Chapter 72: Black Cloud

Although Chen Ping'an looked slender, he effortlessly carried the locust branches on his shoulders, walking lightly through Mud Bottle Lane. The little girl in the red cotton-padded jacket watched him in amazement. If she hadn't insisted, Chen Ping'an would have taken the branch from her delicate shoulders as well.

A little girl with pigtails stood at the entrance of Mud Bottle Lane. Her cheeks were probably frostbitten in the winter, as her rosy cheeks were particularly eye-catching. Seeing the red-coated girl swaggering with locust branches, she muttered, "Li Baoping, didn't we agree to drop off the branches and go to the school together? You don't know, Grandpa Ma is acting strange today, dressed like Mr. Qi, saying he'll take us on a field trip to Cliffside Academy. If Grandpa Ma gets angry at us, it'll be your fault."

The red-coated girl didn't listen at all. She plucked a verdant locust leaf Chen Ping'an had given her from her embroidered pouch, twirling it in front of her peer, beaming with pride.

Her expression screamed, "You don't have one, but I have many!"

The little girl with pigtails found it inexplicable, not understanding what was so special about a broken leaf that was worth showing off. However, she couldn't stand Li Baoping's smug look, which made her want to punch her. The problem was that among the children of similar age at the school, even troublemakers like Li Huai couldn't beat Li Baoping. Li Huai had once been beaten by her and lay on the ground pretending to be dead. Li Baoping hadn't stopped there, pulling down Li Huai's pants and tossing them into a tree, hanging high. The bare-bottomed Li Huai wailed all the way home. His mother was no pushover and dragged Li Huai to Fortune Street without a word. Before they even reached the Li family, the woman was already fuming, looking at the imposing stone lions, colorful door gods, and tall courtyard walls on both sides of the street. She gave Li Huai another beating, not even knocking on the Li family's door, but dragging her son back to their dilapidated house on the west side of town, ears ringing. However, that night, the woman slaughtered a chicken and stewed it. Li Huai stood bare-bottomed on a stool, swaying back and forth, eating more happily than anyone else, completely forgetting the embarrassment of being pinned to the ground by Li Baoping.

The little girl with pigtails held her hands to measure the length, her face full of disdain. "It's just a locust leaf, what's so great about it? My dad gave me a golden abacus last night, an abacus made of gold, this big!"

Unfortunately, the red-coated girl was completely immersed in her own world and didn't care about any golden abacus. She continued to gently shake the locust leaf in front of her partner, raising her pointed little chin and pointing to Chen Ping'an in front. "He gave it to me. I have more in my bag."

The little girl with pigtails sighed. From the first day she met Li Baoping, she had been so annoying. She only said what she wanted to say, only listened to what she wanted to hear, and only did what she wanted to do.

If there weren't so few peers in Riding Dragon Lane, the little girl with pigtails wouldn't want to play with her. Many times, even Mr. Qi was helpless with Li Baoping, because Li Baoping would always ask strange questions, but Mr. Qi would always answer them seriously. Unfortunately, he often couldn't come up with an answer that Li Baoping found convincing. Sometimes Mr. Qi was excited to have figured out a problem and planned to explain it to Li Baoping the next day, but Li Baoping herself had forgotten what she had asked the day before. Thinking of fishing for loach, catching crickets, or flying kites, she would run off, leaving Mr. Qi hanging.

Chen Ping'an, with the locust branches on his shoulders, couldn't turn his head easily, so he asked a little louder, "How many people are in the school now?"

Li Baoping was struggling to switch the locust branches to the other shoulder, having switched back and forth many times before, and it stung.

The pigtail girl held out a palm and replied, "Now there are only five people left: me, Li Baoping, Li Huai, Lin Shouyi, and Dong Shuijing."

