Fantasy Farm

translator: baumkuchen

Jiang Buhuan rode in the minivan (one of those luxury limo minivans. Like the toyota alphard), along with the director and the rest of the artists. Perhaps because of that terrifying dream last night, Jiang Buhuan had been a little on edge the entire day. He kept having a bad feeling. 

“What’s wrong, A-Huan?” Wu Ya, sitting next to Jiang Buhuan, asked in a soft voice, “Why are your eyebrows so furrowed?”

“I don’t feel very well.” Jiang Buhuan pinched the spot between his brows.

Wu Ya said, “Oh…… Then do you want to sleep for a while?”

Jiang Buhuan said, “Nah.” Even though he felt exhausted, he wasn’t sleepy. 

Wu Yu said, “Then I’ll sleep for a while, I’m so tired.” She yawned, then actually fell asleep almost instantly after she closed her eyes.

The entire car seemed to be filled with this sleep-inducing atmosphere. Without him realising it, the people around Jiang Buhuan who had been awake were all asleep in a pile. It seemed like everyone had been incredibly tired.

Jiang Buhuan was a little sleepy now, too. He yawned, feeling his eyelids becoming heavier and heavier, but just as he was about to fall asleep, the Buddha pendant which had been hanging around his neck since he had been born suddenly started radiating with heat and burned Jiang Buhuan, shocking him awake. He wrenched open his eyes, and was shocked stiff by the scene that met him. He saw the driver, who had still been driving just now, actually asleep at the wheel. The car, having lost control, was about to speed off the narrow mountain roads.

Jiang Buhuan was soaked in cold sweat. He rushed towards the fallen driver as fast as he could, grabbed the steering wheel, and wrenched the car in another direction. Fortunately, at that time, the car hadn’t been going very fast. The car ran straight into the cliff, and after a bang, stopped.

Seeing this, Jiang Buhuan hurriedly looked back at the car holding their equipment that had been following them from behind. It seemed the crew members on that car hadn’t been affected, hurriedly stepping on the break upon seeing this scene and avoiding crashing into them.

Jiang Buhuan’s entire body was trembling. If he had woken up just a few seconds later, all the people in this car could have met their end right there and then. Just as he was thinking this, rather gladly, Jiang Buhuan felt a gaze pierce through him. He turned, and saw the director sitting by the window, staring at him with a hateful look in his eyes. But that look seemed to just be Jiang Buhuan’s misconception. In the next second, the director started asking worriedly about what had just happened.

The crew members in the other car also seemed to have been given a shock by what had happened to this car, all having gotten out and were now surrounding the vehicle, wanting to see what had happened.

The sleeping people in the car all woke up one after another, all of them clearly unaware about what had just happened, confusion painted across their faces. Upon realising that he’d just been asleep, the driver’s face turned pale from shock. He stumbled down from the driver’s seat. 

“The entire car fell asleep,” Jiang Buhuan said, “Thankfully I woke up and managed to turn the steering wheel.”

“How did we all fall asleep?” The others all found this rather unbelievable. One person falling asleep was normal, but how could the entire car of people have fallen asleep together?

“I don’t know.” Wu Ya had a dazed look on her face. “I just felt really sleepy……”

“It must be a problem with that village,” Another artist said in a terrified voice, “Let’s hurry back home, we all almost died here. This village is too creepy, I’m never coming back here again.” 

In a flurry of chatter and noise, they hurriedly set out again. Just that this time, everyone was 100% alert and staring at the driver, not daring to lose focus.

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The rest of the journey passed with no more incidents. The program group finally succeeded in leaving Shuifu village.

Hearing about what had happened to Jiang Buhuan from WeChat, Lu Qingjiu was a little shocked. He told Yin Xun and Bai Yuehu about it over lunch. 

Bai Yuehu originally didn’t have a good impression of the group. Him not having made a move against them was already the greatest kindness he could grant them. Not even his expression changed upon hearing what had happened to them. He was clearly utterly uninterested.

Rather, it was Yin Xun who found it all a little strange. “That’s weird, in the past, there have been outsiders who’ve come to Shuifu village before. Even though they weren’t very welcomed, they at least never had to worry about losing their lives.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Yeah.”

“But I did realise something,” Yin Xun said, “Most of the people who’ve come to Shuifu village were all invited.” 

Lu Qingjiu asked, “Why do you say that?”

Yin Xun said, “You go without saying, you grew up here, so you count as one of us. Let’s take Zhu Miaomiao as an example. She’s also an outsider, but she only came here at your invitation.” He took a bite of tender stir-fried Chinese lettuce. “Maybe it’s because of that that nothing happened to her?”

“But going by what you’ve said, the program group was also invited.” Lu Qingjiu felt like there were some holes in his reasoning. “Remember the Liu family who gave them the keys to the house?”

Yin Xun said, “Ah, that’s true too.” 

Lu Qingjiu said, “Unless……”

Yin Xun, “Unless what?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Unless the person who invited them here, wasn’t actually a member of the Liu family.” 

Yin Xun was stunned. “What do you mean?” 

Lu Qingjiu said, “It’s just a theory, there’s no meaning to it. Last night, I made some silver tree-ear fungus soup, you should drink some. Right, do you know how to catch bees?” He was prepared to produce some honey this year.

