Seize the moment!

Not daring to waste a single moment, Liu Qishuang immediately pressed his palms together in front of his chest, spun around quickly, and earnestly prayed to the gods in all directions, thinking to himself that if, at this very moment, a deity were indeed passing by, he would dearly hope that the deity would hear his heartfelt plea.

He wanted to be the fulang of the Wan family. He wanted to be Wan Dongyang’s fulang.

As soon as those words left his heart, Liu Qishuang dashed toward Wan Dongyang, while Wan Xiaohua had already rushed over, shouting.

“Uncle, Uncle!”

Wan Dongyang was sitting in a patch of dry grass at that moment, waving at the two of them and grinning foolishly.

He was fine. Although the whole incident had happened in the blink of an eye, he hadn’t simply lost his grip and fallen from the tree, sprawled out in all directions.

A moment ago, the branch beneath his feet had snapped, but the one he was holding onto hadn’t. He’d swung the branch to find a safe spot to land, adjusted his posture, and then let go to jump down on his own.

Apart from looking a bit disheveled and embarrassed, he was completely unharmed.

When Wan Dongyang crawled out of the pile of dry grass, his left hand accidentally brushed against a piece of dried branch from wild raspberries. A dry thorn on it pricked the palm of his hand, and to make matters worse, the thorn snapped off and lodged in his flesh.

His limbs were still trembling, which was reassuring, but his brow was already furrowed. Just as Wan Dongyang was picking at the broken thorn in his palm, his right hand was grabbed by Liu Qishuang.

“Don’t pick at it. That thorn is too small; it needs to be extracted. The more you press, the deeper it’ll go.” As he spoke, Liu Qishuang had already walked away. Wan Dongyang stood by the pile of dry grass, watching him head toward a place filled with wild raspberries.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his back, snapping him back to attention. He turned to glare at Wan Xiaohua, who was using him as a punching bag.

“What are you doing? The grass bits aren’t even clean yet, and you’ve already beaten it to death.” Wan Dongyang really wanted to give Wan Xiaohua a good thrashing himself, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to lay a heavy hand on his only niece. He merely tugged once on her long braid, then cautioned her carefully, “You mustn’t tell your grandma about what happened today—not just Grandma, you can’t tell anyone. Otherwise, they’ll nag you about it for ages.”

“I won’t say a word. I’m smart enough to know that if Grandma and the others find out, they’ll never let me go up the mountain again.” Wan Xiaohua tilted her chin up, her face beaming with pride. But she didn’t let that distract her from her task; she brushed the grass clippings clean off the man’s chest and shoulders, then told him to look down. She even stood on her tiptoes, ready to pick the dry grass off his head.

Wan Dongyang obediently lowered his head, and Liu Qishuang returned with the vine thorn he had finally found. Liu Qishuang gestured toward the vine thorn in his hand, then glanced at Wan Dongyang’s hand.

Wan Dongyang already knew what he was up to, so he obediently held out his left hand, palm open.

Liu Qishuang had exceptionally keen eyesight; even a small fragment of a broken thorn embedded in the flesh didn’t escape his notice. He grasped the man’s palm, confirmed the depth and direction of the thorn, and carefully prodded at it with the slender vine thorn in his hand. In just a few moments, the fragment was extracted.

“It’s out.” Liu Qishuang looked up and gave him a cheerful smile, then quickly turned his head away. He took a few steps back, moving further away from Wan Dongyang before discarding the thorn he held in his hand.

The moment the tiny splinter emerged from his palm, the discomfort in Wan Dongyang’s hand vanished. He clapped his hands and thanked him, but his mind was still on the words his mother had spoken earlier.

His mother’s eye for beauty was indeed spot-on; Liu-ger was truly quite handsome.

He hadn’t even known what the Liu family’s ger looked like before; he’d only heard he was a quiet young man with one eye larger than the other.

People in the village loved things that came in pairs; even when building a house, the main hall had to be symmetrical—it was absolutely forbidden for the walls at the two corners to be different; similarly, one large and one small eye, when seen by others, was not only unattractive but also considered somewhat inauspicious.

But the pair of eyes that had just caught his gaze were, no matter how he looked at them, quite handsome. The one with double eyelids was handsome, and the one with single eyelids was handsome too. Even with two eyes of different sizes on the same face, one couldn’t say it was an unattractive face.

