Three Pieces of Candy
Sang Yinyin stood there for a while.
She couldn’t see Nie Gen anywhere, nor were there even any bubbles rising from the river.
She immediately grew anxious.
Putting down the basket of eggs, she started calling his name while hurrying toward the more crowded part of the village.
The river wasn’t particularly deep, but she couldn’t swim. Even if something had happened to Nie Gen, she wouldn’t be able to save him.
Unexpectedly, the moment she turned around, she found the man standing behind her, dripping wet from head to toe.
Nie Gen heard her calling his name and raised an eyebrow.
“What are you shouting for?”
Sang Yinyin: “…”
So he hadn’t drowned.
Water continued dripping from the legs of his trousers. He had put on a shirt, though his feet were still bare. The water trailing from his body soaked the grass and yellow mud along the riverbank.
He was carrying an iron bucket in one hand.
It was filled with fish.
Standing barely half a metre in front of him, Sang Yinyin realised that the top of her head only reached his shoulder.
She said, “Brother Nie Gen, thank you for saving me in town this afternoon.”
It was the first time she had gotten a proper look at his face.
He had a high nose bridge and thin lips. His brows and eyes were deeper-set than most people’s, and he was devastatingly handsome.
Yet heaven had apparently been especially generous with ink when colouring him in.
Pitch-black eyes.
Pitch-black brows.
The slightly elongated ends of his eyebrows tilted upward, giving him an unmistakably wicked air.
Nie Gen glanced at the eggs in the grass basket.
“Just return my belt.”
In other words, there was no need for the eggs.
“The eggs are a thank-you gift.”
How could Sang Yinyin possibly dare owe the great villain a favour?
As she spoke, she bent down to pick up the basket.
Just as she lifted it, something cold brushed against her ankle.
It felt as though something wet and slippery had crawled up from the riverbank.
Nie Gen said, “Don’t move. There’s a snake.”
Sang Yinyin’s face turned pale.
Her eyes shifted stiffly to the side.
At some point, a dull grey snake had slithered right up beside her foot.
She could even see it opening its mouth toward her ankle.
The next instant—
A sharpened branch stabbed straight into the snake’s vital spot.
The snake writhed twice before going still.
“It’s just a water snake. Not venomous.”
Sang Yinyin sank weakly to the ground and watched as Nie Gen kicked the snake aside.
She had always been afraid of snakes.
Large insects frightened her too.
Whenever she occasionally had to go into the fields, she would cover herself from head to toe.
Now, a snake had suddenly brushed directly against her.
The cold, slimy sensation still seemed to linger around her ankle.
She held it in for a long time, but in the end, her eyes still reddened.
Nie Gen clicked his tongue.
“If you keep looking like that, people are going to think I bullied you.”
Seeing her soft eyelashes clumped together with tears, he leaned closer and examined her ankle.
The snake’s scales had scraped the skin slightly, but fortunately, she hadn’t been bitten.
“Can you walk?” Nie Gen asked.
Sang Yinyin nodded.
“Yes.”
She shakily climbed to her feet.
Her arms and legs were weak, and every step made her sway as though she might fall after another three.
Little Grey, watching from nearby, apparently thought she was playing some sort of game with him.
The puppy barked excitedly.
Nie Gen: “…”
After thinking for a moment, Nie Gen asked, “Where’s your house? I’ll get someone from your family to come pick you up.”
Sang Yinyin held onto a tree, dizzy and faint.
“W-What if there are more snakes?”
Nie Gen raised an eyebrow.
“Then I’ll carry you back?”
Sang Yinyin: “…”
“N-No, that’s okay.”
She bent down and stroked the dog that had been circling around her.
Feeling Little Grey’s warm fur gave her some sense of security.
“Brother Nie Gen, can you leave Little Grey and the belt with me?”
If another snake appeared, at least she would have something to fight back with.
Contrary to his reputation as a terrifying villain, Nie Gen himself was actually quite easy to talk to.
Sang Yinyin sat several metres away from the riverbank, keeping a vigilant eye on her surroundings.
She guarded against everything imaginable.
Everything except the dog.
Nie Gen had barely walked any distance away when Little Grey picked up the dead water snake in his mouth and charged straight toward her.
Nie Gen heard the barking.
He pinched out the cigarette he had just lit and turned back.
Then he carried Sang Yinyin, whose heart had nearly stopped from fright, onto his back.
Frowning, he gave a concise assessment.
“You’re as light as paper.”
…
The great villain’s back was broad.
His steps were steady too.
Although he had just come out of the river and was still damp, the lingering heat of the evening made it unexpectedly comfortable.
As the evening breeze swept past, it carried the cool moisture from his wet clothes against her face.
Some colour gradually returned to Sang Yinyin’s previously pale cheeks.
Once some strength returned to her arms and legs, however, she started feeling awkward.
It wasn’t as though her brothers had never carried her before.
But being carried by her brothers and being carried by another man were completely different experiences.
Sang Yinyin felt that Nie Gen’s arms were as hard as iron.
The muscles across his back were far too firm as well.
She hadn’t noticed when she was frightened earlier, but now that she had calmed down, she suddenly realised just how closely their bodies were pressed together.
Her face reddened.
Seeing that there was no one around, she hurriedly said,
“Brother Nie Gen, why don’t you put me down? We’re almost home.”
It hadn’t been far to begin with.
Nie Gen hadn’t expected her to suddenly speak.
Her warm breath brushed across the back of his neck.
In an instant, the colour spread from his neck all the way to his ears.
The softness against his back, which he had been deliberately ignoring, suddenly became impossible not to notice.
