Chapter 1

"Little rascals, time to eat, woo-lei woo-lei woo-lei~"

Cui Guiying, wearing an apron, held a bowl in her left hand and a spoon in her right, shouting while tapping the rim of the porridge vat.

Li Weihan, sitting nearby and packing tobacco into his water pipe, kicked the woman on her backside and scolded her irritably:

"Is your brain flooded? Are you calling piglets?"

Cui Guiying glared at her man, slammed a stack of bowls down in front of him, and spat back:

"Pah, pigs aren't as rowdy as them, and they certainly don't eat as much!"

At her call, a group of children ran in from outside—seven boys and four girls, the oldest sixteen, the youngest only three.

Li Weihan and his wife had four sons and one daughter. Once the children grew up, they moved out to live separately. Usually, only the eldest son's family, who lived nearby, would leave their three-year-old twins here to be raised.

But once summer vacation arrived, whether it was for convenience or because they felt they'd be at a loss if they didn't take advantage of their parents, everyone sent their children over.

Once you took in the eldest's, it was hard to refuse the others, and suddenly the house was like a schoolhouse.

The couple hadn't even had time to savor the sweetness of having a house full of grandchildren before they noticed the rice vat was bottoming out.

As the saying goes, growing boys eat their parents out of house and home. Including the girls, they were all at the age where they were growing fast and could really eat. Their bellies were like bottomless pits. Cui Guiying had to use a vat to serve the main course, and one vat wasn't even enough—there was another pot warming on the stove.

Although the couple had plenty of grandchildren, they weren't that old yet. According to current rural customs, unless you were bedridden and unable to work, as long as you had the strength to work the fields, no matter how old you were, you had no right to enjoy meals provided by your children.

"Don't grab, don't grab! Are you all starving ghosts reincarnated? Everyone get in line!"

The children came with their bowls, and Cui Guiying was in charge of serving the porridge.

The last one to come over was a ten-year-old boy. He wore denim overalls and trendy sandals; his skin was fair and tender, and his expression was shy.

He looked quite out of place compared to the brothers and sisters around him, who were playing until they were dirty and had snot running from their noses.

"Little Brother Yuan Hou, come, I'll put yours here to eat."

"Thank you, Grandma."

Cui Guiying smiled and patted the child's head. Among this large group of grandchildren, he was the only grandson from her daughter's side, though he wasn't considered an outsider anymore.

The child's name was Li Zhuiyuan. His mother was Cui Guiying's youngest daughter, the first university student in the history of Siyuan Village.

The youngest daughter was admitted to a university in the capital, stayed there to work after graduation, and found her own partner. Before they married, she brought him home once—a fair-skinned, gentle city man.

Cui Guiying couldn't quite remember what he looked like, because that day, she and Li Weihan were so reserved in front of their son-in-law that they were too embarrassed to look closely.

Later, when their daughter became pregnant and had a son, the distance was great and work was busy, so she never returned home. But ever since she graduated and started working, she had never stopped sending money to her parents every month.

Li Weihan and his wife saved all the money sent before the wedding. They gritted their teeth and didn't touch a cent of it even when their four sons were getting married. When their daughter brought her husband home that time, Li Weihan pushed back the betrothal money the husband offered and added the money their daughter had sent to return it all.

They had wanted to be even more generous and add extra from the family, but with four sons getting married first, no matter how much the couple tightened their belts, they couldn't squeeze out any more oil.

This matter had always made the couple feel guilty. Returning the daughter's money to her meant that as parents, they hadn't contributed anything when she married, which was a real loss of face.

As for the money the daughter sent every month after the wedding, the couple saved it all. The sons had been instigated by their own wives to try and get their hands on this money for various reasons, but Li Weihan had pointed at their noses and scolded them back.

Half a month ago, their daughter entrusted a man in a military uniform to bring her son over, along with a letter and a sum of money. The letter said she had divorced, her work had recently changed, and she could only entrust her son to her parents for a while.

