Chapter 49
Hearing Shen Jinfeng’s decision, the others’ eyes instantly lit up. The more lively ones immediately cheered.
[I swear, sigh, Big Boss, just keep spoiling them. Not.]
[It feels like that dream of wanting a school break coming true hahahaha.]
[Actually, it’s quite rare. After growing up, it really isn’t easy to be happy. Seeing them become satisfied over such a small thing on the show really makes me emotional and touched.]
[Doves: No, are you serious? Touched? Don’t dare move.]
“Yay!” In the forest, the group cheered very loudly.
Shen Jinfeng did not even have time to stop them.
He closed his eyes, feeling the urge to hold his forehead.
Sure enough, because of that high-pitched cheer, the flock of doves was startled. They instantly took off from the trees where they had been perching and flew into the sky.
To be fair, the scene was actually quite spectacular and pleasing to the eye.
The cheers of the group abruptly stopped.
Gu Shengsheng pointed with trembling fingers at the white doves whose tails could still be faintly seen in the sky. “Boss, the d-doves all flew away!”
Qi Xiu and He Erwang were also dumbfounded at the side. “Not a single one is left!”
Mo Fan rolled his eyes irritably. “You guys were really afraid you wouldn’t scare the doves away, huh?”
The few of them looked at each other, their faces aggrieved.
Then, in perfect unison, they turned to Shen Jinfeng. “Boss, what do we do now?”
Shen Jinfeng: “…”
Bullet comments: […I really laughed so hard I sprayed hahahaha.]
[Doves: Don’t come over!]
[Doves: I know you want to catch me. Why wouldn’t I run? It’s not like I’m stupid! Hands on hips. Heh, now you can’t even smell the farts I released in the air, right?]
[LMAO, I feel like Big Boss Shen is so tired. Isn’t this really just a group of naughty kids?]
[+1. Asking for the area of Big Boss Shen’s current psychological shadow. Look at his speechless expression hahahaha.]
[Big Boss Shen: I clearly haven’t even had children, so why am I already experiencing the difficulty of raising kids ahead of time?]
However, he was not that angry. Why did he actually have a feeling that this was within expectations?
Shen Jinfeng looked at the air within his field of vision, where not a single dove could be seen anymore. The area had returned to calm. He sighed.
“It’s fine. Just wait.”
“Wait? Wait for the doves to come back? How long will that take?” The curious babies asked three questions in a row, and sounded a little guilty.
Qin Ye helped explain, “Doves have a homing instinct. Have you seen the doves in scenic areas before? They often take off in flocks, then return home together after a few minutes.”
“The doves here should be the same.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
He Erwang reacted. “Right, doves are like that. They all fly away together, then fly back together.”
Gu Shengsheng said, “Is that so! I’ve never seen it.”
Qi Xiu said, “I haven’t seen it either, but I’m about to.”
Mo Fan found it a little strange. “You’ve never seen doves before?”
Qi Xiu answered as if it were only natural, “Not exactly. I’ve seen doves on TV.”
“I used to go to school in a small county town. Doves were legendary animals there.”
Mo Fan understood. “All right.”
“What about Xiao Gu?”
Gu Shengsheng frowned. Why did he feel like he had never even been to a zoo?
“My family has a horse farm, but my parents never thought about raising doves.”
Mm, in his memory, there were also memories of him knowing how to ride horses.
The others did not look deeper into it.
Qin Ye said, “Let’s all wait for a while. The problem now is how to catch the doves later.”
The flock of doves was all flying in the trees. Even if a real person climbed up the tree, the doves were not stupid. Would they fly into your arms like they were throwing themselves into a net?
Mo Fan felt that it was his time to play a role again.
“Do we need to set up traps? When I was little, I made traps with the kids in our village. We successfully caught two sparrows!”
“Wow, Mo-ge, you’re so impressive!” Qi Xiu was very supportive. “Is it the same method as Runtu catching birds in the snow from the school text?”
He Erwang turned to them in surprise. “Amazing, you guys. Applying what you learn! I still remember that Runtu caught birds, but I forgot how he did it.”
Mo Fan smiled embarrassedly. “I still remember. The method I used was indeed similar to Runtu’s method, but first, we need to prepare a trap and food that doves like to eat.”
The few of them went blank.
But what did doves like to eat?
They chattered and discussed for a long time. The action plan was almost written out, but in the end, they failed at the first step.
“What do doves eat?”
They turned to Shen Jinfeng.
Shen Jinfeng sleepily stretched. This group of kids was really troublesome.