She was idle anyway, and poured out the situation of the school in one breath, "Mr. Qi had promised to take us on a field trip, and eventually go to Cliffside Academy to study. At that time, we had fourteen or fifteen people in the school, and their families all agreed. Later, those wealthy children, mostly living in Fortune Street and Peach Leaf Lane, first pretended to be sick and didn't come to school, and later heard Li Baoping say that they had left town directly, saying they were going to join distant relatives. When they first heard about going to Cliffside Academy, these people were the happiest. I don't know what they were happy about. Isn't it tiring to follow Mr. Qi for such a long way?"

The little girl spoke in a childish voice, but she was clear and coherent, somewhat precocious and gentle, like a little adult. For no reason, Chen Ping'an thought of Gu Can, but she was still different from the snot-nosed urchin with a hedgehog personality.

Chen Ping'an asked with a smile, "What's your name?"

The little girl with two pigtails said indifferently, "Me? My name is Shi Chunjia, so you can call me Miss Shi."

Chen Ping'an was speechless.

Li Baoping chimed in, "Just call her Little Stone."

Shi Chunjia was like a puffed-up kitten, scowling at Li Baoping. "Don't call me Little Stone! Li Baoping, you can't either!"

Li Baoping, who liked to daydream all day long, had already shifted her thoughts from her friend's nickname to other things, so she simply ignored Shi Chunjia's rebuttal.

Shi Chunjia, however, was of a more earnest disposition, tirelessly reasoning with Li Baoping, just to get rid of the unlikable nickname "Little Stone," because Shi Chunjia knew that once they arrived at Mr. Qi's Cliffside Academy, as long as Li Baoping called her Little Stone once, then this nickname would probably be impossible to shake off completely.

Listening to the two little girls bickering behind him, Chen Ping'an, approaching Fortune Street, asked, "There are many Li-named households on Fortune Street. Where is your home?"

Chen Ping'an was thinking that as long as it wasn't the Li family, one of the four major clans, he would be fine.

After all, in order to lure the old ape of Zheng Yang Mountain out of hiding, he had used the locust tree on Fortune Street to climb over the wall of the Li family's mansion. Speaking of which, Chen Ping'an had also broken two of the Li family's bird feeders with a slingshot.

Shi Chunjia said grumpily, "Her? It's the house with the locust tree outside the wall. Every time her family doesn't let her out, afraid she'll go crazy playing, she secretly sets up a ladder against the wall and falls onto Fortune Street along the locust tree. Once, her parents were so angry that they moved the ladder away, insisting that she enter through the main gate. Unexpectedly, she just jumped down. She didn't come to school that month, and for the next two months, she came with crutches."

Li Baoping didn't feel embarrassed at all. Instead, she said seriously, "I reflected on it afterward. That time, my landing posture was wrong. I shouldn't have poked straight down with both feet. So, after my leg healed, I tried again..."

Shi Chunjia said angrily, "Didn't you just drop out of school for another half a month?"

Li Baoping pouted, "It was fine the third time."

Shi Chunjia said indignantly, "That's because a year later, you grew taller and taller, so you could withstand the tossing. It has nothing to do with whether your landing posture was correct or not!"

Chen Ping'an didn't interfere with the two little girls' quarrel. Firstly, he was already worried about whether he would be recognized by the Li family and get a beating, and secondly, Chen Ping'an, in his heart, envied them, envied their happiness and stability, being disciplined by elders at home, and being able to study at school.

Despite his headache, Chen Ping'an decided to help Li Baoping deliver the locust branches to her door.

Maybe this was karma. He had just told the little girl in the red cotton-padded jacket that promises should be kept, so he had to bite the bullet and go to the Li family's mansion.

Perhaps heaven finally woke up from its nap and thought it was Chen Ping'an's turn to have some luck. The gatekeeper didn't recognize him, and Li Baoping didn't ask him to help carry the locust branches into the mansion. Relieved, Chen Ping'an was about to turn around and leave when Li Baoping handed him the locust branch she was carrying on her shoulder, saying it was her repayment.

Chen Ping'an didn't refuse the little girl's kindness, casually carrying it on his shoulder and waving goodbye.

