Chapter 211: The Golden Hen That Lays Eggs

Without needing Hu Min to explain, he understood immediately: these items were all tokens of gratitude from the families of the troops under General Nanke. If He Lingchuan hadn't sacrificed himself to blow up the Earth-Hole Spider's nest in the Ghost Needle Shi Lin and lured away the great demon Zhu Xiuer, even if General Nanke had managed to escape, there was no telling how many of his men would have been buried in that forest.

These human lives were not just numbers; behind them were wives and children, elderly parents, a family's livelihood, and the joys of the mortal world.

How many families had he spared from heart-wrenching pain with this one act of self-sacrifice? Human emotions were sometimes just that simple and unadorned—they had to send something to express their gratitude.

"Surprised? Unexpected, right?" Hu Min hadn't said anything beforehand, wanting to leave the surprise for him to unpack himself. "There's so much stuff, let me help you move it inside."

The two of them moved the items into the courtyard one by one, until half the space was gone.

As he moved them, He Lingchuan felt puzzled: "Why didn't the thief take these instead of stealing the fish and firewood from my room?"

"How would I know?" Hu Min shrugged. "Maybe taking things from right in front of your door is too conspicuous. Your doorstep has been too lively lately."

Just then, a child of five or six stood by the door, peeking in. Hu Min asked him, "Little brat, what do you want?"

"I live there." The boy pointed toward the east.

"I know." He Lingchuan recognized him; this was the child of his eastern neighbor. Last time, when the Emperor Flow appeared and He Lingchuan was up on the roof pulling off tiles, he had seen the boy's father tie him to a table leg.

"Are you He..." The child couldn't remember.

"Yes, I am."

"Wait a moment, don't close the door!"

The child ran off. He Lingchuan heard him open a door, close it, and the sound of pitter-patter footsteps throughout.

Then, the boy appeared at He Lingchuan's door again, holding a bouquet of flowers:

"My dad told me to bring this to you once your door was open, and to say thank you."

It was a huge bouquet. He Lingchuan only recognized the amaryllis and red begonias; the white ones seemed to be daisies, and he didn't recognize the rest at all. Regardless, they were a riot of colors, in full bloom, with some still bearing water droplets.

Of course, under the biting outdoor wind, the droplets quickly froze into beads of ice.

He Lingchuan hurriedly took them and put them inside the room, lest the fresh flowers turn into frozen ones. "Is your dad also a patrol guard?"

He remembered that this kid's siblings were still young and couldn't have joined the army.

"No." The child shook his head like a rattle. "But Mom and Dad said you saved a lot of people, and you're a good person."

He Lingchuan couldn't help but pat his head. "Alright, thank your mom and dad for me."

Hu Min, however, remarked, "It's freezing cold, where did your dad get so many fresh flowers?"

The child grinned, missing a front tooth. "I don't know."

"Where does he work?"

"He often goes to the command post to deliver things!"

He Lingchuan and Hu Min looked at each other and smiled; so that was it.

There were specialized greenhouses in the city for growing flowers. Besides supplying the wealthy, Commander Zhong's official residence and private mansion also needed them. It was said that his late wife loved flowers, and the Zhong residence would change out a batch every few days.

He Lingchuan dug a bag of beef taffy out of the mountain of gifts and handed it to the child. "For you, take it home and eat."

The boy thanked him and went home, overjoyed.

Hu Min patted He Lingchuan on the shoulder. "Didn't expect this, did you? You're already a celebrity in this area; you could probably eat for free."

He Lingchuan didn't know what to make of it. "I really didn't expect it."

Since his adventure in the Panlong Ruins, He Lingchuan had been through several life-and-death battles, big and small. He had saved the villagers of County Magistrate from the bandits of Woling Pass, and saved his whole family and Ke Jihai from the demon puppeteer Dong Rui, but never before had anyone thanked him so directly and fervently.

This feeling of being liked and thanked, it seemed... not bad at all.

"How did the news spread so fast?" He Lingchuan touched his nose. "The battle at the Ghost Needle Shi Lin only ended a few days ago, right?"

"After every major battle, the Military Merit Department sends people throughout the city to proclaim the heroic deeds. The day after General Nanke returned to Panlongcheng, you and Sun Jiayuan were posthumously honored as heroes. If it weren't so cold, I bet people would be lining up to leave flowers at your door. Later, when you were rescued and survived, it caused quite a stir in this area. It's just a pity you were unconscious then and couldn't come out to accept the adoration."

He Lingchuan understood.

Panlongcheng mobilized everyone to join the fight to defend their home precisely by honoring the advanced and establishing role models in this way.

He really hadn't expected that one day he would be treated as a role model and example.

This feeling was very subtle.

After all, only he knew that his heroism was built on the foundation of being "undying."

For anyone else here, death meant eternal slumber; for him, it was merely the moment of waking from a dream.

If his life here were also limited to just once, would he have dared to jump into the spider's nest without hesitation? He Lingchuan didn't know himself.

He sighed and chased the thoughts away. "So, there are people here who thank me, and people who steal my stuff?"

Hu Min laughed loudly and headed out first. "Is this your first day in Panlongcheng?"