No, wait—it wasn’t just not unattractive; it was actually quite pretty.

It’s just a pity that such a pretty face is so small—it’s probably not even as big as his palm. His parents are truly heartless; they’ve raised a fine little ger to be as frail as a vine, ready to snap at the slightest bend.

While Wan Dongyang was cursing Liu Congxiang and her husband in his mind, Liu Qishuang had already grabbed a branch and started climbing the tree. He’d already made up his mind to sell the Chinese mahogany buds in town tomorrow. Since he’d come all this way today, he had to gather as many as possible to make it worth his while.

Seeing him about to climb the tree, the Wan uncle and niece shouted for him to come down immediately. Liu Qishuang merely gave them a smile, then hopped upward like a little rabbit and was soon up in the tree.

Once Liu Qishuang was up in the tree, he relaxed his grip and finally had a moment to explain to them, “Don’t worry, I’ll use the branch from a distance.”

Liu Qishuang truly wasn’t afraid. Even on a tiny twig, he dared to perch, and with a few light taps of his branch against the Chinese mahogany tree’s tips, the leaves obediently fell to the ground.

Once Liu Qishuang had gathered most of the Chinese mahogany nuts from the tree, he happily climbed down. Wan Dongyang, however, felt a bit disheartened, wondering to himself, “How heavy is he? He managed to snap such a thick branch under his weight, yet just moments ago, Liu-ger was stepping on even thinner ones without any trouble.”

With these thoughts in mind, Wan Dongyang couldn’t help but take a closer look at Liu Qishuang’s arms and legs. Upon closer inspection, he realized they were indeed slender, so he cursed Liu Congxiang and her husband in his heart once more.

“Two idiots.”

Since Liu Qishuang had decided to go to town tomorrow to sell Chinese mahogany, he naturally had to discuss it with Wan Dongyang. After all, he’d made an arrangement with someone to hold onto the cash for him, and the weather had been working in his favor these past few days. His parents thought he was working at the Wan household, so he’d taken the opportunity to gather wild vegetables to sell in town.

Besides, even if his family found out, he wasn’t worried—he’d just say he was helping the Wan family sell them. After all, the cash was in Wan Dongyang’s hands.

As soon as Liu Qishuang mentioned going to town tomorrow to sell Chinese mahogany, Wan Dongyang immediately understood why he’d been working so hard earlier—even for mahogany leaves far from the trunk, he’d been climbing up thin branches to knock them down from the tips. It was all for the sake of making cash.

“That’s a coincidence—I have business in town tomorrow as well.” Wan Dongyang didn’t want to drag out the matter with the restaurant. He felt he still needed to pay a visit to the Huiwei Lou, lest the Baiwei Lou find a new owner one day and kick him to the curb. If that happened, his father would be left with no choice but to lug a pigeon to the market to hawk it himself.

Hearing Wan Dongyang’s words, Liu Qishuang felt reassured. On the way down the mountain, they picked quite a few wild vegetables. He even commandeered the small hoe Wan Xiaohua was holding, using it to dig up a good amount of houttuynia. Wan Dongyang also had him pick several grass seeds that were in full bloom.

“You can sell these, too?” Ever since learning about the loquat leaves, Liu Qihuang had held Wan Dongyang in even higher esteem. Now, hearing that these wild herbs from the wasteland could also fetch cash, he was utterly astonished.

The village children recognized quite a few wild plants and edible weeds in the fields, but their knowledge was limited to distinguishing whether a plant was safe for humans or pigs to eat; beyond that, they knew nothing.

“This plant is also known as milk vetch; it’s a medicinal herb. The tender shoots are edible, and once it blooms, the flowers have medicinal value too. Go ahead and pick some—take a little of both the shoots and the flowers. If you happen to meet a woman who knows her way around herbs, those flowers might even fetch a good price.”

“…….. ”

Wan Dongyang said, “This weed—no, wait, this milk vetch is a medicinal herb? And it can actually be sold for cash?”

Liu Qishuang was now looking at Wan Dongyang with sparkling eyes, his gaze filled with admiration and joy; he seemed even more devout than when he had been praying to the Buddha just moments ago.

