BXBX NOVEL Chapter 78 - 73 Ah Niu Saves the Cow l
Qin Niu went home, picked up a wooden bucket and a fish spear, and set off with Er Dan and the others.
Daoyuan Village was not far, bordering Shuangfeng Village.
It just bordered with Shuangfeng Village in a very small area.
The shape of Shuangfeng Village resembled two long and narrow spurs.
From afar, it looked like two slope-like peaks standing side by side, but the actual terrain was much more complex.
The stone forest at the border with Daoyuan Village was at the tail of one of these peaks.
The two villages had long been arguing over the ownership of this stone forest.
It hadn’t been resolved for hundreds of years.
There were even fights in the past, and the villagers of the two villages were hostile to each other. Now, the relationship had eased with intermarriage between the villages.
Shuangfeng Village was located on high ground, while Daoyuan Village lay on a flat, low-lying land.
It was one of the two lowest-lying villages among the several dozen villages in Jade Stream Town.
Whenever there was a flood, Daoyuan Village would surely be inundated.
But it was undeniable that after the flood receded, Daoyuan Village had many fertile fields, and irrigation was very convenient. So Daoyuan Village had always been more prosperous than Shuangfeng Village.
The two richest men in Shuangfeng Village were Wang Furen and Xu Zhenchang.
Yet in Daoyuan Village, there were no fewer than ten such wealthy people.
They say great mountains and rivers give rise to beautiful women.
The girls from Daoyuan Village generally seemed to be fairer and more delicate than those from Shuangfeng Village.
Although their village didn’t have a beauty of Wang Wanyan’s caliber, ordinary beauties were plentiful.
This was probably related to the wealth of their village.
The girls from wealthy families were better off in terms of food, clothing, and education, with exposure to the arts, and it cultivated their demeanor, naturally making it easier for beauties to emerge.
As matters stood, almost no girl from Daoyuan Village was willing to marry into Shuangfeng Village; they all married off to other prosperous villages or into the city.
On the other hand, as long as a girl from Shuangfeng Village was slightly prettier, she could easily marry into Daoyuan Village.
When Qin Niu arrived at Daoyuan Village, the original river course was no longer visible, only an expanse of water. The muddy floodwaters were rampant and ferocious.
In the flood, one could see all kinds of floating objects: doors, cabinets, uprooted trees, rafters, columns, and other debris from collapsed houses.
Facing the fierce flood, Qin Niu felt extraordinarily insignificant.
Humans were too weak in the face of the power of nature.
Looking around, part of Daoyuan Village’s houses were submerged up to the halfway point.
Those houses that hadn’t collapsed in the floods were made of bluish bricks and stone.
Mud houses, even straw huts, had long since fallen without a trace.
The flood was clearly receding quite a bit by now, and where he stood, one could faintly see the marks left by its soaking and erosion.
There was mud everywhere.
On the bank, many villagers were busy catching fish.
Some used casting nets, some net bags, others used dragnets, and there were those like Qin Niu, who used a spear.
If we talk about catching fish, Qin Niu’s skill should be among the best of his peers.
He placed the bucket on the bank, hung the fish spear at his waist, and bent his back as he entered the water to start fishing.
A plump crucian carp was pinned down by him, then he pulled it out of the water.
It weighed at least half a pound.
“All Niu, you’re so good!”
Er Dan and the others looked up to him admirably, their faces full of excitement.
They each followed into the water and began to showcase their “Divine Skills” in fishing.
Qin Niu quickly caught nearly half a bucket of fish, mainly consisting of crucian carp, common carp, and snakehead.
Grass carp generally don’t come near the shore.
At that moment, Qin Niu saw a very small head emerge from the water, rising and falling with the waves.
It was only as big as the tip of a chopstick.
It looked like a little snake.
“Er Dan, lend me your net bag. There seems to be a little snake coming over there; it would be troublesome if it bit someone,” Qin Niu said.
Some little snakes could be more venomous than larger ones.
Especially those little snakes that have never bitten a person before, their venom is the most potent.
Er Dan quickly threw his net bag to him.
After catching it, Qin Niu watched the small head that was striving to swim towards the bank.
It was getting closer.
He approached quietly, then quickly scooped it up with the net bag.
He easily caught it inside the net.
“Huh, it’s actually a little turtle,”
Qin Niu felt surprised.
It wasn’t much bigger than a fingernail cap, and looking at its tiny head and legs, he estimated it had hatched only a few days ago.
It was unfortunate, born shortly before encountering a flood.
Luckily, it had desperately swum towards the shore and not been swept into the raging torrents; otherwise, it most likely would have drowned.
Softshell turtles were common, but turtles were not.
People liked to eat softshell turtles, but no one liked eating turtles.
Most people who caught turtles would release them.
Qin Niu glanced at the chaotic scene and realized that the little turtle had no chance of survival.
It appeared very timid.
After being caught, it tucked its head, legs, and tail into its shell, not daring to move.
“Encountering you is a stroke of fate, I’ll keep you!”
After a brief hesitation, he directly tossed the little turtle into the bucket.
After giving the net back to Er Dan, he continued to fish.
At that moment, someone let out a series of exclamations.
“Look, what’s that?”
“It looks like a person!”
“No, it’s a sheep.”
In the middle of the distant floodwaters, a dark shadow struggled. But the ferocity of the flood made its efforts seem feeble.
The onlookers watched, hearts in their throats.
Qin Niu strained his eyes and finally saw clearly.
It was not a person, nor a sheep, but a small black calf.
It must have been washed down from upstream.
In the floodwaters, corpses of various animals and humans were common. After the tide receded, villagers would spontaneously bury them on the spot.
Otherwise, the decay of the bodies could easily trigger an epidemic.
The little calf seemed to have exhausted its strength, not knowing how long it had drifted in the floodwaters.
A strong will to survive made it occasionally muster the strength to lift its head and flail briefly.
But it was quickly swept under by the flood crest again.
Qin Niu stopped fishing and fixed his gaze on the small calf.
At this moment, he was not the only one concerned about the calf.
Some villagers from Daoyuan Village across the floodwaters were shouting, equally attentive to the calf’s plight.
If one could rescue it and raise it for a year or two, it would definitely become a large water buffalo.
A valuable asset for plowing fields and pulling carts.
“Er Dan, watch the bucket for me,”
“You… want to save that calf?”
Er Dan looked terrified.
“With the calf’s dumb ways, it’s surely a goner if we don’t save it. I’m going to give it a try.”
Qin Niu, with his Threefold cultivation of a mortal man, plus being a good swimmer from the start, believed it was worth an attempt.
This was also a rare opportunity.
“None of the skilled swimmers in the village have made a move yet; maybe you shouldn’t go,”
“It’s all right!”
Qin Niu took off his clothes, revealing his muscular upper body and sturdy legs.
He wore only a pair of briefs and quickly ran downstream, then leaped into the floodwaters.
He chose to rescue from a buffer zone.
The biggest concern there was the whirlpool.
Getting caught in it would make escape difficult.
“All Niu is trying to save that calf; he’s truly risking his life!”
“His mind has always been off.”
“What a sin!”
The villagers were abuzz with comments.
Some were simply jealous, not wanting Qin Niu to get the calf.
A small calf had a market value of about three or four taels of Silver Money; picking it up was like getting an ordinary person’s annual salary.
But this money required risking one’s life..