Two or Three Events in the Last Days 032
Chapter 32: Aesthetics
When the meeting ended, Zhou Yu quietly said, “Wu Jianxiong is already a grown man, but he’s exactly like his mother Liao Shufen. He just likes taking advantage of others.”
Zhao Zhiwen sneered. “It’s not like you don’t know what his family is like. They think everyone in the world owes them, and that everyone deserves to be taken advantage of by them. He’s already in his twenties and still doesn’t work, just stays home playing games every day.”
Because of the feud between Jing Lin and Liao Shufen’s family, Zhao Zhiwen’s family also had a bad relationship with them. On one hand, they looked down on the other family’s character. On the other hand, they treated Jing Lin like their own son and family, so naturally, they couldn’t stand seeing Jing Lin bullied. Consequently, the two families had often clashed with each other.
Zhao Chenghuai did not want his wife and son to gossip too much. After hearing a few sentences, he stopped them. “Alright, if someone else hears you, there’ll just be another argument.”
“So what if I have a few words to say?” Zhou Yu rolled her eyes at her husband, but she eventually stopped talking.
Zhao Zhiwen and Jing Lin couldn’t help smiling silently.
After getting the medicine from Zhao Shaogan’s house, everyone went home and applied it. Jing Lin asked how it felt, and Zhao Zhiwen said it did have an anti-itch effect, but it wasn’t very strong. Sometimes, he still couldn’t help reaching out to scratch.
After a busy morning, lunchtime had already passed. Since Zhou Yu was taking care of Le Le during the day, it wasn’t convenient for her to go out. She also didn’t feel comfortable letting Zhao Chenghuai go outside alone, so they didn’t gather any vegetables today. For lunch, Zhou Yu cooked egg noodles, and the family made do with that. While resting after the meal, Jing Lin heard the pigs in the pigpen constantly making noise, so he asked Zhou Yu what was going on.
“They’re hungry. They barely touched the food in the trough.” Zhou Yu frowned.
The pigs had been crying out all night yesterday. She had thought they were sick, but after watching them for a long time, she didn’t see any signs of illness. Although they sounded miserable, they actually looked full of energy.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Jing Lin thought of his own chicks. “What are you feeding them?”
“The grass we pulled out yesterday.”
There had been such a huge pile of fresh grass outside the door yesterday, so she hadn’t gone out to cut wild amaranth. Instead, she chopped up the grass, mixed it with bran, and fed it to the chickens first, then the pigs afterward.
The chickens were completely fine, jumping around energetically. Only the pigs kept making noise, giving her a headache.
Jing Lin said, “Maybe there’s something wrong with that grass. It suddenly grew so much overnight. The taste, nutrition, and other things may have changed.”
Zhou Yu immediately stood up and rushed toward the pigpen.
“Then the pigs won’t have a problem, right? Although there was a lot left over, they still ate some.” She realized she had been careless and hadn’t considered that possibility.
Zhao Chenghuai and his son also looked at Jing Lin nervously. These two pigs had cost them a lot of grain to exchange for.
“They should be fine.” Jing Lin quickly reassured them. “Maybe it just tastes bad, so the pigs are being picky.”
Then he asked Zhao Zhiwen to ride the tricycle with him over there.
Before entering the house, Jing Lin checked the low-level illusion array he had arranged before. Sure enough, just like the spirit gathering array, it had been destroyed.
He took two of the three sets of spirit gathering array talismans he had previously drawn and installed them. Then he pulled half of the bokchoy growing in his own front yard back home and asked Zhou Yu to throw some into the pig trough to test.
He also picked a leaf and brought it up to Duckie’s beak.
Duckie leaned over and sniffed it, then opened its mouth and ate.
Its tiny, beady eyes immediately widened, and it began eating faster and faster. After finishing the leaf, it hopped furiously up and down on Le Le’s knee while honking loudly:
“You jerk! You actually hid such delicious vegetable leaves from me and didn’t give me any! You made me search through the grass pile last night just to fill my stomach. I was exhausted! And you even gave so many leaves to other people! Mine! They’re all mine!”
Jing Lin understood what the duck meant. He patted its mischievous little head and looked toward Zhou Yu, who came out after a while.
Zhou Yu looked confused. “Why will pigs eat the bokchoy you gave them?”
