Chapter 229

The news that the mute little fool at Hunter Qu's house was not mute and might not be a fool spread through the whole village like the wind along with the dawn, shocking the village chief's whole family into grouping up to visit and watch.

The village chief pointed at himself and asked: "Jingjing, do you know who I am?"

"Village chief," Qu Jing said.

"Then me? Who am I?" The village chief's wife asked eagerly.

"Grandma Ma Dalan," Qu Jing said.

Ma Dalan was so excited she almost cried. Ever since she married the village chief, others' address for her was first Guo's wife, then village chief's wife, and it had been a long time since anyone had called her by her real name.

"Him? Gou Dan?"

Qu Jing: "... Guo Gou Dan."

"Miraculous!" Ma Dalan clapped her hands excitedly. "Now that she can speak, she's not a fool anymore. Old Qu, what kind of elixir did you feed your granddaughter? It's so useful. I'll beg for a dose for the fool in the village next to my maiden home. His family is rich, they raised three big fat pigs! If he's really cured, they'll definitely bring a whole fat pig to thank you!"

Hunter Qu laughed so hard the wrinkles on his face were about to open: "Where is there any elixir? Our Jingjing was never a fool, she could speak. Those few days were because she was shy and scared in the mountains. Now that she's better, she's normal."

The village chief's whole family was still watching forcefully. The village chief pondered for a while and felt something was wrong, so he pulled Hunter Qu outside to mutter in a low voice.

"If your Jingjing is not a fool and not mute, then why would a girl with such a good appearance be thrown into the mountains after being raised until she's this big?" The village chief frowned. "Could it be that she has some illness that can't be seen?"

"Just like your first wife, she looked fine, but suddenly one day she couldn't do it anymore, vomited blood and vomited herself to death."

Hunter Qu's expression froze, a bit nervous: "Then what should we do?"

The village chief thought for a while: "Are you willing to spend money?"

Hunter Qu: "Speak."

"Last time, didn't they call us to the county to hold a meeting? They said a lot of policies, saying that in the future, our rural places will also have doctors, schools, etc. When I was at the meeting, I heard Wang Dana from Dahe Village mention it, saying that the doctors in the provincial capital hospital are particularly amazing."

"When his brother-in-law was working in the provincial capital, his leg was crushed by wood, and he bled all over the ground. He was about to die, but he was saved after being sent to the hospital."

"If you are willing to spend money, I'll ask Wang Dana how to go to the provincial capital and how to get to the hospital. You take your Jingjing to see."

"Ocean dollars are also fine, ocean dollars can also be exchanged for money."

Hunter Qu hesitated: "I have 6 ocean dollars, is it enough?"

"I know the hospital, it was opened by foreigners, they don't let you in without a few ocean dollars."

"It hasn't been run by foreigners for a long time now." The village head indicated that Hunter Qu had been holed up in the mountains for so many years that his information was a bit outdated. He stroked his chin, "I don't know if 6 silver dollars is enough. That Wang Dana didn't tell me how much the medical treatment cost, but his in-laws only have one seedling in the family; they surely had to spend everything they had to get him treated."

"Maybe they even sold the fields."

Hunter Qu was even more nervous, and said in a low voice: "I have two small yellow fish (gold bars), is it enough?"

Village chief:?!

The village chief had an expression of "We've been poor ghosts nesting in the countryside together for all these years, and you were secretly getting rich behind my back."

"Where did you get them?" The village chief was shocked.

"When I was a deserter, I knocked the battalion commander unconscious and took them from him."

The village chief began to regret running away when he was press-ganged back then, missing a path to wealth.

But on second thought, quite a few of the people press-ganged in these ten miles and eight villages back then were like Hunter Qu, but few survived and ran back. They were all missing alive or dead, and their families could only set up an empty grave. The village chief felt balanced again.

"Enough, definitely enough. What kind of illness costs two small yellow fish? Jingjing is truly blessed to be picked up by you. Even the biggest illness can be cured." The village chief turned his head and glanced at Qu Jing in the room, and lowered his voice again. "However, is it worth spending so much money on a girl you picked up?"

"Worth it," Hunter Qu said happily. "Last night, Jingjing just opened her mouth to speak and told me that she would support me in my old age and perform my funeral rites in the future."

The village chief shook his head helplessly.

Neither of them noticed that Qu Jing, who was being pulled by everyone in the room to ask questions, raised her head slightly when Hunter Qu said the last sentence, and her eyes looked toward the door.

