Chapter 3020 — Old Man Wei's Concern
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Of course, Wei Zhao had no idea whether any of them were weapons he could actually use. Every Heaven-Rank weapon required its own dedicated cultivation method to draw out its full power, and Wei Zhao possessed not a single one of those methods. He would have to go back and figure something out.
Ergoudan had by now finished his hunt. He came back hauling a wild boar, a wild roe deer, and two wild pheasants—a full load by any measure—and so the two of them set off down the mountain together.
Mornings in the village were bustling beyond compare. The mountain folk loved to sleep early and rise early; that was simply their way of life. Every day at the first crow of the rooster they were up and busy. By now the little stalls at the village entrance were already laid out, for the villagers all had the habit of coming out to browse the morning market. Even when there was no grand fair, this little market at the village entrance still drew them out, happily wandering among the stalls each and every morning.
"Ergoudan, back from the hunt? What fine game have you got today? Let your Uncle Wang have first pick!" This Uncle Wang made his living specifically by catering banquets in the village. Whenever a family had a wedding or a funeral, he was the one who handled the feast. Big restaurants were scarce in the countryside; when a family had an occasion, they either cooked themselves or hired someone to lay out the spread—and so Uncle Wang shuttled back and forth among the surrounding villages, running his banquet business.
In recent years the villagers had grown prosperous, and so paying someone to cater a feast had become a custom. Uncle Wang often bought game from Ergoudan, and when the banquets were laid out, such dishes were generally placed at the seats of honor—before the elders, the clan chief, the parents—to show them their special regard.
"Still wild boar, wild roe deer, and wild pheasant. Uncle Wang, which one do you want?" Ergoudan no longer hunted rare animals. Under Yu Yuanyuan's influence, he stuck to ordinary game, the sort that was plentiful in the mountains, and sold that. It did not earn as much as the rare catches, but Ergoudan only needed to support his family.
"Oh? Isn't that little Yi? You're back?" Uncle Wang knew Wei Zhao too. He was one of the village's old-timers—the younger brother of the Widow Wang who ran the grocery store at the head of the village.
"Uncle Wang, I've come back to see my grandfather. Business treating you well?" Wei Zhao greeted him with a smile.
"Haha, not bad, not bad!" Uncle Wang grinned broadly. From the look of him, business was indeed good.
At Uncle Wang's shout, the other villagers' attention shifted to Ergoudan's side—to Wei Zhao himself.
"It really is little Yi!"
"Yes indeed, little Yi! You came back on your own this time?"
"Little Yi, didn't your three pretty girlfriends come back with you?"
Three? Wei Zhao was briefly taken aback. Last time hadn't he come back with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu? He was sure Feng Xiaoxiao had never been here either—so where did three girlfriends come from? Still, he assumed the man had simply misspoken, for the scene was chaotic just then, with all sorts of neighbors and kin talking to him at once, and Wei Zhao could only nod and smile his way through.
It took no small effort to get through them all, and only then did Wei Zhao make his way back to his own courtyard.
The moment he stepped through the gate, he saw Old Man Wei sitting dumbly in the yard. Only when he caught sight of Wei Zhao did a trace of a smile flash across his face—gone in an instant—and he resumed his usual mild, unruffled air, saying faintly, "You're back, little Yi?"