1986: My Happy Life in Provence

Chapter 16 Abnormal Leah

That night.

Zoe told her parents how Ronan had dug up truffles, proposed to share the stall with her, and hoped to borrow the car more often.

It metaphorically expresses that the car is useless just sitting at home, and intuitively calculates how much actual economic income it will bring her.

Soon she would be able to scrape together enough money to buy her own car, which would allow her to frequent more markets in other parts of Provence, even during the peak season for family cars.

When Zoe finished speaking, Louis and Leah both showed surprise and confusion on their faces.

As a woman with a more delicate mind, Leah keenly captured Zoe's abnormality. She could obviously describe what happened objectively and rationally, as she usually did, but this time she mixed it with a lot of subjective explanations and opinions.

Could it be that she has a crush on Ronan?
Or do they have feelings for each other and are now dating?
Oh my god, how could I have made such a serious mistake by not paying attention to their interaction at the party?
As a carefree father, Louis' focus is not on borrowing the car. Ronan wants to be able to drive it anytime, and he is attracted by Henry's strange behavior.

"You mean, Henry took the initiative to grab things from Ronan's hands, and often spoke in a flattering tone?"

Zoe thought carefully for a while:

"It should be to please. I've only seen that expression when he was facing Pierre."

Louis couldn't help but lean forward, his interest growing stronger:
"Henry also said that everyone in the old tavern wanted to buy Ronan a drink?"

Zoe nodded:
"Yes."

Louis quickly stood up and made a phone call.

The phone was quickly picked up, and Louis asked bluntly:
"Did anything happen in the old tavern today?"

The person speaking over there is Alan, the owner of the bakery. He is most familiar with the news in the village:

"The farmers held another truffle picking competition, and Lucas won. You know, this guy is a professional truffle hunter."

Louis told Alan what Zoe had described. After a few seconds of silence, he said:

"I'll go find out."

Three minutes later, Alan called back.

Even though Zoe and Leah were four or five meters away from the receiver, they could still hear the shock and madness in Alan's voice:
"You won't believe this. Lucas said that when he went to the old tavern this afternoon, no one came to congratulate him or invite him to drink. Everyone was waiting for Ronan! Louis, I think we must have a party. We haven't kept in touch for so long. So many things happened to Ronan, but no one knew about it!"

Zoe blinked rapidly several times.

If I remember correctly, the last time these people got together was four days ago.

My father and his friends have taken the "good deeds" of the people of Provence to the extreme.

But this time it was not Louislia who answered Alan. She shouted into the phone:
"Yes, we must have a party. We have neglected too many things before!"

Zoe looked at her mother with a complicated expression.

"Mother?"

The next morning, Ronan went to Louis's house to borrow a car, and it was Leah who opened the door for him.

Leah informed him that there was a party tonight and warmly invited him to come in and have a bite if he hadn't had breakfast.

Ronan really wanted to try Leah's breakfast, but an extra minute of searching for truffles might mean more gains, so he said apologetically:

"Next time, I will definitely come next time."

Leah said in a bewitching and testing tone: "Zoe is eating, won't you come in and join her?"

Ronan felt that the Leia in front of him had turned into a villain in a Chinese fairy tale - that person was a monster transformed from a spider, always trying to trick passers-by into entering her spider hole.

This is the aura that Leia exudes at the moment, and it seems that she really wants Ronan to come into the house.

Ronan warily rejected her kindness and ran away with the car keys.

Ronan set out at eight o'clock and arrived at his "secret garden" at almost eleven o'clock.

Although the journey is long, it was already afternoon when I found this place last time, and today I have several more hours to go out.

Ronan first checked the area and made sure there were no signs of anyone else having been there before he started his next move - looking for a place where 'no grass grows'.

The target soon appeared, and Ronan continued to use the method from last time, making a brush, carpet brushing the floor, looking for places where flies flew out and the final excavation steps.

With the successful experience, this time went even smoother than last time.

In the next four hours, Ronan found a total of eight truffles. Although the number was not large, each one was quite large. The largest one was a bit like a potato.

For the next week, Ronan repeated the same thing every day.

Early in the morning, we went to Louis's house to borrow a car, went to the 'secret garden', looked for truffles, dug truffles, and repeated the cycle.

When the next Friday came, Zoe saw Ronan at the booth and asked in surprise:

"Are you sure there's enough room for us to squeeze in?"

This was of course a joke, but it fully expressed how shocked Zoe was.

Ronan held a suitcase-sized box in his hands.

You actually dug so many truffles?

While Ronan casually talked about the interesting things that happened while digging truffles this week, he placed a total of sixty truffles of different sizes and shapes on the lake blue embroidered tablecloth that Zoe specially prepared for him.

"I'm pretty lucky." He commented on his gains with a smile.

Zoe exhaled a breath, looked at Ronan with a complicated expression and said:
"I told you that the Provençal people are very good at doing good things. Do you know what this leads to?"

"What are you attracting?" Ronan carefully arranged the truffles according to size to make them look more tempting.

"This will lead to a situation that we are totally unable to handle." Zoe's face was full of worry.

Although the village of Lourmarin is not big, the weekly market still attracts many people from other villages and tourists.

Visitors to the market today found that many stall owners had disappeared, replaced by notices on the tables:

Hint, if anyone wants to buy something, they can go to the stall in front of the bakery and find the owner.

Seeing so many notices with the same instructions, these people were inevitably curious about what was going on over there, so they asked where the bakery was while walking around the market.

"Go straight to the end of this road, turn right after a hundred meters and then turn left and you will be there. Don't worry about not finding it. Just look for the area with the most people." A kind shop owner enthusiastically showed the way.

"What happened over there? Why did even the store owner come to watch the fun?"

"There was a young man who dug 60 truffles in a week. This is more impressive than Saint Antoine (the saint who is said to protect truffles). If I hadn't been diagnosed with lumbar spondylolisthesis last month and the doctor hadn't allowed me to walk too much, I would have definitely gone to see it."

(End of this chapter)