The hem of the girl’s dress kept brushing against his arms too.
His voice immediately grew louder, low and hoarse with a faint ferocity.
“Stop moving around.”
Sang Yinyin: “…”
She asked 021,
“Has Nie Gen developed killing intent toward me?”
Before reading the synopsis, she never would have thought that.
But now she knew Nie Gen was the great villain.
And the sky was getting darker by the second, to the point that the road ahead was nearly impossible to see.
Sang Yinyin couldn’t help feeling somewhat nervous.
021 replied, “Yinyin, you can check Nie Gen’s current favourability toward you. It only costs one point.”
Sang Yinyin hesitated.
That was a hundred yuan.
By the time she finished hesitating, they had already arrived home.
Several small stools were placed outside the front entrance.
Sang Huai and Sang Nan each occupied one, while the youngest son of their neighbour Li Dagou sat with them.
The three grown men were leisurely shelling broad beans together.
Sang Yinyin also saw her mother sitting nearby with Li Dagou’s wife and Auntie Wang from next door, cracking sunflower seeds.
A large electric fan slowly swung from side to side, scattering sunflower-seed shells across the ground every time it turned.
“You really sent your Yinyin over to give eggs to that Nie Gen?” Li Dagou’s wife asked.
Lu Lingyue cracked open another sunflower seed and answered,
“He saved my daughter, after all. Didn’t they say he’s been supporting his family since he was fifteen? I think he seems pretty decent. Compared with that Lu boy, I’d say he’s much better.”
“Tsk. I heard from people in Nie Family Village that his family originally found him abandoned in the mountains…”
Her mother’s voice carried clearly from a distance.
And they were discussing the great villain.
Sang Yinyin shuddered.
Nie Gen stopped beneath the tall pomegranate tree outside the courtyard gate and lowered the girl from his back.
Sang Yinyin hurriedly began fixing her messy hair and floral dress.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Auntie Wang spat out a few sunflower-seed shells nearby. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll bring bad luck to your daughter too?”
Suddenly, a pair of rough hands covered Sang Yinyin’s ears.
The man’s palms were warm.
They completely blocked the sound.
Sang Yinyin raised her head and looked at him.
The light from the courtyard lamp reflected inside Nie Gen’s pitch-black eyes, flickering between brightness and shadow.
After an unknown amount of time, he expressionlessly withdrew his hands.
His fingertips brushed against Sang Yinyin’s soft, pale earlobe.
Then he lightly patted her head.
“I’m leaving.”
His deep, pleasant voice paused.
Then, like jade striking against stone, he called softly,
“Yinyin.”
Sang Yinyin stood frozen in place for a moment.
By the time she recovered, the great villain had already disappeared into the darkness.
She looked down at the basket of eggs that had never been delivered.
Then she looked at the bucket filled with lively, flopping fish.
Belatedly, her face reddened.
She said solemnly to 021,
“I failed to give him the thank-you gift, and I even took his fish instead. My mother is definitely going to beat me to death.”
021: “…”
021 tactfully suggested,
“Yinyin, would you like to draw the lottery?”
Sang Yinyin had already looked through the system shop.
There were indeed plenty of good items inside, but the few points she possessed couldn’t buy much.
Even an ordinary low-grade spirit stone cost ten points each.
She simply couldn’t afford it.
There were storage spaces too.
One type came from cultivation worlds—a spiritual-energy space capable of storing living creatures. Those started at one thousand points.
The interstellar worlds also had spatial necklaces that could only store nonliving objects.
The cheapest one still cost one hundred points and only had ten cubic metres of storage.
Sang Yinyin didn’t think it was worth the price.
So when she heard 021’s suggestion, she nodded.
Actually, the moment she learned the apocalypse would arrive in roughly ten days, she should have used the lottery immediately.
But her luck had always been terrible.
She had planned to wait until bedtime and draw everything at once, hoping sheer quantity might force out a guaranteed decent reward.
“The beginner’s lottery gift pack contains eight draws,” 021 explained. “Five ordinary-pool draws, two intermediate-pool draws, and one advanced-pool draw.”
Sang Yinyin glanced at the fish on the ground.
“Let’s use the advanced draw first.”
The moment she finished speaking, a white panel appeared before her eyes.
Colourful special effects flashed across it.
One wildly extravagant item after another enlarged countless times before her eyes, accompanied by dramatic background music—
**[Beastman Plane: S-rank Special-Effect Licorice Condensed Dew. A miracle medicine for reducing inflammation and stopping bleeding. Suitable for both internal and external use. Regenerates broken bones, repels insects, and saves lives. You deserve it!]**
**[Interstellar Mecha: S-rank Combat Mecha. High combat power, high durability, and long service life. Equipped with a military-grade particle laser cannon to protect you anytime, anywhere. Special high-capacity design allows two passengers at once. Buy it now to protect yourself and your family!]**
**[…]**
**[Featured Cultivation-World Product: Upgradeable B-rank Mustard-Seed Space. This is an extremely special product. Although its initial size is only 200 cubic metres, it comes with a spiritual spring capable of foretelling fortune and disaster in advance. It absorbs spiritual energy from heaven and earth every day. Ordinary mortals who consume its water may extend their lifespan. If you are nothing more than a mere mortal, don’t hesitate—choose this one immediately!]**
Sang Yinyin, the **mere mortal**: “…”
…
**Author’s Note:**
Hehe. I wonder whether hardworking little Zha Mu can receive a sweet favourite/bookmark as a reward today!
Hope everyone enjoys reading!
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