ATPnovel Chapter 999 - 999 245 Tile Kiln Added more for Alliance Hierarch Cancy Star!
Chapter 999 - 999 245 Tile Kiln Added more for Alliance Hierarch Cancy Star!
999: Chapter 245: Tile Kiln (Added more for Alliance Hierarch Cancy Star!) 999: Chapter 245: Tile Kiln (Added more for Alliance Hierarch Cancy Star!) Bao Long Prefecture, long and narrow on the map of Daqi, resembled an embracing arm, bordered by Cang Shu and Chang Ming Prefectures to the left, and connected to Le’an, Qiu Yang, and Yin Qiao Prefectures to the right.Woyao Town is an extremely ordinary town among many towns, ordinary from head to toe, inside and out.
As its name suggests, the livelihood of the people here is brick and tile making.
However, being ordinary in Qi Country is different from being ordinary in other smaller nations.
Just having the strength to make a living is already a life many dream of.
Based on the information provided by Lin Youxie, Jiang Wang found a medium-sized tile kiln on the west side of Woyao Town.
In front of neatly stacked piles of gray tiles, there was a group of people moving tiles in and out.
The group included both men and women, predominantly men.
The men were mostly shirtless with muscles caked in black and gray dust.
The women wore durable coarse cloth garments with their hair wrapped in headscarves that had lost their original color; some looked even more robust than the men.
Jiang Wang looked carefully for a while before he finally located Zhang Cuihua using the exceptional vision of a Transcendent Cultivator—
She was an extremely ordinary village woman, slightly thinner than the other working women, relatively less bulky.
Her face was also cleaner but still far from pretty.
A Transcendent Cultivator, literally understood, transcends the mundane.
Any Transcendent Cultivator, even one as naive as Zhang Hai or as corrupted as Ge Heng, could easily lead a life far more luxurious than ordinary people.
Chu Mi was already a cultivator of the External Building Environment, having stepped into the threshold qualifying him for Prefectural Governor.
As he said himself, being able to cultivate to the External Building Environment at a place like Beam Top Building with such cultivation techniques and resources, he was incredibly talented, an extremely gifted cultivator!
Why would he take an interest in such an ordinary village woman?
Without cultivation or beauty.
“Hey hey hey, you there, what are you doing?
You’ve been peeking sneakily for quite some time!” a particularly sturdy man suddenly shouted.
Jiang Wang looked around before realizing he was talking about himself.
“This brother,” Jiang Wang said warmly with a smile, “I’m looking for someone.”
The sturdy man, carrying a large stack of tiles, walked forward while still glancing at Jiang Wang.
His face smeared with gray and barely discernible, but the warning in his eyes was intensely clear: “Don’t harbor any ill intentions, or my fists won’t recognize you!”
“Please be assured, brother, I come with good intentions.”
It’s said that one does not strike a smiling face; though the sturdy man walked forward with a cold expression, he couldn’t help remarking, “Soft and tender, how could you be any good?”
“Nobody summoned you, nor bothered you, so why are you talking so much?
Can’t you mind your own business?” a woman’s voice shouted, quite imposing.
The sturdy man grimly continued moving tiles, no longer speaking.
Coincidentally, the one who spoke up to diffuse the situation was Zhang Cuihua.
She had just unloaded a round of tiles, brushing the dust from her sleeves as she walked out.
Helping out a strange young man by speaking up was nothing out of the ordinary for her; she didn’t even give Jiang Wang another glance.
Jiang Wang hurriedly walked a few steps and politely greeted, “Excuse me…
are you related to Chu Haoxue?”
Yes, the alias Chu Mi used in Woyao Town was actually Chu Haoxue.
What a ridiculous name!
What is there to learn?
It’s absurd.
A master of deceiving and cheating still “haoxue”?
How is this acceptable?
“That’s my husband,” Zhang Cuihua stopped and looked at him with a complex expression.
“Do you need something?”
“It’s like this,” Jiang Wang looked around.
“Could we step aside to talk?”
