Happy Little Farmer
Chapter 791

Chapter 791: Chapter 791

Zhou Yingnan grabbed the back of his neck, thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "I seem to vaguely recall feeling something here once, but the feeling was very fuzzy. I’m not entirely sure."

"But I feel it strongly." Yang Fan stared at the cave entrance and said blandly.

"Huh?"

Zhou Yingnan was startled and suddenly looked up at the cave entrance Yang Fan was fixed on.

The opening to the outside was so bright that the smaller holes below it appeared especially dim. Nothing could be clearly seen—just that it was a hole.

"Shoe, go take a look!" Yang Fan said solemnly.

"Incense!"

The indifferent voice of the embroidered shoe echoed in Yang Fan’s mind.

"I’ll give it to you later." Yang Fan tried to coax.

But the embroidered shoe wasn’t having it and kept repeating, "Incense!"

"This isn’t..." Yang Fan looked helplessly at the shoe in his hand, realizing it was throwing a tantrum.

It seemed he’d have to let her have the incense first.

If he couldn’t get this little troublemaker fed, the agreement they’d made earlier on the dirt road would be for nothing.

She was clearly starting to distrust him.

With the shoe throwing a fit, Yang Fan couldn’t access that place with anything he currently had.

"We’re leaving now!" Yang Fan said firmly. "Let’s move!"

"Okay."

Zhou Yingnan had no idea what was happening, but seeing Yang Fan’s slightly tense expression, he dared not delay and quickly followed him out of the cave.

"Boss Yang, is there... something in that place?" Zhou Yingnan asked nervously upon seeing the sunlight outside.

"Yeah." Yang Fan replied, "I don’t know why you seem to be feeling dull or indifferent in this place and failed to sense those obvious gazes, but there’s definitely something inside those smaller caves."

As he spoke, Yang Fan was already seated in Zhou Yingnan’s passenger seat.

He would have to head down soon to buy enough incense for the shoe.

A pair of shoes needing to eat incense—this made no sense whatsoever.

"I really didn’t feel anything. When you said it earlier, I didn’t sense a thing." Zhou Yingnan said as he got into the car. "Something’s off everywhere, and it’s making me feel jumpy."

"Maybe it’s not everywhere," Yang Fan said. "Compared to the treetop presence, that cave being their nest seems more believable to me. Perhaps the fortune teller wasn’t wrong—the problem lies underground. It’s just that, for some reason, those entities temporarily built a nest in the treetops."

Though the cave wasn’t too close to Zhou Yingnan’s residence, geographically speaking, it was roughly situated directly beneath his house, just slightly deeper underground.

"They wouldn’t specifically target me by making a nest above my house, would they?" Zhou Yingnan said, beginning to sound paranoid as Yang Fan’s words made him increasingly uneasy.

"I’m just guessing randomly. We’ll only learn the truth once we’ve caught them," Yang Fan said. "But I feel like those entities might not harbor significant malevolence toward you."

"This... doesn’t count as malevolence?" Zhou Yingnan asked in a startled tone.

Yang Fan nodded. "If you’d truly provoked something truly malicious, given the environment you live in, you’d likely have been dead by now. They’ve had plenty of chances to harm you, but after harassing you for days, you’re still alive and well. There’s an element of mischief, but the malice isn’t substantial."

He had interacted with a fair number of these strange beings now.

If those mysterious entities truly intended harm, they would have acted long ago.

Lost in thought, Zhou Yingnan nodded. "True... but then, what’s their objective?"

"Only they know that." Yang Fan said casually, replying to a message from Wang Daqiang before saying, "Once we catch those things, the answers will surface. For now, anything we say is just speculating."

"Okay." Zhou Yingnan replied, his voice tinged with doubt and unease. "Should we rent drones or prepare anything else?"

Yang Fan thought for a moment. "Do you have gasoline?"

"Yes," Zhou Yingnan said. "Since I live in an isolated area, I always keep some on hand."

"Good, let’s go then." Yang Fan said.

He was starting to suspect the entities were alive, not just some eerie phenomenon.

Preparing physical tools might be necessary if the situation turned desperate.

Once they determined what they needed, Zhou Yingnan hit the gas pedal and sped off.

As someone who lived alone deep in the mountains, her driving style was wild and reckless.

On this lousy mountain road, Wang Daqiang had treaded cautiously on his way up.

But Zhou Yingnan alternated between slamming the brakes and flooring the gas, occasionally throwing in a drift for Yang Fan’s entertainment.

The half-hour mountain road climb that initially took Wang Daqiang was now tackled by Zhou Yingnan in under ten minutes.

Yang Fan felt so dizzy that he nearly vomited out yesterday’s meals.

When they finally hit a smoother stretch of road, he took a few deep breaths, trying to suppress the nausea in his stomach. With a bitter smile, he asked, "Miss Zhou, do you always drive like this?"

"More or less. But, it’s almost nightfall now, so I’m a bit in a rush. Feeling sick?" Zhou Yingnan asked, glancing at Yang Fan quickly.

"A bit. My soul nearly flew out thanks to your driving." Yang Fan said.

Her driving was indeed rather lethal.

"Sorry, I’ll be more careful." Zhou Yingnan said, laughing sheepishly.

Although she apologized, her foot didn’t ease up on the gas.

With the road now flat, she seemed to drive even more liberally.

Yang Fan watched as the speed jumped from fifty to a hundred.

Sighing helplessly, he looked over at Zhou Yingnan and silently grabbed the overhead handle.

At least the level ground prevented his seat from feeling like it was floating.

After winding past several mountains, a small town came into view.

Finally, Zhou Yingnan began slowing down.

She seemed quite familiar with the area, frequently exchanging greetings as she drove from the outskirts to the town center.

She parked the car, went to borrow drones, and Yang Fan went into a nearby store to buy twenty boxes of incense.

He had promised to let the shoe eat its fill, and he intended to keep that promise.

Since this was Yang Fan’s greatest asset at the moment, it couldn’t be mistreated. In fact, he needed to keep it appeased.

Carrying the incense, Yang Fan failed to find a secluded spot, eventually hopping into the bed of Zhou Yingnan’s pickup truck.

This thing would at least provide some cover.

If anyone saw him lighting bundles of incense for a shoe, they’d probably treat him like a lunatic.

Setting the embroidered shoe carefully into the truck bed, Yang Fan lit a whole box of incense, sticking them into some discarded foam.

Thick trails of blue smoke floated up, and despite the breeze, the incense smoke bent and twisted its way toward the shoe.

"Eat slowly. No rush. There’s plenty more. If it’s not enough, I’ll buy more. I promised I’d keep you full, and I will." Yang Fan said with a smile.

"...Tasty."

Surprisingly, the embroidered shoe responded, and it genuinely sounded delighted.