Pastoral Daily Life

Chapter 46

Before going to bed at night, Yan Yue gave Ye Kang a call and mentioned the matter of Xu San.

Ye Kang didn’t expect Qiu Tian Gardening to really look for trouble with the plant nursery, so he asked, “Do you want Sange’s help?”

Yan Yue chuckled lightly, “Do you think such a small matter needs to involve Sange?”

If Yan Yue couldn’t even solve this problem, he wouldn’t be Yan Yue. Ye Kang listened to Yan Yue’s concern, “How is the progress on Sange’s side?”

When it came to this, Ye Kang didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, “The progress is good, but you know how Sange is. Qiu Tian Gardening is probably bleeding money right now.”

Unlike the Yan family, which was a single-descendant family, the Ye family in Zhongjing had many branches and a large number of talented people. There were five brothers in Ye Kang’s generation alone, not counting the cousins. Among these five brothers, Ye Cheng was the third in line, so people who were familiar with him called him Sange. Ye Kang once told Yan Yue in private that Ye Cheng was the last guy one could wish to offend. Ye Cheng was recognised as the family’s most cautious and vengeful member.

After Ye Kang reminded Ye Cheng of the incident, Ye Cheng sent people all over the city to collect evidence within a day. Ye Kang thought that Ye Cheng would use threats to deal with Lu Hongxin and his father. Who knew that Ye Cheng would just send someone to release the news that the mayor wanted to check the results of the municipal greening project in advance. In Ye Cheng’s words, now that Lu Hongxin and his father were taken down and implicated Qiu Tian Gardening, who would work for them? What about the dead seedlings? Where would the money for replanting come from? Wait for Qiu Tian Gardening to solve this mess before talking about them. As for Lu Hongxin and his father, they were the whips hanging over Qiu Tian Gardening’s ass urging it on. It saved Ye Cheng himself from worrying about the matter.

Although Yan Yue didn’t deal with Ye Sange much, he had heard something about his style of operating, and he quickly guessed what Ye Kang meant. The corners of his mouth hooked up. It seemed that for a short time there was no need to worry about Qiu Tian Gardening being free to do something else.

Hanging up the phone, Yan Yue turned and went back to the house, and saw Lu Lingxi lying on the bed, calculating something. Dahei was quietly curled up on one side, and when he heard Yan Yue, he looked up lazily and continued to lie.

Perhaps after the time spent together, Dahei recognised Yan Yue; or perhaps this evening when one person and one dog fought side by side had created some kind of comradeship. This time, Dahei didn’t lie down between the two of them, but occupied the position to Lu Lingxi’s left, leaving the position on the right to Yan Yue.

Happiness came so suddenly that Yan Yue was a bit overwhelmed. He was stunned for a few seconds before he walked over and quietly sat beside Lu Lingxi.

Lu Lingxi was so absorbed in his calculations that he didn’t notice Yan Yue’s presence at all. The current plant nursery of Tiny Garden was about 5 acres, and with the addition of the land of Widow Yu, it would be about 12 acres in total. Although 12 acres was not comparable in size to some large plant nurseries, when Lu Lingxi had stood at the head of the village and looked at it, it was big enough to be called endless.

He roughly planned out the area of the plant nursery in his notebook. Tiny Garden now mainly focused on foliage plants and various flowers, and Lu Lingxi was going to add some fruit-bearing plants in the latter half of the year. The last time a customer brought a five-fingered eggplant to the shop, Lu Lingxi became interested in fruit-bearing plants. He had looked on Taobao and found that some of the more common fruit-bearing plants were five-fingered eggplant, ornamental pepper, wolfberry, kumquat, and nandina. These didn’t need to be grown on too large a scale either, two acres of land was about right. If possible, Lu Lingxi also wanted to dig a pond and raise some aquatic flowers to spice things up.

Having planned out these areas, Lu Lingxi habitually chewed on his pen. A hand reached out from the side and took away the pen he was chewing on.

Lu Lingxi looked up in bewilderment and blinked, “Big Brother Yan, you’ve finished your phone call?”

Yan Yue nodded and asked, “What are you drawing?”

The topic obviously aroused Lu Lingxi’s interest. He rolled over and sat up, his two long legs swinging over the edge of the bed as he leaned towards Yan Yue to point out his plans to him.

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“Here are ornamental peppers, here are kumquats, and here we can grow some five-fingered eggplants. If there’s any land left, we’ll dig a water pond in the middle. Isn’t there a river behind the village? We can draw the water from there. After it’s done, we can fish by the pond in summer, skate in winter, and raise lotus roots in the pond…”

While Lu Lingxi was talking with great excitement. Yan Yue was a little distracted by the fact that he was too close. His attention was less on these plans and more on Lu Lingxi. He heard Lu Lingxi use the word “we” all the time; even if in the young man’s mind, this “we” only referred to a partnership, Yan Yue had an unusual sense of satisfaction. This feeling was truly indescribable.

He remembered the first time he had met the boy, when he vaguely and frantically wanted to get close to him. He had spied on Lu Lingxi from afar like a stalker and a voyeur, and had set up several chance encounters just so he could see the boy up close. At that time, it seemed that the hidden anger that had been clamouring inside him would only calm down when he was next to Lu Lingxi. He would be excited by the fact that the boy was talking to him, excited by the fact that the boy was near him. He had imagined living close to the young man countless times, just as he was now. Although the current progress was still far from his goal, the young man was talking about “us”… In the young man’s heart, he had already begun to have his place.

“Big Brother Yan, do you think we should grow some succulent plants? The kind in small pots the size of your palm to put on the desk for decoration.”

