Chapter 28p2
After Wang Zhizhi left, Cheng Tingyan squeezed the chubby paw in her hand. “This is the secret you discovered, why should Wang Zhizhi share with me when he finds something? I don’t want it.”
“Yan Yan…”
The little chubby bunny’s raised face was full of grievance, Cheng Tingyan felt like something had hit her heart.
“I don’t want it…” Cheng Tingyan hardened her heart.
“Yan Yan… my hand is red, can you rub it for me?” After playing the grievance card, Wei Maomao switched to acting cute.
Cheng Tingyan didn’t say anything, but her hand automatically started to massage the chubby paw.
“If you’re massaging my hand, you can’t dig for treasure. It’s all my fault, I’m a burden…” Wei Maomao whispered.
“…” Cheng Tingyan looked down at the chubby paw in her hand and subtly switched to massaging the other one.
Apart from being a bit muddy, the two chubby paws weren’t red at all.
The ones that were red were…
Cheng Tingyan turned her palm over, it was her own hands that were red.
“Yan Yan, have you forgotten, the treasures you share are for me to exchange for popcorn?” Wei Maomao asked weakly.
“Oh, right!” Cheng Tingyan was stunned, that’s right, the things she shared were all for buying popcorn for the little chubby bunny, why wouldn’t she want them?
Wait… then what about the little chubby bunny’s share… Cheng Tingyan looked at Wei Maomao.
Wei Maomao pretended to be shocked. “Yan Yan, you wouldn’t stop me from sharing just because what I get is for buying you things, would you? I don’t want to dig anymore!”
“…” Cheng Tingyan’s little plan was overturned.
“So can we share half of the treasures they find?” Wei Maomao asked weakly again.
“They?” Cheng Tingyan suddenly realized something was wrong.
“Yes, they.” As they spoke, Wei Maomao had already pulled her to Wen Jiangyue’s side.
Wen Jiangyue, then Wen Dongyu, and finally Shen Zilin.
By the time they finished talking to Shen Zilin, Wang Zhizhi, who was the first to make a deal with Wei Maomao, had already dug up another mystery treasure.
“Am I the last one you told?” Shen Zilin looked around and saw that the other children had all changed their locations, seemingly still searching for something.
Wei Maomao nodded. “Good luck!”
“… Why am I the last one?” Shen Zilin didn’t rush off, he asked with a slightly hurt tone.
“Because you’re the farthest from me…” Wei Maomao gestured with her hand. “This is how I walked over.”
Shen Zilin: “…”
As Shen Zilin ran away awkwardly, Wei Maomao finally completed her treasure hunt.
“Yan Yan, shall we go rest over there? Ming Ming brought us water.” Wei Maomao gently tugged at Cheng Tingyan’s hand.
Cheng Tingyan was speechless. She had originally thought Wei Maomao would only ask Wang Zhizhi to help her dig, but she ended up informing everyone. Now that they were going to rest, the treasures the remaining children dug up would all be shared with them… Cheng Tingyan had never seen or heard of such a move.
But looking at the dirty little chubby bunny beside her, who was beaming with happiness because they could rest, walking with a spring in her step, swinging her arms and skipping, Cheng Tingyan felt that it was quite good, as long as Maomao was happy.
Just…
How did her dress get so dirty…
Cheng Tingyan couldn’t resist and patted her a couple more times.
“Ahhhh!” The startled dirty chubby bunny dashed away.
Cheng Tingyan: “…”
And in fact, Cheng Tingyan wasn’t the only one who was left speechless by Wei Maomao’s actions.
“Alright, our Boss Mao has completed her recruitment, now let’s witness the rise of a new tycoon!”
“Hahaha, this is hilarious, the children are so cute, they believed whatever Maomao said, they’re now working as surrogate diggers, not even bargaining!”
“I think the fifty-fifty split is quite fair, one contributes brains, the other contributes labor, our little Maomao is so smart!”