The daughter also said in the letter that after the divorce, she had changed the child's surname to hers, so this grandson had suddenly become a direct grandson.

After arriving in the countryside, Li Zhuiyuan didn't feel the slightest bit of discomfort; instead, he integrated quickly, playing happily with his brothers from one end of the village to the other all day long.

The main dish was sweet potato porridge, which tasted sweet but wasn't filling and digested quickly. Even if they ate several bowls until their bellies were round, they would feel hungry again as soon as they ran around for a while.

Moreover, eating sweet potato porridge and sweet potato strips too much and for too long really would hurt the stomach. When they weren't hungry, just seeing them would make their stomachs churn with acid.

Li Zhuiyuan hadn't grown tired of it, though. He quite enjoyed the feeling of this "big cafeteria," and he was very fond of the various pickled vegetables and sauces Cui Guiying made.

"Grandma, why aren't we going to eat the feast at Great Hu Zi's house today?"

The one who asked was the second uncle's son, nicknamed Hu Zi, who was nine years old this year.

Cui Guiying tapped Hu Zi's head with the end of her chopsticks and scolded: "You little rascal, that's something they only do after the old lady has passed away. Do you want them to hold a feast every day?"

Hu Zi rubbed his head and said: "Why not? It would be great if they held one every day."

"What kind of nonsense is that little rascal talking? Even if they wanted to hold one, where would they find enough people to line up and die every day?"

"Clap!" Li Weihan slammed his chopsticks heavily on the table and scolded: "What kind of vulgar talk are you using with a child?"

Cui Guiying also realized she had spoken out of turn. She didn't snap back at her man, but instead used a spoon to scoop out a piece of pickled sauce and put it into Li Zhuiyuan's porridge bowl. The sauce contained crushed peanuts and a little bit of diced meat; the spoonful she just took had some.

Li Zhuiyuan stirred it a few times with his chopsticks, the sauce color faded, and tender diced meat floated on top of the porridge.

The children had sharp eyes, and they were most obsessed with the idea that "inequality, not scarcity, is the real trouble." Hu Zi immediately said: "Grandma, I want meat too, the kind in Brother Yuanzi's bowl!"

"Grandma, I want some too."

"I want some too."

The other children followed suit.

"Go, go, go!" Cui Guiying scolded them irritably. "It's one thing for the younger ones to be ignorant and make a fuss, but Pan Hou, Lei Hou, and Ying Hou, you are the older ones, why are you joining in? Be a little more sensible. Everything you're eating today was bought with money from Little Brother Yuan Hou's mother. Your parents haven't contributed a single grain of rice to Grandma here, and you still have the nerve to fight with him for food!"

Pan Zi, Lei Zi, and Ying Zi lowered their heads in embarrassment, while the younger ones looked at each other and laughed, letting the matter pass.

It wasn't that Grandma hadn't hinted at it, and they had conveyed it to their parents, but their parents had told them to play dumb.

At this moment, the third son's eight-year-old son, Shitou, asked: "Is Little Huang Ying still there?"

Cui Guiying asked: "Who is Little Huang Ying?"

Hu Zi replied: "Grandma, Little Huang Ying is the one who was dancing and singing at Great Hu Zi's house yesterday. The song she sang was so good, and the dance she did was great too."

"Is that so?" Cui Guiying had been busy helping wash dishes in the back kitchen yesterday, so busy she couldn't touch the ground, and she had no spare time to go to the front to watch the funeral troupe perform after the meal.

Her man, Li Weihan, hadn't gone either, using the excuse that he was out on the boat, but in fact, he was at home. The reason he didn't go was that he was embarrassed; after all, he had already let Pan Zi and Lei Zi lead Yuanzi, Hu Zi, and Shitou—five children—to eat the feast. If he, an adult, went too, his table manners would look ugly.

The five children didn't just eat there; they also brought back quite a bit, especially the "hard dishes" that were divided by head count at the table. Li Zhuiyuan learned from his older brothers, tearing off a piece of the red plastic paper that covered the table in front of him to wrap up the food.

