Well, the calligraphy was really not very good, but Zhan Xiaohui and Deng Wenjing spent a lot of money to have the president of the Fuhe City Calligraphy Association write it out personally, frame it, and hang it in the inner room of their office. And that's not all, below the two framed pieces of calligraphy, there was also an altar with the tablet of the judge of Fuhe City, which was offered and worshipped with three sticks of incense morning and evening.
Some subordinates and clients would occasionally see this scene and would ask Zhan Xiaohui and his wife what they were doing, with a hint of sarcasm.
The two would then reply in a lighthearted, almost joking tone, "Without divine protection, without faith to find peace and constantly remind ourselves, how can we succeed?"
Those who hear these words may feel disdain or contempt, but a small number of people may be skeptical.
After all, Zhan Xiaohui and Deng Wenjing were both quite young, yet they possessed an incredibly mature and composed mindset, considering matters extremely thoroughly, and they had established such a large logistics company… Initially, people would inevitably question their abilities and be skeptical of the company's prospects. However, to everyone's surprise, the company flourished from the very beginning, with profits pouring in.
Could it be that they are truly protected by a deity?
Well, by this point, Xu Zhengyang's initial idea had been achieved.
Otherwise, why would this man, who started out as a small-time businessman and was used to being a meticulous and frugal person, expend so much supernatural power to bestow such strong fortune upon the two of them? If it were merely about money, Xu Zhengyang wouldn't be short of cash at all. In Fuhe City, an ancient city spanning over 10,000 square kilometers with a history of over 2,000 years, Xu Zhengyang could easily unearth antiques and curios to sell. Coupled with the increasingly abundant income from Gu Xiang Xuan, making a few hundred thousand a year would be a piece of cake. Perhaps for some wealthy people, a few hundred thousand wouldn't be enough for their pocket money, but for Xu Zhengyang and his family, it was enough to allow them to live a life that would make many people envious.
Nobody gets up early for nothing!
These days, he spends most of his time at Gu Xiang Xuan's shop, sitting in the small living room on the second floor, smoking, drinking tea, and reading books, feeling quite content and comfortable. In the evenings, he and Chen Chaojiang ride their motorcycle back to the village to stay. The reason is simple: he finds his home comfortable and relaxing.
As always, Chen Chaojiang would get up early every day, strap on the heavy sandbags that would give most people a headache, carry a backpack full of bricks, run a large circle around the northern region, then practice a few rounds of boxing before returning to the village, where he would eat breakfast in silence. He would then drive his motorcycle to pick up Xu Zhengyang, the lazybones who slept until dawn every day. During the day at Gu Xiang Xuan, Chen Chaojiang would move a small stool to the steps outside the shop and concentrate on his work sculpting classical beauties. He had already sculpted more than a dozen wooden puppets, and his craftsmanship was becoming increasingly refined.
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, it's autumn, a time of clear skies and crisp air, and the rice harvest. Standing on the riverbank and looking around, you can see fields of golden rice, waves of grain rolling in the air.
In the early morning, the dew on the rice paddies had not yet evaporated, and the rising sun had only peeked out with half of its red head.
The villagers of Shuanghe Village have been emerging from the village one after another, some carrying sickles, some carrying water jugs, and some pulling straw ropes on bicycles. Their faces are all beaming with smiles; the joy of a bountiful harvest fills their expressions and hearts. If you were to follow the villagers chatting nearby, you would occasionally hear them joyfully remarking on how well the crops have grown this year, another bumper harvest. They would casually mention that it was all thanks to the protection of the land god, the favorable weather, and the absence of pests and diseases that this rare and abundant harvest was possible.
After the incident where Xu Zhengyang commanded ghosts to punish and intimidate the gossipy woman, most villagers became more convinced of the existence of the Earth God and realized that the relationship between Xu Zhengyang and the Earth God was far from ordinary.
However, no one would mention such a thing openly, for fear of revealing heavenly secrets and incurring the displeasure of ghosts and gods.
Xu Zhengyang, carrying a razor-sharp sickle, wearing a white and green camouflage uniform and green rubber boots, walked out of the village with his parents and headed north.
Xu Neng pushed a bicycle with a bundle of straw rope and two sickles on the back rack. His bronze face was covered in wrinkles, but his expression was full of joy. Yuan Suqin carried an aluminum kettle and two porcelain bowls, and said with some regret as she walked, "Sigh, it's rice harvesting time, but Rouyue can't come back. Why don't universities give autumn break? Are all university students city dwellers who don't have to farm?"
She said she missed Xu Rouyue, but in reality, she was thinking about that girl named Ouyang Ying. The day before yesterday, she specifically called Xu Rouyue, saying that she was about to harvest rice and asked if Xu Rouyue's classmate Ouyang Ying had said she wanted to come and learn how to harvest rice. Xu Rouyue laughed and cried, saying she couldn't go because of her busy studies. Yuan Suqin felt deeply disappointed.
"Your child is in university now, while you're still in elementary and middle school in this rural area?" Xu Neng said with a chuckle, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Even if Rouyue were at home now, she might not be able to help much..."
"I'd be reluctant to let her go if I could help her." Yuan Suqin's face lit up with joy. "My daughter is so fair and beautiful, like a big star. How could someone as delicate as her do such rough work in the fields?"
Xu Zhengyang interrupted, dissatisfied: "So Rouyue is my biological daughter, and I'm an adopted child?"
This time, the decision to harvest rice at home was made at the parents' suggestion. Given their current financial situation, they could easily have outsourced the harvest or even leased out the land. However, Xu Neng and Yuan Suqin preferred to work hard and endure the toil rather than spend the two hundred yuan or so to hire someone for the harvest. This reflects the mentality of most rural people: even knowing that the time spent farming could be spent working a regular job or running a business, earning more money and saving them time and effort, they still prefer to personally participate in the harvest, savoring the joy of it all.
Although he appeared slightly dissatisfied, Xu Zhengyang was actually quite happy to enjoy this busy life. Perhaps his small-farmer mentality hadn't completely disappeared? Of course, this wasn't a drawback; it was a mindset that was very worthy of appreciation and praise.
"Go away! This is to remind you of the bitter past and the sweet present, so you won't forget your roots..." Yuan Suqin said with a smile and a reproach.
Xu Zhengyang chuckled, “That’s something my father would have said.”
The family of three was delighted.
The family of three heard a ringing sound behind them and moved closer to the side of the road. Liu Bin and Zhang Hao rode up from behind on their bicycles.
"Oh, Mr. Xu, you still have to do this kind of farm work?" Zhang Hao slowed down and greeted Xu Zhengyang with a wobbly bicycle.
In the past, such words would have been nothing more than jokes between buddies, but today, there was a hint of jealousy and a slightly sarcastic tone. Xu Zhengyang understood that his buddies weren't jealous because he had made money; they were genuinely jealous because Chen Chaojiang received a high salary every month working for them, while they, as his buddies, didn't receive the same treatment. Naturally, they felt a bit jealous and resentful.
Treating the same relatives differently is inherently unfair, isn't it?
But this was something Xu Zhengyang couldn't do. He couldn't just bring all his buddies around to be idle and still get paid just because he had money, could he? That would be too unrealistic.
Xu Zhengyang didn't mind Zhang Hao's tone and said with a smile, "It's the busy farming season. If we don't work hard for a few days, we feel like something is missing at the end of the year."
Liu Bin said in a deep voice, "That's true. You, as a big boss, make a lot of money all day long without any effort. If you don't work hard, your muscles and bones will rust. Unlike us, we are poor and toil every day."
"You can't say that. Life is about being busy with this and that, isn't it?" Xu Zhengyang laughed it off.
"Yeah, Boss Xu is busy with big things these days, he can't talk to us common folk." Zhang Hao said with a sneer, then pedaled his bicycle northward.
Liu Bin glanced at Xu Zhengyang, said nothing more, sped up to overtake them, and caught up with Zhang Hao.
Xu Zhengyang shook his head helplessly, feeling a sudden pang of pain in his heart, as if he had lost something.
"Zhengyang, ignore them. These two kids are talking in a sarcastic tone now." Yuan Suqin looked at the two figures walking away with dissatisfaction.
"It's nothing, just a few jokes." Xu Zhengyang shook his head with a wry smile.
Xu Neng sighed and said, "Zhengyang, you know a lot of people outside. Why don't you ask around and see if you can find these guys a good job so they can earn more money... They've been friends since they were kids. You and Chaojiang can't be living a good life now while they live in poverty, can you?"
"Well, we'll see." Xu Zhengyang nodded, already considering his options.
"Why bother with them? Humph." Yuan Suqin muttered in dissatisfaction.
Suddenly, from the far north came the panicked cries of many villagers: "Fire! Fire! Help put out the fire!"
The family of three looked up and saw thick smoke billowing from the northernmost embankment, with small flames flickering within it. In an instant, the fire raged on the dried rice paddies, spreading rapidly. From a distance, the area, spanning dozens of meters, was engulfed in thick smoke and flames, and it continued to expand rapidly.
Volume 3, Judge 114: A Lost Horse May Turn Out to Be a Blessing
At the northernmost point of the rice paddies north of Shuanghe Village, there is a small east-west embankment, or more accurately, a path, only about a meter higher than the rice paddies. North of this path lies the farmland belonging to Lu Village.
