Fruit Farmer In A Cultivation World

Yu Yao skipped along a narrow road while carrying a basket full of purple pigweed. It was an unexpected find as most of the purple pigweed had already been collected towards the end of autumn to be used as fodder for livestock throughout winter.

Though it wasn't much, only a few handfuls by an adult's standard, for the seven-year-old Yu Yao, it was truly the biggest harvest of her life.

First of all, she'd never gone out to forage alone in her life. She'd only managed to venture out because her older brother had gone to stay at a martial arts school run by her late father's friend and her mother was sick.

To be able to come back with such a big haul from her first solo outing, she was sure her mother would praise her a lot.

Her mother didn't have a big appetite and she didn't like the tasteless pigweed much. It would probably last three days for the two of them.

Thinking to this point, she was reminded of the food packed by her mother on her waist pouch. She opened the pouch with her small hands and was delighted by what she saw.

It was a flat bread with some pickled vegetables. But that wasn't all. Lying in the middle of the pickled vegetables was a piece of smoked pork the size of her thumb.

Yu Yao wasn't surprised by the flat bread as she'd seen her sick mother get up early to make it despite feeling weak. The pickled vegetables and pork, however, were truly something she hadn't expected.

She didn't understand everything but ever since her father passed away two years ago, their well to do family had fallen on hard times. Especially this year, they didn't have much to eat and rationed food such as pickled vegetables sparingly.

It was even more so for smoked pork. Her mother had only managed to buy a small chunk of pork this winter. It wasn't much, maybe as large as her small head.

And half of the pork had been given by her mother to her older brother saying he'd need to eat well for his martial arts practice.

As for the other half, the mother and daughter had gone through it very slowly. More so than food, it was used as a tool to coax the little girl by her mother.

Yu Yao couldn't believe her mother had packed so much pork for her. This had to be the biggest piece of meat she'd gotten this year.

She wanted to dig in immediately but stopped when she thought of her sick mother. According to what the elders at the village had said, sick people needed to eat meat to recover faster.

'I'll eat this together with mother,' she thought to herself and tried to put the bread back into her waist pouch.

But before she could do so, a mocking voice sounded from her side.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the little brat of the Yu household. I can't believe she's eating so well when her mother always makes excuses for why she can't pay back her debt. Isn't she pretending to be sick right now? Looks like she's healthy enough to be making bread in this cold. Talk about being sick."

Yu Yao turned to the direction of the voice and saw two young men approaching her. The two newcomers were thugs that some villagers had warned her to stay away from. She'd listened to their advice but the duo had been harassing her mother throughout the winter.

She didn't know the details but from what she overheard, they were trying to collect the debt owed to old man Lu.

Yu Yao was a little scared of the two but she wasn't one to let others get away after saying bad things about her mother.

"My mother really is sick. And I don't eat like this every day. I wouldn't be bringing back pigweed if we had good food."

Looking at the basket full of pigweed, one of the thugs snickered. "Hey, hey. Isn't this what they feed to the pigs? To think there are poor people in the villages who eat such stuff. No wonder the city folks speak badly of these villagers. They really aren't much different from animals."

"That's right." His friend chimed in enthusiastically. "I can see now why her mother always makes excuses about not having money. After eating pig feed for so long, she is already no longer a human. She probably got sick because the gods cursed her for behaving like a beast."

Yu Yao's eyes reddened after listening to their mean words. Unable to hold back her anger, she charged at the one closer to her and kicked him in the shin before raining down a barrage of hammer fists on his waist.

"What the…" The thug was caught off guard by the kid's sudden aggression. He pulled back his hurting leg and pushed the little girl away, causing her to fall down. "How dare you attack me? I'll teach you a lesson in place of your useless mother today."

The thug walked up to the basket and emptied its contents to the ground.

Watching the purple pigweed she'd worked so hard to collect being thrown to the ground, she could no longer hold back her tears.

"Stop!" she shouted while getting back on her feet.

The thug ignored her and stomped on the plant. He only stopped after he was done venting and spat on what remained of the stomped pigweed.

The little girl stared at the pigweed in a daze. Just a while earlier, she'd been imagining how happy her sick mom would be after seeing the food she'd gathered. But now…

It was as if the floodgates had been opened. Her eyes burned and tears streamed down her cheeks continuously.

Watching the scene, even the thug's friend couldn't take it anymore. "You've gone too far."

The thug just clicked his tongue in annoyance and walked away. His friend took a few looks at the crying girl but decided to not get involved any further.

"Wait for me," he spoke while catching up.

*****

Sen Lin was stunned by what he saw. Before he could get close to the late uncle Yu's house, he found Yu Yao, uncle Yu's daughter crying under a tree.

He approached her hurriedly and bent down to check on her, "Yao, are you okay? What happened?"

The little girl looked up with reddened eyes. "Little Sen," she spoke while sniffling her cries.

After much coaxing, he finally got the little girl to open up.

When he finally heard the full story, he was filled with rage. Not just towards the thugs and old man Lu who had hired them but also towards himself.

He had received a lot of help from uncle Lu back when the latter was alive. But after the man had passed away, Sen Lin hadn't done much to check up on his family.

He had assumed the trio would be fine as uncle Yu had a very good relationship with the villagers. He could have never expected things to have deteriorated to such an extent.

"Little Sen, is it true that mom is sick because we often eat pigweed?"

Sen Lin felt guilty whenever Yu Yao called him little Sen. It was what uncle Yu used to call him back when he was alive. The little girl had picked up on her father's habit, calling him by the same name.

"Of course not." Sen Lin picked her up and held her closely, "I practically grew up eating pigweed. Aren't I perfectly fine?"

The girl nodded after some thought.

"Can you put me down? I need to go look for more pigweed. The grain in our house has almost run out. I need to find some food for mother. She's still sick and can't move around too much."

"Don't worry about that," Sen Lin ruffled her hair and pulled out the food he had brought. He unwrapped the leaves and asked in a chiding manner. "Look what I've got for you and your mom."

Yu Yao's eyes widened at the sight. She hadn't ever laid her eyes on such beautiful food.

Sen Lin felt a little better after looking at the little girl's reaction.

She took a few bites under Sen Lin's encouragement. Soon, the previous encounter with the thugs had already disappeared from her mind.

"It's so good. Little Sen, let's hurry to my home. I'm sure mom will recover faster if she eats this."

Sen Lin put down the girl and let her pull him to her house with excited steps.