translator: baumkuchen

After their meal, Lu Qingjiu went out for a walk to digest, thinking that if he had the time tomorrow, he would go to town and buy two rabbits back to make cured rabbit meat. Over here, rabbit meat was very popular. It was more tender, and had less bones. When fried, it tasted even better than chicken. Of course, there were also some people who couldn't stand the thought of eating rabbits. Lu Qingjiu had once heard one of his female coworkers say that bun-buns were so cute, how could they bear to eat bun-buns? At the time, Zhu Miaomiao who had been eating rabbit meat with relish had replied very impolitely with: c.o.c.k-c.o.c.ks are also very cute, how can you bear to eat c.o.c.k-c.o.c.ks? The person who had made the food almost spat out all the food in his mouth.

After he was done with his walk around the village went home, Lu Qingjiu saw that Yin Xun was still angry. This idiot was clearly still upset over what Lu Qingjiu had told him that night. Lu Qingjiu glanced over at him, but didn't say anything. He turned and went into the kitchen, and found some maltose he had bought earlier. He then turned on the stove, placed the maltose in a pot and began to heat it up it over low heat. Next, he found chopsticks, placed them in the pot and wound up two golden b.a.l.l.s of sugar out.

This candy was called stirred sugar in these parts, and was an effective tool for coaxing children. When he was young, whenever they made the occasional trip to town, Lu Qingjiu's grandmother would always buy one for him.  The candy was both cheap and delicious, soft where it was curled on the stick, and biting into it, one could even draw out strings of sugar.

Lu Qingjiu, those two sticks of stirred sugar in hand, went out to the courtyard, and shoved one stick each into Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun's mouths.

When Yin Xun tasted the sweetness of the candy, he cracked a smile, but then said angrily, "Lu Qingjiu, what do you mean by this? Are you treating me like a kid to coax?"

Lu Qingjiu asked, "Is the candy delicious?"

Yin Xun said, "It's delicious…"

Lu Qingjiu asked, "Now that you've eaten some candy do you feel any happier?"

Yin Xun smacked his lips. HIs mouth was filled with the clear, sweet taste of malt candy. This kind of sweetness wasn't at all greasy, rather, it brought with it a clean taste. As the sweet taste of sugar melted in his mouth, it indeed lessened the anger in his heart. As such, he nodded honestly. "Happy."

"If you're happy, then go sleep." Lu Qingjiu patted his fluffy head. "It's already this late, don't forget to brush your teeth."

With sugar in his mouth, only then did Yin Xun slowly walk off.

As Lu Qingjiu watched him leave, he heard Bai Yuehu, who up until now hadn't had any reaction whatsoever, say, "So easy to fool."

Lu Qingjiu turned and looked at him. He smiled. "Aren't you also very easy to fool?"

Bai Yuehu didn't speak. He slowly licked away the remnants of sugar by the side of his mouth. As his red tongue softly swept over his pale lips, it had an inexplicable sensualness to it. However, the words he next spoke weren't as gentle. Bai Yuehu said, "You really don't mind."

Lu Qingjiu understood instantly. He blinked, then smiled. "Mind what?"

Hearing this, Bai Yuehu had a smile that wasn't quite a smile on his face. He didn't answer Lu Qingjiu's question, simply standing up and, with a wave to Lu Qingjiu, turning and leaving back to his room to sleep. As he watched Bai Yuehu walked away, Lu Qingjiu then went to the junk room and grabbed a few things, before making a trip to the inner courtyard.

The next day, afraid that Yin Xun would get angry again, Lu Qingjiu didn't let him manage the shop, opening up the app himself. Who knew that the moment he opened the app, those people who claimed to want a refund would start crazily spamming Lu Qingjiu with hundreds of messages. Lu Qingjiu look a brief look at them, and instantly understood what had happened.

It turned out that less than an hour after they sent back the gla.s.s bottles and the boxes, the hair on their heads began to fall out in large clumps, the originally thick black hair returning to its original Mediterreanian sea hairstyle within instants. Those people immediately panicked, and began sending Lu Qingjiu messages asking what had happened with their hair, why had it all fallen out after it had grown.

