Chapter 136
Su Tang looked over and immediately pointed to the location that the orange cat had pointed out and shouted, "Fuhua, check there!"
The water of the river was very cold and Su Fuhua had already dived in several times to search, so he was freezing and nearly to the point where he couldn't hold on anymore. So when he suddenly heard Su Tang's shout, his mind was too muddled to process what was going on properly or question why Su Tang would say that, and he just directly jumped to the place where she indicated.
However, the other people on the bank all sent accusing glares at Su Tang. It was already such a tense situation so why was this little girl adding to the confusion?
But it wasn't long before Su Fuhua remerged, this time carrying a person! It was the girl from the Zhou family who had fallen in!
Zhou Xiaocao was actually very lucky that when she fell through the ice there were other people nearby and it wasn't long before someone went down to fish her up. And, because of that luck, when she was pulled back to the shore she was trembling and a bit blue but still very much alive.
Su Fuhua gently laid Zhou Xiaocao flat on the ground, and as soon as her mother Madam Yang saw her daughter like this, she leaped over and cried, "Xiaocao, my Xiaocao!"
Su Tang felt that her reaction was a bit exaggerated. This Xiaocao had fallen into the water, true, but it hadn't been very long before she was fished up. At most she had choked down a few mouthfuls of water, it wasn't enough to cry over.
When she saw there was nothing seriously wrong with the girl, Su Tang didn't care about the situation anymore and took her basket to go find a spot to 'fish'.
Madam Yang held Zhou Xiaocao in her arms and cried, until suddenly she coughed and spit out water. Seeing that, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Hm, it's good that you fished her up so quickly. Otherwise, it's really hard to say what might have happened."
"Yeah, it's all thanks to Su Fuhua!" Everyone looked over at Su Fuhua with warm eyes.
But, as a result, they all saw Su Fuhua still had his eyes locked on the small form of Su Tang, who was busy fishing, and when they saw that they all seemed to remember something. Just now, hadn't Su Fuhua had dived down to search several times but never found anything, but then Su Tang pointed to a place and he was immediately able to fish the person up?
With that thought in mind, they all looked over curiously at Su Tang. They saw her stand on the bank and throw the basket down into a spot where the water wasn't frozen, then she just quietly waited for a while. Before long, she pulled the bamboo basket up, and there was a grass carp, a herring, and two crucian carps inside.
Then, after she put all the fish into the wooden bucket next to her, Su Tang went down to toss the bamboo basket into the river again. Having done that, she happened to look up she see the whole group of people all staring at her, she frowned and asked: "What is it?"
Su Fu'an and Su Fuhua were a bit stunned. It seemed that the girl in front of them had finally been eating enough these days, because her originally thin and yellow face had fleshed out a bit, and seemed more pale and delicate. On top of that, she was dressed in plain white which somehow seemed to make her stand out against the darkness of the night all the more, like some sort of fairy.
The two brothers on the bank, Su Fu'an and Su Fuhua, who had relatively more communication with Su Tang and her brother than the other villagers, couldn't help but have some strange thoughts seeing this scene. As if, perhaps, this girl really had met the River God back then and now she was different because of it.
However, Su Tang didn't care about what anyone else thought. She had known since the time since she and her brother had been sacrificed to the River God that other people would always look at them strangely. The only reason she intervened this time was that she knew that if she didn't point out where Xiaocao had fallen there was no way the people searching would have found the girl in time to save her on their own.
Although she wasn't some sort of saintly second coming of the Virgin Mary, she wouldn't go so far as to just watch coldly from the side as someone died, which was why she had just casually lent a small hand.
"It's nothing. I just wanted to thank you, Aunt Tang, for pointing out the place for us." Su Fu'an eventually just gave Su Tang his thanks.
"En, it wasn't much." Su Tang replied casually before turning back to pull up the bamboo basket she had just dropped in the river.
And, sure enough, there were two more herring and a grass carp inside the bamboo basket. At the point Su Tang felt she had 'fished' enough for one day, so she didn't move to put the basket back into the water, instead, she began to pack up and get ready to leave with her basket and bucket of fish.
As she passed by the group of people who were still standing on the river bank dazedly, Su Tang wondered aloud, "Aren't you all going to head back? Don't you feel cold?"
Although most of this group were big strong men, they were mostly drenched with water from the freezing river but, despite that, they were all just standing around foolishly. Didn't they feel cold?
