Farming to Defy My Fate 12

Chapter 12: Saving the Strawberry Seedlings

The rain was heavy and fierce, not gentle like the last spring shower. For many of the newly planted spring crops, it was likely a disaster.

After Hu Sheng confirmed he was staying, the blush behind Zhao An’s ears faded, and his mind gradually cleared. He began to worry about the strawberries in the small orchard outside. So far, they were his greatest guarantee for survival.

In truth, once strawberry vines were established, they weren’t easy to kill. But the small orchard was one he had built with stacked stones. There was only a shallow layer of soil, with stone slabs underneath. The falling rain was like water pouring into a bucket. If the roots of the strawberry vines were soaked in water for too long, they would easily rot.

With his ability, the worst-case scenario wouldn’t happen, but if the strawberry seedlings themselves were damaged, the most he could do was save them. It would be impossible for them to bear fruit tomorrow. Not only could he not easily break his contract with Ruyi House, but the portion he had promised to Hu Sheng would be even more impossible to deliver.

While Hu Sheng was in the room changing his clothes, Zhao An put on his newly bought straw raincoat and ran into the courtyard to check the situation. As expected, he found that the simple little orchard was already full of water. Some muddy water was flowing out from the cracks between the stones, but the rate at which the water was draining was far slower than the rate at which the rain was falling from the sky.

After standing in the courtyard for a moment, Zhao An decided to build a rain shelter for his small orchard. Hai Bo and Qin Tong also knew how important these strawberries were to them. Understanding Zhao An’s plan, Hai Bo immediately had Qin Tong put on the only other conical bamboo hat in the house and run out to help Zhao An.

They took half a roll of hemp cloth left over from making shoe soles, tied it to a bamboo pole used for drying clothes, and made a simple square canopy. But after this canopy was lifted over the strawberry seedlings, it was quickly battered and knocked askew by the downpour.

Seeing this, Zhao An immediately called for Qin Tong to help him move the canopy, which was on the verge of being broken apart by the rain, to prevent it from falling and damaging the strawberry seedlings.

Qin Tong wasn’t wearing a raincoat, only a bamboo hat. Under these conditions, apart from his hair, his clothes were basically soaked. The spring temperature dropped significantly under the washing of the rain. While Zhao An was lost in thought, Qin Tong couldn’t help but hug his arms and shiver.

Seeing this, Zhao An forgot about the strawberry seedlings and quickly pulled him back under the eaves. “Go change your clothes, and make a bowl of brown sugar water to drink.” Catching a cold in this era could be life-threatening.

Hai Bo had been standing under the eaves watching them anxiously. Now he also urged Qin Tong to go change, then ran over to help Zhao An take off his raincoat, wanting to see if he had gotten wet.

Fortunately, this type of raincoat was a bit cumbersome to wear, but it provided strong enough protection against the rain. He had also rolled up his sleeves in advance. Apart from the hem, which was unavoidably soaked by the rain, the rest of him was still dry.

Hai Bo, while breathing a sigh of relief, suggested, “Why don’t we just bring the strawberry seedlings inside for now?”

He had seen Zhao An perform his magic many times and knew that he could replant the strawberry seedlings after they had been removed from the soil, which was why he made this suggestion.

Zhao An felt that this was the only option. He would have to break his appointment to deliver strawberries to Ruyi House tomorrow. Besides, with the intensity of this downpour, even if it stopped before morning, the roads would surely be muddy and impassable.

Having made his decision, he was about to ask Hai Bo to help him put on his raincoat again to go and dig up all the strawberry seedlings. But he didn’t notice that the silent-walking Hu Sheng had already come out of the room and had been standing under the eaves for some time.

He took the raincoat from Hai Bo and was about to put it on. “In this heavy rain, a canopy made of a few bamboo poles definitely won’t work. You have to nail that cloth to the wall.”

Zhao An saw Hu Sheng, who had changed into a new green bamboo-cloth, round-collared long-shirt of his. The chest and shoulders of the shirt were stretched taut. Although there was only a two or three-centimeter height difference between them, his clothes looked much shorter and smaller on him, creating a unique kind of allure.

But Zhao An quickly shook the image of muscles from his mind and raised a hand to stop Hu Sheng from putting on the raincoat. “But we don’t have any nails.”

Iron nails were considered valuable items at this time. Without an urgent need, Zhao An hadn’t thought to buy any.

“I’ll figure something out,” Hu Sheng said. He then continued to take the bamboo hat from Hai Bo’s hands, put it on his head, and walked directly into the curtain of rain.

In the rainy darkness, he went to the eaves on the other side of the wall where the firewood was stored. He picked out a sturdy wooden stick and brought it over to the fallen bamboo poles in the courtyard to remove the hemp cloth.

Then, Zhao An saw him pull out a dagger from somewhere. Even in the extremely dim light, it still glinted with a cold light. With a few swift motions, he carved the wooden stick into several wooden wedges. Then, he picked up a cobblestone from the small orchard, took the hemp cloth, and walked to the wall. Aiming for a crack between the bricks, he lightly hammered a wooden wedge into the wall.

He hammered four wedges into the wall and two more into the cracks between the bluestones on the ground. Like setting up a tent, he tied the hemp cloth at an angle between the wall and the ground.

