I'm already a concubine, who wants to fight with you?

Chapter 6 Days of Freedom

Zhuangzi is at the foot of the mountain, and doesn’t seem very big when viewed from halfway up the mountain.

Yuan San whispered, "Why was I sent to this farm?"

Xie Fei asked, "What's wrong with this village?"

Yuan San chuckled and covered it up, "It doesn't feel like a good place."

Xie Fei said: "If Xiao Shirong sent me to a good place, that would make me uneasy."

The one that comes in the light is much better than the one that comes in the dark.

Fu Yu was originally somewhat resistant to the mountains, but when she saw a wild rabbit running through the bushes, she suddenly became interested and chased after it, shouting.

Two years younger than Xie Fei, he is lively and active at this age. Without any constraints, he can let his nature run wild.

It rained a few days ago, and a lot of mushrooms grew under the leaves and in the grass in the forest.

Xie Fei didn't know many species, but Yuan San knew more and taught Xie Fei how to distinguish which ones were edible and which ones were poisonous.

The morning mist dissipated and the dew was dried by the sun.

The two men picked up a basket of mushrooms, but later they could no longer hold them, so they hid them beside the mountain path and took them away on their way back.

Xie Fei couldn't remember how long it had been since he could walk freely in the mountains and forests.

In the past, she was like a forgotten gray sparrow with broken wings, locked in a shabby birdcage.

Curled up in the narrowest cage, I look up and see a square world. I cannot fly out of the house and cannot see the world.

Now that she has finally tasted "freedom", if one day she were imprisoned again, the suppressed sense of loss would make her devastated.

After picking mushrooms, Yuan San found a jujube tree. He quickly climbed up to it and picked so many wild jujubes that they trembled.

Xie Fei was picking up some fallen graves under the tree and asked casually, "Are all of you tomb robbers as agile as monkeys?"

Yuan San was not happy and tried to defend himself: "Miss, that's not nice to say. We are not thieves. We just took out the artifacts from the ancient tombs and exchanged them for silver to help the poor people. We are chivalrous thieves."

Xie Fei said with a long "oh" and said, "Excuse."

After all, isn't he still a thief?
Yuan San smiled but said nothing. He rubbed his hands together and said, "We will never go back until we have picked all the jujubes from this tree today."

Xie Fei said, "As expected of a tomb robber, he is very particular about making sure his descendants are extinct."

My acquaintance with Yuan San was quite unexpected.

When he was ten years old, Xie Fei was beaten all over his body by his stepmother on some pretext.

The child had poor physical strength and had no medicine, so the wound became seriously infected.

In order to survive, she had to endure the pain and sneak out of the house to dig herbs in the wild alone.

It wasn't a deserted place, but on the way we encountered a bear coming down the mountain to look for food.

That thing had been hungry for the whole winter, and when it saw Xie Fei, its saliva flowed like a river.

When the black bear pounced on her, she closed her eyes in despair.

She only heard the sound of blood splashing beside her ears, and the smelly liquid sprayed on her face.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the tall and graceful Yuan San standing in front of her and piercing the black bear's throat with a spear.

But then, Yuan San also fell down.

Xie Fei used all his strength to move him into a cave in the mountain. He claimed to be a tomb robber and got some things from the tomb of a powerful person.

His descendants found out and hunted him down everywhere.

Xie Fei checked and found that his body was covered with sword wounds, and the wound on his face was even more horrific, with blood and flesh flying everywhere, and even his facial features were about to be smoothed out.

His left arm and both legs were badly fractured, and he had lost too much blood, his life was hanging by a thread.

Xie Fei had no choice but to treat him. It was purely a last-ditch effort, but unexpectedly, Yuan Sanfu was lucky enough to survive.

After his injury healed, Yuan San turned over a new leaf and stopped robbing tombs. He became a servant for Xie Fei.

But he only did temporary work, did not sign a contract to sell himself, and was not a slave of the Xie family. He only listened to Xie Fei's orders.

As a result, the Xie family did not pay him wages, and Xie Fei had to scrape out two cents of silver from his meager income, but he did not mind.

After a few visits, they ended up being together for five years.

After picking the dates, Xie Fei saw a tung tree forest, with many tung fruits piled on the forest floor.

Tung fruit can be used as medicine and can also be used to press oil, which is a good thing.

She asked Yuan San to help her pick up the trash, but the basket was full, so she had to ask Yuan San to go back to the village first, empty the basket and come back.
It was not until evening that the three of them went down the mountain.

Fu Yu fell countless times while chasing the hare. Not only was her skirt torn by thorns, but her legs and arms were also covered with scratches.

If the hare hadn't panicked and run headfirst into Yuan San's arms, her work today would have been in vain.

Holding the hem of her skirt, Fu Yu wanted to cry but had no tears. "Girl, I am so unlucky. I wasted this beautiful dress for a skinny rabbit!"

Xie Fei sighed: "I told you to go up the mountain to change into coarse cloth clothes. Do you regret it now?"

Fu Yu had a sad face, but when she saw Yuan San carrying a bamboo basket on his back, she thought that he must have had a good harvest, and she immediately burst into laughter.

Can I have some oily food in the evening?

When they arrived outside the manor, the three of them climbed over the wall to enter.

Because Xie Fei specifically ordered that no one was allowed to enter the yard to disturb them, they sneaked out for a day and no one noticed.

Fu Yu went to change clothes first, while Xie Fei counted the harvest from the mountains.

Two bamboo baskets full of mushrooms, a rotten branch covered with wood ear mushrooms, a few bags of wild dates that were either red or green, and tung fruits that rolled all over the ground.

When passing by a mountain stream on the way back, Yuan San rolled up his trouser legs and caught a lot of fish in it.

He also lifted up some rocks and caught a few crabs, and even caught two water snakes, which were still wriggling in the cloth bag.

Next was the wild rabbit that Fu Yu had been longing for. He thought he could eat it tonight, but Xie Fei said it was too thin.

"It's dry, there's not even two ounces of meat, and it's a waste of firewood to make soup."

It would be better to raise it for a while, maybe you can have meat to eat.

Yuan San said, "Then I'll go cut down some trees and build a circle tomorrow morning."

It's getting late, this won't work.

As he was speaking, there was a knock on the gate.

Yuan San was a man, and he felt it was inappropriate to be seen by others, so he immediately hid away.

Xie Fei opened the door and Shui Huaiyu was standing outside.

"Are you Mama Liu's daughter-in-law? Are you here to deliver food?"

Shui Huaiyu carried a basket and bowed shyly, then said, "My mother-in-law was really busy, so she asked me to come. I knocked on the door during lunch time, but you didn't answer, so I didn't come in without permission."

Xie Fei yawned, his face full of fatigue, "I didn't sleep well last night, I was very sleepy, I fell asleep in the afternoon, so I didn't hear it."

Shui Huaiyu held her belly and looked into the courtyard, "Why don't I see the girl next to you?"

Xie Fei slightly turned sideways to block her view and took the basket.

"My girl likes to play, so don't pay attention to her. From now on, I will prepare all three meals a day in my small kitchen. You don't need to send food. You can go back now."

Shui Huaiyu felt that she seemed to have overstepped her authority, her face turned slightly red, and she quickly said goodbye.

(End of this chapter)