translator: baumkuchen

Lu Qingjiu had a very long dream.

In the dream, he heard a large roar of rus.h.i.+ng water. Through the tiny window, Lu Qingjiu saw a surging yellow river flowing past his window. This river was extremely wide, to the point that it was nothing but turbulent currents as far as the eye could see for Lu Qingjiu.

As if other than the house he was in, the entire world had been submerged in water. Lu Qingjiu felt a horror that was hard to put into words. His heart started thumping loudly in his chest. When he looked up, in the dark oppressive clouds, he saw a pair of giant eyes. Those eyes had slit pupils like that of a cat, and were filled with a gorgeous, b.l.o.o.d.y red.

Those eyes, seemingly having noticed Lu Qingjiu's presence, looked over in his direction. Lu Qingjiu pressed his hands against his nose and mouth and tried to slow his breathing that had become rushed due to fear. He curled up in a corner of the room, not even daring to move.

The only thing he could hear was the sound of surging water. Just as Lu Qingjiu thought that that thing had left, he then heard the roar of a beast. This roar was earth-shakingly loud, to the point that even the house Lu Qingjiu was in began to shake as well. Lu Qingjiu slowly raised his head. In the sky, he saw a giant beast, rus.h.i.+ng towards him…

Following that, Lu Qingjiu was shocked awake from that terrifying dream. His body was covered in sweat, his chest heaving. Only after he expended all his effort to breathe in a bit more oxygen did his overly anxious heart calm down somewhat.

"Huff, huff, huff…" Only after Lu Qingjiu calm down did he finally realise that everything that had just happened had been a dream. He reached out his hand, grabbed his phone and took a look at the time to find that it was currently past 3 in the morning, the darkest time before dawn. He sat up. He vaguely remembered that he seemed to have partic.i.p.ated in the village's autumn harvest festival yesterday, drank too much alcohol and become drunk. It seemed as if he had even seen Bai Yuehu… Lu Qingjiu looked down and saw that he had been changed out of the clothes he had been wearing into pyjamas. He also didn't reek of alcohol, so he should have been given a simple wash.

It looked as if after getting drunk, he had been brought home by Bai Yuehu. Lu Qingjiu rubbed his head, feeling as if his hungover head was aching a little.

After drinking some water and calming down, he went to the bathroom and showered, was.h.i.+ng his body that had become a little sticky with sweat.

After taking his shower, Lu Qingjiu returned to his bedroom. He looked out at the courtyard and saw the bright moon hanging in the sky. Everything was serene and peaceful.

Under the white moonlight, the entire courtyard was like it had been covered in a veil. Lu Qingjiu actually didn't dislike this kind of quiet night. It was sufficiently bright, and there weren't any bugs chirping, allowing his heart to become tranquil as well.

The roar in his dream was a little familiar. Lu Qingjiu soon thought of that dream he'd caught by waving the dreamcatcher over his grandmother's grave.

In that dream, he'd heard the same roar.

Just, what exactly did this roar mean? What secrets were hidden in that box that his grandmother had left for him? And his parents' deaths…

Lu Qingjiu looked away and laid back down on the bed. He liked this little village named Shuifu, and hope that here, he could find the answers he was looking for.

The next day was a fine morning as usual.

Hungover, Lu Qingjiu slept in. After getting up, he saw Yin Xun and Bai Yuehu both in the courtyard gnawing on corn. Hearing his footsteps, Bai Yuehu looked over in his direction. There seemed to be a little something extra in his gaze. He opened his mouth and asked, indifferent, "You're awake?"

Lu Qingjiu, thinking of how Bai Yuehu had brought him back last night, and even helped him change into his pyjamas and washed him, inexplicably felt a little embarra.s.sed. He pretended to inadvertently avoid Bai Yuehu's gaze and said, "En, I drank too much yesterday, so I got up a little later today. You guys are just eating this for breakfast? I'll make something else for you guys."

"It's fine, it's fine." Yin Xun waved his hands. "Eating a bit of corn in a while is also good. This corn is really sweet and chewy, come have some."

Lu Qingjiu walked over, picked up an ear of corn and took a bite. Sure enough, it tasted delicious, both sweet and chewy, even sticking slightly to his teeth.

"After lunch let's go grind up the beans," As Lu Qingjiu ate, he spoke with Yin Xun. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed that Bai Yuehu had stopped looking at him, and relaxed. He said, "We can make some tofu, which we can then ferment."

Yin Xun said, "Sounds good, sounds good."

Fermented tofu was a kind of soybean product almost every household had to make at least once. The process of making it was somewhat similar to that of smell tofu, but the tofu would become sticky due to fermentation, and would absorb the flavour of the ingredients it was soaked in. No matter whether it was spread on mantou or placed in porridge, it would taste delicious. Even though Lu Qingjiu had seen his grandma make it when he was young, he'd completely forgotten how to make it, so he'd specially looked it up on the internet, planning to try it out this year.

In order to make fermented tofu, one first needed tofu, so Lu Qingjiu planned on first making some tofu. He and Yin Xun brought the beans to the front of the village, ground them into soybean milk, and brought it back to make into tofu.