When they got home, they would distribute it to the younger brothers and sisters who couldn't go to the feast. Watching them eat, they felt like generals returning from a victorious battle.

Lei Zi said: "The singing was really good, and she was pretty too. She let us all call her Little Huang Ying."

Pan Zi nodded: "She was really nice, looked good, and her clothes were nice too. I want to marry someone like her when I grow up."

Cui Guiying lowered her head and asked Li Zhuiyuan beside her: "Little Brother Yuan Hou, is that so?"

"Yeah." Li Zhuiyuan put down his chopsticks and nodded. "Pretty."

Funeral troupes in the countryside were expected to be able to handle both the hall and the kitchen.

When performing rituals, they could put on Daoist robes or monk's cassocks to chant scriptures and perform rites, looking like immortals with dignified manners.

After the big lunch feast, they also had to organize a variety show, singing, dancing, acrobatics, magic, whatever they could manage, they had to put on.

If they encountered a wealthy family that loved to show off, they would also hire those specific funeral troupes to hold an evening session, but before that kind of performance started, the adults would chase the children home to sleep.

Little Huang Ying's surname was Xiao, her real name was Xiao Huang Ying, and her stage name was Little Huang Ying. She wasn't actually young, she was over thirty and divorced.

As for her singing and dancing skills, they were actually only mediocre, but she knew how to dress up, and her clothes were bold and trendy—a tight black cheongsam with high slits, revealing large areas of white legs, plus her friendly and enthusiastic stage presence...

To use the most vicious insults and simultaneously the highest praise from the village women to describe her, it was—seductive.

Nowadays, there were very few households in the village with televisions, and people often had to take stools to squeeze in to watch, so in the countryside where the winds of fashion hadn't yet blown in on a large scale, Little Huang Ying's "seductiveness" was a dimensionality-reduction strike to the surrounding rural girls and wives.

It wasn't just that she had stolen the souls of the men; even the growing boys were hooked and bewitched.

At this moment, a figure appeared at the door of the main room. It was their neighbor, Zhao Simei, who was a "sister" of many years to Cui Guiying. When their families had fewer children, the two of them loved to sit on the dam and gossip when they were free.

"Have you eaten?" Cui Guiying asked. "Come, add a pair of chopsticks."

Zhao Simei hurriedly waved her hand and smiled: "Oh my, I'd be too embarrassed to sponge a meal off anyone, let alone you. Look, you're all drinking thin porridge here."

"This porridge feels comfortable in the stomach; I just love this. Come on, I'll serve you a bowl. No matter how much we scrape the rice vat, can we be short of this one meal for you?"

"Alright, alright, I've already eaten. Hey, do you know that the head of the funeral troupe just took people to Great Hu Zi's house to make a scene? It's said they smashed things and almost started a fight."

Upon hearing this, Cui Guiying immediately picked up her bowl and chopsticks and stood up, leaning toward the door while shoveling porridge into her mouth: "What's wrong? Did Great Hu Zi's family not pay the bill?"

"It's not about the performance fee; someone in the troupe is missing."

"What, someone is missing?" Cui Guiying slurped her chopsticks. "Who is missing?"

"A woman, the one who wiggles her seductive butt. The way she twisted her butt yesterday, I wish her asshole had leaked out."

"Is it Little Huang Ying?" Pan Zi asked.

The other children also pricked up their ears.

"It seems to be her, that seductive hoof." Zhao Simei was very gleeful.

"How exactly did she go missing? Have they found her?" Cui Guiying asked.

"They say someone saw that seductive hoof go into the small woods by the river with Great Hu Zi's youngest son last night, and later she didn't return to the troupe. That's why the troupe came to the door to demand her back."

"What about Great Hu Zi's son?"

"He's at home, but he says he doesn't know, that it never happened. But there were quite a few people in the village who saw it; it was definitely him and that loose hoof who went into the woods."

