Chapter 5: The Defeated Village, Vegetables Eaten by Ghosts

Uncle Li's house was in front of Yang Fan's house. He quickly went home to get the key, and was followed by an old lady, his wife, Grandma Xu.

"How did you open it?"

Uncle Li was very surprised to see her open the door and enter the yard without a key.

Yang Fan pointed at the door lock and said calmly, "The door is not locked, so I came in."

Uncle Li: "Old lady, did you forget to lock the door yesterday?"

Grandma Xu retorted, "You were the one who came here to clean the yard yesterday, and it was you who didn't lock the door."

Did I not lock it?
Uncle Li looked at the lock on the gate and fell into thought. Was it me who cleaned the yard yesterday?
"Okay, why are you still thinking about it? It's normal to not remember things when you're old." Grandma Xu patted Grandpa Li, turned to look at Yang Fan, looked at her carefully, with many emotions in her eyes that she couldn't understand.

Yang Fan was tall and thin, and was a head taller than the old woman when standing in front of her.

She smiled and greeted Grandma Xu, "Grandma Xu, long time no see."

The original body was very good-looking, with bright eyes and white teeth, coupled with Yang Fan's unique elegant and noble temperament, which made Grandma Xu dazed for a moment.

"...Long time no see. How come you've become so thin and pale? You probably haven't eaten well these years."

The elderly’s concern for their children is always whether they have eaten well.

She took Yang Fan's thin arm and walked out, "You have nothing at home right now, let's go to grandma's house and eat something first."

"You must not have eaten anything after coming all the way back."

Grandma Xu glared at Grandpa Li in complaint, "You are such a fool, old man. There is nothing to eat at home, and you don't even bring the children home."

Uncle Li: ...

He just wanted to bring people back to check it out, so how could it be his fault?

Yang Fan did not resist and followed Grandma Xu.

In the original body's memory, she also grew up eating at many people's homes, because her uncle Yang Xiuwen worked outside all year round and only returned to the village when the original body was in high school and no longer went out to work.

Yang Fan looked at the big white houses standing everywhere in the village, and words like "Farmhouse" and "Summer Resort" were hung on each house.

The original body hasn't been back for several years, and now the whole village is completely different from the village in the original body's memory.

She followed Grandma Xu for about three minutes and arrived at her house.

Grandma Xu’s house is also a three-story building with the words “Fangfang Farmhouse” written on the door.

Yang Fan looked at the big house with envy in his eyes, "Grandma Xu, when did your family open a farmhouse? That's amazing!"

It is definitely profitable to open a farm stay.

Why didn’t her original uncle set up a farm house? If there was a farm house, now that she is back, she can also run it and make easy money.

Alas, there happened to be an inn.

"Don't say that," Grandma Xu complained, "At that time, the village said that it would vigorously develop tourism and build a farmhouse summer resort to invite people from other provinces to come and escape the summer heat, but in the end, no one came."

Yang Fan was puzzled. How could there be no one here in such a nice environment?

Shangyuan Village is surrounded by mountains and has a cool climate. The temperature in the city is as high as 35 degrees Celsius, but here it is only 25 or 26 degrees Celsius.

Green mountains and clear waters, fresh air, singing birds and fragrant flowers, and unique climatic conditions make it a perfect summer resort. And with the Sanqingshan Scenic Area nearby, there must be no one coming here.

"You haven't been back for these years, so I don't know. Let me tell you."

Grandma Xu told Yang Fan about all the changes in the village.

Because of the unique climatic conditions here and with strong support from the government, in the past few years every household took out loans or borrowed money to build a large house, and also built a summer resort and a farm house.

I thought it would attract many people from outside to come here to escape the summer heat, but the result was disappointing. No one came to the village to escape the summer heat. The village was also trying to promote it, but still no one came.

Seeing that the summer resort business was not going to take off and the family still owed money for repairing the house, all the young and middle-aged people in the family went out to work and took the children to school outside.

In just a few years, only a few elderly people were left in the village.

Grandma Xu sighed, "Your uncle also wanted to develop tourism. The village is far from the town, and it's inconvenient for tourists to pick up packages, so he invested in a courier station, but now there's no one there."

Yang Fan suddenly realized that this was the reason why he started his business.

Grandma Xu's children are all studying and working in other provinces, so she and her husband are the only ones at home.

As she was talking, Uncle Li came in with green beans and cucumbers in his hands. "Old lady, the green beans and cucumbers are not edible this year."

Grandma Xu took the cucumber from his hand, took a bite, and then spat it on the ground with a look of disgust on her face, "Pah, pah, pah, it's so disgusting."

This cucumber tastes like wax when eaten. It doesn't taste like cucumber at all and is extremely disgusting.

"I don't know what went wrong?" Uncle Li looked at the green beans in his hand with a worried look on his face.

We are clearly growing the vegetables according to the old method, so why are the vegetables now so unpalatable?

Yang Fan saw at a glance that something was wrong with the green beans and cucumbers, "Grandpa Li, let me take a look."

She took the green beans from Uncle Li.

Sure enough, she was right.

The green beans looked fresh and green on the surface, but they were actually purple and lifeless, with a little black on them. It was obvious that the green beans had been eaten by a ghost.

The same goes for the cucumber.

There is a ghost here.

Yang Fan asked Uncle Li, "Grandpa Li, are all the vegetables you grow like this?"

Uncle Li: "It's always like this. I don't know what went wrong in the past few years. All the vegetables grown in the village are like this."

“The vegetables they grow look good but they taste terrible!”

If all the vegetables grown in the whole village are like this, then it's definitely a ghost.

Yang Fan became interested. She was curious about what kind of ghost it was.
Grandma Xu threw the cucumber and green beans into the trash can, "Even pigs won't eat this."

Yang Fan: Of course. Pigs definitely wouldn’t want to eat something that has been eaten by ghosts.

The crops that they worked so hard to grow cannot be eaten, and it is heartbreaking for someone like Uncle Li who has been farming for a lifetime to see that.

Yang Fan noticed their expressions, lowered his eyes and said nothing, thinking about going out for a walk at night to see what kind of ghost was eating even the vegetables grown in the field.

It was now three o'clock, and it was not yet time for dinner, so Grandma Xu cooked noodles for Yang Fan and fried two poached eggs for her.

The noodles are smooth, cooked to perfection, and neither too soft nor too hard. They are also topped with Grandma Xu’s homemade pickled pepper sauce, which is sour and spicy, and very satisfying.

Yang Fan only said two words, "Delicious!"

Then he buried his head in his eating, slurping the food, eating quickly yet elegantly.

Seeing her like this, Grandma Xu felt a little distressed and touched her head with pity, "Eat slowly. If it's not enough, Grandma Xu will make more for you."

It's just a bowl of noodles, but he ate it like this. This kid must be having a hard life out there.

Uncle Li beside him also sighed repeatedly. It is not easy for a girl to live out there.

(End of this chapter)