Naturally, it was because of the spirit gathering array Jing Lin had set up.
Jing Lin had thought of this after hearing Zhou Yu say that the pigs refused to eat the wild grass. There should not only be more spiritual qi in the air now, but also some unknown impurities. Combined with spiritual qi, that substance caused animals and plants to split into two extremes.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
One type was plants that simply grew wildly, and animals like Duckie that gained intelligence but did not threaten humans.
The other type was plants like the man-eating morning glory in the county town—sentient and predatory. Animals like the giant monkey with its mouth full of fangs also became dangerous to humans.
The spirit gathering array only gathered spiritual qi. Those unknown impurities were completely excluded.
The rapid growth of the bokchoy and its vitality beyond normal limits came entirely from pure spiritual qi.
It was like if you were standing behind a car and breathing versus standing in front of a plant and breathing. One contained exhaust fumes, while the other carried the fresh scent of plants. The difference was obvious.
And the “you” in this example referred to plants and animals growing under different environments.
Zhou Yu and the others never expected that the array could have such a good effect.
The weeds they removed had grown back slightly the next day, but they were only small sprouts. Compared to the first explosive wave of growth, they were completely incomparable.
With the array in place, wouldn’t they no longer have to worry about food?
Jing Lin shook his head. “That can’t be confirmed yet. After all, wild grass and bokchoy are both plants with short growth cycles.”
As for other crops, they would need to test them first.
But this was already very good. At least it gave everyone reassurance. Even if food became scarce in the future, they would not starve as long as they had bokchoy.
Zhao Chenghuai broke off a piece of bokchoy stem and ate it.
It was crisp and sweet. After swallowing, the fragrance still remained in his mouth.
His eyes immediately lit up. “This tastes really good. Feeding it to pigs is a waste.”
Zhou Yu and Zhao Zhiwen also broke off pieces and ate them. They nodded repeatedly. It really was delicious.
After finishing, they couldn’t help breaking off another piece and slowly eating it like fruit. They didn’t even care whether it had been washed.
Zhao Zhiwen said, “How about this? We’ll find some wild grass seeds and plant them in a piece of land. You can set up an array there, right?”
That way, they wouldn’t have to worry about pigs starving because they refused to eat.
Jing Lin naturally agreed.
In the afternoon, Jing Lin first helped Zhao Zhiwen remove all the grass around his house. Then, while the weather was hot and there weren’t many people outside, he set up the array.
Afterward, he took a set of array talismans and went to Yan Fei’s house.
This was Jing Lin’s first time visiting Yan Fei’s home.
When he arrived, Zhou Feifei and Yan Lu were sitting under the eaves fanning themselves, watching Yan Fei and Yan Ruifeng pull weeds from the vegetable garden while wearing gloves. From time to time, they pointed out areas where the weeds had not been completely removed.
When Zhou Feifei saw Jing Lin and Zhao Zhiwen bringing Le Le over, she quickly stood up and smiled.
“Ah Lin is here! Come sit, come sit. Xiao Zhao, there are stools inside, go bring some out. Oh my, Le Le is still so cute today. Lu Lu, quickly go get some food for Le Le.”
After a round of activity, Yan Fei and his father, who had washed their hands, also brought stools over and sat nearby.
Jing Lin felt Zhou Feifei’s smile was strange. She was far too close and enthusiastic toward him and Le Le, making him uncomfortable.
He looked around and saw that their family had already cleared the weeds around the house, so he directly got to the point.
“Actually, I came here because I wanted to set up an array for your family.”
What? An array?
The Yan family looked at Jing Lin blankly, clearly not understanding.
This was Zhao Zhiwen’s chance to show off. He explained, “It’s like this. Jing Lin learned some things from an old man in our village when he was young…”
After hearing everything, the Yan family looked amazed. “So Ah Lin is the legendary hidden expert!”
Jing Lin shook his head. “I only know a little.”
Right now, he could only set up some simple arrays, and he still needed talisman paper to preserve the spiritual qi and create formation talismans.
Yan Fei said, “That’s already amazing.”
The future partner he hadn’t even managed to pursue yet already had such incredible abilities. The only thing he could show off was some martial arts skills.