"What about the person?"

"Who knows? She's just gone. The head of the troupe came this time to demand the person, but Great Hu Zi's family insisted they hadn't seen her, and even said that the seductive hoof had run away on her own."

"What to do then?"

"Great Hu Zi's family paid the troupe leader a sum of money, quite a lot too."

Cui Guiying immediately patted Zhao Simei's arm repeatedly and raised her eyebrows: "Something's up!"

Zhao Simei also patted Cui Guiying's arm back and raised her chin: "You bet!"

Great Hu Zi used to be the deputy director of the grain station in the town, which was a lucrative position. Even though he was retired now, apart from his youngest son who was idle, his other sons all had jobs in town. In this village, even the village head's family wasn't as imposing as his.

Therefore, for Great Hu Zi to be willing to pay money to settle the matter, there must be a ghost in it!

"Since they paid the money, did the troupe leader leave?"

"He left."

"What about the person? Are they not looking for her anymore?"

"Look for her, my foot. The troupe leader and his people have already taken their gear and left in a truck to catch the next gig."

"Oh my." Cui Guiying shook her head. "I hope nothing bad happened."

"Who knows."

"People, they really are fake."

"You said it."

Hearing this, Hu Zi and Shitou suddenly started crying:

"Woo woo! Little Huang Ying, Little Huang Ying!"

"My Little Huang Ying, Little Huang Ying is gone, woo woo!"

Seeing this, Zhao Simei almost laughed out a snot bubble and pointed: "Look at that, those two grandsons of yours are quite the sentimental fools."

Cui Guiying rolled her eyes at her and said: "Don't you have a granddaughter? Why don't you pair one up?"

"Heh." Zhao Simei snorted and pointed at Li Zhuiyuan: "It wouldn't be impossible to become in-laws, but it would have to be with your Little Brother Yuan, so that my little Juan could follow him to the capital and enjoy a good life."

"Go, go, go, stop thinking such beautiful thoughts."

Li Weihan had already finished eating. He wasn't interested in the old women's gossip, and it wasn't convenient for him to interrupt, so he just silently picked up his water pipe and opened the matchbox, but it was empty inside.

Li Zhuiyuan put down his chopsticks, ran to the back of the stove, and brought a box of matches to Li Weihan.

Li Weihan didn't take it, but moved the pipe bowl in front of Li Zhuiyuan. Li Zhuiyuan smiled, pulled out a match, and "scratch," "scratch," "scratch"—it took a lot of effort to get the fire, and he hurriedly and carefully used his other hand to shield it, moving the match down to the pipe bowl.

Li Weihan took several puffs, got the smoke going, and felt satisfied, his face full of smiles.

Back then, his own daughter also liked to light his pipe, and even said she would buy him paper-boxed cigarettes when she grew up.

"Phew."

Li Zhuiyuan blew out the match, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it several times with the sole of his shoe.

Pan Zi said: "Grandpa, shall we go boating this afternoon to pick lotus pods?"

Li Weihan glanced at the bland meal on the table, nodded, and said: "Lei Zi, come along, bring the net, and see if we can catch a few fish for your grandma to make a soup."

Hearing this, Hu Zi and Shitou immediately forgot about Little Huang Ying and shouted: "Grandpa, I want to go too, I want to go too!"

The other little ones followed suit, fearing that if there was something fun, they would be left out.

Li Weihan looked around solemnly and scolded: "Grandpa is telling you, there are water monkeys in this river that specialize in pulling people into the water to drown them as their own substitutes, so they can be reincarnated."

Immediately, the children were scared and didn't dare to speak.

Shitou asked unconvinced: "Why can the older brothers go?"

Pan Zi and Lei Zi were older children after all and were sensible, so they helped their grandfather scare their younger brothers and sisters:

"I'm strong, the water monkey can't hold me."

"I swim well, the water monkey can't catch me."

