Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 388 - 225: Licking the Calf (Part 5) (Bonus Chapter as a reward for the leader of the Wealth Gu!)
Chapter 388: Chapter 225: Licking the Calf (Part 5) (Bonus Chapter as a reward for the leader of the Wealth Gu!)
Qu the Hunter sat dazedly in the ox cart home, carrying big bags and small bags.
The cart driver didn’t dare to ask Qu the Hunter about Qu Jing’s condition.
Oh my, how serious must the illness be, buying white flour—it’s not the customary luxury for someone at death’s door? Better not ask, better not ask.
Out of sympathy, the cart driver gave the black steamed bun he had saved to Qu Jing, but Qu Jing refused it and returned it.
The cart driver felt even more pity; if he can’t eat even black steamed buns and must eat white flour, then he probably doesn’t have long to live. No wonder Qu the Hunter seemed absent-minded, as if his soul had left his body. The cart driver gritted his teeth and pushed the ox harder, traveling day and night to shorten the journey home by a whole day.
In reality, Qu the Hunter was distracted because he was trying to memorize the recipe given to him by the young man.
Qu the Hunter wasn’t stupid; he was just uneducated, which made him seem inexperienced. But he had been conscripted to be a soldier and had seen the world outside. He knew recipes were valuable, some even worthy of being passed down as family heirlooms through generations.
The young man had written the recipe for him, but Qu the Hunter couldn’t read and didn’t plan to show it to anyone. He intended to remember it himself, then send Qu Jing to school. Once Qu Jing learned to read, he would leave the recipe with him. This way, even after Qu the Hunter died, Qu Jing would have something to rely on.
Therefore, on a night during their journey, Qu the Hunter routinely covered Qu Jing with a hide and quietly asked, "Jingjing, I heard there’ll be a school built in the village soon. Once it’s completed, shall grandpa send you to school?"
"Okay." Qu Jing replied softly, eyes wide open.
.
After Qu Jing and Qu the Hunter returned to the village, they heard good news from the village chief. The higher-ups had decided to build a school, an elementary one, jointly run by several villages.
While Qu Jing and Qu the Hunter were on the road, the village chief, with his silver tongue and the advantage of a few abandoned adobe houses in the village that could be turned into classrooms, battled with all the neighboring villages to successfully secure the school.
The village chief announced this news to promote schooling, and to lead by example, all his children, from the eldest daughter to Gou Dan, had to go to school. However, every household was short of money, and attending school required tuition. The village chief’s family gritted their teeth and paid, but others couldn’t afford it or simply didn’t want to. The village chief came to Qu the Hunter to persuade him to send Qu Jing to school.
The two agreed readily, and Qu Jing happily enrolled for the new school term.
The days that followed seemed to fly by.
Qin Huai felt like he was watching a film full of trivial matters. Qu the Hunter didn’t tell anyone about the pastry shop, only saying that the hospital gave him two ounces of soybeans for free. Many in the village, upon hearing of such a benefit, were tempted, but ultimately gave up going to the provincial hospital for soybeans due to the long distance and high travel costs.
With the school matter settled, a new teacher arrived in the village, supposedly a former private school teacher from the county who was nearly starving.
Qu Jing happily started school, with all the children beginning from first grade. Qu the Hunter continued to hunt in the mountains regularly, bartering with villagers, and practiced making rice cakes in secret after returning from hunting.
The 10 pounds of white sugar given by the young man, Qu the Hunter couldn’t bear to use in his own unpalatable rice cakes. He asked the village head’s wife to make steamed buns and pancakes with white flour, allowing Qu Jing to eat the white flour buns dipped in white sugar.
The village chief witnessed this once and said, heartsick, that even with money, it wasn’t right to eat this way. Even the recently defeated landlord only occasionally ate a couple of white flour buns.
Then, with tears, he took away half a bun.
The first New Year together for Qu Jing and Qu the Hunter, Qu the Hunter used the last bit of glutinous rice to make a pot of rice cake soup, which the grandfather and grandson shared for the celebration.
The ensuing days unfolded like a warm film.
Qu Jing attended school, while Qu the Hunter hunted. The village chief occasionally communicated the outside changes to the village; like how there was now a supply and marketing cooperative in town, making it more convenient to buy oil, salt, and cloth, and a health clinic where medical treatment was particularly affordable. Qu the Hunter no longer had to barter his prey with villagers, as there was now a designated place in town to sell them.
One year, two years, three years, four years passed.
Qu Jing had reached the fourth grade and could understand the recipe the young man had written for Qu the Hunter.
