The Fantastic Little Farmer

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: You Are Our Shen Jiayi

Zhang Fu was an honest and simple man. He would have been happy selling the wild softshell turtle he caught for a thousand yuan. However, people always compared things. Yesterday’s two-or-three-jin turtle sold for three thousand yuan. Now that this one was at least six or seven jin, he couldn’t accept just three thousand.

”Yesterday, Zhang Yun also caught one. It was about two or three jin, and an old doctor in the county bought it for three thousand,” Zhang Fu said. He didn’t want to sell it cheap, but he was also too embarrassed to name a high price.

Zhang Yun thought his father would lower the price out of politeness, in which case he wouldn’t be able to say much. But since his father had brought it up, he immediately chimed in.

”Uncle Cai, you rich folks must eat a lot of this stuff. Even for farm-raised ones, the bigger they are, the higher the unit price, and wild ones are even more expensive. A two-or-three-jin one isn’t rare, but one this big... it’s practically priceless!”

”Understood. So how much do you want for it?” Zhang Youcai was determined to get it.

”Ten thousand.”

”T-ten thousand?”

Zhang Yun’s asking price shocked both Zhang Youcai and Zhang Fu. They had both figured it would be double yesterday’s price, and with a little discount for an acquaintance, five thousand yuan would be about right. Ten thousand doubled their expected price!

Zhang Yun smiled and said, ”You don’t necessarily have to give this as a gift. Maybe I should just sell it to that doctor. It’ll be of greater value if he uses it for medicine, making it more cost-effective.”

Zhang Youcai was a businessman, so he immediately understood. Ordinary people only ate the meat, but in the hands of an old doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, the blood, skin, and shell could all be used in remedies. Naturally, a doctor would be willing to pay more.

It hurt to part with ten thousand yuan, but looking at the softshell turtle that was almost the size of a washbasin, he couldn’t resist. This was truly a rare find; usually, even with money, you couldn’t buy one.

”I’ll buy it! Ten thousand it is!” Zhang Youcai made a decisive choice. ”Brother Fu, I came out in a hurry, but I’ll bring you ten thousand in cash as soon as I head back!”

”Alright!” Zhang Fu immediately packed it up for him in a mesh bag.

Knowing that he must be feeling the pinch, Zhang Yun smiled. ”Uncle Cai, don’t throw the shell away. You can still sell it to a pharmacy. Shells of this level can fetch quite a bit of money, too.”

”Haha, okay.” Zhang Youcai took the mesh bag. Its heavy weight in his hands made him feel like it was a worthy purchase.

Zhang Youcai kept his word and soon brought over ten thousand yuan in cash. Zhang Fu accepted it without any polite refusal and didn’t give a cent to Zhang Yun. His son had grown up and was getting restless. It was time to save up for a wife!

After dinner, Zhang Yun took his phone out of the rice container, only to find that it wouldn’t turn on. It seemed the water damage had ruined it. Having no other choice, he rode his motorcycle to town, picked out a new phone, swapped his SIM card in, and paid.

After first confirming that the transfers from Zhang Lifeng and Ouyang Kunpeng had arrived, Zhang Yun finally had time to check his unread WeChat messages. Although he hadn’t used his phone since yesterday afternoon, there weren’t any private messages. However, there were a few friend requests.

”I am Yang Bo.”

”I am Chen Hui.”

Besides those two, a few other classmates he hadn’t kept in touch with had also sent requests through the class group chat last night. The last one was added via search and didn’t state their identity, but the note read, ”Live-in son-in-law! Accept this!” This looked like Ouyang Mingruo; she had probably gotten his contact from Zhang Lifeng.

Zhang Yun outright rejected Ouyang Mingruo, Yang Bo, and the others, only accepting Chen Hui.

He then checked the group messages. He had been tagged in the high school class group. Clicking into it, he saw that the usually quiet chat had hundreds of messages from last night! Normally, Zhang Yun would ignore such group chatter, but someone had tagged him. Unsure of what it was about, he tapped in and skimmed through.