Li Zhuiyuan wasn't scared. He wanted to go too, but was too embarrassed to speak, so he could only lower his head and touch his little hands, stealing glances at his grandfather from time to time.

Li Weihan said: "Little Brother Yuan Hou is going too."

Hu Zi immediately said indignantly: "That's not fair, Brother Yuanzi is only a year older than me."

Shitou also chimed in: "That's right, Brother Yuan isn't as strong as me, how can he fight a water monkey!"

Li Weihan slowly exhaled a smoke ring and gave a very reasonable reason that even the children were convinced by:

"Little Brother Yuan Hou is from outside, our local water monkeys don't know him."

The houses in the village were basically built by the water, with the front door facing the road and the back door facing the river.

When washing vegetables or clothes, one only needed to carry things out the back door and walk down a few blue-brick steps to reach the riverbank.

Those who knew how to live well would often set up a net along their own section of the riverbank to raise ducks and geese in the enclosure.

The Li family's boat was tied to the persimmon tree at the back door. After Li Weihan untied the rope, he got on the boat first and used a bamboo pole to stabilize the boat.

Pan Zi held the fishing rod, and Lei Zi held the fishing net, jumping onto the boat one after another.

Li Zhuiyuan, carrying a small bamboo basket, was reached for by Li Weihan and pulled onto the boat.

"Everyone sit tight, we're setting sail!"

Accompanied by the bamboo pole on the water surface repeatedly lengthening and shortening, the boat began to move.

Pan Zi and Lei Zi were long used to it and lay diagonally on the boat, very leisurely, while Li Zhuiyuan sat upright, watching the water grass floating past on the river and the dragonflies skimming by.

"Here, Yuanzi." Pan Zi handed over a small handful of roasted beans.

He was from the eldest son's family, which lived nearby, so he would go home from time to time and get some snacks, but his mother had instructed him that these things had to be hidden and eaten by himself and couldn't be shared.

On the contrary, Li Zhuiyuan's mother had sent a large bag of snacks—biscuits, meat floss, canned fruit, etc. —when she entrusted the man in military uniform to bring Li Zhuiyuan over. Another large bag was mailed the day before yesterday, all of which were locked in the cupboard by Cui Guiying and distributed to all the children in measured amounts every day.

"Thank you, Brother Pan Zi."

Li Zhuiyuan took it and put one in his mouth. These beans were locally called "fist beans," which were actually broad beans. After being shelled, added with some spices, and stir-fried with some salt, they were very fragrant when chewed.

However, Li Zhuiyuan didn't like eating them; they were too hard, he couldn't bite them, and they were easy to break his teeth.

Therefore, while the two older brothers kept going "crunch, crunch" in their mouths, Li Zhuiyuan just put one in his mouth and sucked on it like a piece of candy.

"Coming along is a thousand-fold younger brother, drifting on the road; coming along is a thousand-fold younger brother, tonight will be bright."

Pan Zi started singing.

"You're singing it wrong." Lei Zi laughed. "That's not how you sing it."

Pan Zi said disdainfully: "Hmph, you can sing it, you sing then!"

Lei Zi mumbled his lips and scratched his head: "I only remember the tune."

Li Weihan, who was poling the boat, asked: "What are you singing? I don't understand."

Pan Zi replied: "Grandpa, it's what Little Huang Ying sang yesterday, it's called Yue opera."

"Yue opera?" Li Weihan was a little surprised. "What you just sang is Yue opera?"

Lei Zi: "No, Grandpa, it's Cantonese opera, from Guangdong and Hong Kong."

"Oh, I see. You sing it well for Grandpa to hear."

Lei Zi: "Pan Zi can't sing it at all. He can't even remember the lyrics, it's far worse than Little Huang Ying yesterday."

In fact, Little Huang Ying didn't sing it very standardly either, but for the mainland nowadays, there wasn't much difference between standard and non-standard. Anyway, no one understood it; all that was needed was that confident tone.