Yin Xun said, “I don’t know. But I heard that most beekeepers just make their own man-made beehives and trick honeybees to nest inside. When there’s a queen bee inside, the whole swarm will move in.”

Just as Lu Qingjiu was about to say that he’d better study some tutorials on the Internet before staring, Bai Yuehu, from where he was sitting next to him, said, “I’ll catch the bees, you can just prepare the beehive.”

“Alright.” Lu Qingjiu didn’t fight him, happily agreeing. 

After spring had begun, Lu Qingjiu had cleaned up the chicken coop and the cow pen. The cow that Bai Yuehu had brought back with him had hibernated for the entire winter, so they hadn’t had any milk. Now that spring had arrived, the cow had woken up, and started mooing to say that he was hungry.

Yin Xun ran very fast, grabbing the freshly-harvested cucumber and going off to feed the cow, even excitedly saying that he’d never drank cucumber-flavoured milk before.

Lu Qingjiu stared at his back, for a time, not knowing what to say. The cow’s special trait had given Yin Xun’s imagination wings, letting him fly off into the sky.

So that night, they drank subtly cucumber-flavoured milk. The taste actually wasn’t bad, the milk had the freshness of cucumber, and wasn’t musty at all. Lu Qingjiu felt like he really liked it, but Bai Yuehu disliked it a lot, playing it to one side and not touching it again after one sip. 

After Jiang Buhuan and the rest had left, the village once more returned to its former tranquility. The next-door Uncle Li had even sent Lu Qingjiu some loquats from their trees.

The loquats from this farmer village were very small, and didn’t have much flesh, but they were especially sweet, and had a rich flavour, completely unlike those loquats sold in the city, which were very big but had little flavour. As Lu Qingjiu was eating the loquats, a call from the seedling shop owner came. He said that the tree seedlings Lu Qingjiu had ordered had arrived, there were oranges, apples, loquats, all sorts, which ones did Lu Qingjiu want?

Lu Qingjiu chose a few, preparing to plant a few in both the inner and outer courtyard. If they followed the normal growth rate, it would take several years before they would be able to taste their fruits, but his home had Bai Yuehu, this ripening master, who was a lot more useful than fertiliser. Perhaps they would even be able to eat fruits from their own trees this autumn.

Yin Xun sneakily gave Bai Yuehu the nickname of Bai Fertiliser. Of course, he didn’t dare to call Bai Yuehu this to his face, only saying it to Lu Qingjiu in private. 

After hearing it, Lu Qingjiu broke out into loud laughter, then told Yin Xun to absolutely under no circumstances let Bai Yuehu know, otherwise, the one who would become fertilizer would have a very high chance of being Yin Xun himself…… 

Yin Xun nodded like he was using his head to grind garlic, saying that he had a very strong sense of self-preservation.

Bai Yuehu’s ability to get things done had always been very strong. He’d said that he was going to catch bees for Lu Qingjiu, and after three days, he’d already gotten them. Lu Qingjiu hadn’t even gotten his beehive done when he saw Bai Yuehu come back holding a plastic bag. After he got home, he placed the plastic bag on the table and said, “I got the bees.”

Lu Qingjiu was a little stunned. “Where?” 

“Here.” Bai Yuehu pointed at the plastic bag.

Lu Qingjiu, “……”

Yin Xun, “……”

Even though the two of them had never kept bees before, they knew that they couldn’t be caught with a plastic bag……  

As Bai Yuehu had spoken, he had lifted the bag. Then, just like that, he opened up the bag and showed it to Lu Qingjiu. Lu Qingjiu was startled by his action, but seeing that no bees came flying out after the bag was opened, he came over to take a look. He saw that there were four or five bees in the plastic bag. It was just that no matter how you looked at it, those bees didn’t look right. Even overlooking how each one was about the size of a bird,  their upper half looked like a bird as well, even having feathers on their wings. Lu Qingjiu looked up.  “These are bees?”

Bai Yuehu, “Yes.”

Lu Qingjiu, “Bees can grow feathers?”

Bai Yuehu, “Maybe because it was too cold.” 

Lu Qingjiu, “Why are each of them so big?”

Bai Yuehu, “Because they ate a lot?”

Lu Qingjiu, “……” Do you think I’m an idiot.

What most made Lu Qingjiu not know whether to laugh or cry was that upon hearing the two’s conversation, those bees looked up at them, a pitiful look in their eyes, looking just like they had been harshly bullied. 

Lu Qingjiu still had more to say, when those bees actually started speaking human words in a soft voice. One of the bees said in a trembling voice, “Ge, don’t doubt it anymore. I really am I bee, buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz.”

Lu Qingjiu, “……” Motherfucking buzz buzz buzz, what kind of bee used their mouth to buzz? No, the important point wasn’t this, it was what kind of bee could speak human words?! They even spoke Mandarin? Were these high-quality beez who had gone through nine years of compulsory education?

The other bees also started buzzing, simply wanting nothing more to paste “I’m a bee” in big letters on their foreheads.

Faced with these trembling, “bees” who had been forced into claiming such an identity for themselves, Bai Yuehu expressed his satisfaction, “See, like I said, they’re bees.” 

Lu Qingjiu decided to give up his questioning. “……Fine.”

If they said they were bees, they were bees, there wasn’t much he could do but leave it be.