The Fortunate Lady and Her Mountain Man

Chapter 166: Chapter 166: Negotiation

If Ji Huan had known the trouble two fried dough sticks would later cause, she would have stopped herself at all costs.

After handing over all the subsequent details of the hand cream—including the raw materials, production, and eventual market launch—to Xin Ziqi, Ji Huan and Dabao shut their doors and settled into their own quiet life. The two of them, along with their dog, lived quite contentedly.

One early morning, Ji Huan left her back courtyard, intending to take a stroll on the back mountain while Dabao was still asleep.

She locked the courtyard gate and walked a few steps. Just as she was about to turn onto a small path, she suddenly saw someone lying on the ground at the corner.

Ji Huan was badly frightened. Her first thought was that it was a dead body.

Clutching her pounding heart, she mustered her courage and stepped closer to get a better look—

It wasn’t a dead body at all. It was clearly the vagrant from the village entrance!

’How did the vagrant get here?’

’After all, it was a long way from the village entrance to her house. To get here just by crawling...’

It dawned on Ji Huan in an instant. ’Of course! I’ve run into another scammer!’

’Heh, trying to pretend he can’t walk? He’s given himself away this time.’

’Or do I just look that gullible?’

"Young man, you’re able-bodied. You could be doing anything for a living. Don’t always think you can get something for nothing."

Ji Huan shook her head and walked away.

She thought that after she’d made things so clear, the vagrant would realize his ruse had been exposed and would leave right away.

But she had underestimated the man’s nerve.

The next day, she opened her gate, and the vagrant was still in the same spot.

It was the same on the third day, and the fourth.

Ji Huan was spooked.

’No one has given him any alms these past few days, so how is he...?’

’See? He has to be a scammer!’

Moreover, Ji Huan had another worry.

’Is he planning on staying? Is he just going to live here now?’

Living next to someone with such a mysterious background and unclear intentions, Ji Huan couldn’t sleep well at night. She was constantly worried that someone might climb over her wall in the dead of night to rob and murder them.

After two sleepless nights, Ji Huan decided to go talk to the vagrant.

During this time, she’d also done some soul-searching, wondering if the two fried dough sticks she’d given him were to blame.

’After all, what ordinary family would be willing to give such a treat to a beggar?’

’So the vagrant must have concluded she was from a wealthy family and followed her here.’

’But that didn’t add up. Hu Dacheng had given him a meat bun, after all...’

’Whatever. I’ll talk to him first, then decide what to do.’

"Hey, mister... how about we talk this over? Could you maybe move somewhere else? You being here is making me very uncomfortable."

Ji Huan squatted down a short distance from the vagrant, trying to communicate with him in what she hoped was her friendliest tone.

"I, uh, have a little suggestion, if you’d care to hear it? If you don’t object, I’ll just say it. Let’s use business as an analogy. There’s a lot to consider when you’re running a business, but the most important thing is location. You have to pick a good spot. If the location’s bad, you won’t get any foot traffic, and it doesn’t matter how good your product is, it’s all for nothing. Even the best wine can’t be sold from a hidden alley, right?"

The vagrant’s reaction was exactly as Ji Huan expected: no reaction at all.

Still, she felt she’d laid enough groundwork. She cleared her throat and got straight to the point.

"What I’m trying to say is, strictly speaking, your line of work is a business too, and you can’t get by without foot traffic. So how about you move to a new spot? See, there’s nobody around here. No matter how good your act... your performance art... is, you won’t get any donations. What a waste. A real man should make his mark on the world! What future is there for you, holed up in this tiny village? There’s a whole wide world out there; doesn’t that excite you? So, my personal suggestion is that you should go try your luck elsewhere. Juyong Town or Yeyang County would be fine. Who knows? In less than a year, you could make a fortune, build a new house, and even marry a beautiful bride!"

Ji Huan laid out the pros and cons in what she felt was a heartfelt speech.

She believed she had fully considered his interests and painted a sufficiently beautiful and moving picture of his future.