Pan Zi pointed at Li Zhuiyuan and said: "When Little Huang Ying was singing yesterday, I saw Yuanzi singing along. He can sing it."

Li Weihan: "Little Brother Yuan Hou, you sing it for Grandpa to hear."

Li Zhuiyuan said very shyly: "I only know that little bit."

"Sing it, sing it." Lei Zi urged. "Yuanzi doesn't just know Cantonese opera, he can even sing English songs."

Li Zhuiyuan had no choice but to sing:

"Coming days, even if there are a thousand songs, drifting in the distance on my road; coming days, even if there are a thousand evening stars, brighter than tonight's moon.

That's all I know. Mom likes this song and often plays it at home."

Lei Zi looked at Pan Zi provocatively: "Did you hear that? The lyrics you sang were wrong."

Pan Zi rolled his eyes at Lei Zi.

The brothers talked all the way, and the boat finally reached a wider part of the river.

Pan Zi went to help his grandfather with the pole, and Li Weihan began to look for a spot while organizing the net, while Lei Zi set up the fishing rod.

Li Zhuiyuan wasn't assigned a task and continued to sit upright with his small bamboo basket on his back, watching his grandfather and brothers busy for a while, and then watching the water grass on the river and the frogs jumping on it.

Watching and watching, Li Zhuiyuan leaned forward with some doubt.

Li Weihan had been keeping an eye on this "grandson," and seeing him like this, he immediately reminded him: "Little Brother Yuan Hou, sit further inside, don't fall in!"

Li Zhuiyuan pointed at the river surface ahead and asked: "Grandpa, Brother, there's a black clump of water grass there."

"Where?" Lei Zi looked in the direction Li Zhuiyuan was pointing. "Hey, it really is, it's black."

"Where, where?" Pan Zi was helping pole the boat at the stern and couldn't see clearly, so he took the initiative to pole the boat toward that direction.

Li Weihan didn't take it seriously at first. He was busy untying the knots in the fishing net. When he heard Li Zhuiyuan and Lei Zi still discussing it there, he looked up and glanced at it. Just that one glance, and he froze.

That black clump, slender yet pervasive, scattered yet not separated—this was no water grass, this was clearly human hair!

Because Pan Zi kept poling the boat closer, they were now closer to that area, and the part under the water was vaguely visible—the black patterns, the white buttons, the curved lines...

Because Li Zhuiyuan was sitting, the first one to see the part under the water was Lei Zi, who was standing beside him. Lei Zi immediately shouted:

"Grandpa, that's a person, someone fell into the water! Pan Zi, pole over quickly to save them!"

The story of the water monkey could no longer scare older children like them. Their simple and kind nature made them subconsciously think that someone had fallen into the water, and their first reaction was to go and rescue them.

"Bullshit!"

Li Weihan suddenly roared. This grandfather, who was a bit strict but mostly kind to the children, was rarely out of character. The veins on his rough, chapped skin were exposed. He immediately threw the fishing net in his hand onto the boat and shouted at Pan Zi while walking toward the stern:

"Change direction, change direction! Give me the pole, don't get close!"

Their boat had been in this area for a while, and they hadn't heard any sound of someone falling into the water. At this moment, it was even more calm and waveless. How could there be any need for rescue? That person must have been dead for a long time!

But logically speaking, even if one encountered a drowned corpse, at most one would feel unlucky. Why be so terrified and flustered?

But Li Weihan knew that at this time, he could only get away as fast as possible.

Because the area was dense with waterways near the river and sea, drowning wasn't a rare thing. Basically, every village or neighboring village would have someone who specialized in the work of retrieving corpses from the water.

It wasn't usually their main job, but the candidates were very fixed. One reason was that it was unlucky, and the other was that there were many taboos. If one wasn't a veteran with inherited skills, one really wouldn't want to touch this.

Siyuan Village had a corpse retriever named Li Sanjiang. According to the seniority, Li Weihan had to call him Uncle.

This Li Sanjiang had no children, and he was too lazy to farm the land allocated by the village, so he rented it out just to get some grain to chew on.

