My Happy Daily Life After Being Reborn
Chapter 134 - 38: Secret

Chapter 134: Chapter 38: Secret

Did everyone just think the same thing?

"Daddy, I think I might know where Sister Xiao Niao went." Suddenly, Lin Xiaocao spoke up.

Lin Xiaole was taken aback and, before he could feel happy, remembered his daughter was just an eight-year-old little radish head and immediately lost his enthusiasm, "Where did she go?"

"She might have gone to Chu Mountain," Lin Xiaocao whispered.

Everyone was stunned upon hearing this and didn’t even think to question the truth of her words. Qin Xiaohua exclaimed with a face full of shock, "How could a girl go to such a place?"

Chu Mountain was well-known locally as a veritable gold mountain that had once produced gold. Perhaps someone noticed the word "once", as the gold mines in Chu Mountain, though still present, had been heavily mined over the last century and were depleted. Additionally, due to landslides in earlier years, the place had become extremely dangerous. Unless one was truly desperate, no one would risk their life for a bit of fine gold sand.

Of course, there weren’t a few people driven to such extremes during those times, but so far, although there had been talks of a few unlucky souls losing their lives there, no one had ever heard of anyone striking it rich.

"Xiaocao, did Sister Xiao Niao tell you she was going to Chu Mountain?" Li Fangmei asked gravely.

"No," Lin Xiaocao shook her head, not waiting for others to relax before she continued, "But I saw her asking Short-legged Grandpa, who lives in the mountain, about Chu Mountain, and I even overheard Short-legged Grandpa advising her to be careful on the way to Chu Mountain and to be even more cautious of thieves when leaving."

Short-legged Grandpa, mentioned by her, was a bachelor old man in the village who had once been a surveyor at the Chu Mountain gold mines. One of his legs had been amputated following a landslide there, and after receiving compensation, he returned to the village without ever marrying. During the war years, he even stayed in the mountains to protect everyone and thus lived there, never coming down.

Li Fangmei, feeling somewhat dizzy, urgently said, "Quick, go find Short-legged."

Lin Xiaoxi and his brothers didn’t delay; they grabbed their hatchets and headed up the mountain. By the time they came down, it was past dinner time.

"How was it, did you find anything?" Lin Nianqiang asked as he greeted them at the door. He had wanted to go too, but both his wife and sister-in-law strictly forbade it.

Lin Xiao’an shook his head, "Uncle told us not to meddle, saying if we interfered, Xiao Niao, who might have been fine, would end up in trouble."

"What does that old man mean?" Zhou Fengqin burst out, "He must have said something to Xiao Niao, that’s why the child went to that damn Chu Mountain."

"We should leave this matter alone," Lin Nianqiang changed from his previous urgency, glancing at his daughters-in-law and nieces by marriage, "You all go eat with the kids; they can’t go hungry."

Qin Xiaohua and the others exchanged glances, not really minding his overt way of sending them off, knowing their own men would tell them everything later.

In a short while, only three elders and four young ones were left in the house.

"Daddy, what are you really selling in your gourd?" Lin Xiaole couldn’t help but ask.

Lin Nianqiang looked at Li Fangmei, "Eldest sister-in-law, do you remember when my younger brother and I wanted to take our elder brother out to run goods?"

"Are you talking about the year Xiaoxi was born?" Li Fangmei thought for a long time before she remembered.

"That’s right," Lin Nianqiang quickly nodded.

Zhou Fengqin also recalled, "But didn’t we give that up later? They said the inspections were too stringent."

"That was just a cover," Lin Nianqiang finished the water in his glass in one gulp, stood up to check the windows and door to ensure that no one could overhear, then sat back down and spoke in a hushed tone, "Actually, that time we went to Chu Mountain."

"What?" Zhou Fengqin covered her mouth in amazement, "What did you go to Chu Mountain for?"

Lin Nianqiang, lowering his voice, said, "This has to start with my younger brother, during the famine back then, didn’t a lot of people starve to death? The acre of sweet potatoes Short Legs had hadn’t yet matured when someone dug them up at night, leaving him fainting from hunger in the wooden hut on the mountain. Just so happened that my elder sister-in-law had gone into premature labor and given birth to Xiaoxi, so I went to beg for some brown sugar, and my younger brother went up the mountain to look for motherwort."

"Then, as the mountains were stripped bare of even leaves, motherwort was impossible to find. As my elder sister-in-law was in urgent need of it, and going up and down the mountain was troublesome, my younger brother thought of staying with Short Legs for a couple of nights. He just happened to run into this situation and saved Short Legs with the dry food he had on him, later even sharing a few kilograms of sweet potatoes from our home with him to help him survive the famine. To thank my younger brother, Short Legs told him a secret."

"What secret?" Everyone’s interest was piqued by his story.