He never expected his gains today to be so great!

Today he’d eaten delicious pastries and candies, received a cough remedy, and now he’d even identified a new medicinal herb—what a bountiful day!

They made their way down the mountain in high spirits. Along the way, the three of them saw quite a few villagers also searching for things in the mountains, but since there were no clear paths, even if they were not far apart, they might not necessarily run into each other.

When they encountered Song Saixue and a few village girls, Liu Qishuang felt the pastries in his sleeve pocket, sighed helplessly, and, after a quick greeting, hurried on his way.

In the past, Saixue would have given him a steamed bun to eat, but he’d never had anything good to offer her. Now that he had something nice, there were too many people around, so he’d have to wait for another chance.

As the group neared the village entrance, the sun, hidden behind thin clouds, was already low on the horizon. It looked to be around the hour of You—the time for preparing dinner. Liu Qishuang glanced anxiously toward home and spotted his grandfather working in the fields on South Mountain.

His joy vanished in an instant.

Liu Qishuang thought it best to head home first. He planned to brew some loquat leaf tea for his grandfather, then return to the Wan household to sort through the wild vegetables they’d picked that day. But he hadn’t anticipated that Wan Dongyang had already thought of everything and made all the necessary arrangements.

As soon as they arrived home, Wan Dongyang had Wan Xiaohua go pick some loquat leaves and asked Wan Dasao to help boil them into a decoction. He then had Wan Xiaohua take the decoction directly to the field behind the Liu family’s house.

Liu Qishuang thought it was inappropriate—too much trouble for others—but Wan Dongyang pointed to the flowers covering Wan Xiaohua’s head and said, “What trouble? She’d love nothing more than to strut around the village with that bald head of hers, showing it off.”

“Hehe, off I go~” Boiling loquat water didn’t take long. Wan Xiaohua didn’t argue with Wan Dongyang at all; she picked up the bamboo tube filled with the boiled loquat leaves and cheerfully headed out the door.

After that, Liu Qishuang busied himself sorting and bundling the wild greens they’d picked that day. Mother Wan pitched in as well, and once Wan Xiaohua returned without the loquat tea, she joined in too. With everyone working together, the task went quickly; by the time dinner was served, they’d already finished most of it.

Liu Qishuang had already eaten breakfast at the Wan household that morning, so he refused to eat dinner. No matter how the Wans tried to persuade him, he refused to sit down at the table. Finally, Mother Wan had no choice but to pick out two eggs boiled with shepherd’s purse flowers and hand them to him. “Here, take these. We counted you in when we boiled them. If you won’t eat them, we can’t bring ourselves to eat them either.”

“Aunt Wan, I’m not hungry.” Liu Qishuang just smiled and refused to take them. After all, they were just two eggs—who couldn’t manage to eat those?

Eggs, whether raw or cooked, are hard to drop and break on the ground. Just as Aunt Wan was racking her brains, Wan Dongyang came out of the house, took the eggs from her hand, and told her to go inside first.

Wan Dongyang didn’t shove the eggs into his hands, but instead crouched down beside his and said slowly, “Eggs boiled with shepherd’s purse flowers are a medicinal dish. Eating them is good for the eyes, and they can clear internal heat and dispel toxic heat. Your grandfather has a terrible cough, doesn’t he? There must be a blockage in his lungs. Take them

You and your grandfather can each have one. Consider it a thank-you for picking the thorns out for me today—otherwise, I’d have been in pain all the way home.”

Upon hearing Wan Dongyang extol the benefits of the dish, Liu Qishuang felt a twinge of hesitation. But when Wan Dongyang pressed the egg into his hands again, he accepted it, thinking he could simply give the extra cash to someone after selling the Chinese mahogany tomorrow.

It was nearly the hour of Xu before Liu Qishuang had finished preparing all the wild greens he’d picked that day. Mother Wan even brought him a few wooden basins to fill with water, so the greens would still be fresh and tender tomorrow.

Having been scolded so many times, Liu Qishuang had learned his lesson. On his way home, he hid all the food he was carrying in the family vegetable patch, leaving only a few loquat leaves in his back basket.

With the loquat leaves, Grandpa would be able to boil water for himself even if he wasn’t there tomorrow.