But the vagrant didn’t even raise his head.

Faced with this attitude of passive resistance, Ji Huan was truly at a loss.

"So you’ve decided you’re not leaving, is that it? I mean, come on, you can’t just single out my family to swindle! It’s not easy for me and my brother, you know? Besides, we’re dirt poor. You won’t squeeze any money out of us..."

Ji Huan stood up, put her hands on her hips, and paced in a few circles, growing angrier the more she thought about it.

She stopped, planted herself back in her original spot, and pointed at the vagrant. She wanted to let loose some harsh words but was afraid of provoking him. If she did, he might actually climb her wall in retaliation and start smashing things.

"I’m telling you, you’re just degrading yourself! Stop trying to live off other people’s charity. No one is going to pity you!"

Leaving him with that lukewarm threat, Ji Huan returned to her courtyard in a huff.

She bolted the gate and braced it with a wooden beam from behind. Still uneasy, she ran back into the house and told Dabao, who was practicing his calligraphy, not to play with Dahuang near the back gate for the next few days.

She was utterly convinced the vagrant was a scammer and guarded against him as if he were a villain, but the very next day, she was forced to eat her words.

Ever since her new house was built, besides the Hu Family, others like Aunt Gao who had helped with the housewarming party would also drop by for a visit from time to time.

That day, Aunt Wang and Sixth Sister-in-law Feng were coming down from the back mountain after gathering firewood and stopped by Ji Huan’s place to rest and chat.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the vagrant outside.

Sixth Sister-in-law Feng asked, "Wuan, wasn’t that beggar at the village entrance? How’d he end up over here?"

It was a headache for Ji Huan, too.

But before she could say anything, Aunt Wang chimed in, "I know why. It was that disgraceful son of Mrs. Zhu’s! He and a few other little hellions hounded that beggar all the way here!"

Ji Huan was stunned. "Ji Mingmao chased him? So... the vagrant really did crawl all the way here?"

"That’s right. I was passing by and saw the whole thing. When the beggar wouldn’t move, they poked him with sticks and threw stones at him. I even gave them a piece of my mind. But when I got further away and looked back, that pack of little brats was still hounding him."

You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out why Ji Mingmao had done it.

He and his mother had been thoroughly intimidated by Ji Huan. They didn’t dare cause trouble for her openly, so they resorted to this nasty trick to make her miserable.

And who would believe that Mrs. Zhu hadn’t put him up to it?

Ji Huan had already figured out what Aunt Wang was thinking, but right now, her attention was elsewhere.

’The vagrant had crawled here on his own. He wasn’t faking it—he really couldn’t walk.’

’And just yesterday, I went over there and said all those things to him...’

Sixth Sister-in-law Feng just shook her head. "Those kids are just... I don’t know what to say! That beggar is pitiful enough as it is. On my way over, I saw him lying on the ground, pulling up dried grass stalks to eat."

Aunt Wang was more rational and spoke more bluntly.

"What can anyone do? No one’s well off, and we had that awful snowstorm this year. Everyone, adults and kids alike, is already tightening their belts, afraid their own food will run out. Who has any extra to give him?"

Sixth Sister-in-law Feng sighed. "You’re right. It’s just his fate. Bad luck, and nothing to be done about it."

After the two of them left, Ji Huan sat in the main room for a good while before getting up and heading to the kitchen.

She lifted the lid of the steamer. The steamed buns she had reheated that morning were still warm.

She took one and wrapped it in a cloth. As she was about to put the lid back on, she paused, then took out another.

The leftover congee had already been scraped out for Dahuang, and the boiled water in the other pot had long gone cold.

She added a few handfuls of firewood to the stove. Once the water came to a boil again, she filled a bowl. Carrying the bowl of water and the cloth-wrapped steamed buns, she went out the courtyard gate.

When she reached the spot where the vagrant lay, Ji Huan set down the steamed buns and the water.

She hesitated for a moment, but in the end, said nothing and turned back toward her courtyard.

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