“I’m dying of laughter, our Boss Mao really worked hard, when she was starting from scratch, she didn’t even cry when she fell! She quietly got up, patted her dress, and continued working hard!”
“But when it comes to being smart, Rongrong is still the smartest. She was the first to dig up a treasure and the luckiest, and she was probably the first to discover the pattern of the broken red bricks, she’s almost dug up her third box now.”
“Indeed, Maomao probably also guessed that the broken red bricks were markers from the trash left behind by Rongrong. But Maomao is still smart, if it were me, I would have probably failed at the first step, I wouldn’t even look at the places Rongrong had dug, hahaha!”
“I don’t think those red brick fragments are much bigger than a fingernail, it’s normal to have them in the field. If it were me, I wouldn’t have thought of them as markers. They couldn’t have been left there specifically for the children to discover the treasure pattern, right? I feel like they are markers for the staff themselves, for easier retrieval of the boxes?”
“The boxes are all locked, I really want to see what’s inside! They’ll probably be opened together when the time is up, right? Why hasn’t this hour passed yet!”
“I also think it’s for easier retrieval. This looks like a field where the villagers can still grow things, right? The Baby Coins and treasure boxes that the children didn’t dig up, the program team will probably dig them up before they leave.”
“So our Maomao discovered a bug, hahaha!”
“Technically, Rongrong was the first to discover it, wasn’t she?”
“Right, to be fair, Rongrong was the first to discover it. But I still like Maomao, it’s better to be happy together than happy alone, hahaha! Rongrong just dug by herself.”
“Maomao is just being lazy, wanting half of other people’s findings, she’s essentially the same as Rongrong.”
“??? They’re very different, okay? Without Maomao, the others definitely wouldn’t be able to dig up so many treasures, it’s a win for them to get half after digging. And Maomao is truly good to Yan Yan, she immediately let Yan Yan experience the joy of finding treasures after discovering the secret~~~”
“And then protected Yan Yan after she had her fun and found four workers, hahahahaha!”
“Hahaha, I’m dying of laughter, that’s just like you! The chubby bunny who likes older sisters!”
“The funniest thing is that Maomao jumped away like her butt was on fire after being patted twice by Yan Yan, you can really feel her shyness through the screen, hahaha!”
“Hahaha, she really looks like a little ball, flying away with a ‘biu’ every time she’s patted, hahaha!”
…
Back in the field, Wei Maomao, after being caught by Liu Ming and having her hands and face washed in a basin along with Cheng Tingyan, was taking a few sips from her water bottle when Yang Ning announced that Wen Dongyu had also dug up a treasure, followed by Cheng Rongrong, Shen Zilin, and Wen Jiangyue…
The treasures that had only appeared twice in half an hour suddenly became as common as cabbages in the field.
Yang Ning was the poor cabbage carrier, either hands were being raised on this side, or she was being called from that side, she walked back and forth across the field, couldn’t help but cast a resentful look at Wei Maomao, who was sitting on a small stool by the edge of the field, sucking on her water bottle.
But Wei Maomao, who was busy massaging Cheng Tingyan’s hands in return, didn’t notice at all because she was too far away.
And she also didn’t notice the gaze from Cheng Rongrong.
In the original novel, there was also a treasure hunt segment, but instead of burying Baby Coins, they directly buried snacks, toys, and various surprises in small wooden boxes. To facilitate retrieval for the program team, they had marked the spots by sticking a different type of grass with wider leaves than the weeds in the field into the soil. At first glance, all grass looked similar, the program team thought the children wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But it would be easy to distinguish when the program team went to retrieve the boxes. However, the program team didn’t expect to encounter Cheng Tingyan. In the original novel, Cheng Tingyan had good luck and dug up a box not long after entering the field, then she keenly noticed that the grass that came out with the soil… its roots were already broken, it wasn’t originally growing in this field.
The rest was history, after experimenting with two more spots with wider-leaved grass and confirming her findings, Cheng Tingyan quickly told all the other children, and the whole field had a bumper harvest! Intelligence, wit, kindness, generosity… Many positive qualities were once again gathered in the heroine, further deepening the bond between her and her friends.