Because the weather was beginning to get cold, the trees in the village were beginning to lose their leaves. The forest was like a sheet of gold, looking incredibly beautiful.

In order to make it through the winter, Lu Qingjiu truly had too many things to do. After making the tofu, he still need to smoke the meat he'd brought into cured meat by burning wood. Only then would it be able to keep better. When the time came, he would use the cured meat to stew green beans, another good dish.

As Lu Qingjiu was so busy, he simply handed over the matter of the Taobao shop to Yin Xun to deal with, letting him manage the delivery and after-sales services.

Yin Xun obediently agreed, but because he didn't use computers often, and wasn't familiar with the keyboard, he would sit in front of the computer, using two fingers to slowly type out his replies.

"Am I being too slow?" He was a little worried and turned his head to ask Lu Qingjiu who was sitting not very far away, his head currently lowered as he worked on curing the meat.

"Being slow is fine," Lu Qingjiu said indifferently, "If they want to buy it, they will. Help me pour in some soy sauce."

"Okay." Yin Xun eagerly ran over.

The meat was divided into soy sauce meat and cured meat, but both needed to be marinated for some time. In the cool autumn weather, the meat wouldn't easily spoil. Adding on the good ventilation, they would be able to smoke the meat in a month. The best type of wood for smoking meat was fruit wood. This way, the smoked meat would have the fragrance of fruit wood. Even though there would be people who smoke meat every year, but only better off families would be able to do it. After all, to a normal household, tens of jin of meat was a big expense.

After helping pour in the soy sauce for Lu Qingjiu, Yin Xun then ran back to continue tapping on the keyboard. As he tapped and tapped, he suddenly frowned and said,"Jiu-er, there's some person saying that their hair growth water doesn't work, they want a refund."

Lu Qingjiu's movements stilled. "What?"

Yin Xun said, "They said that there was no effect after they used it, they want a refund." He moved backwards slightly, letting Lu Qingjiu see the screen.

"Oh, then just refund them," Lu Qingjiu said indifferently. Anyways he couldn't confirm that every bottle of hair growth water would work. Since someone said that it didn't have an effect, it didn't matter if they refunded them.

Hearing this, Yin Xun nodded, then refunded said person.

At the time, Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun thought that the matter had ended just like that, but who knew that not even two days later, there were suddenly three or four people saying that they wanted a refund one after another. In the beginning, Lu Qingjiu hadn't thought anything of it, but after looking at those people's addresses, he found that they all seemed to have come from the same programming company, and all worked as programmers.

Suspicion formed in Lu Qingjiu's heart, because he remembered that the first sale he had made to that company had expressed that the effects were very good. Could it be that the hair growth water had a different effect on every person?

Lu Qingjiu asked for the specifics of what had happened, and all the buyers' answers were very consistent, saying that they had applied it to their head, but there wasn't any effect. Because Lu Qingjiu had promised that he would give them a refuned, they specially came over to the after-sales service chat.

Lu Qingjiu looked at the buyer's name and suddenly thought of something. He searched up this name on social media, and unexpectedly, he really did find him. 

Just that in that person's social media, that person's performance was completely different from what they had said.

On it, they had greatly praised the effect of the hair growth water, and even attached a photo of their thick, dark hair. The owner of the photograph admiringly expressed that they had never used such a good hair growth product, just that the price was a little expensive, but other than that there were no other bad points.

Seeing this picture, Lu Qingjiu let out a cold laugh. But he didn't say anything, simply refunding the person, but asked this group of people asking for refunds to send back the gla.s.s bottles and boxes. Those people instantly agreed.

That night, Lu Qingjiu casually told this story to Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun as gossip. Actually, he wasn't very angry, he just felt that it was a little ironic.

"Isn't this too much?" However, Yin Xun got angry. "Clearly the effects are so good, why do they have to say that it didn't work? Isn't this spoiling our shop's name? And they even had to ask for a refund — simply too much."

Unexpectedly, Lu Qingjiu was very indifferent. "There's nothing we can do about this. After all, we can't see them in person, if they say it doesn't work, could it be that we can just insist that they're lying?"

Yin Xun said, "No, I'm really angry." He had lived alone in Shuifu village for a long time, having almost no contact with people. Naturally, he had seldom seen the ugly side of human nature.

"Don't be angry, don't be angry," Lu Qingjiu said, "If I'd known earlier that you would react like this, I wouldn't have told you." Bai Yuehu had the same reaction as he did, not showing any expression nor saying anything, looking like he didn't really care.

"Then in the future what if they all follow in these people's footsteps? What would we do then?" Yin Xun asked, "Would we even need to keep running the shop?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "They won't, there are bad people in this world, but there are also good people. There'll always be people who feel like the effects are good and will help advertise it for us. Just eat, your food's about to get cold."

Yin Xun angrily shoved his food into his mouth.

baum: people like that really make my blood boil (╬ಠ益ಠ)

on a brighter note, the lovely gu from discord made some beautiful fanart!