Lu Lingxi asked casually; Yan Yue gathered his thoughts and tried his best to suppress his emotions, saying, “Whatever Xiao Xi says is good.”

Lu Lingxi suddenly smiled and looked at Yan Yue with his eyes curved, saying seriously, “Big Brother Yan, thank you. It’s so good to know you.”

For Lu Lingxi, Wang Shuxiu and Yi Hang were good to him because of this body, but Yan Yue was different, Yan Yue was good to him because he was Lu Lingxi. It was a bit complicated to say that, and Lu Lingxi didn’t know how to express this feeling. In his heart, Yan Yue was like a big brother who cared about him. He was also like a friend, supporting him in his Tiny Garden. Sometimes he was also like a teacher. In the past two months of running Tiny Garden, Yan Yue had taught him many things little by little. He felt there was a lot he wanted to say, but with all these mixed emotions, some of which he didn’t quite understand, the only thing that he could say for sure was that he was happy to know Yan Yue.

The young man’s eyes were clean and clear, full of trust, and he looked at Yan Yue defencelessly. Yan Yue could no longer control the longing in his heart. He felt that his bitter suppression of his emotions had been easily defeated by the young man’s words, “It’s so good to know you”.

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Almost instinctively, Yan Yue reached out and hugged Lu Lingxi, circling the young man in his arms together with the black notebook.

Lu Lingxi blinked, looking a little confused, but leaned obediently into Yan Yue’s arms trustingly.

“Xiao Xi.” Yan Yue sighed.

Lu Lingxi could not distinguish Yan Yue’s emotions and asked tentatively, “Are you in a bad mood, Big Brother Yan?”

Yan Yue didn’t know why Lu Lingxi would ask that, but his natural tendency to take advantage made him say “en”.

Lu Lingxi stretched out his hand and hugged Yan Yue in return, and after some thought gently patted Yan Yue’s back as if he was patting a child. In his perception, this was how it played out on TV. When one of the friends was in a bad mood, the other would give him a hug to cheer him up. Although it seemed that he and Big Brother Yan had reversed the order, it should be the same.

Lu Lingxi’s reassurance calmed down Yan Yue’s impulses and transformed them into another sweet enjoyment. He almost roguishly took advantage of the boy’s soft heart and used his bad mood as an excuse to hold the boy in his arms for a long time, until he could no longer rely on it…

Lu Lingxi thoughtfully didn’t ask Yan Yue why he was in a bad mood, saving him from having to find an excuse for his actions.

Gathering up the things around him, Lu Lingxi stroked Dahei and turned his head to Yan Yue, “Big Brother Yan, good night.”

“Good night.”

The room fell into darkness, and Yan Yue was a little too excited to sleep. The previous hug had been like a beautiful dream, and now that he was awake he began to reminisce nostalgically. The pale moonlight spilled in, and Yan Yue propped himself up to survey the boy’s profile in the moonlight. The young man fell asleep very quickly. He heard that people with pure minds were like this, unlike him who often stayed awake all night.

Yan Yue was so absorbed in watching that he didn’t know when he fell asleep. He seemed to have had a dream, charming and beautiful, and when he woke up it was already dawn. The bed beside him was empty. Lu Lingxi and Dahei were gone, and Yan Yue’s clothes were neatly folded beside him. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, his mood as translucent as the clear sky outside the window.

“Slow down, Dahei.”

By the road, Lu Lingxi took Dahei out to let off some steam. Usually Dahei followed him either in the shop or at home and there was no place to run around. Every time he came to the plant nursery, it was Dahei’s time to run free.

After running for two steps, Dahei suddenly stopped and sniffed the ground. Lu Lingxi trotted after Dahei and saw a few saplings lying in a heap.

His mental scan spread out and the image of these saplings appeared in his mind. The plant viability was shown to be extremely low. Lu Lingxi glanced around. There was no one around; these saplings had been just abandoned here. He picked them all up with pity, intending to bring them back to the plant nursery to try and see if they could be saved.

“Dahei, let’s go back, let Big Brother Yan take you out later.”

Dahei’s eyes were a little puzzled as he hovered in the same place as before and sniffed around. Lu Lingxi called him again, and Dahei whimpered in response, chasing after Lu Lingxi in a flash.

Lu Lingxi pushed open the courtyard door and saw Yan Yue seemingly on his way out. “Big Brother Yan, you’re awake?”

“I was just going to look for you. What is this?” Yan Yue was surprised.

Lu Lingxi explained, “These saplings were abandoned by the roadside and are dying. I want to try and see if they can be saved.”

Yan Yue didn’t say anything more and went forward to take these saplings from Lu Lingxi’s hands. He had always known that the boy had a love for these plants that was incomprehensible to ordinary people. Thinking of the willow sapling that had been transplanted behind the plant nursery, Yan Yue asked, “Should we plant them together with that willow sapling?”

Lu Lingxi nodded.

The two of them went to the plant nursery, and Yan Yue quickly dug a few pits. He was now quite good at these tasks.

One, two, three, four, there were four plants in total. Lu Lingxi had seen through the panel before that the problem with these willow seedlings was not complicated. It was simply that they were “starved“ to death because they couldn’t keep up with nutrition, just like the few small willow seedlings he had seen in Nancheng before. He felt that the environment in the plant nursery was much better than in Nancheng, and the soil should be fertile enough for the saplings to absorb the nutrients. He thought he would plant the saplings first and see how it went, and if it didn’t work then he would sprinkle some nutrient fertiliser appropriately.

After carefully planting the last sapling, Lu Lingxi was about to disperse his mental scan when the white panel flew out and a prompt appeared in front of him.

Found young plants of the same mother tree. Choose to share vitality?