Qu the Hunter had aged significantly, with most of his hair white, even his temples showing some graying. He hunted in the mountains less frequently, rarely catching large game, and mostly relying on traps for small animals. Occasionally, when lucky, a large animal like a deer would fall into his trap, allowing him to make a significant amount of money to save up.
Qu the Hunter saved a lot of money for Qu Jing’s treatment.
Over the years, the most famous news in the village wasn’t the village chief’s eldest daughter giving birth to triplets, shocking the surrounding ten miles, nor was it the fool from the village chief’s wife’s family next door surviving a fall into the river and catching a 30-pound fish, but rather, it was about Qu Jing.
Qu Jing dispelled the rumors of being a fool with her outstanding academic performance, while her unchanging appearance over four years made the village chief finally realize why a healthy girl was thrown into the deep mountains by her family.
This child doesn’t grow!
Qin Huai knew why Qu Jing hadn’t changed in four years—it was because she hadn’t failed her spiritual tribulation.
A spirit doesn’t lose its divine power before failing its tribulation, nor do they age. This is why very few spirits choose the form of a child during transformation. For adults, especially around the age of 20, not changing appearance for over a decade is quite normal and can be explained away as looking young or taking good care of themselves.
However, with a child, even a lack of change over two or three years can be noticed, almost as if having "I am a Monster" carved on oneself.
Luckily for Qu Jing, the villagers didn’t think she was a Monster; they simply thought she had an unusual disease.
Qu the Hunter thought the same.
From the second year he noticed Qu Jing hadn’t grown, he took her to the town’s health clinic, which prescribed one or two ounces of soybeans.
In the third year, Qu the Hunter took Qu Jing to the provincial city hospital, where the doctors were also at a loss before this super rare disease and only made an exception to prescribe five ounces of soybeans for Qu the Hunter.
The provincial city doctors recommended that Qu the Hunter take Qu Jing to a hospital in Beiping, saying that it had the best doctors in the country there, and if they couldn’t treat her in Beiping, it was untreatable. However, the journey to Beiping was far, requiring a train ride, and the costs were very high, so the doctors advised Qu the Hunter to save more money.
Qu the Hunter listened. He attempted to hunt the brown bear, but nearly broke his leg while fleeing from a wild boar. He lamented that he was no longer the old hunter who could bravely fight tigers and switched to digging traps to catch small animals for saving money.
Seeing that Qu Jing still showed no signs of growing, Qu the Hunter grew anxious to the point of having blisters on the corners of his mouth, considering whether to sell his family’s treasured tiger pelts, fox pelts, and tiger bones, and take Qu Jing to Beiping for treatment before winter set in at the end of the year.
Qu the Hunter clearly felt he was aging.
He noticed that he had started forgetting things since the beginning of the year, forgetting the position of traps he set or the amount of money from sales of his prey. Sometimes upon reaching the foot of the mountain, he couldn’t recall why he went up there that day.
Qu the Hunter felt he might be getting a bit senile.
But he didn’t mention it to Qu Jing, only silently coping with these lapses in memory himself.
All his forgetfulness was observed by Qin Huai.
Qin Huai sighed, feeling as if he had already seen the ending of this warm film.
One morning, Qu the Hunter rose early as usual to make breakfast, cooking two eggs for Qu Jing to take with him.
"Grandpa, why did you cook two eggs today?" Qu Jing handed one back to Qu the Hunter, "The doctor said that nutrition alone isn’t a cure for my illness. You should eat the egg."
Qu the Hunter smiled and said, "Today is Mr. Wang’s birthday. Jingjing, take this egg to give to him."
Qu Jing paused, "Mr. Wang hasn’t returned since breaking his leg last year and going back to town. Grandpa, did you remember wrong... it’s not Teacher Li’s birthday today either."
Qu the Hunter’s smile froze momentarily, as he struggled to remember but was powerless and could only smile to cover up, "Oh right, grandpa remembered wrong, mistaking Mr. Wang’s birthday for Teacher Li’s."
"Old now, getting forgetful."
Silently, Qu Jing watched Qu the Hunter, "Grandpa, are you alright?"
"I’ve noticed you’ve been unusually forgetful since the beginning of the year. Should we visit the provincial city hospital?"
Qu the Hunter waved his hand, "No need, no need. It’s normal for memory to fade with age. Many people start forgetting things at forty-seven or forty-eight. I’m over fifty and only just starting, that’s normal."
Qu Jing hesitated, uncertain. She glanced at Qu the Hunter a few times, but seeing his usual demeanor, she chose to believe him and went off to school carrying her backpack.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel
