Chapter 9: Unveiling the Secret
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Chen Dabao happened to turn around and was instantly struck dumb.
“Ah!”
Seeing the foolish, lovestruck look on his face, An Nuan let out a startled cry and hurriedly sank back into the wooden tub. Her breathtakingly beautiful face burned crimson.
“You lecher! Are you still looking?”
She scolded him coquettishly, wishing she could find a crack in the floor to crawl into.
“Sister Nuan, I... I’ll be going first. I’m sorry!”
In a fluster, Chen Dabao turned and ran. His mouth was dry, heat coursed through his entire body, and he had no idea what to do.
“Hey, Dabao! Dabao!”
An Nuan called after him several times, hastily wrapped herself in a bath towel, and chased him outside. But Chen Dabao had vanished in the blink of an eye. Furious, she stamped her foot.
“That big fool! He’s infuriating!”
Ashamed and angry, An Nuan returned to the house, carefully locked the door, and changed into her pajamas. Gazing at her flushed face in the mirror, she murmured to herself, “Dabao isn’t a fool anymore!”
..........
Chen Dabao could feel his spiritual composure wavering. His entire body was burning, and he did not dare remain at An Nuan’s house. He ran all the way out of the village and arrived at the White Dragon River behind the village.
A river called the White Dragon River flowed behind Peach Blossom Village, connecting all the way to White Dragon Lake. Its water was exceptionally clean, and the fish caught there could be sold for a high price in town.
Seeing that no one was around, Chen Dabao simply stripped off his clothes and leaped into the river with a splash. After taking a thoroughly refreshing bath, he finally calmed down.
“Women are terrifying!”
Muttering to himself, Chen Dabao put his clothes back on and decided to head toward his family’s orchard to see what they had planted there.
It was a cool, silent night. Before long, Chen Dabao found his family’s orchard.
“They’re still growing strawberries!”
Looking at the two mu of strawberry fields, Chen Dabao casually picked one and popped it into his mouth.
A faint sweet-and-sour flavor spread across his tongue.
It was not sweet, and even the strawberry flavor was weak. They were like modern tomatoes that had completely lost the taste of tomatoes—only their appearance remained, with none of the flavor.
Before harvesting, growers had to spray them with enlarging agents, followed by sweetening agents.
Otherwise, the texture would be ordinary and they would not fetch a good price. Nearly every household used them. But once the crops were treated with chemicals, eating too many could harm the body.
People who sold strawberries generally did not eat them themselves.
When Chen Dabao’s family first began growing strawberries, they refused to use pesticides. But without them, not only was the yield low, the strawberries could not command a good price either. Other people’s strawberries were large and bright red, selling for ten yuan a pound.
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The strawberries grown by Chen Dabao’s family looked ordinary and were not sweet enough. Even at six yuan a pound, few people wanted them.
In the end, they had no choice but to follow everyone else and use chemicals.
These days, bad money drove out good money. Honest people could not even stay in business, while only unscrupulous merchants could make money.
“I’ll try the Minor Spirit-Gathering Technique!”
After pondering for a while, Chen Dabao decided to use the small amount of Heavenly Mystery Qi he had just cultivated to release a Spirit-Gathering Technique. This technique could draw together the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and nourish all living things.
Many sects had possessed similar methods in ancient times.
But later, Liu Bowen severed the dragon veins and cut off the path between heaven and humanity. The spiritual energy of Earth gradually dispersed, and many lineages of cultivation declined and vanished.
“Spirit-Gathering Technique!”
Chen Dabao chanted under his breath and circulated the Heavenly Mystery Divine Art. A faint current of heat began to flow through him. Then a gentle breeze swept past and settled over the orchard, which covered roughly three-tenths of a mu.
“It worked!”
As soon as he cast the technique, Chen Dabao felt weak. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He had only just begun cultivating, and even a minor Spirit-Gathering Technique consumed a tremendous amount of energy.
Moreover, the area covered by the technique was extremely small—barely three-tenths of a mu.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and see the results!”
Chen Dabao wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned toward the village. Just after crossing the orchard and passing through a cornfield, he suddenly heard a rustling from within the stalks.
It sounded like a woman panting.
“What’s going on? An affair?”
His curiosity stirred. He moved closer on silent feet.
At this hour of the night, anyone who came to a cornfield to do such a thing was certainly having an affair. Otherwise, why not simply do it at home?
“You... Youcai, why did you only come now? If we get back late, that old bastard will definitely become suspicious!”
A woman’s voice drifted faintly from within the cornfield.
Damn!
Chen Dabao’s eyes widened. He recognized the voice immediately.
Wasn’t that the village chief’s wife, Deng Hongyan?
And Youcai could only be Li Youcai.
Li Youcai was having an affair with Deng Hongyan? Good heavens, this was explosive!
Following the sound, Chen Dabao crept closer and saw that a section of the corn had been flattened nearby. Disordered clothes lay scattered to one side, while two naked bodies clung to each other, engaged in sexual intercourse.
“The village chief wanted to discuss something. I... I could only come after we finished discussing it!” Li Youcai panted.
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Li Youcai and Deng Hongyan had not only recently become involved. They had known each other in their youth and could even be called childhood sweethearts. Unfortunately, Li Youcai was useless and his family was poor, so he had been forced to watch helplessly as Deng Hongyan married Liu Fugui.
In a way, that had worked out even better. The day after Deng Hongyan married Liu Fugui, Li Youcai climbed into her bed. The two of them had concealed their affair perfectly, and after all these years, Liu Fugui had never discovered it.
Liu Fugui had always regarded Li Youcai as his most loyal lackey.
Hiding at a distance, Chen Dabao rolled his eyes and felt around his body, hoping to pull out his phone. But after being a fool for a year, he no longer knew where the phone had gone.
What a pity!
Chen Dabao secretly regretted that he had been unable to capture any evidence.
If he could have taken a photograph, Peach Blossom Village would certainly have been treated to quite a spectacle.
Since he could not record anything, Chen Dabao quietly backed away several steps until he reached the edge of the cornfield. Then he deliberately coughed several times.
“Ahem, ahem!”
The sound carried a long way through the silent cornfield. Li Youcai and Deng Hongyan shuddered and immediately clung to each other without daring to move, nervously looking around.
“Hongyan! Hongyan! Where did you run off to?”
The next moment, Chen Dabao called out in a deliberately deep voice. At first hearing, it sounded rather similar to the voice of Village Chief Liu Fugui.
“Oh, God!”
Deng Hongyan was so frightened that she looked as though she had seen a ghost. She rolled to the side, snatched up her clothes, and fled with her bare backside exposed.
Li Youcai’s legs went weak with terror. He hurriedly gathered his clothes and fled in the opposite direction. Before long, both of them had disappeared.
“Serves you right! That’ll scare the life out of you!”
Chen Dabao burst into laughter and went home, thoroughly pleased with himself.
Once home, he found several eggs and stir-fried them with a cucumber, barely filling his stomach. Then he sat cross-legged on the bed and began cultivating the Heavenly Mystery Divine Art.
Early the next morning, the sun rose above the horizon. A thread of Primordial Violet Qi descended, and Chen Dabao opened his mouth and inhaled it. After a while, he slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
He gradually opened his eyes, feeling refreshed and invigorated.
After cultivating through the night, he had finally replenished the Heavenly Mystery Qi he had expended the day before—and had even strengthened it somewhat.
“Bang, bang, bang!”
Just then, a violent pounding suddenly sounded at the door.
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