Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Gang Gye carefully went over the people he had met and the things that had happened in his memories.

But the original owner of this body had only been around four years old.

Expecting a child that young to have a wealth of experiences was asking too much.

Just then, faint laughter from Howa and the others drifted over from somewhere in the distance.

An idea suddenly flashed through Gang Gye's mind.

If he used that properly...

It might work.

Gang Gye relaxed his body and shouted toward the slope above.

"Brother Howa, are you up there?"

The noise from above quieted for a moment.

Then a cheerful voice called back,

"Little Six, we're on the grassy slope up here. Do you want to come?"

Gang Gye shouted,

"I'm coming! Brother, you have to wait for me!"

"Of course!"

Howa yelled back.

"I won't move from here, so hurry up!"

Gang Gye answered once more,

"Okay!"

Then he started climbing the slope.

The distance itself wasn't very far.

But to a tiny dumpling like Gang Gye, it felt incredibly long.

By the time he reached the others, he was already sweating.

The children shouted the moment they saw him.

"Little Six is here!"

"Hurry! We're going to see who's best with a slingshot!"

The children still hadn't given up on their dream of hunting chickens and rabbits with slingshots.

Unfortunately, the place where they grazed the ox was near the field paths.

People came and went all the time, so there were hardly any wild animals nearby.

But so what if there were no animals?

They could still practice first.

That way, when they finally found a chicken someday, they wouldn't miss and let it escape.

Gang Gye strongly agreed with that logic and joined the slingshot competition.

In the end, he couldn't even beat Dohwa.

"..."

Forget it. I'm probably just too young.

There was no fixed destination when the children took the ox out to graze.

They didn't have to follow any particular field path or route.

As long as there was grass, anywhere was fine.

Gang Gye pointed in one direction.

"There seems to be a lot of grass over there. Let's go that way."

Everyone slowly led the ox in the direction Gang Gye indicated while letting it graze.

Eventually, the ox seemed full.

It was time to head home.

The Gang household was downhill.

So naturally, they needed to take the nearest path downward.

Everything unfolded smoothly and naturally.

As they passed the edge of a wooded area on a low hillside, Gang Gye looked inside with apparent curiosity.

"Brother Howa, do you think the seeds we planted here last year have sprouted by now?"

"What seeds?"

Munsaeng asked.

The children didn't always spend every moment together.

Sometimes they played with other village children.

Howa was also a little older than the rest, so he occasionally played with children closer to his own age.

Because of that, Munsaeng didn't know everything that had happened among them.

But Dohwa knew exactly what Gang Gye meant.

She gave a faintly mocking laugh.

"Last year, Brother Howa and Little Six followed Father and Third Uncle when they went to pick up Second Uncle, remember?"

"Brother Howa saw some merchants eating fruit and became completely obsessed with it."

"Then Little Six suggested taking the seeds the merchants threw away and planting them."

"Brother Howa stood right in front of those people waiting, and he even picked up all the discarded fruit peels like they were treasures."

Every year, one person from the household had to perform compulsory labor.

Last year, the person who went was the second son, Munsaeng and Haenghwa's father.

Compulsory labor was exhausting.

But the second son had no intention of spending silver on a carriage for the journey home.

The Gang family had heard news from people returning ahead of him and could roughly estimate when he would arrive.

Old Madam Gang didn't want the second son walking all the way back.

So she had the eldest and third sons take the ox cart to meet him.

It wasn't actually an extremely long journey.

After all, without travel documents or permits, ordinary people couldn't go very far in the first place.

Howa had learned about the trip and made a huge fuss, begging to be taken along so he could see the outside world.

After all the commotion, Gang Gye had also said he wanted to go.

So the two children had been allowed to follow.

As Gang Gye searched through those memories, he suddenly felt once again how much his father truly adored him.

His child had said he wanted to go, and Gang Jo-hang had really taken him.

Howa didn't care about Dohwa teasing him.

He was already used to being mocked by her every day.

Besides, everyone had laughed at him plenty over this incident before.

Now he only became curious.

"Let's go look."

"It's already been a year. Maybe something really grew."

Haenghwa was timid by nature.

"Let's not go, Brother."

"There are graves over there."

"What if someone comes out of one?"

No matter what era one came from, hearing about graves was enough to feel a little creepy.

Howa answered,

"No, the graves are still pretty far away."

"Are you coming or not?"

"If you aren't, I'll go by myself."

With that, Howa walked straight into the trees.

The remaining children stood there, unable to make themselves follow.

Of course, Gang Gye couldn't stay behind.

He needed to bring the onions and cilantro home.

The Attendance System allowed plant-type rewards to be taken out already planted directly in the ground.

Gang Gye had thought of this method after remembering his past experiences outside the village.

He planted the cilantro and onions in the same area where Howa had buried the fruit seeds the previous year.

He intended to make it look as though they had grown from that pile.

There were plenty of weeds there.

Snakes might appear in the tall grass.

There were also graves nearby.

Gang Gye figured no one would deliberately come close.

Even if someone passed by and glanced over, who would remember exactly what weeds had been growing there before?

Ignoring Dohwa shouting behind him, Gang Gye followed Howa.

After thinking for a moment, Dohwa followed Gang Gye too.

Munsaeng and Haenghwa brought the ox along behind them.