But he wasn't living the life of a lazy bum who didn't know where his next meal was coming from. He made paper offerings and retrieved corpses. Both of these brought in quite a bit of money, much richer than farming that little bit of land. Therefore, although he lived alone, he had small wine and meat every day, and his life was very comfortable.

In his early years, in order to help his four sons get married, Li Weihan rented Li Sanjiang's land. This was really taking advantage of him, so when he needed to retrieve a corpse during that period, Li Weihan would follow this clan uncle to help.

Although Li Sanjiang never let him get on the boat to touch the corpse, only letting him be responsible for setting up the offering table and preparing some chicken or dog blood on the shore each time, he knew some of the tricks about retrieving corpses from Li Sanjiang after doing it many times.

In the jargon of this trade, a floating corpse was called a "dead fall."

Normally, a drowned person would float up after soaking in the water for a few days and gradually rotting. Due to the structure of the pelvis, male corpses usually faced down and female corpses faced up.

After going through a fixed process for most dead falls, Li Sanjiang would retrieve them and carry them back to the shore to hand them over to the family. But during a drinking session, Li Sanjiang once solemnly said that there were two special cases he didn't dare to retrieve.

One was a dead fall with a whirlpool around it, which meant there was a leakage or mud trap nearby, and it was hard to say if he and the boat would be overturned and sucked in.

As for the second one, that was something that even Li Sanjiang would have trembling lips and a numb scalp when he saw...

That was the dead fall that only left hair floating on the water surface, standing upright at the bottom of the water!

This was someone with great resentment, dying with eyes wide open, determined to pull a substitute down!

Li Weihan still remembered that on the drinking table, Li Sanjiang stared at him with red eyes and said very seriously:

"Han, remember, if you see this kind of dead fall on the water, don't think about anything else. Run as fast as you can. If you run late, you'll be kept by it!"

Therefore, after discovering that this was an upright dead fall, how could Li Weihan not be terrified? Not to mention, he still had three grandsons on the boat now!

And Pan Zi, who was still very curious, obviously couldn't keep up with his grandfather's instructions. When his grandfather came over to grab the bamboo pole, he stumbled, and the bamboo pole also poked into the mud on the side, causing the boat to tilt severely to the right.

This kind of tilt was nothing to those who often traveled by boat, for example, Lei Zi, who was standing by the side of the boat, quickly leaned down and grabbed the side of the boat to maintain his balance. But Li Zhuiyuan, who was sitting there, had no experience in this regard. After his upper body was carried out by inertia, the whole person fell into the water with a "plop," just on the side facing the dead fall.

The water in the river was very clear, and it was a sunny afternoon, so the light under the water was quite good.

Li Zhuiyuan, who had just fallen into the water, was still struggling instinctively, but was immediately stunned by the scene before him.

Just like Brother Lei Zi said, there was a person standing in the water, and this wasn't someone else, it was exactly Little Huang Ying, whom the brothers were still talking about at the dinner table today!

She was still wearing the same black cheongsam from the performance, with white pattern buttons, slits up to her waist, and those red high heels on her feet.

The water flowed steadily. Under this thrust, her arms swung back and forth rhythmically, and her legs also swayed back and forth lightly.

It gave the feeling that she was walking underwater.

She was waving her hands, she was twisting her waist, she was showing her legs, she was standing on tiptoe, she was singing...

Even underwater, she was still interpreting the seductive posture that made the women in the village both envious and disgusted.

"Coming days, even if there are a thousand songs, drifting in the distance on my road..."

In his ears, he seemed to hear Little Huang Ying's non-standard Cantonese tone again.

Accompanied by the singing,

Little Huang Ying slowly turned around, gradually facing Li Zhuiyuan.

Her long hair floated diagonally upward, like an opened black umbrella. The powder on her face was thicker than yesterday, and her lips were even more bright red.

Suddenly,

She smiled.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 2 =====