For the next few days, Qu Jing and Hunter Qu's days were very plain.

Knowing that Qu Jing was not a fool and not mute, Hunter Qu was even more at ease with Qu Jing, a child, staying at home, and let Qu Jing go to the village to find children to play with during the day.

Qu Jing wasn't really a child, and had no interest in playing with children. She only liked to stay at home and play with wooden carvings. On the contrary, the children in the village were very interested in Qu Jing, because she had money, and could always pull out sweet potatoes and corn from her pockets.

Children with slightly active brains dug wild vegetables every day and carried baskets to exchange for Qu Jing's sweet potatoes, and the bolder ones even stole vegetables from their own vegetable plots to exchange.

Qin Huai watched her exchange vegetables for two days by Qu Jing's side, and felt that Qu Jing just underwent tribulation early. If it were thirty years later, she would definitely be a rich person in a modern era novel.

Finally, on the 5th day Qu Jing exchanged vegetables, Qin Huai saw the vegetables in the basket of a child carrying a basket from afar, and knew how many sweet potatoes they were worth, when the village chief brought him good news.

The village chief had already inquired about the road to the provincial capital. The village was very poor and had no ox carts, but they could take a donkey cart to the county. The county was very poor and had no cars, but they could take an ox cart to the provincial capital.

Along the way, they would sleep in the open and eat in the wind, and bring their own grain. Hunter Qu was a hunter by origin, had guns, knives, and bows and arrows, so there was no need to worry about encountering robbers on the road. The village chief had already made arrangements. Hunter Qu and Qu Jing didn't need to pay for the road, and the fellow passengers all felt that having a hunter was very safe, so they didn't even need to pay for the round-trip road, which was very cost-effective.

They would set off tomorrow morning. The journey was relatively long and might take ten or so days. The village chief knew Hunter Qu couldn't cook, so he prepared pancakes and boiled eggs for him in advance, only charging a 20% processing fee, and supported door-to-door self-pickup of rewards.

Hunter Qu indicated it didn't matter, and even gave the village chief two rabbit skins. The village chief was so happy that he immediately said he would boil 3 more eggs when he went back, so that Qu Jing could eat more on the road. Look at how thin the child was, she needed to supplement more nutrition.

Just like this, Qu Jing and Hunter Qu set off dusty and tired.

Hunter Qu upheld the concept of "poor family, rich road," and carried ocean dollars, fiat currency, copper coins, and small yellow fish close to his body. The two large bags of dry food were prepared by the village chief's wife, there were more than twenty eggs, and there were leather bags for water and several pieces of spliced skins.

Hunter Qu originally wanted to bring the tiger skin, but the tiger skin was too flashy. He could beat two or three robbers, but not necessarily ten or so. This time, going to the provincial capital to see a doctor would take nearly a month, so Hunter Qu packed up all the valuable things in his house and hid them in the cellar.

The grain was placed at the village chief's house, and the several hunting dogs he raised were also entrusted to the village chief to take care of.

The process on the road was very boring.

Whether it was a donkey cart or an ox cart, the speed wasn't fast, and the animals had to rest, walking and stopping. Really comparing, this kind of journey mode was only a bit faster than walking on two feet when Chen Huihong was fleeing from disaster.

If it weren't for the ability to fast-forward when resting, Qin Huai felt he would be bored to death by this journey.

Fast-forward was Qin Huai's adjective for the passage of time.

Qin Huai had this kind of experience when watching Luo Jun's last memory. In the years Luo Jun guarded Liu Tao's grave, Qin Huai was like a bystander watching a movie, watching the sun rise and set, time passing quickly. Several years felt like a blink of an eye, and less than an hour, a few dozen minutes passed.

It was the same when traveling. Qu Jing didn't speak most of the time, and only responded when Hunter Qu asked her if she was thirsty or hungry, or if she wanted to eat something. Plus, Hunter Qu was going to the provincial capital hospital, and several passengers on the road who didn't know the situation thought Qu Jing was terminally ill and about to die, so they hurriedly gave the best position on the ox cart to Qu Jing, letting the child lie half-down instead of sitting.

It wasn't until the ox cart drove into the provincial capital that Qin Huai felt a bit of a modern atmosphere.

The driver sent Hunter Qu and Qu Jing to the hospital entrance, told Hunter Qu where he was staying and when he would return, and if he couldn't catch the return trip, he should tell him.