“No need to make it that complicated,” he said.
But the others did not get what he meant.
“What?”
Qin Ye recalled his past experience feeding doves with Madam Yun at scenic spots.
“Doves generally like eating seeds, such as mung beans, corn, wheat, and peanuts. We don’t have those.”
Because the tiny bags of feed sold for dozens of yuan in scenic spots were mixtures of these things.
The others were instantly dumbfounded.
That was right. They did not even have bait, so how were they supposed to catch doves?
Shen Jinfeng lazily spoke. “Doves don’t only eat grains. They actually also eat vegetables and plants. They like green vegetable leaves.”
As he was speaking, a burst of movement sounded in midair.
Sure enough, it was the flock of doves that had just flown away returning again.
The voices of the group instantly lowered a little.
Qi Xiu frantically signaled to him. “Boss, did you pick vegetable leaves that doves like to eat?”
Otherwise, why did he look so confident?
Shen Jinfeng did not speak. Instead, he crouched down and slowly picked up many small stones with good shapes from the ground.
The others were confused at first. Was he starting to make a trap?
It was not until he had picked up a corresponding number of stones for the doves and straightened up, narrowing his eyes toward the tree, that—
He Erwang looked at his movements and shivered. He suddenly had a premonition.
No way?
Shen Jinfeng moved his wrist. His left hand held half the stones, while his right hand picked up the other half and weighed them.
Then, under everyone’s astonished gazes, he exerted force through his wrist and threw the stones out.
After the first throw, around four or five flying doves were hit and fell from the tree.
The other doves were greatly alarmed and flapped their wings, trying to fly away. But immediately afterward, the second wave of deadly stones arrived.
Without question, another four doves were hit and fell to the ground.
Only two doves were lucky enough to escape.
Moreover, these two doves did not fly far. They only circled high in the air, as if absolute height had given them a sense of safety.
Seeing a group of their companions all get hit and fall to the ground, the two doves were furious. Their “coo, coo” cries were short and urgent.
Shen Jinfeng raised his hand as if preparing to throw. The two doves were startled and quickly flew higher and farther. Before long, they disappeared into the sky.
They could no longer care about their companions on the ground behind them.
Shen Jinfeng clapped his hands and shook off the stone dust.
“These doves react so slowly,” he muttered.
The others stared dumbfounded at the doves, then at him.
Mo Fan swallowed. “This is how doves are caught?”
Qin Ye crouched down and smoothly picked up a dove that had fallen by his feet. He smiled helplessly. “No wonder you said there was no need to make it so troublesome.”
They had discussed setting up traps for ages, but it could not compare to Shen Jinfeng’s swoosh-swoosh-swoosh results in a few seconds.
The others reacted and hurriedly copied him, going to pick up doves.
He Erwang still had not recovered from the shock just now.
He picked up a handful of stones from the ground and recalled Shen Jinfeng’s posture earlier.
“Swoosh!” he muttered, throwing the whole handful of stones out.
Then even the highest stone did not reach the top of the tree. Most of them even fell back down where they were.
Seeing that one stone was about to hit his own head, Qi Xiu’s mind went blank. He hurriedly retreated several large steps backward and only stopped when he staggered against a tree.
“He Erwang, what are you randomly trying to imitate?”
Gu Shengsheng was also nearly hit by a stone, but Shen Jinfeng pulled him away.
Only He Erwang stood in place, looking up at the stones that had flown out and then scattered back down, his pupils widening as he watched them get closer and closer.
Only at the last moment did he react and hurriedly raise his arm to block them.
“Hiss!” In the end, he was actually the only one hit by the boomerang stones he had thrown himself. “Damn, that hurts!”
The others did not sympathize.
After Qi Xiu recovered, he copied Shen Jinfeng’s earlier words and mocked him. “Tsk, you really react slowly.”
“Even slower than doves.”
He Erwang: “…”
Bullet comments: […]
[So showy! So showy! So showy! Ahhhhh, director team, can you split-screen and replay that scene just now? I really didn’t expect it to be this exciting. I forgot to screen-record!]
[Little purple-hair, this time you truly overestimated yourself and suffered the consequences hahahaha.]
Seeing that He Erwang was fine, at most with a little swelling on his arm, even his fans stopped feeling bad for him.
[My god! Although I know Big Boss Shen is impressive, Big Boss will forever refresh my understanding of what “impressive” means!]
[No wonder Big Boss said there was no need to go through all that effort making traps. Powerful people choose direct force suppression!]
