Rebirth: Pampered by the Lord

Chapter 34: Chapter 34 Hunchbacked Old Man

As the Spring Festival drew nearer each day, Xuexue found herself penniless. She knew that her adoptive mother had slaved away for the Mo family these past few years and didn’t have a single copper coin to her name, not even the jewelry that was supposed to be part of her dowry, which the greedy Old Lady Mo had scoured away completely.

“Chuner, do you want to come out and play with your sister?” Xuexue asked, looking at Chuner playing in the yard.

“Sure!”

The moment Chuner heard this, she was delighted. Her sister usually didn’t like going out, and it had been a long time since they had gone out to play together.

“Wait for me a moment.”

“Where are you going, sister?” Chuner asked, standing at the entrance of the yard, curiously watching her sister’s retreating figure.

Xuexue ran to the kitchen and quickly returned with a small wooden bucket: “Let’s go! Off to play, Chuner.”

“Sister, why are you carrying a wooden bucket?”

“It’s useful.”

Xuexue smiled knowingly.

Mo Family Village was a poor, remote place, far from the Capital. Xuexue wanted to make good plans before returning to the General’s Mansion, so that later, when facing her enemies, she would have confidence.

The sisters, hand in hand, walked past the village and through winding paths, arriving at a small stream. Xuexue set down the bucket, took off her shoes, and rolled up her pant legs.

“Sister, it’s so cold, why are you taking off your shoes?” Chuner crouched beside her, asking with a pair of curious eyes.

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“Sister is going to feel for river snails.”

“Why do you need those? No one at home eats them.” Chuner wrinkled her little nose, a look of disgust on her face. Eating those was like chewing mouthfuls of sand, and too strong a bite could even crack a tooth.

The nearby villagers didn’t eat river snails either, disdaining them for their grittiness and earthy smell, but in her past life, Xuexue had eaten them in the Crown Prince’s Mansion, beautifully prepared by a skilled chef. At that time, Xuexue had purposely honed her cooking skills to win Zhang Ruixuan’s favor, cooking snails so well that they were indistinguishable from the chef’s. Zhang Ruixuan had praised her as virtuous and gracious, a memory that now felt ironic.

“Don’t worry, sister can cook them very deliciously.” Xuexue said as she stepped her foot into the water. The stream’s water was as cold as knife stabs, and she involuntarily gasped: “Hiss.”

“Sister, is it very cold? If it is cold, don’t go into the water. You just recovered from a fever, and mother would be sad if she knew.”

She had endured over a thousand tortures in her past life; what was this in comparison?

Xuexue clenched her teeth and stepped into the water: “It’s fine. Since we’re here, we can’t go back empty-handed.”

Bending over, she plunged her hand into the muddy bed of the stream, and surprisingly grabbed a handful of something. After washing it in the water, hey! It turned out to be clams: “Chuner, great, it’s clams.”

Clams and river snails are essentially the same type of shellfish, but clams prefer sandy soils, while snails are generally found in mud.

As Xuexue spoke, she tossed the clams she held onto the path, then reached into the water again, and, oh! This time it was river snails.

Apparently, the structure of this small stream was peculiar; the middle of the stream had more sand, so what was felt in the middle were clams, while the edges of the stream were muddy, hence the river snails.

Xuexue grabbed river snails with her left hand and clams with her right, bustling happily. Even the icy, bone-chilling water started to feel less cold.

Chuner was also busy on the pathway, picking up the river snails and clams Xuexue threw up, one by one, and depositing them into the wooden bucket.

Just then, several people walked by, led by a hunchbacked old man, followed by a few individuals who looked like servants.

“My! Chuner, on such a cold day, what are you two sisters doing here?”