The fire appeared to have started from dry grass on the dike. Villagers had already gathered at both ends of that section of the dike, using shovels, sickles, and branches to beat out the flames. Everyone knew that if the fire spread, it wouldn't just be one family's rice paddy that was destroyed, but... many more.
The section of the small dike where the fire broke out was right next to Xu Zhengyang's rice paddy!
Xu Zhengyang's rice paddy is rectangular, long from east to west and wide from north to south. The north side of the rice paddy is adjacent to a small dike, and the west side is adjacent to a path that runs north-south through the farmland in the north of Shuanghe Village. To the west of the path is a drainage ditch. The eastern part of the rice paddy consists of several lotus root fields. At this time, the lotus leaves and stems in the lotus root fields have already withered and turned yellow. The damp lotus root fields are not afraid of being ignited by fire.
When Xu Zhengyang and his father rushed to the rice paddy, they saw that the fire had already spread to a small part of their rice paddy, and crackling sounds came from the raging flames.
The villagers from both villages were merely battling the fire at either end of the small dike to prevent its spread, but no one dared to rush into the flames, much less try to cut a path through the rice paddies on either side of the dike to prevent the fire from spreading and causing greater damage. The reason is simple: it's not someone else's land, so who has the right to sacrifice someone else's rice to protect another's? Some villagers had already begun hurriedly harvesting their own rice paddies, close to the ridges. If the fire had reached their side, they could have cut a path through their own paddies, stopping the fire from spreading and saving their own rice.
The people were helpless. The fields were far from the village, and who would bring basins and buckets when harvesting rice? By the time they went back to get them, the rice would probably be burned. Some villagers did bring shovels, though, to reinforce the paddy fields occasionally.
We all know, well, the villagers of Shuanghe Village also know, that Xu Neng is an honest and simple person.
But today, when Xu Neng hurriedly rode his bicycle to his field with a tense expression and saw that the fire had already spread into the rice paddy, he suddenly burst forth with unprecedented courage and composure. Waving his sickle, he loudly ordered his son, who was running after him, "Cut the south side! Cut a path! Quickly!"
Before the words had even faded, Xu Neng had already charged into the rice paddy, wielding his sickle.
Xu Zhengyang rushed in without hesitation and quickly began harvesting with his sickle.
Cut off the south!
The villagers, who were frantically harvesting their rice in their own paddy fields, were stunned. Xu Neng was going to cut a path along the southern side of his own paddy field with his son, instead of calling on the villagers to help put out the fire and save their rice. This meant that he was going to abandon his own ripe and ready-to-be-harvested rice to save the rice fields of other families further south!
Xu Neng went mad, swinging his sickle with incredible speed, the blade reflecting a chilling glint in the firelight and the rising sun.
Xu Zhengyang quickly swung his sickle, his eyes catching glimpses of the stunned villagers in the fields and those dumbfounded by the roadside. Enraged, he brandished his sickle and roared, "What are you all standing there for? Come down and help! Are you only at ease after it's all burned? Hurry!"
The sound shook the surrounding area, and even the billowing smoke and spitting flames seemed to be frightened by Xu Zhengyang's furious aura, and the speed at which the fire spread southward seemed to slow down considerably.
One, two, three...
The villagers sprang into action, rushing into Xu Zhengyang's rice paddies to harvest rice along the southern edge. They were filled with renewed energy, determined to salvage as much rice as possible for the Xu family before the fire reached them.
Within moments, more than twenty people had poured into the rice paddies. Some were harvesting from east to west, others from west to east, and some were even cutting in from the middle to rush the harvest. Other villagers followed behind, quickly bundling the harvested rice and carrying it away. Several villagers with shovels rushed to the path west of the paddies to dig ditches, hoping to connect the paddies to the irrigation canals before the fire spread, and then use shovels to slowly pour the remaining water from the drainage ditches into the paddies. Some had already begun digging ditches within the paddies…
Many people, great power!
As the fire gradually consumed the ripe rice in the paddy field and spread to the harvesters, a three-meter-wide, east-west path was dug into the paddy field. Along this path, which was full of rice stubble, three shovel-blade-width ditches were dug, and several people on the west side were vigorously splashing water from the ditches with shovels.
A trickle of water flows into the three narrow ditches along the path through the rice paddies.
The fire was contained.
The raging flames seared everyone's faces and bodies. People stood on the periphery of the fire, silently watching it burn. Of the more than three acres of rice, except for a small amount that had been salvaged and brought along the field paths, the vast majority was completely burned to the ground. Months of hard work, reduced to ashes!