This time, Cheng Rongrong was here, Cheng Tingyan’s custody had been transferred to the Cheng family, and more money couldn’t be sent to Liu Qiongfang. Liu Qiongfang didn’t have the money to move to the better neighborhood mentioned in the original novel, and even though Cheng Tingyan often visited her, she didn’t have the chance to meet the neighbor grandma who loved gardening in the original novel, and she couldn’t learn more about plants.
But this wasn’t enough for Cheng Rongrong.
Cheng Rongrong had prepared for this show for a long time, prepared a lot. She even contacted a staff member of the program team using an anonymous number, mentioning some hidden details from the original novel and making some deals.
But maybe because she had done too much, had flapped the butterfly’s wings too many times, some parts of the original novel had changed, and the information she provided lost its accuracy. Before the filming started, the staff member stopped contacting her anonymous number. But after entering the field and seeing the broken red bricks, Cheng Rongrong knew that they had indeed listened to her request and replaced the wider-leaved grass markers with more inconspicuous broken red bricks.
As for why there were these Baby Coins, which didn’t exist in the original novel, Cheng Rongrong was a bit puzzled. Maybe it was also a consequence of the butterfly effect. But as long as the general direction was correct, it was fine.
Cheng Rongrong really couldn’t understand how things had turned out this way…
It had gone smoothly at first. She had rushed into the field and found a small piece of broken red brick embedded in the ground not far away. To be safe, she pretended to dig around the red brick for a while, and after finding a Baby Coin, she slowly moved her shovel towards the red brick, and as expected, she dug up a treasure box.
She observed and found that everyone basically stayed in the same spot after they started digging. To reasonably search for the next red brick fragment, she specifically ran back to the edge of the field and handed the treasure box to Yang Ning. Then, naturally, she changed her location on her way back to the field, stopping at another spot with a red brick fragment.
Dig for Baby Coins for a while, then dig up a treasure box, hand it over, change locations… Everything was going smoothly, except for the fact that her three-and-a-half-year-old body was too weak, making the digging slow.
When did things start to go wrong…
When Wang Zhizhi dug up a treasure box almost half an hour in, Cheng Rongrong still thought it was normal, after all, so much time had passed, it was normal for one or two boxes to appear on the others’ side by chance.
So when Cheng Tingyan also dug up a treasure box shortly after, Cheng Rongrong still didn’t think much of it.
Then it seemed like something started to be off…
First, there were chaotic footsteps in the field, then the sound of shovels nearby. When Cheng Rongrong sensed something was wrong and looked up, Wang Zhizhi, Wen Jiangyue, and Wen Dongyu had already changed their locations and were digging elsewhere, while Cheng Tingyan and Wei Maomao were talking to Shen Zilin in the distance.
Before she could think too much, Wang Zhizhi not far away raised a box, then Shen Zilin started running all over the field…
Then it became completely chaotic, Cheng Rongrong hadn’t even finished digging up the box she had been working on for a while when Wen Dongyu dug up another treasure box, then Shen Zilin…
Cheng Rongrong didn’t look for a fourth box to dig, she realized with fear that the actions of these people and the continuous appearance of treasure boxes all indicated one thing, they had discovered the secret of the broken red bricks.
How could this be!
How was this possible…
Those brick fragments were so inconspicuous! Much more so than the grass!
Was it… Cheng Tingyan…
Cheng Rongrong, thinking of how Shen Zilin had started running after talking to Cheng Tingyan and Wei Maomao, couldn’t help but look at Cheng Tingyan, who was already resting outside the field.
Impossible, she was working so hard, how could it still be like this!
She had planned it all out, she would dig up three or four boxes, then announce it, claim this pattern as her own discovery. Wasn’t it the same in the original novel… Cheng Tingyan had also dug up three blades of grass to confirm the pattern before telling the others!