When they reached the spot, Gang Gye recognized the onions immediately.

There were only ten of them, so not many.

A little of each bulb was visible above the soil.

The leaves had begun to dry and yellow slightly.

Mixed among waist-high weeds, the onions didn't look out of place at all.

After pushing apart the weeds, Gang Gye saw cilantro growing here and there between them.

The cilantro was growing very thickly.

Some had even already produced seeds.

That was because Gang Gye had received both cilantro and cilantro seeds as rewards.

So all of it could be harvested now.

Since they were supposedly plants Howa had sown last year, it was perfectly natural for some to have grown well while others had already gone to seed.

The onions were more troublesome.

Onions were biennial plants.

Only one year had passed since they were supposedly planted.

So it would be difficult to claim they had already produced seeds like the cilantro.

For now, he would probably have to leave the seed issue alone.

In any case, what he had here was already enough.

Howa rummaged through the weeds and said disappointedly,

"Nothing. Nothing grew."

In fact, Howa had come back once after planting the seeds.

But nothing had sprouted at the time.

After that, he completely forgot about them.

Gang Gye spoke up.

"Brother Howa, it's not true that nothing grew."

"Look here."

"And here too!"

"Huh?"

Howa came closer, but he couldn't tell what was special about them.

"Don't these just look like weeds?"

There were so many kinds of weeds in the countryside that no one could recognize all of them.

But then a flash of purple caught his eye.

Howa immediately became excited.

He grabbed the onion and yanked it from the ground.

His voice trembled with joy.

"Look!"

"The fruit those merchants were eating really sprouted!"

Howa stared excitedly at the "fruit" in his hand.

There was only one small problem.

He couldn't remember at all what the fruit those merchants had been eating actually looked like.

He couldn't even remember how many kinds of fruit they had.

But he clearly remembered that everything the merchants had eaten looked delicious.

And he especially remembered the red fruit one of them had let him taste.

It had been sweet and crisp...

Anyway, it had been extremely delicious.

Remembering that taste, Howa immediately opened his mouth and took a bite.

"...!"

Gang Gye was shocked.

He didn't even have time to stop him.

Neither did the other children.

The next moment, Howa spat everything out.

"Ptooey! Ptooey! This tastes awful!"

He even stuck out his tongue.

It looked as though he could barely endure the taste.

Dohwa smacked him on the back.

"Brother, why do you keep putting random things in your mouth?"

"You don't even know whether this is edible!"

"What if it's poisonous?"

"Grandmother told us not to eat random things from the mountains!"

From Howa's reaction, it was obvious that this wasn't the fruit he had been dreaming about.

Gang Gye quickly agreed.

"Brother Howa, you really shouldn't eat things so carelessly."

"But luckily, this one is edible."

"Edible?"

Dohwa asked in surprise.

"Little Six, do you know what this is?"

"Yeah."

Gang Gye nodded.

"This is something the merchant group used back then."

"They put it into cooked food."

"Like scallions or ginger."

"They said it was really tasty, so I got some from them."

The moment the children heard the comparison to scallions and ginger, they understood.

Eating scallions or ginger by themselves could be unpleasant.

But adding them to food made dishes taste better.

Howa had just suffered from biting into an onion raw, but Gang Gye's explanation immediately restored his excitement.

"This was from those merchants too?"

"They really used this?"

"Did we actually grow something they used?"

Gang Gye nodded confidently.

"Yeah."

"And not just this. That one too."

"I watched the merchant group cooking back then. They used all of these."

At the time, Howa had been too busy watching what the merchants were eating, how delicious it looked, and imagining how good it must taste.

He hadn't paid any attention to how they cooked.

But he didn't doubt Gang Gye.

There was no reason for Little Six to lie about something like this.

After hearing his explanation, the children became interested.

They harvested the onions, cilantro, and cilantro seeds and decided to take everything home.

The children returned home looking as proud as though they had accomplished something enormous.

After tying the ox in the cowshed, they ran toward the house while shouting,

"Grandmother! Grandmother!"

Their reaction alone showed Old Madam Gang's position in the household.

Whenever something happened, or whenever they found something tasty, Grandmother was always the first person they called.

Old Madam Gang heard the children and came outside.

Because the huiyu needed to be ground into powder today, she hadn't gone out to work.

When she stepped outside, she saw her grandchildren carrying armfuls of something.

She couldn't help asking,

"What have you brought back?"

"You can't eat random things from the mountain."

"We didn't."

Howa answered happily.

"Grandmother, look!"

"Remember the things Little Six and I brought back before?"

"The ones we planted?"

"You laughed at me back then, but they grew!"

Howa spoke excitedly, waving his hands and gesturing wildly.

When he pointed in the direction where he had planted the seeds, Old Madam Gang finally understood after a long moment.

"You mean the fruit peels you picked up after the merchant group finished eating?"

"Yes!"

Howa looked immensely proud.

"You laughed at me back then!"

"But if we hadn't planted them, we wouldn't have grown these now!"

Old Madam Gang thought to herself that she had laughed because they had tried to plant not only the seeds, but even the fruit peels.

Still, she put on a more serious expression and carefully examined what the children were holding.

"Then what exactly are these?"

"And what are they used for?"

"Um..."