[I’m genuinely stunned. A handful of stones can be thrown out at the same time, and every single stone hits the selected position? Can this really be done? Dazed and confused. Does this obey the laws of physics?]
[Exactly. For a moment just now, I thought I was watching special effects.]
[Too handsome. With one raise of the hand, stones fell and doves dropped all over the ground. It makes people suspect that these doves were actors hired by the production team! This flock of doves is simply cooperating fully with the performance!]
[Dazed and confused. The doves really were all caught in one go. I even suspect the last two were deliberately let go out of Big Boss Shen’s kindness.]
[All right, now beginning the countdown to carrier pigeon messaging.]
Production team: “…”
It was over. The more amazing Shen Jinfeng was, the happier they were, but at the same time, the more panicked they became.
But one thing was one thing. Such a good publicity highlight had to be promoted!
Without needing netizens to remind him, after Goat came back to himself, he immediately asked the members under him to cut out the segment of Shen Jinfeng “hitting” the doves separately.
This time, not only did he write a few familiar large words again on the livestream public screen: [Professional action. Please do not imitate.]
He also added this warning to the officially edited video.
And that was not all.
After the warning accompanied Shen Jinfeng’s awesome move—
The video displayed: [If you imitate it, and you are not professional—]
[Then you will get—]
The next clip was He Erwang trying to imitate it, scoring zero damage against enemies and one thousand damage against himself.
He Erwang’s fans who saw this video: “…”
Silence.
Passerby comments were full of [hahaha] and [how wicked].
Forget it. Just lie flat and accept the mockery.
They believed their idol should not blame them after coming out.
Because He Erwang himself was also unbearably ashamed in the livestream.
But the more he was frustrated, the braver he became. He directly ran to Shen Jinfeng’s side. “Boss, I want to learn! You promised to teach me back when you smashed coconuts!”
Shen Jinfeng had almost forgotten about this.
“Fine… But training arm strength is not something achieved in a day.”
He Erwang patted his chest and promised, “It’s fine! We still have a lifetime! After we get out, I’ll buy a house and become Boss’s neighbor!”
What the hell?
A lifetime?
Shen Jinfeng rarely experienced such a deep feeling of speechlessness.
The others had already caught the doves scattered all over the ground and put them back into the basket.
Qin Ye walked to He Erwang’s side with a dark face and pushed the leaf basket full of doves, heavy and solid, into He Erwang’s arms.
He Erwang was caught off guard and hurriedly held the leaf basket.
He nearly failed to stand steadily.
But he did not refuse either.
“I’ll carry it then. Just consider it my apology for nearly hitting everyone just now.”
Only then did the others stop glaring at him fiercely.
Gu Shengsheng and Qi Xiu gathered behind him. “Wow, cute doves!”
“They all seem unable to move. Their legs should be… fine, right?”
They spoke hesitantly, feeling too embarrassed to directly question it.
Shen Jinfeng explained, “They’re fine. I controlled my strength. The tree they were in just now wasn’t even three meters tall. They won’t break their legs from falling.”
“Once the numbness passes, after we feed them overnight, they should mostly recover by tomorrow.”
He Erwang clicked his tongue. “Seeing them half-dead like this actually makes them a little pitiful.”
Hm?
The others were just about to show puzzled expressions.
He Erwang added, “If they could be cooked, fed into my mouth, and enter my stomach, I’m sure that would give them a quick release too.”
[Pfft, I actually thought little purple-hair was finally feeling sympathy for once.]
[My scolding was already at my lips, and then I swallowed it back.]
[As expected of you, little purple-hair.]
He turned his head and seriously suggested to Shen Jinfeng, “Boss, after you choose the extraordinarily talented doves that can become carrier pigeons, can we roast the remaining ones and eat them?”
Dove soup was really delicious, and it was very nourishing too.
The doves in the leaf basket seemed to understand his words, or perhaps not.
One by one, though bound by the leaves and with bodies that had just been numb and painful, they suddenly burst with strength.
“Coo, coo! Coo, coo!” They protested urgently.
Shen Jinfeng did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Fine.”
After receiving permission, He Erwang smiled even more arrogantly and said to the doves in the leaf basket, “Who’s still calling? Whoever calls the loudest gets turned into dove soup first!”
Gu Shengsheng and Qi Xiu took two steps away from him: There is no way I’m teammates with someone this childish.
Sure enough, after hearing He Erwang’s threat—
The doves in the leaf basket were not moved at all. Instead, they continued “coo, coo”-ing, each more fierce than the last.
