I was pulling trees in Daming, and Lao Zhu begged me to come out of retirement

Chapter 12 Do you both have children?
Zhu Chongba was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night.
The next day, as soon as the rooster crowed, he ran to and banged on Liu Xiaode's door.

The sleepy-eyed concierge cursed angrily:
"Whoever knocks on the door so early must be sick!"

As soon as he opened the gate, Zhu Yuanzhang rushed in.

"Liu De! Liu Xiaode! Where is our third sister's indenture contract? Take it out now!"

Liu Xiaode, who was sleeping soundly with his concubine in his arms, shuddered and climbed out of bed. He looked at the dawn sky in confusion and cursed loudly:

"Damn it, Zhu Chongba! Are you crazy? It's only now. I've never seen you get up so early when you were herding cattle!"

He hurriedly put on his clothes, took out a deed from a locked box, and ran out staggeringly.

When he opened the door, he saw Zhu Yuanzhang's red-eyed figure trapped in the courtyard.

Liu Xiaode felt a little scared when he saw Zhu Chongba's red eyes.
The anger that was originally rising suddenly dissipated.

He threw the indenture contract to the ground with a MMP expression on his face and cursed:
"Get lost! I told you to get it yourself a long time ago. Why are you coming at this time? I think you are deliberately trying to disgust me!"

Zhu Chongba didn't mind, he picked it up from the ground and took a look.
Hmm... he didn't understand, but he believed that Liu Xiaode would not dare to cheat him, and he was too lazy to pay attention to him. He put the indenture contract in his arms and walked out the door.

Liu Xiaode spat with a gloomy look on his face.
"Damn it, are you in such a hurry to go to the funeral? What bad luck! What bad luck!"

At this time, the concubine's moans came from the inner room.

"Master, don't bother with that fool, come here."

Liu Xiaode's face was replaced with a lustful expression.
"Hey~ Here it comes~"

He ran in hastily, turned around and scolded the doorman and the guard halfway:

"Go away, go away! Don't open the door to this kind of psychopath next time! It's the middle of the night, he's crazy!"

The doorman responded with a wry smile, and in his heart he had already greeted all of Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestors.

Zhu Chongba didn't care about all this.
At this moment, he was following his second brother, who also had red eyes, and his third sister, who was dressed brightly and beautifully, towards the grave of his parents.

At this time, the third sister looked completely different after being washed and changed into new clothes by her mother-in-law.

Bright eyes, white teeth and a cute pigtail make her look more lively.

However, her thin cheeks and sallow skin caused by long-term malnutrition made her look a little frail.

At this time, the third sister followed behind Zhu Chongba and his brother with some trepidation.

As they were getting further and further away from their hometown, the fear in the third sister's heart was finally aroused:

"Brother Chongba, where are we going?"

Zhu Chongba said without turning his head:

"Take you to find the gods."

"God?" The third sister was stunned. "Is it the god who gave you the treasure?"

Zhu Chongba nodded:

"It's him. You've seen him. He's the one who took your cow away yesterday."

The third sister's eyes turned red when she heard this: "God? How can a god steal our cow?"

If the cow had not been stolen, she would not have been beaten with a stick.

Zhu Chongba turned around and glared at his third sister, scolding:

"Be careful with your words! How could a fairy steal your cow? This is your fate. The fairy must have his reasons. Let's go find the land god this time. He will definitely not treat you unfairly. When you really meet him, be respectful and try to stay beside the fairy to pass on a message for us."

The third sister burst into tears when she heard this:
"Brother Chongba, do you want me to be the tribute girl? I am wrong. Please give me a chance. I will definitely work like a cow or a horse to repay you."

They live by the Huai River. When the Huai River floods, some villages will sacrifice some boys and girls to the river god and pray for the flood to subside.
The third sister was a virgin girl chosen from a village by the Huai River. Her father didn't want to allow her to do so, so he took her here secretly to escape. However, they couldn't survive the successive natural disasters and died on the road.

The reason why she sold herself was to get a coffin from Liu Xiaode to bury her father, so that the government could check the burial specifications and obtain a legal registered identity.