Fuck! He was instantly pissed off after reading it!

Yang Bo was the first to tag him. Probably feeling ignored because his friend request wasn’t accepted, Yang Bo tagged him directly in the group, followed by all sorts of disdain and sarcasm! He claimed that Zhang Yun had struck it rich and looked down on his old classmates, refusing them time and time again when they invited him to dinner. It would have been one thing if he was busy or with other friends, but Zhang Yun had booked a private room next door and ordered over a dozen dishes all for himself!

He had heavily embellished the events of last night. Although Gao Dajin, Liu Yu, and the others didn’t explicitly badmouth Zhang Yun, their comments corroborated the story.

The other gossiping classmates chimed in, asking what Zhang Yun was doing and how he had gotten rich. Those whose friend requests to Zhang Yun had been ignored also started mocking him in the chat. Chen Hui had initially tried to explain things for Zhang Yun, but her words were completely drowned out by the flood of messages. Eventually, she stopped talking too.

You’re dragging my name through the mud just because I didn’t lend you money? Zhang Yun immediately wanted to slap Yang Bo hard a few times!

”Hello, I thought you weren’t going to add me,” Chen Hui quickly messaged.

Zhang Yun replied, ”My phone broke from water damage. I just bought a new one. [Grin]” He casually snapped a picture of the phone store to prove he wasn’t lying.

”Did your phone really get water damage?” Chen Hui had heard Gao Dajin mention this excuse of Zhang Yun’s. It seemed highly improbable, so everyone thought it was just a lie.

”Did you need something?” After typing this, Zhang Yun felt it would kill the conversation, so he deleted it and retyped: ”Yes. I just saw the group messages, too.”

”Don’t take what they spouted last night to heart.”

Zhang Yun sent a funny meme, avoiding a direct answer.

”I added you last night... originally to tell you that Yang Bo might ask to borrow money from you. Judging by how he acted later, he was probably rejected.”

”Right.” Zhang Yun couldn’t be bothered to explain. ”Did you guys lend him any?”

”He asked at the time, so everyone lent him a little.” Chen Hui added an awkward emoji.

”Mm.”

Zhang Yun had just asked casually. It had nothing to do with him, regardless of how much or how little they lent.

”What are you up to these days?” Seeing that he wasn’t interested in talking about Yang Bo, Chen Hui changed the subject.

”Buying a phone.”

”I mean... you haven’t been very active these past two years. We haven’t been in touch for a long time.”

”Haha, I got my degree in Indoor Studies from the University of Freeloaders. Now I’m just a homebody, farming and raising fish.”

Zhang Yun’s state of mind was very relaxed right now, but to Chen Hui, it sounded like self-deprecating insecurity, so she had to change the subject again.

”By the way, why don’t you ever add me as a friend? If I hadn’t added you this time, would you still have never added me?”

Before Zhang Yun could figure out how to reply, the second question came. ”Haha, I’m quite shy. I don’t usually add people first. When people add me, I accept the ones I know and ignore the ones I don’t.”

”Alright, what a bashful excuse... [Facepalm with tears]” Chen Hui then sent another message: ”Do you have a girlfriend? Don’t tell me you’re already married with kids! [Facepalm]”

”How could I be?” Zhang Yun teased casually. ”Since I haven’t met anyone as pretty as you, I have no choice but to stay single.”

”[Awkward] I’m not pretty, I’m just average.”

”You were our class’s Shen Jiayi. Back in the day, a lot of guys secretly admired and had crushes on you.”

”Really? How come I didn’t know? Why didn’t anyone confess to me? [Facepalm]”

Zhang Yun couldn’t help but curl his lips. She was playing the innocent act now! Even without direct confessions, how could a girl not sense that she was popular with the boys?

Right as he was secretly mocking Chen Hui, she sent another message that left him completely dumbfounded!