Xu Zhengyang and his parents stood on the road, staring blankly at the raging fire and billowing smoke.
On the north side of the small dike, a fire in the fields of Lu Village had already ignited the rice paddies of five or six families, and the fire was still spreading. The villagers were panicking and trying to put out the flames. Xu Neng, wielding a sickle, rushed across the small dike and ran into the rice paddies of Lu Village villagers he didn't know. Then more Shuanghe Village villagers ran over...
By the time the fire was completely extinguished, it was already past 10 a.m.
In Shuanghe Village, only Xu Zhengyang's rice paddy was damaged, while in Lu Village, more than five households had their rice fields burned to ashes, and several other households also suffered partial damage to their rice paddies.
People were exhausted, some standing and some sitting, their faces streaked with black and white.
Xu Zhengyang squatted by the canal, head bowed in deep thought. Why... why were his supernatural powers completely useless at this moment? This was Shuanghe Village! This was his own territory! How could his incomparably powerful willpower be so pathetic and utterly useless... The judgment book reminded him in his mind: Divine power is insufficient to withstand the power of the Five Elements of Heaven.
"Oh." Xu Zhengyang sighed softly. Metal, wood, water, fire, earth—the five elements! He wondered when his divine power would be able to break free from the constraints of the five elements.
Liu Bin and Zhang Hao walked over in silence. Zhang Hao took out his pack of cigarettes that cost 1.5 yuan a pack, took one out, and handed it to Xu Zhengyang.
Xu Zhengyang was stunned for a moment, then took it with a wry smile.
Liu Bin took out a lighter and lit it for Xu Zhengyang.
Their rice paddies were right next to Xu Zhengyang's. They had just participated too…
When people in the countryside are busy with farming, they don't care too much about smoking causing a fire, because everyone is very careful when they smoke, after all, everyone is worried about starting a fire.
"Zhengyang, I'm sorry," Zhang Hao said softly as he knelt down.
Xu Zhengyang chuckled: "Nonsense..."
"It's been a while since I've had a drink," Liu Bin said with a sheepish grin, a hint of guilt in his eyes.
"Come to my house tonight." Xu Zhengyang chuckled, stood up, and clapped his hands. "I've been wanting to talk to you about something these past few days."
The two paused for a moment, then smiled and nodded in agreement.
At the junction of the small dike and the drainage ditch, a fierce argument suddenly broke out between the villagers of Shuanghe Village and Lu Village.
Xu Zhengyang turned his head and saw his mother, Yuan Suqin, arguing with several villagers from Lucun: "You're like a dog biting Lü Dongbin, not recognizing a kind heart! Our villagers risked their lives to help you put out the fire, and you turn around and bite us... Have you all lost your conscience?"
"Don't swear! So many rice paddies have been burned. The arsonist has to come forward and compensate everyone for their losses, right?" one of the men said angrily, glaring at him.
Zhang Hao's father, Zhang Ziqiang, roared, "So you're just assuming it was people from our village who set the fire? Who knows if you're the ones crying wolf?"
A man who looked to be in his thirties and was wearing only a vest immediately retorted, "If you didn't start the fire, would you be so kind as to help us put it out?"
Liu Bin's father cursed angrily, "Damn it, you actually dare to spout such nonsense!"
In just a few words, both sides were enraged, their faces flushed, necks bulging, veins popping, and hands gripping sickles tightly, showing signs of being about to fight. Three police officers from the local station who had arrived earlier quickly stepped in to stop them from fighting…
It's understandable that both sides were so angry about this. Lu Village's hard work of several months was wiped out in the blink of an eye. Naturally, they were furious. Shuanghe Village, on the other hand, was even more enraged. They kindly helped put out the fire and saved the village from huge losses. How could they be so ungrateful for their kindness?
Of course, these kinds of things always have a starting point. After all, the people of Lu Village aren't really that heartless.
The origin of this whole thing lies with that man in the vest, the guy who just uttered those outrageous words. Well, he started the fire. After arguing with his neighbor, he was filled with resentment and, blinded by anger, while passing by their land, he secretly lit his cigarette and threw it into the neighbor's rice paddy below the embankment.
And so the fire quickly spread.
But as the fire grew larger and threatened to cause a major disaster, he became afraid. After all, when he passed by the small embankment, many villagers were already busy in the rice paddies. If someone said that he happened to be passing by when the fire started, and considering that he had just had a conflict with that family, wouldn't they suspect him? That would be terrible... That's why he cried wolf and spread provocative words among the villagers of Lu Village.
The villagers of Lu Village, who had lost their rice, were already furious when he started talking nonsense. They then came to Shuanghe Village to question the villagers and demand to find the culprit.