Chapter 137
Su Tang was just genuinely confused, however, in the eyes of the people she was addressing her eyes seemed to shine strangely in the dim light of the moon, and they couldn't help but tremble as they responded: "We're going back, we're going back right away!"
With that, they all ran away in a hurry. Su Tang watched as they all scattered in fear, smiled wryly, and then put the fish she had just 'fished' back into the space before slowly continuing on home.
'Those people were so scared, they might freak out now.' The orange cat followed alongside Su Tang and gloated.
'It's not like their fear hurts me any.' Su Tang replied with a thin smile. She didn't care much about what the people in Sujia Village thought of her. If they were worried about her 'adverse fate' and felt afraid of her, it would probably just save her some troubles in the long run.
'I want to eat fish balls!' The orange cat obviously didn't have much interest two-legged beasts other than Su Tang, so it quickly changed the topic to food.
Su Tang rolled her eyes. "You always claim to be some sort of Divine Beast, so why do I only see a big orange cat?! Tsk."
'Meow...' A certain Divine Beast protested. Hadn't he already told her many times? He was definitely not a cat, he was a Divine Beast and the guardian of the space!
However, Su Tang paid no mind to the orange cat's thoughts, she just scratched his ears and said, "I'll make some for you later tonight."
Su Tang didn't think much of what had happened earlier and didn't even tell Su Nuo about it when she got back. She just continued to do what she needed to do one step at a time.
Meanwhile, Su Fu'an and Su Fuhua went home. Madam Tong saw that her husband was all wet, so she quickly found a change of clothes for Su Fuhua before hurriedly bringing over some warm water with ginger that she had boiled just now.
While his brother was warming up, Su Fu'an went directly into the main room to see his parents Su Yongshun and Madam Qin but, as it happened, Su Nuan and Madam Wen were also in the main room. When she saw him coming in, Madam Wen quickly stood up and began asking, "You came back so early, was that poor girl fished up? Was everything alright?"
Su Fu'an took the warm water Madam Wen gave him, drank it in one gulp and, after he felt a bit warmer, he began to explain about what had happened earlier. "...the person was saved and she's fine now. I think she only ended up being underwater for a few minutes, but if not for Aunt Tang..."
When Su Yongshun and Madam Qin heard their son report that Su Tang had accurately pointed out the place to dive so they could rescue the person, they both looked very surprised. Eventually, Su Yongshun sighed and said, "Hm, that girl is very kind."
Madam Qin nodded along. "Mhm, that was good of her. If she hadn't said anything, who knows what would have happened..."
Su Tang and her brother had been sacrificed to the River God before and then returned, and even that much was a lot of trouble for them. But now Su Tang seemed to be so mysterious, and she also still had her adverse fate, so Su Yongshun was a bit afraid that even less people would dare to approach her once word of this incident got out.
"Anyway, no matter what other people think, our family can never separate ourselves from the debt we owe to Su Laochaun's household. That girl Su Tang has a good heart, so don't do anything that would make it turn cold." Su Yongshun warned his children seriously.
Just then, Su Fuhua walked into the main room as well and said, "Mom and Dad, I feel the same way. After all, it's said that a person will receive blessings after surviving a great disaster, so I think Aunt Tang is probably just blessed now, after her near brush with death."
"All of us villagers fish on the river but she's the only one who is able to fish up the fish every time she throws her basket, to the point that it seems she can bring them up at will. I personally think that, although the River God rebuffed them, he might have given them some sort of blessing in exchange. In any case, at the end of the day, those two are people who have personally met the River God."
Su Fuhua wasn't just talking about how he had seen Su Tang fishing today when he said that. In fact, Su Tang had told them a long time ago that she was fishing so she could sell the fish in town to make a living so they were all aware that she often went to fish on the river. However, Su Fuhua also made his living on the river, which meant that he had bumped into Su Tang when she was fishing several times before, and every time he met her, he always had the impression that fishing was actually very easy for her.
Normally people had to spend a lot of time fishing every day, and even then they might not get any fish at all, but, on the contrary, Su Tang seemed to be able to catch fish very quickly and easily. On top of that, today Su Tang had very accurately pointed out where Zhou Xiaocao had fallen through the ice with ease, so Su Fuhua felt that she definitely had an unusual, or maybe even supernatural, talent.
Of course, since Su Yongshun's family had deduced this far, naturally the other villagers would be able to think of the same thing. Like that, in one night, what Su Tang had done at the river bank had spread to every corner of Sujia Village.