31: Chapter 31 Vacation Time_1 31: Chapter 31 Vacation Time_1 Yan Fei went out to meet Yang Qian, but there was nothing really to discuss.
The kid had come with Jiao Bing just to dig up some gossip.
They hadn’t seen the fight that had happened earlier and were now looking for information.
These two didn’t even know that Yan Fei had been involved in the fight.
Yan Fei fobbed them off with a few random sentences and sent them on their way.
As he turned around, he saw Yang Yang standing behind him, staring at him with wide eyes.
“How could you hit someone like that just now?”
“Well, what should I have done?”
well, you shouldn’t have hit anyone, right?
I haven’t seen you fight before when people insulted you.”
“…” Yan Fei was speechless.
He decided to ignore her and went into the classroom past her.
As soon as he entered the classroom, it suddenly went quiet.
It was eerie having over a hundred students silent all at once.
When Yan Fei made his way to his seat, sounds of conversation slowly filled the classroom again.
Xie Dang’en told him the reason: “Did you know?
When you kicked that stool flying, you broke one of its legs!”
Yan Fei said it looked fine to him earlier.
But after Xie Dang’en explained it with a demonstration, he understood that he hadn’t broken the leg of the stool per se, he had damaged the place where the leg joined the seat.
A part of the leg had been sawed off to fit into the seat—it was a place that was vulnerable to begin with.
It would have deteriorated over time even without being kicked.
Half of the next class was about holiday disciplinary rules and safety.
This was about the “harvest vacation”, a holiday that would soon be phased out.
The timing wasn’t fixed; it was usually based on when local crops like soybeans and corn were harvested.
It could be as short as seven or eight days or as long as half a month.
This year, it coincided with National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and these holidays were bundled together.
No matter what the justification, a holiday for these students meant absolute freedom.
Yan Fei had been looking forward to this vacation for a long time.
After the harvest vacation, there wouldn’t be any crops left in the fields.
The wide-open plains would be unobstructed, and he wouldn’t have to worry about damaging crops or encountering rabbits or fowl hiding there while practicing flying.
Thinking about all those rabbits and wild chickens with nowhere to hide made Yan Fei happy.
And this period of no shelter for them would last until the wheat seedlings grew back in the spring.
For Yan Fei, each rabbit or wild chicken was equivalent to 25 yuan.
Four of them would be a hundred yuan note…
No wonder they mention “golden” autumn in books all the time.
After the holiday came the National Day.
Yan Fei waited for his parents and younger brother to return, and they all went back to their hometown together.
At this time, it was the season of the autumn harvest, and basically everyone who wasn’t home returned to help with the harvesting.
Even those who couldn’t help came back.
For example, the entire Yan family.
The Yan family’s relatives in their old hometown were quite far away, so they just took some gifts and made a round of visits.
They mainly visited Yanfei’s mom’s side in Shanglin Village.
After they went back, they were warmly welcomed.
But everyone was really busy.
Of the family of four, Yanfei’s mom was the only one who could help with some farm work.
But as a married daughter returning home, they wouldn’t let her do too much.
Yanfei’s dad was a hindrance in the fields.
The only thing he could do was look after the children.
Yan Fei was better than his dad.
He could do a bit of work and deliver tea.
In that respect, he was better than his dad who couldn’t even handle an old-fashioned stove properly.
Practically speaking, the family had just come back to visit.
The little work they did was not even enough to cause trouble.
By the evening, all the soybeans had been harvested and brought into the threshing ground, and the place became lively after dinner.
Actually, the threshing ground was the martial arts training ground for Shanglin Village during periods of slack farming.
That night, Yan Fei performed his Kung Fu skills at the request of his mother to her father.
Yan Fei’s grandfather, Elder Lin, and a bunch of other seniors, were excited by the performance.
Unfortunately, Yan Fei wasn’t interested in whatever they were saying, he was just waiting to go home and transform into a Pterosaur to practice his flying in the middle of the night.
“That’s right, Xiao Fei’s Kung Fu skills are real.
A few days ago in school, he didn’t even need to use his hands…” a female voice faintly spread through the crowd, and Yan Fei, who had been calm in the midst of people, suddenly changed his expression.
“Umm …” The girl suddenly stopped speaking, a boy exclaimed:”Xiao Fei in school can even pull off several consecutive somersaults without his hands, he’s so cool …”
Yan Fei understood this time, the boy’s voice was his cousin Lin Dahuo, and the voice before was his cousin Lin Lingling.
Already drenched in cold sweat, Yan Fei took advantage of the fact that the people around him weren’t paying attention and hurried over.
The group was made up of the young teenagers of the village, mostly boys, a few girls; Lin Lingling and Lin Dahuo were among them.
Without saying a word, Yan Fei dashed over.
Taking advantage of the darkness, which made it harder for the adults to see, he saluted the group with folded fists: “Dear brothers and sisters, please let me off…”
A group of teenagers immediately let out exaggerated laughter.
In school, Yan Fei would arrive only when the bell rang and left as soon as school was over.
Although most of these teenagers were junior high school students and didn’t spend much time with Yan Fei, they probably had heard of his “heroic deeds”.
Lin Lingling was about to bring up the time he got into a fight at school, but Lin Dahuo promptly interrupted her.
This group, mostly having practiced martial arts, were not what you’d call modest.
Especially the boys, they fought a lot when they were kids, it was practically a rite of passage.
Some things were better left unsaid, and their parents usually turned a blind eye.
But sometimes, the girls would slip up and inadvertently betray their own.
Amidst the crowd’s cheers, Yan Fei willingly performed a series of somersaults.
The whole family was set to return home the following afternoon.
Staying in the village wouldn’t be of much help, plus Yan Fei’s parents had work to get back to.
It was impossible not to return with more baggage than when they came.
Bags full of grains, vegetables, sweet potatoes, their own homemade vegetable oil, cornmeal, etc., there was never an end to the stuff you could take back.
Once back home, Yan Fei had no trouble convincing his parents to let him stay at home alone.
He was now truly on “vacation” after his parents left.
Next door, Miss Xu Xiaoyan, being a third-year high school student, had quite essentially said goodbye to all her vacations.
She had spent her vacations in the two days when Yan Fei was not at home, and just as Yan Fei returned, she was leaving.
The fields, once full of crops, had seemingly overnight turned into a vast expanse of black and yellow soil.
Farmers were working everywhere, and groups of children were running around catching crickets.
This was a great season for catching crickets.
Lift the fallen cornstalks, and a countless number of crickets would scuttle out.
After catching them, they would pierce through the back of the cricket’s shell with a grass stalk, threading them into a string in no time.
After getting home, a little clean up followed by frying would turn these into an exquisite delicacy.
Occasionally, a wild rabbit could be seen darting out in broad daylight, inciting excited shouting from the crowd — but who could actually catch a rabbit by foot?
As smoke began to rise in the distant village, the farmers started calling their crazed children back home, loading up their hand-pulled carts, tractors, ox carts, and donkey carts.
The vehicles practically groaned under the weight of the harvest and moved at a leisurely pace towards home.
When night falls, and the bright moon rises in the sky, the reinvigorated Compsognathus set out once again.