Dark Clouds Aren't Always Storm

Some time passed and finally Uncle Bei Shen's group left the third layer of the frontier forest, along with the other four people.

Passing through the safer, more animal-friendly frontier forest, the place where the family branches working in the herbal medicine hall used to search for various types of herbs here.

The rain drizzled all over the region, fertilizing the soil, giving life to every supporting aspect.

Uncle Ao Qi's group managed to leave the small boundary of the third and fourth layer of forest, then passed the small hunting lodge, following the path that led home.

Today's task was terrible, worse than the task before, and a nightmarish moment in time for the cold, snowy period.

Without so much as a word, the two groups broke through the drizzling rain accompanied by the caress of a harsh and cruel cold wind, passing through the various crevices of all their bodies.

Sad, wailing, regret, anger, worry, relief, joy, those were the random feelings that surfaced in all of their hearts.

For today, it was enough that they had lived through a terrible event, a painful event, and also this event would be an full of history story for the future generations of the Wu tribe.

Each of them thought of recounting their heroic actions to help their family and friends, while uncle Ao Qi's group would add the story of how they were saved by the Golden saw centipede.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so the phrase goes.

What happen to the Golden Saw Centipede? He is now back where he came from, deep underground, with no idea where the entrance to get there is.

Uncle Ao Qi would obviously immediately speculate on why the centipede's behavior was out of the ordinary, here's one of his thoughts on it, did the Golden Saw Centipede fight the bear because he thought it threatened his home?

Or it could be that the bear is considered by the golden saw centipede as a variable that will interfere with his throne in the interior of the border forest, who knows, right?

*****

"Woah i won again hahaha, the game you guys made is pretty easy, just need some luck and a strategy that is suitable enough to handle the situation" Aunt Ao Mei said in the living room, along with Ao Nan and Wu Liang.

The three of them spent time together playing the board game.

The rules of the game were that one would throw two small wooden squares the size of half a palm, and toss them onto the board, then the small wooden squares would spit out numbers from 1-6, with pawns made from treated wood in the shape of a tetrahedron.

It passes through a map depicting a village, a meadow, a forest, a mountain, then back to the village. Simple sculptures but made with intention and in a special way.

"Auntie is too good for this little game," Wu Liang said flattering Auntie Ao Mei who was sitting to his right.

"Mom, can you please give in a little" said Ao Nan with a resentful expression and a pleading tone.

This was the sixth time Auntie had beaten them both.

It's a board game with an area that almost fills the table, so the way to play is, there will be 12 large sections of roads with each number script next to each square position, as well as a bowl containing wooden slips in the center.

One section has 4 roads, this is based on the 4 cardinal directions, north, south, east, west, so there are 48 position squares that pass through the landscape of the village, meadow, mountain, forest, then back to the village again.

Each player also has 1 skill slot, there are 6 total skills to choose from, the first skill is building which is best used in villages because with this skill, one can build walls or step over one more position square to get through the village.

The second is the grooming, felling, and climbing skills, these four skills basically have the same attributes, but unlike the other 2 skills, 1 of these skills is the stealing skill and the other is the weakening skill.

The way to get these skills is also easy, just cross the starting line once then you can get a chance to take a wooden slip, in the bowl also not only contains skill wooden slips, but also empty wooden slips, if someone who accidentally takes it must repeat the round to be able to take one of the 18 wooden slips again, so the ratio of getting a skill is 1:3.

"Haha... mom is amused by this, Ao Nan, how about you introduce this game to the rest of the family" said Ao Mei's aunt with a big smile.

"That's what I thought mom, everyone should have the same fun" replied Ao Nan.

"Father and son are the same" said Ao Mei's aunt, Wu Liang only listened to the conversation of the two, how also Wu Liang had felt the warmth of a mother from Ao Mei's aunt, when Wu Liang was a baby, Ao Mei's aunt took care of him together with Ao Nan, the two of them became directly breastfeeding siblings.

"I'm hungry, let's eat first, ahh it's so cloudy that I don't know if it's evening time or not?" Auntie Ao Mei muttered as she got up from her chair and walked to the back where Ao Nan was sitting.

In the center of this room is a table with four chairs, there used to be only three edges after the fate of circumstances said otherwise, finally one more chair was made by uncle Ao Qi for Wu Liang.

