Picking Up a General to Plow the Fields

Chapter 239: One escapes

The crowd lifted the bodies of the dead wolves and chatted joyfully, praising Ah Jian.
Their eyes were different when they looked at him.
Lian Ze and Sun Zhang Xing also received endless praise.

The people surrounded Ah Jian as they vied to get closer and praise him.
Ah Jian’s reaction was neither arrogant or rash and his faint expression made him even more admired.

Carrying the dead wolves, the crowd surrounded Ah Jian as they returned to the village, happy and bustling.

At this time, the sky was already faintly bright.
The battlefield in the village had been cleaned up.
Everyone gathered under the big locust tree and a few of the dead wolves were places beneath it as everyone watched, talking.

Their expressions were excited.

Lian Fang Zhou, Third Aunt, Lian Fang Qing, and Lian Che saw Ah Jian and Lian Ze come back in the distance.
The siblings cheered and rushed to meet them.

When everyone returned, Zhang Li Zheng smiled, his eyes bright, and came up to Ah Jian with a few of the village elders.
Zhang Li Zheng patted Ah Jian hard on the shoulder, smiling gratefully.
“Ah Jian, it’s all thanks to you! Without you, I really don’t know what kind of catastrophe this night would have become, ah! Ah Jian, you have saved our entire Dafang Village!”

“Yeah, yeah! Thanks to our Ah Jian!”

“Ah Jian is really good! If it weren’t for him, where would there be such a fun thing? I never thought there would be a day I could beat a wolf!”

Who knew which young man shouted this but it quickly attracted a group of young people to agree.

Zhang Li Zheng was not angry and scolded them: “Okay, okay! You didn’t want to follow along! If Ah Jian had not been here, your calves would have been shaking until you couldn’t take a step but now its your mouth shaking!”

The crowd let out a boom of laughter.

The loud young man grinned, not angry.
He scratched his head and laughed: “Didn’t I say that Ah Jian was here?”

He felt refreshed and hurriedly added: “Brother Ah Jian not only has good archery skills but a stick that makes tigers and wolves lively! At first glance, he has practiced hard! Brother Ah Jian, Brother Ah Jian, teach me when you have the time!”

“I want to learn too, Brother Ah Jian!”

“There is me, there is me!”

As soon as that loud youth’s voice fell, the other young people’s emotions boiled and they all started to shout.

Lian Ze’s face was full of smiled, shining with excitement.
His eyes were surprisingly bright and his brow was full of pride.
Brother Ah Jian had been teaching him!

The older men looked on but didn’t say a word.
They had naturally experienced Ah Jian’s skill but they would never say anything so shameless.

In the eyes of everyone’s flattery, Ah Jian’s expression was still light and his smile was only casual.
How could his martial arts be taught to these people so easily? But he also knew that these people were just taking about it for the moment, none of them had the determination like Lian Ze.

Amid the noise, Wang Qi Lang and his family squeezed forward and started to kneel down to thank Ah Jian.
Ah Jian quickly helped them, the people next to him also giving him a hand.
They couldn’t help but praise Ah Jian again.

Lian Fang Zhou, her siblings, Third Aunt, Aunt Zhang, and the others stood quietly, watching Ah Jian with a smile, and did not push forward like everyone else.

When they got home, there would be time to speak.
Seeing Ah Jian and Lian Ze come back safely, Lian Fang Zhou was very happy.

Seeing that Ah Jian was respected and admired by everyone, she was also happy about this.

This kind of joy was inexplicable but flowed in her heart like a clear spring.
It pushed through her limbs and skeleton, filling every blood vessel, making her feel like her whole body was floating.

The excitement lasted another two quarters of an hour until Zhang Li Zheng shouted ‘silence’ several times and everyone gradually became quiet.

Zhang Li Zheng first thanked Ah Jian and then asked how to distribute the dead wolves.

According to Zhang Li Zheng, half the wolf skins belonged to Ah Jian and Lian Ze, with one for Sun Chang Xing.
The rest would be sold to the village publicly.
As for the wolf meat, each household would receive some according to their size.

Everyone had no objection and Ah Jian didn’t have anything to say.
Some kind people even whispered that some of the skins should be give to Ah Jian’s family.
There were many people who agreed.

When Lian Fang Zhou heard this, her heart was warm and she was quite happy.

The men heard that there would be wolf meat and immediately became excited again, talking about how they had never eaten wolf meat before and didn’t know what it tasted like and so on.

Suddenly, Ah Jian’s eyes narrowed and he sternly shouted: “No! I clearly counted twelve wolves, why are there only eleven here?!”

As soon as his words fell, everyone’s faces changed.
The scene of merriment and cheer suddenly went silent to the point that the people thought they could hear their own heartbeats.

When clearing the battlefield, the men had worked together.
It was absolutely impossible that anyone had the ability to steal a wolf secretly under everyone’s noses and take it back to his home.

If what Ah Jian said was true then this meant that one of the wolves had escaped!

Although not many people had actually seen a wolf, they had heard many stories and legends about them and had a little understanding of their temperament.
It was common knowledge that wolves were extremely vengeful.

“Ah Jian, you, you didn’t count wrong did you? You really see clearly that one is missing?” Zhang Li Zheng stammered, his chest heaving.

Ah Jian looked solemn.
He nodded and said: “I would never count wrong!”

And according to his guess, the one that had escaped was likely one of the wounded ones.

“What should we do!”

“Oh my god!”

Ah Jian’s prestige had leap forwards this evening.
His words, coupled with his expression at the moment, no one would disbelieve.
Everyone couldn’t help but worry.

Some of the young people shouted: “What are you so afraid of? What’s so terrible about one wolf? When it comes, it will be killed!” Some of the people agreed while others argued.

Ah Jian sighed inwardly.
That wolf should have escaped in the chaos behind the village.
If the scene had not been so chaotic, it would not have had a chance to escape.
And even if it had somehow slipped past, at least he would know its direction and location.
Now he was ignorant.

“Ah Jian, you, what do you want to do?” Zhang Li Zheng asked everyone to be quiet and quickly asked.

All of a sudden, every pair of eyes fell on Ah Jian.

Ah Jian was startled and said honestly: “These is nothing that can be done, you can only wait for it to come back!”

The crowd gasped.

Lian Fang Zhou’s mouth couldn’t help but twitch, thinking that this was a good way.

“Then, do you want to set a trap or something?” Zhang Li Zheng asked hopefully.