"MEOW~"
A familiar meow reached her ears. Yun Jiao, perched on her brother’s shoulders, looked up and around, thinking she must have misheard.
But the next second, the bushes ahead of them rustled, and an all-too-familiar tabby cat emerged.
Yun Jiao’s eyes widened.
"Boss."
The others, of course, saw it too.
Yun Chenxi said in surprise, "Well, look at that. The cat actually followed us."
Yun Xiaowu said, "Little sister, you don’t think it wants to come home with us, do you?"
Yun Jiao didn’t know either. She asked her big brother to put her down.
"Boss, are you going to follow us home?"
The tabby cat padded over and nuzzled its head against her ankle, its tail curling around her other leg.
She took her big brother’s hand and tried walking a few steps forward. The tabby cat, tail held high, followed calmly behind.
Her eyes instantly lit up. "Boss really is following us home!"
The tabby cat no longer had anyone to care for it in the Shen Family Village, so leaving with them wasn’t a bad idea.
It got along quite well with Yun Jiao.
Yun Jiao’s family also welcomed this new member.
The tabby cat followed them all the way down the mountain. Along the way, it even caught a bird and offered it to Yun Jiao. When she refused, the cat ate it itself.
A happy Yun Jiao hummed a tune, her voice sweeter than any bird in the mountains.
On the way down the mountain, her big brother and second brother were always vying to carry her on their backs or in their arms.
They took turns, so the entire journey was effortless for her.
"We’re home."
They finally reached the village entrance. Yun Jiao picked up the tabby cat.
"Take a good look, Boss. This is where you’ll be living from now on."
"Catching fish around here should be pretty easy for you. If you can swim and aren’t afraid of the water, I can even take you on a boat."
"MEOW."
The old ladies and aunties sitting at the village entrance, working and chatting, greeted them.
"Lin Hai, you’re back! You’ve all returned so early this year."
Clearly, they were used to the family going back to help out at his wife’s maiden home every year.
Yun Linhai nodded with the air of an honest man.
Someone craned their neck to peek into their wicker baskets.
"Brought back a lot from your wife’s family again this year, I see. Your in-laws are so generous."
Shen Yunlian smiled and said, "It’s just some common wild game from the area."
"Still, your parents are willing to give it."
Shen Yunlian replied, "My parents-in-law also had us take a lot of things to my parents."
"That’s true. Both your families are very generous. You have a good, close relationship."
They didn’t chat for long and quickly left the village entrance to head home.
But the group at the village entrance continued their conversation.
"You don’t find many in-laws as generous as Lin Hai’s family."
"Isn’t that the truth? I saw them leave with two full baskets as well."
"It just goes to show that both families are generous and not stingy. Unlike mine. Every time I go back to my parents’ house, my mother-in-law watches me like a hawk, afraid I’ll take so much as a single egg with me."
"When there’s give and take like that, the relationship between the two families can only get better. Look at so-and-so’s family. The daughter-in-law they got is basically a thief in their own house, trying to move everything from her husband’s home to her parents’. But her own family won’t give up a single cent. Who could stand that?"
"You really have to keep your eyes peeled when finding a wife for your son. Marrying someone like that is like being cursed with eight lifetimes of bad luck."
"Didn’t she get a beating for it? Hasn’t she learned her lesson?"
"She only behaved for a few days. Lately, she’s been secretly sending things to her parents’ home again. I heard she even took food and clothes from her own child to give to her nephew."
"Mazu preserve us. My son is almost of marrying age. Please don’t let him end up with someone like that."
Yun Jiao and her family were unaware of the aunties’ subsequent conversation; they had already arrived home.
Seeing the wild boar meat in the baskets, Grandpa Yun and Granny Yun were stunned.
"Th-this... How did you bring back so much meat?"
Pork wasn’t cheap, and they had brought back so much at once.
Yun Linhai grinned. "This wild boar... Jiaojiao caught it."
"What? Jiaojiao?"
Both of the elders looked over at Yun Jiao.
At that moment, Yun Jiao was feeding dried fish from the house to the tabby cat.
"Let me tell it, let me tell it..."
Little Nine raised his hand. "My sister and I were catching fish by the river. She caught a huge fish, and she also pulled a giant turtle this big out of the water."
He held his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture. "It was even bigger than the sea turtle we have at home!"
Yun Xiaowu asked, "What? How come we didn’t see it?"
Yun Xiao Liu nodded and said slowly, "Didn’t see it."
"Jiaojiao put it back. She said that big turtle had a spiritual aura, so we shouldn’t eat it."
"It was even a little golden, really beautiful. But its shell was different from a regular tortoise’s. It was one big, flat piece. And its head was different too, a bit like an eel’s."
Yun Chenxi said, "That doesn’t sound like a turtle."
"From your description, that was a soft-shelled turtle."
Little Nine scratched his head. He had never seen a soft-shelled turtle before.
"Oh, I didn’t know."
Yun Xiaowu asked, "There are really soft-shelled turtles that big?"
Yun Jiao nodded. "It was bigger than Gui Gui."
Granny Yun clicked her tongue in amazement. "Goodness me, how many years must it have lived?"
Little Nine bounced on his feet. "I’m not done! After my sister let the big turtle—no, the soft-shelled turtle—go, she said she was going to look for something else in the river and dived in. Not long after, the wild boars showed up! There were several of them, and they came charging right where I was standing. At that moment..."
With animated expressions, Little Nine recounted the tale like a professional storyteller, vividly describing the perilous scene.
His family’s expressions shifted with every twist and turn of his story.
When he got to the part where Yun Jiao held the wild boar down in the water and beat it, everyone gained a new appreciation for her strength.
But how to put it... even though they rationally knew she was very strong and not at all weak...
...she looked so much like a fragile porcelain doll. Words like ’beautiful’ and ’delicate’ seemed to be the only ones that should apply to her.
One look was enough to make anyone feel protective of her.
For anyone who didn’t know about her strength, who would ever imagine that such an immense power was hidden within such a delicate and beautiful body?
"Is Jiaojiao okay? Did you get hurt?"
Yun Jiao shook her head and held out her hands for them to see.
The palms and backs of her hands were fine. Her skin was fair with a healthy, rosy glow, without a single scratch.
"I’m fine."
"Good, good... Our Jiaojiao is just amazing."
Granny Yun praised her.
"But you can’t go looking for danger just because you’re strong, you hear?"
Yun Jiao nodded obediently. "I know."
"And what’s the deal with this cat?"
Granny Yun’s gaze fell on the tabby cat, which they had been ignoring until now.
Little Nine had more to say. "Grandma, you have no idea! This tabby cat is named Boss, and he’s incredible! He can catch wild pheasants! He caught two of them, and gave one to Jiaojiao to eat.
Cousin Xiu Yuan said the person who used to raise him was an elderly man who lived alone and had trouble moving around to get food. So Boss would go into the mountains to catch pheasants and wild rabbits for the old man to trade for food. He’s so smart..."