angry, don’t be angry, the Bodhisattva lives in my heart” a thousand times, then turned around angrily to lift Lu Shouqiu up.

“Have you acted enough? Do you want me to give you an Oscar for Best Actress?” She asked herself for the 1,008th time what kind of debt she had incurred to encounter a character like Lu Shouqiu.

Lu Shouqiu performed the full set of acting; she could even turn her nose red with fake crying, making it look even more pathetic. She could even pull sympathy votes while crying hiccups: “Why are you so fierce to me? Didn’t we have the best relationship in the world? You have other little fairies outside and don’t want me anymore? Being so impatient with me, wuwuwu…”

Ruan Jingluo ignored the condemning looks from passersby and hugged her arms, sneering: “Act, keep acting.”

It was just that she felt life was boring. Previous gatekeepers didn’t dare to cooperate with her performance. It wasn’t easy to find one who suited her taste, so Lu Shouqiu’s “acting bug” flared up, and she improvised this scene. After she had her fill of fun, she laughed wildly and dragged the about-to-explode Ruan Jingluo out of the crowd.

“Hahahaha… oh, don’t be angry, I know I was wrong. There definitely won’t be a next time.”

Ruan Jingluo was dragged along staggeringly: “Only a ghost would believe you.”

By the time they were far away, the crowd realized they had been played, but they weren’t angry, just smiling and shaking their heads.

Two days later, Xue Caiyun received the express delivery her daughter mailed from Cloud-Qian—a large foam box. When she unpacked it, inside were fresh seafood, packed separately and cushioned with ice packs.

Scallops larger than a human face were rare even in the coastal province of Lindong. Imported ones were very expensive. These four or five that Ruan Jingluo mailed would cost at least over a thousand yuan, and with the abalone and conch, it would be hard to get for less than several thousand.

Xue Caiyun had never seen the mushrooms with a texture like jade, either. Ruan Feiyun (Ruan Jingluo’s younger brother) took a picture and searched for it online but couldn’t find an identical one. It wasn’t until he showed it off in a video and it was pushed to someone’s home page that a knowledgeable person commented that it looked like jade mushrooms from the Cloud-Qian farm—a local specialty. They weren’t sold outside, and if you wanted to buy them, you had to try your luck at the farm’s market. They weren’t available every day, in short, they were hard to come by, and even with money, you might not be able to buy them.

Seeing the comments sounded mysterious, netizens who hadn’t been to the Cloud-Qian farm didn’t believe it. Besides, the appearance of the jade mushrooms looked photoshopped—very fake. It wasn’t until another person who had luckily bought jade mushrooms posted a picture that people believed it, asking if they were delicious.

“Jade mushrooms are very crisp; they break if you touch them slightly. The texture is different from any mushroom on the market. I don’t know how to describe it—crispy, very fragrant, and the fragrance is different from termite mushrooms. Also, the soup of jade mushrooms when steamed is golden, especially fresh. The boss who sold it to me at the time didn’t say much, but my sister was just having her postpartum confinement, and it was used to stew chicken soup.

After drinking it, those small health issues left over after childbirth were cured, and her skin became as good as a newborn’s. She is refreshed every day, and even the baby is healthy and white. It’s been over two years now, and she has never been sick. Later, I went to the farm’s market a few more times, but unfortunately, I didn’t see the boss who sold jade mushrooms. I asked others and found out the boss was a mountaineer, and meeting her was just luck. Looking at the jade mushrooms in the video, the quality is much better than what I bought. Is the one next to it jade cabbage? I bought that too at the time; I just can’t find the picture. This kind of cabbage is also very delicious.”

The video also became popular because of these comments. The round-faced sister who bought fresh food at the farm gate that day also posted a picture in the comment section: “It looks like the same batch of goods as mine. But I didn’t buy it in the market. There was a beautiful girl setting up a stall at the gate. The asking price wasn’t expensive, and I joked that she was doing charity.”

Someone replied to the round-faced sister below: “Coincidence, I was there that day too. I snatched the last dozen big crabs. It’s strange to say. Cloud-Qian belongs to the inland area, and the farm is in the southeast, near the river but not the sea. But the market often sells fresh seafood, and the quality is very good.