Behind Ao Nan's seat is now a wooden cupboard where bowls, plates, cups, all made of wood, and bread are stored.

Note that all the buildings in the Wu village use the same methods and blueprints, so all the buildings have the same form and content, preserving the heritage of the ancestors.

However, there are some houses that have additional parts to them, for example Huang Xie's aunt's house, which has an additional room on the right side of the house to produce bread, and Shang Wei's grandmother, whose living room is twice as big as the others because it is used to produce clothes.

Today, in the afternoon, the day continued to be filled with drizzling rain, overcast clouds, and thunder and lightning storms that continued to display the fierceness of the wild land.

In the wheat field.

"Argh it's finally over, Lin Wen really reject me, even though I'm older and more honorable than him, isn't helping me the same as helping the ancestors, how can he pass up this glorious duty?" said grandpa Zhou.

His old face wasn't as wrinkled as Ming Qi's, but Grandpa Zhou's face had a few small black spots like pimples on his right and left cheeks, blending in with his aging white beard and wind-blown sideburns.

Likewise with his clothes, it's just that they're not as strong as his beard, because now his clothes are dirty and wet, in the remaining time of the afternoon he does his work alone.

Grandpa Zhou Huan is the only one in the family who is rarely helped, not only because he is sentimental, tendentious, he is also easy to make people angry, belittles the kindness of other families, likes to insult from behind, even so he is still seen as an old man in the Wu tribe village.

His negative behavior is not without reason, it happened because his son Wu Zhou Rui ran away from the village at night, before Zhou Rui's escape, he had made a request to the elders of the Meeting Hall so that he could leave the village to seek experience.

But unfortunately the elders of the Meeting Hall rejected his proposal, as a result Zhou Rui ran away with the minimum preparations, the incident occurred during the rainy period, so because of the rain it obviously made the river in the second layer forest overflow and of course the situation became dangerous.

But I don't know what Zhou Rui was thinking, he was desperate to run away at night, and a stroke of luck came to him, the day was slightly cloudy and the full moon was brightly illuminating a beautiful night accompanied by twinkling stars in the sky.

It was like fate was leading him, like a path had been specially prepared for him, but who knows what kind of fate? This is life, man plans but fate decides.

Grandpa Zhou was now alone in the wheat field, he just cut his share then arranged and stacked it neatly on the corner of the fence nearby, while doing his share in the cold drizzling rain, he asked questions in his mind, questions that he asked every day.

Why wasn't his son Zhou Rui picked up? Or at least chase after him?

Running away is definitely not a good action, especially running away from the family that has taken care of him so well since childhood.

The proposal about Zhou's grandfather's request to find his son was rejected by Huang's grandfather, making Zhou's grandfather hate the Huang family, and will continue to hate him for the rest of his life until his son returns, even though he himself can live on the bread made by Huang's aunt Xie.

This hatred of his had been lodged in his soul, kept far away, hiding his ill intentions, but what power did he have? He was now just an old grandfather, even so he was still considered capable of taking care of a part of the wheat field.

"Grandpa Zhou?" shouted Lin Wen's uncle outside the field, his voice mingling with the drizzling rain and the sound of friction between the tall wheat grass.

Grandpa Zhou is old, of course his hearing acuity is reduced, especially in these drizzly and windy conditions.

"Grandpa Zhou!!!" Uncle Lin Wen shouted once again while approaching the part of the field where uncle Zhou was.

"Huh? What!" replied Grandpa Zhou in a slightly hoarse voice, his eyes narrowed, and he wiped his dirty hands on his clothes, getting rid of the muddy soil stains and small pieces of wheat grass that were stuck.

"Grandpa Zhou, let's go back, I'll help you lift that one" said uncle Lin Wen while wiping his face from the raindrops that gathered on his face.

Uncle Lin Wen, a person not much different from uncle Ao Qi, with his thin mustache, has a clean and well-proportioned chin, is kind and caring towards the whole family, no matter how good or bad the family he is dealing with.

"Hahaha you finally came, you should have come earlier Lin Wen" said grandpa Zhou.

"Uncle don't be like that, let's just go back" Lin Wen's uncle replied.

"Huh, you're wasting my precious time" said Grandpa Zhou.

The two of them finally returned amidst the drizzling rain and cold wind that penetrated their clothes, under the dark clouds fortunately the heavy rain did not participate in this day.