The woman showed a troubled expression: “I’m in the middle of work.”
Jiang Wang thought for a moment and said, “How about this?
What’s your daily wage?
I’ll pay you, and you won’t need to work today.”
Logically, not having to work should be good news for anyone, but the woman shook her head: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch falling from the sky.
My husband says never to trust it.
Even if I really don’t want anything now, it will come back to bite later.”
For a moment, Jiang Wang found himself at a loss for words.
Chu Mi, truly a con artist, had instilled a strong sense of anti-fraud awareness in his wife.
“You…” Amidst Jiang Wang’s silence, Zhang Cuihua sized him up, “Do you know my husband?”
It was then that Jiang Wang discerned the wariness and hope hidden in her eyes.
After all, her husband “Chu Haoxue,” hadn’t returned for five full years.
“We…
could be considered friends,” Jiang Wang replied.
“How is he?” Zhang Cuihua grabbed his sleeve all at once but quickly let go, fumbling to brush the dust off his sleeve, “I’m…
I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, no problem,” Jiang Wang kindly said, “Shall we find a place to talk?”
“What do you mean?” The burly man from earlier somehow barged back in, cursing from a distance, “Sister Hua, what’s going on?
Is this pretty boy bullying you?”
“Mind your own business!” Zhang Cuihua turned and cursed back, “I’m talking to my young brother here, does it bother you?
Get lost!”
The aggressive burly man, halfway to them, got scolded and backed off.
Zhang Cuihua then turned back and soothed, “Don’t be upset.
Country folk speak harshly but mean well.”
The burly man was kind-hearted, just a bit impulsive.
Jiang Wang wasn’t offended.
Actually, being called a pretty boy for the first time was quite a novel experience.
It used to only be…
He sighed.
Across from him, Zhang Cuihua gestured, “It’s stuffy inside the kiln, let’s talk outside.”
Seems the identity of “Chu Haoxue’s friend” was very effective with her, causing her to throw all the nine critical alerts and eight cautions ingrained by Chu Mi out the window.
Thinking this, Zhang Cuihua turned and called out, “Doggy, Shanzi!
I’m stepping out for a bit, can you guys watch Little One?
Don’t let him wander off!”
Two voices responded from the crowd.
“Sure thing, Sister Hua!” “Yes!”
It seemed she was well-liked around this kiln.
Jiang Wang retracted his earlier judgment; Zhang Cuihua hadn’t fully trusted him after all.
She was “flexing her muscles.” Nothing but a way to say—see these men?
If you dare have any bad intentions, I can easily call a few over to tear you apart.
“Little One…” Jiang Wang asked, “Is he the child you have with my brother Haoxue?”
Zhang Cuihua grinned, “Who else would I have a child with?
Those eyebrows, those eyes, they couldn’t belong to anyone else!”
Jiang Wang touched his nose, not quite able to handle such a straightforward way of speaking.
As Zhang Cuihua walked out, she explained, “Making bricks is hard work, can’t leave it even for a moment.
When the child was young, I couldn’t leave him alone either, so I always brought him along as I worked.
Gradually, he just grew up here in the kiln.”
Stepping outside the kiln, she removed her indistinguishably colored headscarf, dusted off the soot, and said proudly, “Don’t look at his size; he can make bricks himself now!”
She laughed, “I just don’t let him do it.”
Her husband had not returned, and she, alone, had raised their child while working in the kiln, doing physical labor like a man—making and hauling bricks.
Yet in her tone, in her demeanor, there was not a trace of complaint.
Only a resilience in the face of life and a simple, genuine satisfaction.
Seeing her smile, Jiang Wang now understood why Chu Mi had fallen in love with this woman.
…
…
ps:
I once read a book that said, “Running a restaurant is hard work.”
I don’t remember what that book was about, only this phrase.
It’s so full of life.
It’s what everyday people would say.
I hope that when I write about the everyday, I can capture the real essence of life, not just as a transition in the plot, or a buffer before the climax.