Heroes of the Fantasy World

Chapter 627: The Wild Pursuit

(5)

Zhao Kuo never considered himself the son of destiny.

For the safety of his family, he was willing to kneel down and ask strangers for help; for the future of his family, he was willing to put aside his family ties and break up with Zhao Xiaomei.

To outsiders, he might be a snob without principles, a hypocrite with two faces, but no matter how much criticism and slander he receives, it cannot be denied that every choice Zhao Kuo made was not completely wrong.

He was a consummate pragmatist who could successfully adapt and thrive in any situation, but there was one thing that was absolutely certain to him.

He was defeated in the war and withdrew forever from the struggle for the world among the heroes in Zhuolu.

In that dream of rapid advancement, Zhao Kuo could only be a pure bystander from now on - it took him a long time to fully accept this fact. An ordinary person without any title or aristocratic blood would never be able to move up one step further.

The first half of his life was full of intrigues: betrayal of righteousness, betrayal of friends, betrayal of oneself. If any dreamer must go through these, Zhao Kuo thought he had experienced them all, but he lost everything.

The corpses of his comrades were piled up like a mountain, but it did not allow him to stand higher. The once glorious years were left to him with only endless sorrow and illness.

All the past events flashed before his eyes like a kaleidoscope, and he couldn't help but once again think of the last words his father Zhao Wei told him before he died.

"Zhongyuan, I don't miss it anymore. This is my home."

At that time, Zhao Kuo was leading the rebel army at the front line and was unable to hear his father's last words in person, but he learned a little from his younger sister.

At first, Zhao Kuo thought that this was his father's regret for the unfinished business of the Zhao family, and it was a sigh out of necessity. It was not until Zhao Kuo himself went through thousands of hardships and returned alone that he finally understood the true meaning of it.

"Zhongyuan, I don't miss it anymore. This is my home."

After he finished speaking, the golden flower field in front of him swayed in the wind, creating a few shallow waves, just like the sea. Two women were breaking branches and picking flowers in the sea of ​​flowers.

One of the women dressed in foreign clothes seemed to have heard something, turned around and smiled at Zhao Kuo.

"Hey! Don't be in a daze. If you still can't take out the 100 kilograms of 'Golden Eyes' tea today, I will come after you and I won't speak for you." The woman put the flowers she picked into the basket, then waved to Zhao Kuo and said, "Zhao Kuo! I will make you a new sachet later. You look so listless..."

The frivolous tone at the end of the sentence, like the lingering scent of flowers, revived Zhao Kuo's flagging spirit, and his long-stagnant body began to work: frying, drying, frying over high heat again, and continuing to dry.

The tea house is located in the center of the flower field. No matter where you are in the flower field, you can see Zhao Kuo at a glance.

After a while, two women returned to the teahouse carrying a basket full of flowers.

Zhao Kuo asked: "Sister Juan, why don't we hire more people to help? How much business can we do with just a few of us? If we hire a few dozen more people, we can have a hundred more acres of flower fields, and you won't have to work so hard."

"Zhao Kuo, do you want to be lazy?" Ajuan took a clean towel to wipe the sweat off her face and continued, "I have said it many times, Golden Eyes is the flower I planted myself, and I only want my family to take care of it. We will not do business that we cannot do, and just do the business that we can do well. You, always want to get rich overnight! Caiwei, are all men like this? They always think that they can accomplish something great in the future, but they can't even do the simplest things at the moment." Yao Caiwei has changed from her previous appearance of a lady from a noble family. Now she looks like an ordinary flower farmer, with dark skin, calloused palms, and an expression that always shows an indescribable fatigue. However, once she stops her work and starts to rest, a kind of indescribable satisfaction will turn into a smile on her face.

"Is it just a relapse of an old injury? Every time this season comes, the wounds on my body always hurt. If it weren't for the medicine powder prepared by Senior Tao Wuyong, I'm afraid I would have to stay in bed for the whole winter." Yao Caiwei didn't rest for long, and sat next to Zhao Kuo to help make tea: "Let us do it, you rest first."

Zhao Kuo smiled and said, "I should be the one saying this to you, Caiwei and Juanmei. Without you, I, Zhao Kuo, would have died five years ago."

"Don't say such depressing words!" Ajuan crushed the freshly picked flowers into powder, stuffed them into a sachet, and gave it to Zhao Kuo: "Isn't it good now?"

The flower fields are like a paradise, and every ordinary moment is like a miracle. It is incompatible with this noisy and chaotic world. This is Zhao Kuo's current home. He thought to himself and said, "Sister Juan, this is the pure land you created with your own hands. You have the final say."

"Really?!" A Juan hugged Yao Caiwei from behind like a spoiled child: "Then let's finish the 100 kilograms of goods together!"

From day to night, they finally finished the last batch of goods and waited for the caravan to come and trade. They lived such an ordinary and repetitive life for five years, but no one felt that they had wasted their time.

However, when it was late at night and everyone was asleep, Zhao Kuo would always sit outside by himself. On the one hand, the flower fields at night would always attract a bunch of fireflies, making the area around the teahouse as bright as day, which was very beautiful; on the other hand, he was depressed and occasionally heard about some things in Beizhen and Zhongyuan, especially those related to Taiping Dao, which would always make him feel nervous.

"It was me who handed Murong Yan over to Taiping Dao."

"The Taiping Dao has become so rampant because of my one wrong thought."

“How should I face the mistakes I made in the past…”

After realizing that his dream was a bubble, the path he had taken became difficult to distinguish between true and false. In other words, he would rather believe in anyone except himself.

After thinking this through, he was completely hopeless: "From now on, even if I am alive, it is as good as being dead, it's just that I will be buried a little later."

Another sleepless night of confusion and helplessness.

The next day, the Lou family caravan came to pick up the goods as agreed.

Zhao Kuo didn't want to do anything to welcome the guests, and his old injury had relapsed and it was inconvenient for him to walk too far, so the reception of the guests was done by Yao Caiwei and Ajuan.

But today seems to be different.

"Zhao Kuo, come out quickly!" A Juan came to the bed in a hurry: "Bai Feng and Murong Yan are back!"

Zhao Kuo couldn't believe it: "Sister Juan, can you say it again?"

"And Su Qing, my younger sister and the others, they all followed the caravan to visit us!" Ajuan took clothes out of the closet, helped Zhao Kuo wash up, and then changed them for him.

At this moment, Zhao Kuo felt that everything before his eyes was extremely unreal.