Hunter Qu was obviously a bit nervous after entering the provincial capital. He carried the hunting rifle wrapped in cloth on his back, and led Qu Jing to turn around blindly at the hospital entrance like a headless fly.

This couldn't be blamed on Hunter Qu; he was illiterate.

Fortunately, the hunting rifle wrapped in cloth on Hunter Qu's back was very eye-catching, and the security at the hospital entrance recognized it at a glance.

Everyone accepted well the behavior of a rural hunter carrying a hunting rifle into the city. It was a chaotic period, and many farmers nesting in the countryside with closed information couldn't even figure out whether the war was over, whether the county head had run away, died, or been replaced. There were still bandits in the mountains who hadn't been wiped out, so bringing something for self-defense on the road was simply too normal.

Learning that Hunter Qu was bringing his granddaughter into the city to see a doctor, the security told Hunter Qu that the gun couldn't be brought into the hospital and had to be kept outside, and led him to exchange money first, then led him to register.

Seeing that the other party's gun was better than his own, Hunter Qu listened obediently.

After Hunter Qu exchanged all the fiat currency, copper coins, and ocean dollars on his body into the currency currently in use, he nervously led Qu Jing to register and find a doctor to see the illness.

The result was naturally fruitless; nothing was found.

In this era, the methods of examination were limited. Qu Jing wasn't really a person who was sick, and Qin Huai was a bit worried during the examination whether it would be found out that Qu Jing wasn't even a human, but it turned out he thought too much. The doctor was very moved that a rural hunter would specially enter the provincial capital to check because he was suspicious, helped Hunter Qu return the number to save him some money, and opened two taels of free soybeans for Qu Jing as a nutritional supplement. He told her to eat some soybeans to supplement nutrition when she went home, and urged Hunter Qu not to be suspicious, and if he was really worried that the child was sick, feed the child something good.

Hunter Qu took the doctor's words to heart, received the two taels of soybeans, and looked for something good all over the street.

In Hunter Qu's simple values, eating something good = white flour + sugar.

First went to the grain store and spent a huge amount of money to buy a bag of white flour, then Hunter Qu looked everywhere for someone selling sugar. As a result, he didn't find anyone selling sugar, but found a pastry shop.

The shop was very small and looked relatively old, but the pastries displayed looked good. From Qin Huai's perspective, just looking at the visible parts, they were all B-grade pastries, combined with the raw materials that could be obtained in this era.

The pastry chef's skills were absolutely quite extraordinary.

Sure enough, the master is in the folk.

Qin Huai sighed secretly in his heart, took a few steps back, and looked up at the shop's sign.

Qin's Pastry Shop.

?

??

???

The shop of Qin Wan's younger brother?

Decades later, the Qin's Pastry Shop that couldn't survive in Beiping had opened into a national chain?

Qin Huai hurriedly looked at the snacks displayed in the shop again.

There were pastries, but not many.

If black flour pastries were the signature of Qin's Pastry Shop, then pretend Qin Huai didn't say anything.

Just looking at them, small square cakes, Ding Sheng cakes, glutinous rice cakes—no matter how you look at it, this shop should be a pastry shop selling Suzhou-style pastries.

Small and exquisite pastries, Hunter Qu looked at them and couldn't move his eyes.

"Jingjing, do you want to eat?" Hunter Qu asked.

Qu Jing looked at the pastries. She wasn't a fool. Having enough sweet potatoes and corn these days was enough to make the children in the village envious, and the legendary white flour steamed buns only appeared in the gossip about the legends of the fool son of the landlord's family bursting to death.

The pastries in front of her, except for the black flour pastries with poor appearance, which one didn't look more expensive than white flour steamed buns? Qu Jing shook her head decisively.

"Don't want to eat."

Hunter Qu knew she wanted to eat.

There was no one in the shop, but one could see there was a partition inside. Hunter Qu gritted his teeth and shouted loudly: "Is anyone here?"

"Yes." A young man in a long gown walked out from the partition inside.

Seeing that the guests were actually a pair of grandfather and granddaughter, the young man was a bit surprised, looked at Qu Jing a few more times, and didn't look down on the two because of their disheveled appearance after traveling for ten days, asking: "What do the guests need?"

The young man was so polite, Hunter Qu felt even more timid, stared at the exquisite pastries displayed for a few glances, and asked: "Shopkeeper, something good to supplement the child's body."

