Female-to-male: I live on farming

Chapter 36 Melon Thief

"Boss, I've asked around, and no outsiders have appeared in the village recently."

Li Nanqiao didn't come back until dark. She pretended to have nothing to do and wandered around the village streets. When she met grandparents who were enjoying the cool under a big tree at the entrance of the village, she would go over to chat with them.

Then in the evening, they would carry a basin of dirty clothes to the river. Nowadays, in summer, people in the village have begun to choose to go to the river to wash clothes after the sun sets in the evening and the weather becomes cool.

She pretended that she had just seen a few unfamiliar people on the road, and took the opportunity to ask if any relatives had come to visit the village recently.

The girls and aunts who were washing clothes together talked about what had happened in the village recently. After getting the information he wanted, Li Nanqiao saw that it was getting dark, so he hurried to report to Qin Ke and the others.

"But Song Yaozu came back two days ago. Aunt Li said she often saw him wandering around the village these days. She was curious why he was running to the fields in such a hot day instead of studying at home."

He is really haunted!

"Has anyone seen him today?" Lu Youqing wanted to confirm.

"No, after I heard the news, I specifically asked the person living next door to him, and he didn't leave the house all day today." Although Li Nanqiao has a straightforward personality, he is also meticulous.

"It seems that the person whose leg was hit by the lightning was him." Qin Ke said.

At this time, Song Yaozu, who was lying on the bed with a gloomy face, didn't know that Qin Ke and the others had already guessed that it was him. Feeling the sour and burning pain in his legs, his already gloomy face became even more distorted.

"Yaozu, why don't we not provoke Qin Ke for now. I heard that he even has slaves under his control. It's better for us to calm down and prepare for the imperial examination. When you pass the exam, it will still be in time for us to deal with him." Song's mother sat by the bed and advised him earnestly.

She didn't know what was going on, but ever since Song Yaozu saw Qin Ke selling watermelons at a stall in the town, he had been like a possessed person and would not get on his side no matter what.

Although his family and Qin Ke have never gotten along well, the imperial examination is the top priority in her heart. Didn't they save money from their teeth to support him to study in town just to make him stand out?

"Qin Ke! He and I can never coexist!" Unfortunately, Song Yaozu, who had gotten himself into a dead end, simply couldn't listen to the advice of his family.

Song's mother was helpless, but she did not dare to tell her father-in-law about this, for fear that he would fly into a rage and deprive Yaozu of the right to study.

Although Song Yaozu was a narrow-minded person, Qin Ke beat him in front of the villagers, ruining his reputation in the village. He hated him, but he didn't intend to settle the score with him now.

It is said that it is never too late for a gentleman to take revenge. When he passes the examination, he will naturally have a certain status and voice in the village. By then, he can take revenge with pride.

But that day when he went shopping in the West Market with his classmates from the academy, he actually saw Qin Ke.

One of the students saw the watermelons they were selling and said to them with a smile, "I heard this is a new variety of fruit. My mother bought two yesterday to try. They tasted very refreshing after being chilled."

"What kind of fruit is this? It's priced at 500 coins each. Brother Tingzhi, is it really that delicious?"

"Of course, it's just five hundred coins, which is nothing to my family. My mother even asked someone to buy more today." He smiled slightly, then opened his folding fan and fanned himself gently, his tone full of indifference and calmness.

It was as if these five hundred coins were as insignificant as the five coins of an ordinary family and were not worth mentioning at all.

The other classmates around laughed when they heard this, and said they would ask their families to buy a few to try.

Only Song Yaozu hid behind the crowd and remained silent. When he first came to the academy in the town to study, he did study hard every day. However, as time went on, he saw his classmates eating, drinking, and having fun, and wearing fancy clothes, and he was the only one who didn't fit in.

He began to feel unfair. Why?

Why did he have to count money every day, live frugally, wear patched clothes, and not be able to raise his head in front of his classmates?

So he began to curry favor with the rich young men in the academy. He only needed to coax them to follow him into places he usually didn't dare to enter, and he also got to taste the flavor of prostitutes.

"Brother Song, why don't you try one?"

He didn't say anything, but he couldn't help but hear people talking to him, with their tone full of ridicule and mockery.

Everyone looked up at him. Song Yaozu could see the contempt and mockery in their eyes. A strong sense of self-esteem surged in his heart. He raised his head and swung open his folding fan, saying to several classmates: "I don't need to buy any. The man selling watermelons is from our village. As long as I tell him, he will eagerly deliver them."

"Oh, Brother Song, I can't tell. Why don't you let us see it for ourselves?"

Several people started to urge Song Yaozu to confront Qin Ke right away. He had already made the big promise, and it would be humiliating if he went back on his word now. He could only bite the bullet and walk towards Qin Ke's stall.

He had just walked to the middle of the street when he saw that the donkey cart they had brought was empty and several people were packing up to go home. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief and turned to them and said, "What a coincidence! He has sold out this one. We can only wait until next time."

"No, Brother Song, you are from the same village as him today, why don't you go home and ask us for a few so that we can also benefit from your fame."

Some people didn't want to let him go easily, and Song Yaozu had no choice but to nod in agreement.

He ran back home that day and told the villagers that Qin Ke had made a lot of money selling watermelons. He wanted to incite the villagers to come to his house and ask Qin Ke to give them a favor out of face.

But after his mother returned home, he found out that Qin Ke actually sold it to the villagers for 100 wen each. The Song family had to support his studies in recent years, so they had no extra money to buy that thing and could only return empty-handed.

Song Yaozu's plan failed, so he could only think of some crooked ways. Since Qin Ke is so greedy for money, don't blame him for being immoral.

He was sent to school by his family since he was young and had seldom done farm work. He was only vaguely familiar with their own fields. He wandered around the village for two days before he found out the location of Qin Ke's melon field.

He also specially found some beggars who made a living by begging in the City God Temple. In fact, it would be more appropriate to call them gangsters rather than beggars. The beggars in the town were all oppressed by him, and everything they begged had to pass through his hands.

Song Yaozu gave him one or two taels of silver to ask him to help, but who would have thought that such a melon field was actually guarded at night. As soon as they got close to it, they heard dogs barking. Not only did he fail to steal the melons, but his legs were also hit red and swollen by the sticks thrown by the other party.