An hour later, He Lingchuan and Hu Min were standing at the Pengcheng Office.

Liu Gongcao had taken a half-day leave, and today they were received by Xu Gongcao, a thin, small man with an expressionless face.

"You're alive?" Xu Gongcao heard him report his name, flipped through the ledger, and finally said, "We'll add you back to the military register, and your merits will have to be recalculated."

"Everything else is fine, just give me that tin house first." He Lingchuan hadn't expected his base in the dream to be robbed. "My old shack was just stolen."

"Only the families of fallen heroes get tin houses as compensation." Xu Gongcao looked at him askance. "Are you a hero?"

He Lingchuan was stubborn. "Whether I'm dead or alive, I was the one who burned the Earth-Hole Spider's nest. Why do the merits need to be recalculated?"

"What's given to the living is called a reward; what's given to the dead is called compensation. Compensation is more generous, understand?" Xu Gongcao replied stiffly. "Since you're alive, you can't get the compensation. The tin house will be downgraded to a water house."

Hu Min stepped in to smooth things over. "A water house isn't bad either. I've been to the water houses in Zeng Girl's Alley; they're spacious and bright. The residents are either merchants, soldiers, or officials of Panlongcheng—it's not like the surroundings of your old wooden shack."

Isn't choosing a house just choosing a location?

Isn't choosing a house just choosing amenities and neighbors?

Did he think he was choosing a pile of wood and a few roof tiles? Xu Gongcao added, "I live in a water house myself."

He Lingchuan had no choice but to comply.

Because this was a recorded individual act of great merit, the reward was more generous than all his previous ones combined. Just the reward money was five hundred taels, plus ten mu of high-grade paddy fields and thirty mu of medium-grade fields. He didn't even listen to the rest of the miscellaneous rewards.

His landholdings had suddenly surged from two mu of medium-grade fields to a total of forty mu? Had he completed the transition from a poor peasant to a landlord? Going out to fight was indeed the fastest way to gain military merit.

Of course, it was also the most dangerous.

"I can't manage the fields myself; you help me rent them out." He remembered Hu Min saying that the Pengcheng Office also handled such business.

Soldiers were either training or patrolling; when would they have time to tend fields? When they rented out their fields, tenant farmers would grow crops to exchange for money, which gave them a means of livelihood.

Tenant farming was a very important part of Panlongcheng's economy.

"Or—" Xu Gongcao suddenly took out a land deed. "You could also choose to take all the rewards from this military merit and exchange them for a storefront on Wang Lin Avenue, with a ten-year lease."

"A storefront?" This was the first time He Lingchuan had heard that a storefront could be exchanged for military merit.

Hu Min shouted from the side, "Exchange! Exchange! Of course we want to exchange!"

"Do you know how hard it is to get a storefront in Panlongcheng? Especially on a place like Wang Lin Avenue that makes money every day!" Hu Min pounded his chest. "Why can't I run into such a good thing? Xu Gongcao, can you exchange a storefront for me too?"

"There's only one storefront, and that's because a twenty-year lease expired and it was reclaimed. This is public property; you can operate it yourself or rent it out, but you cannot buy or sell it yourself."

"Does everything you said about the merits also include the water house?" A water house was at least two grades higher than a wooden shack.

"Of course. If you exchange it for a storefront, then when you walk out of the Pengcheng Office, you'll only have one land deed on you." Xu Gongcao was blunt and annoying. "Decide quickly. If you don't want it, there are plenty of people who do; the line could stretch all the way to Wang Lin Avenue."

The military merit rewards He Lingchuan received this time, including the paddy fields, other miscellaneous items, the five hundred taels of reward money, and a water house that money couldn't buy, were already enough for him to live a comfortable and decent middle-class life in Panlongcheng. Should he take all this and exchange it for a storefront of unknown size and location, with a contract term of only ten years? Heh.

"Fine, I'll exchange." He Lingchuan pushed everything forward, trusting Hu Min's judgment.

He could only watch helplessly as the water house deed that had just been taken out was taken back.

His dream of upgrading to a big house would have to say goodbye for now.

When Xu Gongcao finished the final procedure, a trace of a smile appeared on his serious face. "Congratulations, this is what you deserve."

"Huh?" Could it be that Xu Gongcao also had some nephew or niece in General Nanke's troops? He Lingchuan thought his next sentence would be "Let me say, thank you," but Xu Gongcao was very concise:

"Done, next!"

So when He Lingchuan left the Pengcheng Office, he only had a shop contract in his pocket that would flutter away in a breeze.

"If this shop doesn't earn me back one thousand taels of silver, plus the ten-year interest on that one thousand taels, I'm taking your house to live in!"

Hu Min ignored his threat and hooked an arm around his neck. "Quick, treat me to a drink! No, wait, you've picked up a golden hen that lays eggs this time; you have to invite Captain Xiao and A Luo to drink too!"

"I don't even know the specific location; is that storefront really that good?"

"Have you ever walked down Wang Lin Avenue?" Hu Min looked at him with contempt. "Right, a poor wretch like you wouldn't have the qualifications to walk there anyway. Wang Lin Avenue only sells the best goods, plus exotic items from other places; high-ranking military officers and their families all hang out there."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 212 =====