After setting up the tent-like shelter, a small amount of rain would still drip through the gaps in the hemp cloth, but the majority of the rainwater would flow down the slope of the tent, eliminating the danger to the strawberry seedlings.

It didn’t take Hu Sheng much time to do all this. At least, Qin Tong hadn’t finished changing and come out yet. He walked under the eaves, took off the bamboo hat and raincoat, and hung them on the wall. “This rain shelter doesn’t need to be taken down. You can use it again next time it rains.”

However, Zhao An’s focus was clearly no longer on the rain shelter. He asked with a hint of surprise and some anticipation, “Do you know martial arts?”

Although wooden wedges could be used to build houses and make furniture, hammering them into a brick wall was a bit incredible. Moreover, the quality of the wooden stick wasn’t good, and Hu Sheng’s movements had seemed excessively relaxed and effortless.

Faced with Zhao An’s expectant gaze, Hu Sheng unconsciously straightened his chest and said, “I just learned some rudimentary martial arts in the army. I was just born with a bit more strength.”

But he didn’t mention that his innate strength was greater than that of those who had cultivated internal energy for decades since childhood.

When Zhao An heard that he knew martial arts, the thought of learning it had already crossed his mind. Hearing that he had learned it in the army, he asked, “Are you a soldier? Why are you here?”

Hu Sheng fell silent for a moment at the question. He suddenly thought of a way to dispel those little thoughts in Zhao An’s mind and explained his situation. “I once served as a subordinate general in the border army. Later, I offended a superior and was exiled to serve under the Jiaozhou Garrison Commander as a mere corporal. Dissatisfied, I deserted with a few of my men and became a mountain chieftain in the great green mountains.”

Zhao An looked at Hu Sheng’s face and his bearing. He couldn’t imagine him as a mountain chieftain.

When he used to read novels and saw people falling in love with villains or male leads who had committed many evil deeds, he could never understand why the protagonist would turn a blind eye to those evil acts. But after learning that the person he had a good impression of was a mountain chieftain, he kept making up all sorts of excuses for him in his mind, feeling that he must have been forced into it.

But in the end, he still couldn’t get over the hurdle in his heart and pressed, “Have you ever robbed common people?”

Hu Sheng had originally felt a little apprehensive, but seeing Zhao An’s colorful expressions, he couldn’t help but feel a bit amused. He remained silent for a long time, watching the other’s growing anxiety before finally saying, “No.”

“What about landlords and wealthy households?” Zhao An immediately asked.

“No, them either,” Hu Sheng said truthfully.

“Could it be passing merchants and travelers?” It seemed that most bandits only robbed merchant caravans and left the surrounding farmers untouched, or were even good to them. Those farmers would then, in turn, help the bandits. This was the same principle as later gangs collecting protection fees, acting as managers outside the jurisdiction of the government.

Hu Sheng finally smiled and said, “I have few men under my command. Occasionally robbing some other mountain strongholds is enough to live on.”

Zhao An let out a huge sigh of relief, but then became uneasy again. “Are there many mountain strongholds around here?”

Neither from the original body’s memories nor from the descriptions in the book did he know that there were bandits in this area where Shuzhou bordered Jiaozhou.

However, Hu Sheng’s answer greatly exceeded his expectations. “Throughout the entire Xu Dynasty, where are there no bandits? There are horse bandits on the frontiers, water bandits in the south, and here in the southwest, the most formidable are not the mountain bandits, but the Yao and Miao villages deep in the mountains. They usually engage in small-time robbery and murder, and as soon as the imperial court pushes them too hard, their chieftains will rebel.”

The rebellions of the Yao and Miao villages seemed to run through the entire feudal era. They weren’t as memorable as the Wokou pirates or the steppe peoples, but if you flipped through a few classical novels, there were descriptions of them.

“Solving these problems is actually very simple. Just let everyone live a good life. In fact, it’s the same principle for the steppe peoples. But for these wolves, you still have to beat them into submission before you can tame them.”

After all, having been tempered by the information explosion, Zhao An saw these issues quite clearly and couldn’t help but voice his opinion.

After listening, Hu Sheng smiled and nodded. “There’s some truth to what you say. Unfortunately, we are not the ones in power. Besides, the enmity between us and the Miao and Yao is not so easily washed away.”

Those young generals from noble families were capable of killing innocent commoners to claim military merits; they certainly wouldn’t be soft on other ethnic groups. The enmity that arose from this, even with a policy of appeasement, would take at least several decades to erase the hatred of one generation.

And the imperial court would absolutely not use a decades-long policy of appeasement just to win the allegiance of these Miao and Yao villages that could only hide in the mountains.

Hai Bo saw the two of them chatting under the eaves, seemingly on the verge of discussing the affairs of the world, so he didn’t interrupt. It wasn’t until Qin Tong had re-boiled the water and made a pot of brown sugar ginger tea that he called the two in to drink a bowl of ginger tea to ward off the cold.

After drinking the tea, it was getting late. They washed their feet with the remaining hot water, and it was time for bed.

Zhao An led Hu Sheng to his room. “We don’t have an extra bed in our house. Hai Bo brought a new quilt. We’ll each have one. Sleeping foot-to-foot should be no problem, right?”

With that, he quickly scrambled onto the bed and wrapped himself tightly in his own quilt. Getting into the same bed so soon was still quite embarrassing, even if it was just to sleep.