She was just weaker and slower at digging! She was just being cautious because they were live on air, so she had used digging up Baby Coins as a cover for a while!
Well, she should have spoken up after digging up two boxes, knowing that she was slow. But who told those people to talk behind her back at the convenience store… Cheng Rongrong was a bit angry, thinking she had to dig up at least a third one, to be ahead of them before making the announcement.
But she only thought about delaying it a little, to ensure that she would have the most treasures in the end, she never intended not to tell them.
Now, how did she get into this predicament!
Cheng Rongrong lowered her head, pretending to continue digging for Baby Coins. She knew that she had lost the opportunity to tell the others about the broken red bricks. Everyone knew, everyone was digging them up, if she said it now, no one would believe she had intended to tell them in the first place.
She now had only two choices. One was to act surprised, ask someone, and join their secret. The other was to pretend she hadn’t noticed the commotion in the field. But both choices had a common prerequisite, the three treasure boxes she had dug up earlier could only be attributed to her good luck, not to her discovering the pattern…
But, three… would anyone believe it…
Definitely no one would believe it, otherwise, why didn’t anyone tell her when they all knew about the broken red bricks?
Cheng Rongrong pondered, digging randomly as a cover, when a small patch of red suddenly appeared before her, startling her into moving her shovel away.
That was close, how could there be a broken red brick so close? Cheng Rongrong tried to discreetly dig in other places, then a pair of feet appeared in front of her.
Cheng Rongrong looked up, it was Wang Zhizhi… He was looking at the small red brick fragment she had almost dug up just now!
Right, he was here to dig for the red brick fragments.
Dig quickly, dig in front of me, dig it up, then I can praise you and ask you why you’re so amazing! Then I can learn from you…
Cheng Rongrong’s beautiful imagination was cut short by Wang Zhizhi giving her a strange look and then turning away coldly.
How could there be such a person! I’m a second child! But not your family’s second child! Was it necessary to be like this!
Cheng Rongrong complained internally.
But she didn’t know that Wang Zhizhi, walking away, was secretly relieved.
Tsk, second children were truly annoying, those eyes looked exactly like Zeng Yongming’s from kindergarten. That’s how his eyes looked, scary and burning, when he tricked his brother into eating bread with a caterpillar in it.
Cheng Rongrong, hurt by Wang Zhizhi, finally gave up on the idea of pretending to be impressed and asking someone.
To be safe, she would just pretend the previous three boxes were all due to her luck, and then when someone brought it up, she could play the victim who was being excluded.
The remaining time passed quickly as the children cleared all the red brick fragments from the field, dug for some more Baby Coins, and then ran out of time.
Yang Ning hammered her sore legs, took a few gulps of water, and called the children over for the final tally.
“Shall we look at the Baby Coins you dug up first, or shall we open our treasures first?” Yang Ning smiled.
“Treasures!”
The children shouted in unison.
“Alright, I’ve kept all the treasures you dug up here, look, they even have your last names written on them. Which one shall we open first?” Yang Ning pointed at the row of boxes on the ground.
Several gazes fell on Cheng Rongrong, who had dug up the first treasure box, but she didn’t say anything, looking at the more than ten boxes lined up on the ground.
“Let’s open mine first, the first one I dug up.” Wang Zhizhi stepped forward and then turned to Wei Maomao. “The first one I dug up was all by myself, the treasures inside are all mine, mine alone, I don’t have to share them with you.”
Wei Maomao nodded.
Cheng Rongrong: ??? What sharing? This is strange, wait, let’s see what happens…
“Then let’s open Wang Zhizhi’s mystery treasure box first.” Yang Ning picked up the box labeled “Wang 1” and said while unlocking it, “This is the first one you dug up. Congratulations to our Wang Zhizhi, you have won… [A kiss from Daddy]!”
Yang Ning smiled and raised the card in her hand.
Wang Zhizhi: …
“Pfft… hahaha…” Wei Maomao really couldn’t hold it back.
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