Even the big markets in coastal areas may not have such goods. I wonder if anyone in the comment section has bought red coral trout—that is the ultimate. Also, golden frogs, I heard they were raised by the villagers of the farm. The quantity is small, and only a few people have snatched them. They are a hundred times more delicious than ordinary bullfrogs. The night market in the village has ready-made dried pot frogs for sale, also with long queues every day, and limited supply. Does anyone in the comment section know about it?”

Netizens who heard about the farm for the first time: “Rich lady, what are you talking about? A moment farm, a moment market, and now a night market. What exactly is this Cloud-Qian farm you’re talking about?”

Round-faced sister: “Dear netizen, open Baidu. There is a lot of information about Cloud-Qian farm on it. Slowly learn about it~”

Younger brother Ruan Yunfei finished reading the netizens’ comments, especially the ones above. He clicked on the pictures and compared them carefully, then yelled as he ran to the kitchen to stop Xue Caiyun: “Mom, don’t move it yet. Hurry up and call Ruan Jingluo to ask if these things come from the Cloud-Qian farm the netizens are talking about. If it really is, we’re going to be rich!”

Ruan Yunfei was only a year younger than Ruan Jingluo. His studies were average, but the family still sold everything they had to send him abroad for university. Now he was on vacation and back home for a few days. Next week, he was going to Europe with his girlfriend. He asked Xue Caiyun for 100,000 yuan, claiming his girlfriend was from a wealthy family and he couldn’t wrong her while dating her. He couldn’t not take out this amount of money for a trip, or his girlfriend would look down on him. A single bag of his girlfriend’s was worth more than 100,000.

Xue Caiyun was just an ordinary Northern rural woman. After getting married, she stayed home to take care of children, serve her husband, and serve her parents-in-law, all while doing farm work. Usually, she couldn’t even bear to buy decent clothes. How could she come up with 100,000 for Ruan Yunfei to travel?

Her parents-in-law wanted to give it, but they didn’t have it either. Ruan Yunfei had been big-spending since he was a child; the old couple’s coffin money couldn’t withstand his toss. Now they could take out one or two ten-thousands, but 100,000? Even if they were smashed to pieces and sold, they couldn’t scrape it together.

“She’s your sister. How many times have I told you not to call her by her full name? You just won’t listen.” Xue Caiyun said to him.

Working hard day and night for this family, Xue Caiyun looked old. In fact, she wasn’t even fifty. Her temples were full of white hair, and her hair loss was severe. Looking down, one could see the bald spot in the middle. She didn’t dare to touch the things her daughter mailed back, just unpacked them and put them in the refrigerator, waiting for the child’s father to come back to see how to deal with them.

The day before yesterday, the eldest girl called her to say she mailed some things back and asked her to keep them to eat.

She thought they were local specialties like the smoked meat and sausages from before. Who knew it was such high-quality seafood?

As long as it was good, she couldn’t keep it. The smoked meat and sausages were taken by the child’s father to give to relatives, let alone these things now. If she dared to keep them, it would be followed by abuse and beatings.

“She doesn’t treat this as home, nor does she treat us as family. Why should I call her sister?” Ruan Yunfei’s expression was ugly, and he urged her again: “Mom, stop talking about this. Hurry up and call her, ask if it’s true. If it is, I’ll resell it to others right now.”

He saw someone in the comment section offering a high price to buy things from Cloud-Qian farm. While talking, he also searched online. There really was such a place. The pictures of the scenery looked very good. All the items sold at the market mentioned by netizens were very popular. Prices varied, and acting as a middleman could earn an even higher price difference.

Ruan Jingluo still said she had no money, yet she mailed so many things to her mom in the blink of an eye. If it was really obtained from that farm market, it proved she had channels. Ruan Yunfei wanted her to get some goods for him and then resell them at a high price to those who wanted them, to earn some travel expenses.

He didn’t want to toss things like this either, but who told the family to be poor? He instigated his old dad to ask Ruan Jingluo for money, but Ruan Jingluo didn’t give a cent, even stopping the 1,000 yuan living expenses transferred to her mother every month.

This white-eyed wolf, still hoping for him to call her sister? No way, not unless she gave him money.

The son was born by herself; Xue Caiyun knew what he was planning. But apart from sighing, she didn’t stop him, just indulging Ruan Yunfei like this.

“Alright, alright, alright, I’ll call.”

The eldest girl was stubborn, and her temper wasn’t small. Her relationship with the family was bad, especially with her father. They could argue until the world turned upside down even without meeting, just over the phone.

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