Lu Qingjiu responded innocently, "What do you mean 'falling out after growing'? Didn't you say that it didn't have any effect?"

Those people were struck silent by that question. That was true, just yesterday they had thickened their faces and said that it hadn't had any effect, insisting that Lu Qingjiu refund them, but today they ran back and said that their hair had fallen out, wasn't that just slapping their own faces?

Lu Qingjiu said, "Sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying. Didn't you say that the hair growth water didn't have any effect? I already refunded you."

Seeing that the situation wasn't looking good, those people finally realised that they had fallen into a trap. Even though they didn't know how exactly Lu Qingjiu had done it, they'd watched with their own eyes as their full head of thick black hair went back to its original state. They all couldn't quite accept it. A particularly thin faced one directly admitted his wrong to Lu Qingjiu, saying, "Shop owner, I'm really sorry, demons entered my heart. The effects of your hair growth water are actually very good, we just felt that five thousand yuan was a little too expensive…"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Oh, so you mean that you all wanted to trick me into refunding you?"

"Yes," that person admitted, "I'm really incredibly sorry, I can send the money back to you, can you send me another bottle of hair growth water?"

However, Lu Qingjiu coldly rejected that person's request. Even though he had a good temper, he wasn't kind of person who would smilingly greet someone who had mistreated him. In response to the customer's remorse and his request to buy the product again, he just said, "Sorry, I've already given you your refund. If you want to buy it again, please wait for next month."

That customer said, "But your shop's hair growth water is becoming harder and harder to buy… Last time it took us a great deal of effort just to get it…"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Then I can only wish you good luck." As he wished that person good luck, he casually blocked the entire group of people. Anyways, the money had been refunded, he'd just take it as if he'd never sold them anything before.

After managing this issue, Lu Qingjiu simply put up an announcement in his store, saying that this shop does full refunds in the case of the product having no effect, but after refunding, this shop would not be responsible for any after-sales services. If you have been refunded, if your hair starts falling out again, then please do not come back and look for the shop owner, and once it is found that the reason behind asking for the refund is nefarious, the shop owner will directly block you.

After hanging up the notice, Lu Qingjiu then told Yin Xun, who was helping Lu Qingjiu knead noodles in the kitchen, about it.

After hearing about it, Yin Xun was very happy, grinning and exposing that loveable tiger tooth. "Really? Then how did you make them lose all their hair?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "I of course can't do something like that."

Yin Xun said, "Then who can?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Of course, its the one who made their hair grow in the first place."

Yin Xun, "Miss Ghost in the inner courtyard?"

Lu Qingjiu nodded.

Yesterday night, after Yin Xun and Bai Yuehu had went off, he had went off to light incense to feed Miss Ghost as usual, just that now, the halo above the well was getting bigger and bigger, and the light it emitted could simply be described as holy. From what Bai Yuehu had said, probably after another while, Miss Ghost would really become a G.o.d.

Usually, when lighting incense, Lu Qingjiu wouldn't speak much, but last night, he'd told Miss Ghost about what had happened with the shop in detal. Lu Qingjiu hadn't known if it would work, but he'd just decided to try it out.

But clearly, Miss Ghost, whose remnants had been desecrated, was incredibly angry, making those people pay a heavy price the very next day.

Lu Qingjiu could only say that those people deserved it.

However, after this matter, Lu Qingjiu's shop, "Little Village", became internet famous. Everyone expressed that this shop's hair growth water was truly too good, just that at the same time, some people felt like the effects were a little over the top with how good they were. One spread it on their head on the first day, and the next day, hair would sprout, it was simply a miracle of medicine.

Of course, there were some who took this water to a professional organisation for testing, but the test results showed that the water was normal well water, without any other ingredients whatsoever. Even though it wasn't harmful to the human body, the problem was, then how did it make hair grow?