Unexpectedly, he could escape the first day but not the fifteenth. The seemingly righteous Chongba Ge actually wanted to sacrifice himself to the God of Land.

The sacrifice to the water god is thrown into the river and sent to the land god first. Does that mean he is buried alive?
The third sister became more and more scared the more she thought about it, and she couldn't help but burst into tears. After all, she was just an 8-year-old girl.

Zhu Chongba frowned and turned around to comfort him:
"Don't cry, it's a real god! We are counting on you to stay by his side and think of us. There are fairy mushrooms and fairy treasures in the gods' place. With a hoe, the wasteland will become arable land. Besides, the gods don't necessarily need you." The third sister looked at Zhu Chongba with some disbelief.
Although I am young, I am not stupid. What you said is a bit contemptuous.

Zhu Chongba did not explain, but handed a grilled mushroom to his third sister.

"Here, this is the fairy mushroom given by the fairy. If you eat one, you won't be hungry anymore. If you don't believe me, try it."

The third sister hesitated for a moment, but still took the grilled mushroom that didn’t look very good and ate it.

The fragrance explodes in your mouth.

The third sister's eyes suddenly brightened up.

She no longer worried about whether what Zhu Yuanzhang said was true or not. She should have been beaten to death by the landlord yesterday anyway. It was Yuanzhang who spent money to save her. Even if he really wanted to sacrifice her, she had no room to resist.

She turned her grief and anger into appetite and quickly ate a grilled mushroom.

Wait for the mushrooms to go down your throat,
A sense of fullness instantly filled the third sister's heart.
She stared with her big almond eyes in shock,

I actually wasn't hungry at all.

Is this the fairy mushroom that Chongba Ge mentioned?

The third sister followed the two brothers with her eyes rolling.
Finally, after walking for nearly 3 hours, they saw the pine and cypress trees in front of their parents' graves... and three torches inserted in front of the graves.

"Zhongba, look!"

Zhu Chongliu excitedly shouted to Chongba, "Look at that torch, someone has been here, it must be the God of Land."

Zhu Yuanzhang also nodded excitedly. Who else except the gods would know the specialness of this place? This must be the torch given to us by the gods.

The three of them came closer.

The Zhu brothers coughed several times towards the pine and cypress trees:
"Mom and Dad, we are back again. This time you must make sure we meet the gods again."

The third sister was standing behind him feeling uneasy, not knowing whether to kowtow as well.
Fortunately, Zhu Chongba stood up and pointed to a stone and said to his third sister:
"You sit there first, don't get your clothes dirty. Last time we came here, we were naked, which was disrespectful to the God of Land. If you really meet him, you must leave a good impression on him and try to stay by his side."

The third sister nodded obediently and sat quietly on the stone.

Zhu Yuanzhang and the other man looked around. They didn't know how to contact Tianyu, so they could only wait there in the most stupid way.

The two of them walked around restlessly.

Tianyu did not show up until evening.

Zhu Chongliu said to Zhu Chongba disappointedly:

"The Immortal didn't come. Should we leave?"

Zhu Chongba turned his head and looked at the three torches that were still burning, gritted his teeth and said:
"No! Just think of it as keeping vigil for our parents. Anyway, we won't starve because we have fairy mushrooms. The fairy's torch is still lit. We can't leave."

Zhu Chongliu nodded. Although Zhu Chongba was young, he had been very opinionated since childhood and was willing to listen to his younger brother's ideas.

"Okay, we'll listen to you this time!"

The two brothers calmed down and started waiting there.

When they were hungry, they ate grilled mushrooms, and when they were thirsty, they took turns to fetch water.

They licked their lips as they watched the torches burning for four days without any sign of weakening.

Even if I don’t meet any gods this time, it’s not a loss. These three torches are treasures no matter how you look at them.

It's been three days, but he doesn't show any signs of weakness.

If you plug one into your home in winter, you won't have to worry about heating the whole winter.

Just when they were thinking about whether to take the torches back home,
Tianyu rode a spotted cow and leisurely came out from the depths of the forest.

He saw Zhu Chongba and the other two standing in front of the torch, looking a little surprised:

"Good boy, I haven't seen you two have a child in these few days?"

Zhu Chongba: “???”

(End of this chapter)