Chapter 17: Rice Thief

This person did not act aggressively and seemed to be of upright character. Liu Xiaolou watched him walk away with full respect, cupping his hands in a salute behind his back.

But by dusk, as the sky grew dark, those of poor character appeared. They suddenly charged out from the forest, rushed to the edge of the field, swung their sickles to harvest a few handfuls, and turned to run, too fast to be caught.

Liu Xiaolou was at the third stage of Qi Refinement and had not yet reached the point where he could release his flying sword. He could only roar angrily at their retreating backs and jump up and down, cursing them as "flower-grandson" bastards.

The last spirit field was harvested in extreme frustration, having been raided more than a dozen times. The last time was particularly maddening; the opponent's cultivation was clearly two stages higher, and they lingered at the edge of the field, refusing to leave. Liu Xiaolou charged up to fight them several times but returned empty-handed.

He couldn't beat them, and cursing was useless. The opponent just covered their face with a black cloth and harvested with their head down. They harvested a full two-tenths of his field before slowly tying it up, packing it, and taking it away. He was completely helpless.

Fortunately, this was his last contracted spirit field. Having lost about twenty catties in total, it didn't affect the overall situation; he just treated it as feeding the dogs.

After handing in the spirit grain that night, he was still about a hundred catties short of the quota. He had four bags of spirit grain buried in a hidden spot, totaling about three hundred catties. He couldn't hand it all in at once, of course. By the final grain delivery tomorrow night, he planned to hand in another thirty or fifty catties. For the remaining amount, he would use silver to make up the difference, treating it as buying rice. Two taels of silver for one catty of spirit rice—the price was high, but it wasn't something you could buy just because you wanted to.

Returning to the fields, Liu Xiaolou regulated his breathing for half an hour. Taking advantage of the dark night and high wind, he covered his face with a black cloth and put on a bamboo hat.

What others can do, I can do too!

He had already targeted his goal at the southeast end of the valley. Every night when Liu Xiaolou delivered grain, he passed by the mountain and could see which spirit fields in the valley had not been harvested. There was a large spirit field at the southeast end, over four mu in size, where the spirit rice was still growing neatly and was quite conspicuous.

Standing halfway up the mountain, he watched for a long time under the moonlight. The spirit field was quiet and still, with no one around. He didn't know if the Zang family hadn't assigned helpers or if the helpers assigned here hadn't had time to harvest it yet. In any case, this was it!

He waited patiently for a while longer. When a dark cloud drifted over and obscured the brilliant moonlight, the night grew deeper, and the valley below became even darker, almost pitch black.

"Let's go!" Liu Xiaolou psyched himself up and lunged down, his movements swift and fierce like a tiger!

After a few leaps, he reached the foot of the mountain, dashed forward with his waist bent, and quickly arrived at the edge of the field.

It was indeed pitch black, the perfect time for stealing rice.

Liu Xiaolou tiptoed into the field, unable to tell where he was. Enduring the prickling of the awns, he threw out his Illusory Mili Xiangjin and immediately began pulling the rice. He threw each bunch he pulled into the basket on his back, and it was full before long.

He backed out of the paddy field, nearly tripping over the ridge behind him, looking quite disheveled. But he couldn't care about that now. He dumped the rice stalks from the basket, tied them with a stalk, and piled them on the ridge for the moment.

He returned to the field and continued working, going back and forth several times, harvesting five or six bundles.

While working, he looked up at the sky. The dark cloud was about to drift away, and the moonlight would be revealed again. It would be best to retreat to the mountainside first and wait for a better opportunity to come down again.

Just as he was thinking, he swung the Illusory Mili Xiangjin forward, but it swung into empty air, failing to wrap around any stalks.

Without thinking, he swung the Illusory Mili Xiangjin further away. This time it wrapped around something. Liu Xiaolou poured his true qi into the tendon and pulled back...

A soft cry sounded under his feet: "Ouch..."

Liu Xiaolou froze. He looked closely and saw that what he had pulled back wasn't rice stalks, but a person!

The dark cloud drifted away, and the moonlight spilled down again. This time he saw clearly that it was indeed a person, with his own Illusory Mili Xiangjin wrapped around their ankle.

Looking at the rice field again, there were rice thieves covered in black cloth everywhere, running around in panic under the moonlight like headless flies.

The person whose ankle was wrapped sat up halfway, grabbed the Illusory Mili Xiangjin, and shouted in shock and anger at Liu Xiaolou: "You prick, are you blind?"

Liu Xiaolou was equally terrified. He had no time to tangle with him. He retracted the tendon, returned to the ridge in a few steps, grabbed the rice ears he had snatched, stuffed most of them into the basket, carried a few bundles in each hand, and quickly ran into the forest.

When he climbed to the mountainside, he panted and looked back. The rice field was empty, harvested in a mess. The once neat rice field, full of grain, now had only a small half left, looking like it had been gnawed by dogs.

"These dog thieves stealing rice, there are so many of them!" Liu Xiaolou spat hatefully. He looked at the ruined rice field with pity, hesitated for a moment, and finally left.

There were too many thieves eyeing this rice field; he might alert the owner. If he were caught with the stolen goods, the loss would outweigh the gain.

He found a quiet place to count his harvest: five bundles in the basket, three in each hand, a full eleven bundles. A decent harvest!

Huh? Eleven bundles? If he remembered correctly, he had only harvested five or six bundles, right?

He identified them carefully. Sure enough, six bundles were pulled up by the roots—those were his work. The remaining five bundles were cut halfway up the stalk, clearly much shorter. He didn't know who had done that.

This unexpected harvest smoothed out Liu Xiaolou's panicked mood, and he felt much better.

He immediately set to work, removing the ears and winnowing the chaff, getting about seven or eight catties. Satisfied, he put them into the basket and headed to the next target.

The next spirit field was slightly more remote, hidden in a corner of the mountain. It was only a little over one mu in size and quite narrow. Viewed from the mountain, it was obscured by a large tree nearby and was hard to discover. If he hadn't gone down to relieve himself while passing by the day before yesterday, Liu Xiaolou really wouldn't have discovered it.

Reaching the area above the spirit field, Liu Xiaolou leaped down, landed on a tree branch, and gently pushed aside the branches to check the situation.

At this look, his heart sank.

Someone had already come to this spirit field. They had just started, having harvested about one-tenth of a mu.

Liu Xiaolou was a bit annoyed, but also a bit unwilling. He squinted through the moonlight and saw that this person was a female cultivator. He couldn't tell her age, but her figure was graceful. The key was that she wasn't wearing a black cloth over her face and was harvesting openly with a long sword.

Since she wasn't masked, it meant this spirit field was contracted by her. Her technique wasn't controlling the sword from the air, which meant her cultivation hadn't reached the high stage of Qi Refinement—that is, not above the eighth level. Of course, experts at the eighth level of Qi Refinement rarely wanted to come over to help.

He watched for a moment longer and found that her long sword never emitted sword light; otherwise, how could she be so disheveled when harvesting rice ears? This meant her cultivation hadn't reached the mid-stage of Qi Refinement—that is, not above the fifth level.

If that was the case...

Wasn't this another good opportunity?

Liu Xiaolou covered his face with the black cloth again, leaped quietly from the tree trunk, and tiptoed to the edge of the field.

Several zhang away from the ridge, he crouched down and crawled over on all fours. ===== CHAPTER 18 =====