Netizens had all kinds of different opinions, but still couldn't find a reasonable answer. At the same time, there were also people who contacted Lu Qingjiu, saying they were willing to pay large amounts of money to buy the secret behind his hair growth water.

Lu Qingjiu rejected all of them. In the end, he simply changed his phone number to a one no one knew about, and didn't give it to anyone other than Zhu Miaomiao and a few other close former colleagues.

After handling the matter with the Taobao shop, Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun went up the mountain to cut down some fruit wood. The wood they chopped were all from branches from orange trees, which were the best for making cured meat.

Lu Qingjiu set up the stones by the door to his home, placed the meat on top, and just like that, began to smoke it. When one smoked meat, they couldn't use open fires, and needed to put in some things like orange skin and peanut sh.e.l.ls. Like that, the meat would become more fragrant.

Bai Yuehu had never seen such a method of cooking. Standing off to the side, he was a little curious. "Does it taste good?"

"It's really delicious," Lu Qingjiu said, "Fried cured meat, steamed cured meat, they all taste good. Even the soup made from stewing it is delicious…"

Hearing this, antic.i.p.ation appeared in Bai Yuehu's gaze.

"But I seemed to have forgotten to make sausages." As Lu Qingjiu smoked the meat, he suddenly thought of this problem. "I don't know if it's too late."

"There should still be some time," Yin Xun said, "The first snow hasn't come yet."

"By the time it comes, it'll be too late." Lu Qingjiu checked the weather. Even though it was still autumn, they could feel the chill. For this reason, Lu Qingjiu had even prepared some straw and a heater just for Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua, to help them make it through the winter. The little fox originally had a body covered in fur to help it withstand the cold, but too bad, Lu Qingjiu had given it a not-very-warm poodle haircut, so out of helplessness, Lu Qingjiu could only find a few sets of old clothes and casually altered them, making the little fox a few sets of clothes to keep it warm.

"Then tomorrow we can buy sausage casings and meat." Yin Xun really liked sausages, especially the sweet ones. Hearing that Lu Qingjiu had the intentions of making sausages, he hurriedly encouraged, "You definitely have enough time."

Seeing how much he wanted to eat it, Lu Qingjiu nodded and agreed.

When smoking meat, Lu Qingjiu even threw some sweet potatoes into the fire. The sweet potatoes were red sweet potatoes, personally grown by Bai Yuehu. They tasted both sweet and soft, incredibly tasty. When steaming rice, he would put a few on top of the rice to steam together with it, which would give the rice the sweet taste of sweet potatoes.

The roasted sweet potatoes were also very delicious. After peeling off the outer layer, the still-steaming core would be revealed. As Yin Xun yelped "hot", he shoved it into his mouth at the same time. By the end of it, his mouth turned black.

Bai Yuehu still ate as elegantly as ever even when eating this kind of thing, but the corners of his mouth still ended up stained black slightly with ash.

As Lu Qingjiu watched the two people eat sweet potatoes, he couldn't help but smile. He felt as if he'd returned to his childhood. This feeling was very wonderful, as if the flow of time had reversed, and with a turn of his head, he'd be able to see an old lady standing at the door, smiling kindly at him.

"Lu Qingjiu, what are you smiling about?" Yin Xun asked.

"Me? Nothing," Lu Qingjiu said, "Why do you ask?"

"You're not smiling about anything?" Yin Xun stared at Lu Qingjiu, doubt in his gaze. "Then why are you using the kind of gaze you'd give to your son to look at me?"

Lu Qingjiu asked innocently, "Am I?"

Yin Xun, "Yes!"

Lu Qingjiu shrugged. "Then fine, I guess I'll just have to force myself to recognise you as a son of mine."

Yin Xun said angrily, "I'm taking you as a friend, but you want to be my dad?"

Lu Qingjiu couldn't help but burst into loud laughter.

The author has something to say:

Lu Qingjiu: Ai, I'm really sorry.

Bai Yuehu: Your sorry days are still yet to come.

Lu Qingjiu: Eh?!

baum: ahh I used to eat that malt candy all the time when I was younger… Now I'm craving it T T