"Have... eat... what's good."

"Supplement the body?" The young man looked at Qu Jing again and said with a smile, "This is a pastry shop. To supplement the body, you have to go to the hospital, go to the pharmacy. It's useless to buy it here."

"However."

"I have some cheap glutinous rice cakes here, I don't know if you are interested?"

Hunter Qu was instantly attracted by the word "cheap," and asked stammeringly: "Ch... cheap?"

"Yes, I came from the south to open a pastry shop, and I didn't know that the glutinous rice here wasn't suitable for making rice cakes. I made a batch of rice cakes and they weren't liked by customers. Look at these displayed, they are all returns."

"If you are willing to buy them, I can sell them to you at cost price, and give these pastries as a gift. What do you think?"

Hearing that there was such a good thing, Hunter Qu's first reaction was that this young man was setting a trap to rob him. He subconsciously looked behind him, wanting to see if there were robbers holding knives, axes, or guns behind him to take them down on the spot. He touched the hunting rifle wrapped in cloth and felt a bit of a sense of security, swallowed his saliva.

"Ho... how much money?"

"How much money do you have?"

Hunter Qu subconsciously reported his entire net worth besides the small yellow fish.

"Then that's the price. I have some glutinous rice here that I bought too much of, and I can give it to you together. By the way, are you literate?"

Hunter Qu shook his head.

"Then I'll tell you orally. You can take these bags of glutinous rice back and make rice cakes too. I'll tell you the method of making rice cakes."

"Didn't you say the glutinous rice here wasn't suitable for making rice cakes?" Qu Jing suddenly opened her mouth and asked.

"That's right, but I only know how to make rice cakes with glutinous rice, I don't know how to make other pastries. I'm also afraid of wasting it. Small business, I can recover a little bit, I'll recover a little bit," the young man explained with a smile, looking at Qu Jing.

Qu Jing didn't hesitate at all, and said to Hunter Qu: "Grandpa, let's help him."

Hunter Qu was still in the initial stage of adaptation of being dizzy with joy after Qu Jing called him Grandpa once. First, he was fascinated by the pastries, and then he was fascinated by "Grandpa," so he nodded and agreed without thinking, and took out money to buy the glutinous rice cakes.

"Is the sugar wrapped on this rice cake?" Qu Jing asked.

"Yes, I have some white sugar here for wrapping rice cakes, I'll give it to you too. How is your memory? I'll tell you the recipe for making rice cakes now, and the recipe for the red bean paste inside. How about this, I'll write it down for you with paper and pen, and you go back and find someone literate to read it to you," the young man took out another bag of white sugar that was at least 10 jin heavy.

20 minutes later, Hunter Qu carried the pastries, glutinous rice, and white sugar, and held two precious recipes in his arms, dizzyingly leaving Qin's Pastry Shop.

"Jingjing, doing business in this city is truly strange. Such precious things were sold to me so cheaply," Hunter Qu sighed.

"Grandpa, he is clearing stock, we were lucky to catch up," Qu Jing said.

"Right, right, right, lucky, Jingjing is lucky. As soon as we entered the city, we caught up with such a good thing. Come, this what-is-it-called rice cake, Jingjing you eat first, I saw the white sugar grains on it, it must supplement the body!"

"Grandpa, you eat too." Qu Jing stuffed a small piece of glutinous rice cake into Hunter Qu's mouth.

Qu Jing looked back at the young man in the shop. The young man smiled and waved at her, and used his mouth shape to tell her to come again next time if she had time, "quju".

"quju"?

"Quju"?

"Quju"?

"Quju"?

What does it mean?

Qin Huai looked at the young man's mouth shape with some doubt, only hating that he didn't have a copy of the Classic of Mountains and Seas to flip through on the spot.

He could see it now; this young man was nine times out of ten also a spirit creature. Because the spirit creatures of the first life and the last life were very easy to recognize, the young man must have recognized Qu Jing at a glance, and even recognized her true form.

Seeing that a fellow kind was having such a miserable time, he helped out and sold some pastries cheaply.

Qu Jing didn't respond, looking at Hunter Qu.

"Grandpa, is it delicious?"

"Delicious, is this what-is-it-called rice cake truly delicious? Sweet, soft, when we go back, Grandpa will learn to make it, so Jingjing can eat it at home."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 230 =====