Chapter 230: Filial Piety (Part 5) (Bonus chapter for the alliance leader reward from

Hunter Qu carried the large and small bags and sat on the ox cart going back in a daze.

The driver didn't dare to ask Hunter Qu how Qu Jing's illness was.

Oh my mother, she's sick to this extent, even white flour was bought. Isn't this the standard configuration for eating something good before dying? Didn't dare to ask, didn't dare to ask.

Out of sympathy, the driver handed the black flour pastry he couldn't bear to eat to Qu Jing. Qu Jing didn't eat it, and returned it.

The driver's sympathy was even deeper. She couldn't even eat black flour pastries and could only eat white flour; she was truly afraid she didn't have many days left to live. No wonder Hunter Qu was absent-minded, as if his soul had left his body. Afraid that the journey would be slow and Qu Jing wouldn't be able to hold on until returning to the village, the driver gritted his teeth, suffered the ox, and traveled day and night, forcibly shortening the journey by one day.

In fact, Hunter Qu was absent-minded entirely because his head was full of the recipes the young man told him.

Hunter Qu wasn't stupid; he was just purely uneducated, so he seemed to have no knowledge. But he had been press-ganged back then, had been outside and seen the world, and knew that recipes were valuable. Some recipes could even be passed down as family heirlooms from generation to generation.

The young man wrote him the recipe, but Hunter Qu didn't know how to read, and didn't intend to let others see the recipe. He planned to memorize it himself, and then send Qu Jing to school. Once Qu Jing knew how to read, he would leave the recipe to Qu Jing, so that after he died in the future, Qu Jing would also have the capital to settle down.

Therefore, on a night of traveling, Hunter Qu took out the skin to cover Qu Jing as usual, and asked in a low voice: "Jingjing, I heard that the village will build a school in the future. Once the school is built, Grandpa will send you to school, okay?"

"Okay." Qu Jing opened her eyes and said in a low voice.

After Hunter Qu and Qu Jing returned to the village, they heard good news from the village chief. The higher-ups confirmed that a school would be built, an elementary school, jointly run by several villages.

When Qu Jing and Hunter Qu were traveling, the village chief, relying on his glib tongue and the advantage that several abandoned adobe houses in the village could be renovated to be used as classrooms, fought against all the nearby villages and successfully won the school.

The purpose of the village chief notifying this good news was to encourage learning. To set an example, all the children in the village chief's family from Da Ya to Gou Dan had to go to school. But now every household had no money. Going to school required tuition. The village chief's family gritted their teeth and could afford it, but other families couldn't afford it and weren't willing to. The village chief came to Hunter Qu to make up the number and persuade him to send Qu Jing to school.

Both sides hit it off, and Qu Jing happily entered the new semester.

In the days that followed, everything pressed the fast-forward button.

Qin Huai was like watching a movie full of trivial matters. Hunter Qu didn't tell anyone about the pastry shop, only saying that the hospital gave two taels of soybeans for free. Many people in the village were very moved when they heard there was such a good thing, but finally gave up going to the provincial capital hospital to pluck soybeans because the journey was long and the travel expenses were too expensive.

The school matter was settled, and a new teacher came to the village. It was said to be a private school teacher from the county who was almost starved to death.

Qu Jing happily entered school as a freshman, and all the children started from the first grade. Hunter Qu hunted as before, bartered with the villagers, and practiced making rice cakes quietly after returning from hunting.

Hunter Qu couldn't bear to use the 10 jin of white sugar the young man gave him on the terrible rice cakes he made, so he asked the village chief's wife to make steamed buns and pancakes with white flour, letting Qu Jing eat white flour steamed buns dipped in white sugar.

This way of eating was seen by the village chief once. The heartbroken village chief exclaimed that money wasn't meant to be spent like this; the landlord who had just been overthrown only ate white flour steamed buns simply.

Then he cried and shouted and swiped half a steamed bun.

The first New Year Qu Jing and Hunter Qu spent together, Hunter Qu used the last bit of glutinous rice to make a pot of rice cake soup, and the grandfather and granddaughter drank rice cake soup to spend the New Year.

The time that followed was like a warm movie.

Qu Jing went to school, Hunter Qu hunted. From time to time, the village chief notified the village about changes outside, such as a supply and marketing cooperative in the town, making it more convenient to buy oil, salt, and cloth; a health center in the town, making seeing a doctor particularly cheap; Hunter Qu no longer needed to barter with villagers, as there was a special place in the town to collect them.

One year, two years, three years, four years.

Qu Jing read to the fourth grade of elementary school and could understand the recipe the young man wrote to Hunter Qu back then.

