Spring's sunlight was warm and splendid, the grass was sprouting with flowers, and the Xiang River's water was exceptionally lively. The people living alongside the river had begun their busy work for the day.
At the tail end of the Xiang River, through the bumpy wetlands along the riverbank, there stood a small town named Snake Town. The town was not large, with only two main streets crisscrossed.
It was now April, a season where the orioles flew and the grass surged. However, the streets were relatively deserted without many pedestrians. The economy of the Snake Town could be blamed for this. Although Star Town County was less than twenty kilometers to the north, its awkward location had been an issue. There had been talk in recent years of Star Town County expanding, and demolishing Snake Town, but there was no action seen even after several years.
The town positioned itself alongside the Xiang River, but it also backed onto a large spread of farmland. Although the time for ploughing had passed, in another month it would time be to transplant the rice seedlings. In the fields, you could see a few people laboring. Most of the men had left town for short-term work as masons. Those with slight ambitions had gone out to do business.
Bare-chested and waving a hoe down on the field under a small hillside was a young man. He was covered head to toe in mud. If it wasn't for his noticeable facial features, it would be hard to recognize him as a youngster.
"Eh, lobster pond, why does it have to be one meter deep?"
He spat on his hand, rubbed it, grasped the hoe again, and then looked up to the sky with a long sigh, "It's such a sin, quitting a good job to raise lobsters in my hometown. Damn it!"
Li Feng, one of the few bona fide university undergraduates in the town over the past few years, had lost his prestige when he first got into college. Every day, he carried a hoe to dig in the field, and also had to endure the gossip of the neighbors.
When Li Feng first received his university diploma, he was considered a pillar of the nation by the townspeople. Every aunt and uncle would use him as a role model for their children.
After graduation, Li Feng found a decent job in Star City, and even found a girlfriend at his company!
Unfortunately, his girlfriend started to change her attitude once she found out about his family's financial situation. At first, it was alright because Li Feng mentioned the possibility of demolition at home. But after a year or two, she started dating a high-ranking executive at the company, who already had a wife.
This was too much for Li Feng to bear and he decided to confront the executive about it. But before he could do so, he received a notice of dismissal from his company.
Li Feng was completely disillusioned with big city life. He fled back to his rural hometown, wondering how he could turn his life around, find a wealthy, beautiful woman to marry, and ascend the summits of success.
After spending half a day searching online for ways rural folks could strike it rich, he believed that breeding crawfish was a lucrative prospect. Thus, he promptly downloaded a vast amount of related data and brought it back to his hometown.
But, as always, reality was more complicated than it first appeared. To raise crawfish, first of all, he needed a pond. Then, he needed to get the crawfish seedlings. And finally, he had to take care of them with various feeds until they were big enough to sell at a good price.
The problem was, he was still at the first step - preparing the crawfish pond. Li Feng had labored hard on this tricky job. The money he had was not much and he wanted to save instead of hiring an excavator. So he took matters into his own hands, working from dawn to dusk using his hoe.
However, he hadn't been able to complete even half of the work and his hands were covered in recurring blisters.
The once-prided genius of the sky, surprisingly, was back to toil in the fields. This left the townspeople first in disbelief, then soon erupted into ridicule. Despite living by the river, hardly anyone in town ever considered making a living by fish farming. Following a round of discussion among the gossiping women, they all concluded: What’s the use of going to school these days? What good does it do to have good grades? Wouldn't it be better to have physical strength to do more work every day, earn more money to feed your family?
Having grumbled inwardly for a while, Li Feng lifted his hoe and continued his work. But as soon as he struck the ground, he heard a clanging sound, as if he’d hit something.
"Could it be some good-for-nothing tossed something into my field?"
In his surprise, Li Feng was about to squat down and fish out whatever was submerged in the mud when he felt the light dim before him. He looked up to find a massive figure standing at the edge of the field. It was a woman, a woman with such enormous chest that it could almost swing over her shoulders!
Such an eye-catching chest, and to choose not to hide it with **, was unique to only one person in the entire Snake Town, Ma Xiaoqi, Aunt Qi.
“Qi… Aunt Qi…” Li Feng took a step back in fright at her “intimidating” figure. He tried his hardest not to stare at her huge chest, but Aunt Qi’s chubby face, which would wiggle at the slightest wind, was not something you could look at for long either.
“You this worthless thing!”
Ma Xiaoqi placed a hand on her hip and pointed at Li Feng, “You, a grown man and have received education, instead of doing something worthwhile, you’re here planting crops and raising damn crayfish! I'm telling you now, this piece of field, the Peng family wants it."
"Aunt Qi, I’ve said this before. This piece of land is my family’s. Even if your family wants to build a house, can't you buy land from others?" This wasn’t Li Feng’s first conversation with Ma Xiaoqi regarding this land. She had already caused quite a ruckus at the Lin family household multiple times for this piece of land.
"Who cares what you think. It’s your fortune that I’ve taken a liking to your land."
Ma Xiaoqi grunted, "You sell this piece of land to me, and I won’t shortchange you a penny, Li. I’m asking you now, are you selling this piece of land or not?"
Li Feng replied, “Aunt Qi, we don’t have much land to begin with, and what little we have is needed for growing crops. The only land I can use for crayfish farming is this piece, so…”
"Coward! You’ve read so much, what’s the bloody use? After all this education, you've ended up back home tilling the field? You’ve brought shame upon yourself right at your own doorstep. Why don’t you go die elsewhere, huh?" Ma Xiaoqi’s scolding got more intense. She was standing a couple of meters away, yet her spittle flew all the way to Li Feng's face.
"What does it matter to you how I want to live?" Li Feng retorted, plucking up his courage.
"You good-for-nothing... I'll smash you to death!"
Ma Xiaoqi was so infuriated that her water bags were shaking non-stop. With a pouting butt and a bent waist, she picked up a palm-sized stone and hurled it directly at Li Feng.
"Whoa, damn..."
Startled, Li Feng hastily retreated, but in his panic, he stepped on a slippery object, lost his balance, and fell butt-first into the mud. Then, with a loud clang, the hoe directly hit his forehead, immediately causing a streak of dark red blood to flow out.
Drip, drip; a few droplets of blood fell into the muddy water, but instead of spreading out immediately, they were seemingly attracted by something and spiraled down into the mud as if drilling into its depths...
"Haha, you pathetic turtle..."
Ma Xiaoqi seemed to find the sight very gratifying, and she left laughing heartily whilst swaying her bucket-thick waist.
"So damn unlucky!"
Watching Ma Xiaoqi walk away, Li Feng was so angry that he gritted his teeth. But he was helpless, since Ma Xiaoqi was a headstrong widow whose son was a well-known bully in town. Even the police dared not confront them, as it was clear that they weren't the type to reason.
This really hurts!
Li Feng didn't dare to touch his wound with his dirty hands, but he could feel a small scrape on his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief. But he suddenly remembered stepping on something earlier - could it be the object that the hoe struck?
With that in mind, curiosity piqued Li Feng, and he didn’t care that blood was still flowing from his forehead. He bent down and reached into the depth of the mud.
After stirring the muddy water for a while, Li Feng finally touched something. His first impression on holding the object was that it was smooth and hard, and with a grit of his teeth, grabbed it to pull it out.
He thought it would be heavy - after all, it did not shatter even under a hoe's strike. He had braced himself and exerted all his strength, but the object was easily removed, causing him to fall backward into the mud again.
"That's a real pain in the ass! "
Li Feng blurted out indignantly. It seemed as though his butt had a real affinity for the mud today. Looking down at the object he had taken from the mud, he was first taken aback, then he extended a huge middle finger toward the sky...