He Erwang: “…”
Fine. You win.
They had already delayed in this place for a while.
Seeing that He Erwang was steadily holding the dove basket, Shen Jinfeng spoke up to set off.
“Let’s go. We’ll continue forward and take a look.”
The others all agreed.
The team began moving again.
It was as if some strange rule had been broken.
Previously, while walking through the little forest, they had barely seen any animals.
But ever since they had captured a flock of white doves just now, they saw far more varieties of birds along the way.
There also seemed to be more kinds of crawling insects on the ground.
To their surprise, after walking for a short while, the group actually saw a wild rabbit!
This time, there was no need for discussion or debate. Everyone looked toward Shen Jinfeng in tacit understanding.
Shen Jinfeng spoke little and acted ruthlessly. He copied the same method, and with a few stones, hit the wild rabbit.
“Wow, we can eat rabbit meat!” He Erwang’s eyes were full of anticipation.
This time, Gu Shengsheng disagreed. “This rabbit is still so small. It’s so cute. Wouldn’t raising it be better?”
Shen Jinfeng watched the two of them with great interest, wanting to know who would gain the upper hand this time.
Who knew that after Gu Shengsheng said that, he added, “When it grows up, becomes fat, and stops being cute, we can stew it and eat it then. That way, there’ll be more meat too.”
As he spoke, he swallowed. “I had spicy rabbit meat once. It was way too delicious.”
???
[? I didn’t expect you to be this kind of Gu Shengsheng!]
[No, have you forgotten the piles of seafood and pork waiting for you back at Daming Lake?]
[So the reason you didn’t object to roasting the pig before was because wild boars aren’t cute at all, right?]
Qi Xiu offered advice from the side. “This rabbit is female. It’d be best to catch a male too. After they give birth to a litter of baby rabbits, we can choose from the baby rabbits.”
He Erwang strangely felt that this made sense.
Gu Shengsheng said, “Then… that’s not impossible.”
Shen Jinfeng did not know whether to laugh or cry from the side.
“Why are you all thinking about food all day?”
Qin Ye had not participated in the discussion earlier, but at this moment, hearing Shen Jinfeng’s question, inspiration suddenly flashed through him.
He rushed to answer first. “In this world, only love and good food must not be let down.”
After saying that, he realized his words seemed somewhat ambiguous.
He hurriedly withdrew his gaze, not daring to look at Shen Jinfeng’s reaction.
Shen Jinfeng: “…”
The secret admirer could actually associate food and love together so quickly?
As expected, his talent in association was outstanding.
Seeing Qin Ye’s slightly evasive gaze, he found it funny.
Only Qi Xiu, who was standing nearby, looked suspiciously at the two of them. His gaze circled back and forth between them.
What was going on?
Both of their expressions looked sneaky.
But naturally, he would not fire at Boss.
So he aimed at Qin Ye instead. “Ye-ge, although your love is about to arrive, it hasn’t arrived yet, has it? What are you shy about?”
The moment he finished speaking, he felt as though he had overlooked something.
He kept feeling like something was not quite right.
But Qin Ye calmly replied, “I’m not shy. I’m looking forward to it.”
Qi Xiu suddenly felt provoked. “Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it.”
Shen Jinfeng felt the roots of his ears grow a little hot.
It was over. The secret admirer had now learned to be direct.
Was he about to lose control and confess soon?
He cleared his throat. Suddenly thinking of something, he took out packets of medicinal powder and juice from the leaf basket and handed them to the others.
“Hm? Boss, what is this?” He Erwang was curious.
Shen Jinfeng was the first to smear the juice mixed with medicinal powder onto his exposed skin. “Snake-repelling herbs. Put some on.”
He examined the surroundings. “The farther we go in this direction, the more humid it gets.”
“Snakes like to appear in summer to begin with. Although I didn’t run into any when I came to the forest before, everyone should still apply some just in case.”
“Snakes!” Gu Shengsheng’s face paled from his few words. “There are snakes in the forest?”
Mo Fan replied, “That’s very normal. My hometown is in the countryside. We often saw snakes on the roads near the mountains.”
He Erwang suddenly felt that a snake could pop out around him at any moment. “B-Boss, if I put this on, snakes will stay three steps away from me, right?”
“Should I put some on my face too?”
[Hiss, although I was also startled when I heard snakes, are you serious about smearing this yellowish-greenish stuff on your face, little purple-hair? Oh, plus your purple hair, the effect would truly explode.]
[Originally, I should be scared hearing about snakes, but the moment I saw that Big Boss Shen had already prepared for it, my heart magically settled back into my stomach.]