The gatekeeper was used to his young mistress's eccentric temperament. Even if she brought a pile of locust branches home that would be discarded even as firewood, he wouldn't find it surprising. He just felt sorry for his mistress's bright red cotton-padded jacket, which was much more valuable than those locust branches. When she was less than five years old, his mistress could catch a large crab from the creek by herself. When she got home, she held up her small hand, with a crab that refused to let go of its pincers, while crying. Her parents and ancestors were heartbroken. Even now, the crab with the bluish-black shell and scarlet claws was still kept in her large fish tank. His mistress really didn't like to study and would chat and talk to it whenever she had nothing to do.

Looking at Chen Ping'an's departing figure.

Shi Chunjia glanced at Li Baoping beside her and chuckled, "Is that the one who caused you to lose a front tooth?"

Li Baoping suddenly went behind Shi Chunjia, grabbed her two pigtails, and prepared to pull them up. "Believe me, it'll definitely work this time."

Shi Chunjia was so scared that she immediately squatted down, closing her eyes and waving her hands wildly above her head to prevent Li Baoping from grabbing her braids again to "pull weeds."

Li Baoping squatted beside her, who was a head shorter than her, and said confidently, "Little Stone, it doesn't hurt. If you haven't tried it a second time, how do you know it won't work? Right?"

Shi Chunjia cried out in fear.

The gatekeeper couldn't bear it and came to the rescue of the young shopkeeper from Riding Dragon Lane, saying, "Just now, a Mr. Ma from the school asked Li Huai to send a message, asking the mansion to prepare a carriage. Miss, you should take your luggage and go to the school first, and then leave town to travel to Cliffside Academy with Miss Shi. Of course, before going to the school, Miss can stop by Riding Dragon Lane to load Miss Shi's things onto the carriage."

Li Baoping had no choice but to let Shi Chunjia go for now, her face full of disappointment. When they walked through the gate together, she didn't forget to feel sorry for Shi Chunjia.

The little girl with pigtails, who had survived the ordeal, silently resolved to take her braids down today.

"Huh?"

Li Baoping suddenly exclaimed in surprise, looking up.

Shi Chunjia followed her gaze and wondered, "Is it going to rain?"

A large black cloud floated over the town.

From north to south.

The grass-shoe boy who had just walked out of Fortune Street was also looking up.

At that moment, the boy was so shocked that he couldn't speak.

It wasn't a black cloud at all, but densely packed flying swords in the sky, countless immortals flying through the air on their swords.

The boy slowly turned his head, his gaze following the southward movement of the sword cloud.

Suddenly.

A black dot went from south to north, running counter to the flying sword immortals.

The black dot became larger and larger.

Finally, the grass-shoe boy, with excellent eyesight, widened his eyes, as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight. Above the south side of the town, a person was stepping on a flying sword and descending at an angle. At a distance of about a hundred feet from the ground, he paused, the sword-riding person looked down at the town, his gaze scanning the surroundings, and then he plunged toward Fortune Street.

In an instant, the sword flight, covering thousands of miles a day, was accompanied by a whistling sound that pierced the air, and finally landed in front of Chen Ping'an.

The sword hovered half a zhang above the ground. On the sword, a spirited girl in a dark green robe stood suspended, her feet also suspended above the sword.

The travel-worn girl grinned, crossed her arms, and said heroically, "I thought I should say goodbye to you, so I came."

Before the locust-branch-carrying boy could say anything, the sword-riding girl with a sword hanging from her waist moved her mind, and the tip of the sword immediately reversed its direction, slanted upwards, and flashed away.

The boy subconsciously reached out, but the girl and the flying sword had already disappeared.

Embarrassed, the boy reluctantly withdrew his hand, scratched his head, and walked toward Mud Bottle Lane, looking up from time to time.

The grass-shoe boy was a little disappointed at first, but soon became happy. It turned out that Miss Ning was a fairy.

As a result, Chen Ping'an spent money to buy a string of candied hawthorns when passing a shop in Riding Dragon Lane, eating as he walked.

Eating, the boy felt a little empty for some reason.

The boy thought about it very carefully, was it because he felt bad about spending the money?