Hunter Qu was even older, his hair was more than half white, and even his temples were a bit gray. The number of times he went up the mountain to hunt was getting fewer and fewer. Basically, he couldn't catch large prey and could only rely on making traps to catch small animals. Occasionally, when luck was good, large animals like deer would fall into the traps, and he could sell them for a large sum of money and save it.

Hunter Qu saved a lot of money, money for Qu Jing's medical treatment.

The most famous news in the village these years wasn't that the village chief's eldest daughter gave birth to triplets after getting married, shocking the ten miles and eight villages, nor was it that the fool in the village next to the village chief's wife's maiden home fell into the river and didn't drown, but instead fished up a 30-jin big fish, but Qu Jing.

Qu Jing broke the rumor that she was once a fool with her outstanding academic performance, and at the same time, because her appearance hadn't changed for 4 years, the village chief finally realized why a girl who was fine would be thrown into the deep mountains by her family. This child doesn't grow up!

Qin Huai knew why Qu Jing hadn't changed for 4 years, because Qu Jing's tribulation hadn't failed.

Spirit creatures wouldn't lose their divine power before tribulation failed, and at the same time, they wouldn't grow old. This was also why few spirit creatures chose the child form when taking on a form. Adults, especially adults around 20, having no changes in appearance for more than ten years was too normal. Externally, one could say they looked young and were well-maintained.

But children, let alone ten years, two or three years without change could be seen by others, simply carving the four words "I am a monster" on their bodies.

Qu Jing's luck was relatively good. People in the village didn't think she was a monster; everyone just purely felt that she had a strange illness.

Hunter Qu also thought so.

Starting from the second year when he discovered that Qu Jing didn't seem to have grown up, Hunter Qu took Qu Jing to the town's health center to see a doctor, and the health center opened one or two taels of soybeans.

In the third year, Hunter Qu took Qu Jing to the provincial capital hospital again. The doctor was also helpless in the face of this super difficult and miscellaneous disease, and could only make an exception to open 5 taels of soybeans for Hunter Qu.

The provincial capital doctor recommended Hunter Qu to take Qu Jing to a hospital in Beiping to see a doctor, saying that there were the best doctors in the country. If the Beiping hospital couldn't cure it, then it couldn't be cured. It was just that the journey to Beiping was long, requiring a train, and the cost was also very high, so the doctor asked Hunter Qu to save more money.

Hunter Qu listened. He wanted to go up the mountain to hunt a brown bear, but when he encountered a wild boar, he almost broke his leg while running away. Hunter Qu sighed that he was no longer the old hunter who could fight tigers back then, and changed his profession to digging traps to catch small animals to save money.

Seeing that Qu Jing still didn't have any signs of growing up, Hunter Qu was so anxious that bubbles appeared on the corners of his mouth. He had already started to ponder whether to sell the tiger skins, fox skins, and tiger bones he treasured, and not wait anymore, taking Qu Jing to Beiping to see a doctor before the end of the year and winter.

Hunter Qu obviously felt that he was old.

He discovered that he had been a bit forgetful since the beginning of the year. He would forget the location of the traps he made, forget the amount of money for the prey he sold, and sometimes he would forget why he went up the mountain as soon as he reached the foot of the mountain.

Hunter Qu felt that he was probably a bit senile.

But he didn't tell Qu Jing, just silently digested this forgetfulness.

And these forgetfulnesses of his were all seen by Qin Huai.

Qin Huai sighed, feeling that he seemed to have already seen the ending of this warm movie.

One morning, Hunter Qu got up early to make breakfast as usual, and boiled two eggs for Qu Jing to take with her in one go.

"Grandpa, why did you boil two eggs today?" Qu Jing stuffed one of the eggs to Hunter Qu, "The doctor said that my illness can't be cured just by supplementing nutrition, you eat the egg too."

Hunter Qu said with a smile: "Today is Wang Laoshi's birthday, Jingjing, you take this egg to Wang Laoshi."

Qu Jing was stunned: "Wang Laoshi broke his leg last year and returned to the town and never came back. Grandpa, did you remember wrong... Li Laoshi's birthday isn't today either."

Hunter Qu's smile stalled, and he was stunned for a long time, as if he was trying hard to recall but was very powerless, and could only smile to cover it up: "Oh right, Grandpa remembered wrong, remembered Wang Laoshi's birthday as Li Laoshi's."

"Old, senile."

Qu Jing looked at Hunter Qu quietly: "Grandpa, are you okay?"

"I discovered that you have been particularly easy to forget things since the beginning of the year. Why don't we go to the provincial capital hospital to see?"

Hunter Qu waved his hand: "No need, no need, memory is not good when you are old. Many people start forgetting things at forty-seven or forty-eight. I started at fifty-something, normal."

Qu Jing hesitated, looked at Hunter Qu for a few glances, and seeing his expression as usual, still chose to believe him and went to school with her schoolbag on her back.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 231 =====