Chapter 204: His Scheme
Xiao Yuanwei’s mind was filled with confusion. Plot? As in storybooks? He wondered, waiting for the little one’s conversation with this strange ’system’ further.
"I see." He turned to Zhou Anran. "Does Mrs. Zhou also think that I don’t need to send my subordinates to search for your second daughter?"
He definitely valued her opinion more.
Zhou Anran was so nervous that she turned to him with a blank gaze; she hadn’t registered his question in her mind yet.
Then, she slowly pondered it over. "The Taoist Master says that we might not find her until it’s the time. Mr. Su, we really appreciate your offer, but we don’t want to trouble you anymore."
Xiao Yuanwei nodded in agreement. Despite their words, he still planned to use some manpower to search for Xiao Yuyan outside of the Capital.
Even if they thought it wasn’t the correct time to meet her yet, he wanted to make sure that Xiao Yuyan was safe and sound, letting his subordinates protect her.
Other than this... it seemed that he needed to meet Mo Chen again.
That guy was so good at hiding things from him, deliberately acting vague only for him to find out some news by himself that confirmed his doubt.
[Host, what your master said is indeed in line with the original plot.] The System answered Xiao Qingya’s question. Its voice rang in their heads, making them go silent for its next words.
[Still, the interference you have done on the plot has caused the butterfly effect. Your family wouldn’t have moved to the Capital until a year later if not for the clues you provided.]
[Even after arriving in the Capital, things didn’t go smoothly. Your family had no connection there besides Zhou Defeng’s customers. Your father didn’t help with the search either.]
[In order to find your sister, they had to use all means they could find, almost exhausting them to death. By the time you all reunited, it was years later when your sisters finally reached the marriageable age.]
It was when the plot for the twins finally began.
Xiao Yuanwei listened to the System’s words seriously. The content of its words shocked him greatly.
Whatever entity it was... it seemed to be able to predict the future? And his youngest daughter seemed to be tasked with changing the so-called bad futures for their family.
He also secretly observed everyone’s reactions. Xiao Jingran had been calm, but his gaze occasionally settled on Xiao Qingya.
On the other hand, Zhou Anran, Xiao Fenghao, and Xiao Yuxi’s had many obvious reactions.
Zhou Anran subconsciously gripped her garment tighter while the pair of siblings frowned slightly, their faces tinged with worry.
Meanwhile, Zhou Wenzhi and Zhou Shuran’s reaction had been the calmest as though they hadn’t heard anything at all.
He wondered whether Mo Chen could detect this entity called the System or not.
"Alright, we will do as you say," he muttered, nodding at Zhou Anran.
Zhou Anran inexplicably felt a little uneasy.
After a while, Xiao Yuanwei also excused himself. Although he wanted to stay a little longer, he was still busy with a lot of things including reviewing memorials that had piled up on his table.
***
The family had decided that they would stay in the Capital until they met Xiao Yuyan again, but in order to do that, they also needed to earn some money, not just burning their savings.
Zhou Wenzhi, with the help of Zhou Defeng’s connection, finally also managed to purchase a small amount of land. It wasn’t that wide, just twenty mu of land.
Even so, Zhou Anran and Xiao Qingya believed that with the help of the fertilizer and the spring water, they could earn back the money they had used to purchase the land after they harvested the crops a few times.
When he was free, Xiao Fenghao also would join Zhou Yanchao to deliver potted plants to the customers or shops which wanted to resell them.
At this moment, Zhou Anran still hadn’t revealed the existence of her space dimension to her father yet.
During the night, she would take care of the paddy rice and other crops in her space dimension while she would be busy with taking care of their new fields during the day.
Everyone was busy with their own activities.
"Two weeks before we can start transplanting them to the fields," Xiao Yuxi muttered at the nursery tray in front of her.
Xiao Fenghao made fun of her. "We were just putting the seeds in the soil. It will take them a while to sprout."
She was quite annoyed at her brother’s words. Snorting, she said, "I know, I am not stupid."
Anyway, they were also still in the process of creating the best environment to plant the young rice plants, like providing water irrigation in the fields.
The land in the Capital was several times better than that of Qingshan County, so they were excited about how high their yield would be once they had their first harvest there.
It was unknown how Zhou Defeng could get the previous owner to sell their fertile lands. Their fields were also located near their house. In order to go to the fields, they could simply ride the carriage there.
"The bamboo for irrigation is broken." Xiao Yuxi mumbled. "Second Brother, let’s tell Mother about this."
The bamboos were connected to the nearest lake, which also wasn’t too far away from their fields, so they could easily get water from there.
They also didn’t need to manually pick up water from a water source and bring them to the fields again. It was as convenient as their fields in the county.
The previous owner had planted mung beans, which didn’t require too much water. Perhaps that was the reason that the bamboo for irrigation was broken and remained like that until now.
However, since they were planning for paddy rice, they would need to fix them.
The paddy rice seeds were simply the most convenient thing for them to plant because its quality had been improved tremendously with several replanting, resulting in much better seeds.
After they told Zhou Anran, they immediately headed to Zhou Defeng’ place. In his backyard, there was a lot of bamboo.
"You want the bamboo for irrigation?" Zhou Defeng nodded, stroking his beard. "Let’s go to the backyard, I will show you where they are."
They thanked him and hurriedly followed after him.
Xiao Jingran and Xiao Fenghao were quite efficient, cutting several bamboo trees effectively.
Not long after, they already had quite a number of bamboo and immediately took them home, planning to install the water irrigation tomorrow.
As soon as they arrived home, they were all surprised by a familiar person’s visit, Xiao Yuanwei.
"Mr. Su, what brings you here?" Zhou Anran greeted him, wondering. Did he leave something at their house? After all, it had only been a few days ever since he visited last time.
Xiao Yuanwei nodded. His eyes flashed. "I heard that you are going to install irrigation in your fields, so I came to take a look."
She was quite speechless and even more conflicted when she heard that. Isn’t this person the emperor? She was a little puzzled. He seemed so idle that he would go to visit their humble house for such a small matter.
If he wanted, he could get any land in this country being installed with water irrigation bamboo. There was no need to specifically watch the one from their family.
"Mrs. Zhou, I hope you won’t mind." He smiled kindly.
She immediately felt as though there was something wrong with his smile. It was as if he had an ulterior motive behind it.
"Of course, we don’t mind." She nodded although she was unwilling inside.
After that, Xiao Yuanwei ordered his men to help the Xiao brothers transporting the bamboo to their own house.
"We can also help to bring them to your fields, Mrs. Zhou. How about we directly send them there?" He suddenly proposed.
He had many subordinates, and one person bringing several bamboo at once wouldn’t be a problem.
[Woah, is this the advantage of having power? If my father helps my brothers to transport the bamboo to the fields, they don’t need to go back and forth again.]
Zhou Anran hesitated and fell silent.
Xiao Yuanwei immediately took this chance as her acquiescence and turned to Xiao Jingran, asking for directions to the fields. Seeing that his mother didn’t seem to object, Xiao Jingran told him about it.
It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the fields with all of the bamboo.
"We can also start making the installation while the sun is still shining in the sky," he said and proceeded to tell his subordinates on things they should do.
He seemed to be quite familiar with this bamboo water irrigation already.
As he stood on the edge of the field, intentionally or not, the wind blew his mask away.
Zhou Anran’s heart almost jumped out of her throat when she saw her second son and eldest daughter happen to look in his direction.