When Shen Jinfeng heard He Erwang’s question, to be honest, he really did kind of want to see what He Erwang would look like with it smeared on his face too.
“Although it isn’t necessary, you can.”
He Erwang gave up. “Then forget it.”
He copied Shen Jinfeng in a decent manner and smeared the medicinal powder juice over his exposed skin.
The others did the same.
After finishing, the group continued walking forward.
This time, their main objective became looking for wild rabbits.
However, they did not find wild rabbits for the time being.
Instead, before their eyes appeared several fresh and juicy peach trees.
The peach trees were quite tall. Most of them looked around five or six meters, and the tallest even reached more than seven meters.
He Erwang’s eyes lit up. “It’s my time to shine!”
His tree-climbing skill had not been activated for a long time!
“Boss, I’ll climb up and pick peaches for everyone!”
He guaranteed it with full confidence, head held high and chest out. The next second, his smile became flattering, and his tone expectant. “Boss, if I can’t get down, can you, um, do it like last time and bring me down?”
Shen Jinfeng: “…”
[Little purple-hair, just say how long you’ve been waiting for this day.]
[Hahahahahaha, you can completely feel little purple-hair’s excitement from his tone!]
[So are we about to recreate the famous aerial slide scene later?]
[Look at Big Boss Shen’s expression hahahaha. Big Boss Shen is thinking: I’ve never been this speechless in my life.]
[Actually, I feel like Big Boss Shen is someone who really pursues efficiency and hopes to solve things as simply as possible. For these peaches, he could swoosh-swoosh-swoosh with stones and solve it in a few seconds, but how long will it take He Erwang to climb the tree? Hahaha.]
[Wuwu, so this shows how much Big Boss Shen spoils our little purple-hair!]
[Huh? No, Big Boss hasn’t agreed yet!]
But clearly—
Shen Jinfeng indeed could not bear to refuse He Erwang’s expression of longing, as though he had not climbed a tree in eight hundred years.
He helplessly waved his hand. “Go ahead.”
He Erwang cheerfully responded and chose the tallest peach tree.
“You guys wait down below. I’ll go up and pick them, and you catch them below! It’d be best to use the basket to catch them!”
The others did not know how to climb trees and were somewhat afraid of heights, so no one fought He Erwang for this job.
They all agreed.
Shen Jinfeng sighed and looked at the peach tree He Erwang had chosen, which was full of peaches.
He felt a little puzzled.
Such a tall peach tree, with honey peaches that were fresh, tender, and juicy, looked more like those from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area.
But when he had walked toward the ancient tomb yesterday, the few medicinal herbs he saw were clearly special to the north.
Seeing him frown, Qin Ye asked, “What’s wrong?”
Shen Jinfeng shook his head, glanced at He Erwang, who was still struggling to climb the tree, and said, “I estimate it’ll take him a while to pick all the peaches from one tree. Shall we go over there and take a look?”
His sharp eyes had seen the color of flowers in the distance. They actually looked like orchids.
Qin Ye glanced at the others without changing expression and nodded. “All right.”
The two of them walked toward the forest on the left.
The few people left in place actually discovered not long afterward that the two had disappeared, but they did not take it to heart.
After all, none of them knew how to pick “wild grass”…
This time, the peach tree was only a little over seven meters tall. He Erwang climbed for about ten minutes before reaching the top. He sat proudly on a branch and showed off to his friends below. “Get ready. I’m going to throw peaches to you! It’d be best if you catch them with the basket!”
“Okay, make your aim better too. Throw accurately!” Mo Fan reminded him from below.
He Erwang nodded. “Okay.”
Three people under the tree, one person in the tree.
They cooperated so leisurely and happily.
Until He Erwang finished picking the peaches on the left branch and prepared to switch directions.
His gaze suddenly sharpened. Not far ahead, near the bottom of the tree where Qi Xiu and the others were standing, he saw a black-and-yellow shadow that had appeared at some unknown point.
He narrowed his eyes and looked over. “Eh, is that a dog?”
Qi Xiu and the others turned back when they heard his voice.
“There are dogs here?” Gu Shengsheng was puzzled.
Mo Fan swallowed, his eyes suddenly becoming terrified.
“T-That doesn’t seem to be a dog.”
Before the guests could recognize what it was, the bullet comments instantly boiled over.
[F-Fuck, that doesn’t look like a dog. Dogs don’t have eyes like that.]
[Why does it look like a wolf? Help!!!]