He suddenly felt a lot of pressure. It seemed he needed to work harder, improve himself, and learn more skills!
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
While Jing Lin arranged the array, Zhou Feifei became more and more satisfied the longer she watched him.
Yan Fei, meanwhile, was captivated by Jing Lin’s presence. He covered his chest, which was beating uncontrollably, and stayed silent, but the light in his eyes burned intensely.
While arranging the formation, Jing Lin kept feeling a hot gaze following him.
Fortunately, he was already very skilled at arranging the spirit gathering array. After a while, he became immersed in the profound intricacies of the array and finished the setup in more than ten minutes.
After the formation was completed, Yan Lu was the first to enter, followed by the rest of the Yan family.
After the formation was completed, Yan Lu was the first to enter, followed by the rest of the Yan family.
Everyone tested it. Yan Fei and his parents said they couldn’t feel much difference yet. Only Yan Lu said it felt very comfortable.
Yan Lu was born with incredible strength. Her body was fundamentally different from ordinary people, which was why mosquitoes did not bite her and why she could easily sense the array.
According to Jing Lin’s original plan, he wanted to go check the lotus flowers by the pond. However, the surrounding weeds had not been cleared, and he might accidentally fall into the fields while walking there, so he decided not to go for now.
After sitting and chatting for a while, Jing Lin said he was going back.
He wanted to organize his backyard and plant some vegetables. He also needed to plant more bokchoy.
Yan Fei immediately stood up seriously and said he wanted to follow along to learn. He still didn’t know how to hoe or grow vegetables.
Young people liked gathering together, so in the end Zhao Zhiwen and Yan Lu also followed.
As soon as they entered the backyard, Zhao Zhiwen went to open the back door.
The moment he opened it, he saw a huge toad squatting in front of the door.
He immediately shouted and jumped backward.
“What is this thing?!”
Lele said, “Croakie.”
“Croak,” The toad, which Le Le called Croakie, responded.
Jing Lin had forgotten to mention it, so he quickly explained. “This is a mutated toad. It should not be dangerous.”
Zhao Zhiwen was still nervous. From far away, he waved his hand and shouted twice.
“Good toad, don’t block the way. Move aside.”
However, Croakie did not budge. Instead, it hopped one step toward the living room.
Everyone quickly moved aside to let it pass. Then they watched as Croakie chose a corner and crouched there motionless, just like yesterday.
Yan Fei watched for a while and saw that Croakie was quietly hunting.
“Frogs and toads usually eat flies and mosquitoes, right? Is it also hunting?”
“It should be.” Jing Lin said. Yesterday Croakie had stayed in the front yard, spent the morning in the back yard, and had now come inside—all the while maintaining a hunting stance.
Yan Fei glanced at Jing Lin’s exposed smooth arm. “You and Le Le hadn’t been bitten by mosquitoes. Were they all eaten by it?”
Jing Lin thought for a moment. Then he lowered his head and whispered a few words to Le Le.
Le Le walked toward Croakie and crouched down. He seemed completely unconcerned about the ugly skin and bumps covering the toad’s body.
Before Jing Lin could stop him, Le Le gently stroked Croakie’s back.
“Croakie, what are you doing at my house?”
Croakie tilted its head. “Croak!”
Then everyone heard Le Le say “Oh.” and asked, “I see. So, are you full now?”
“Croak!”
Yan Fei and the others were amazed.
Zhao Zhiwen said, “When did Le Le learn to communicate with animals?”
“After he woke up,” Jing Lin said.
After Le Le finished communicating with Croakie, Yan Lu asked him, “Le Le, aren’t you afraid of it? It looks so… it’s hard to describe.”
Le Le didn’t understand what she meant. He looked at her blankly.
“Not afraid. Croakie is very pretty.”
Pretty…
Everyone fell silent.
Alright. It seemed their sense of aesthetics was a little different from his.
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: Two of two for the week.
Pinned note: Chapters 38-47 (except 45) are almost 3times in length, I’ll probably split them into two parts.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: MushroomKnight73
Proofreader: Yume
Avid BL reader, editor, and translator with 1 story completed (CLWP) and 1 story in progress (TELD). Support this translation with a Ko-fi. Three Ko-fis will add an extra chapter from the stockpile to the next weekly release.
