Ch 11: Those who wronged me are now begging me for mercy

“Dad, I’m Sorry, Dad”

System: Hahaha! Host, I think your card pool might have originated from a marketplace.

Faced with such mockery, Rong Ziyin, the ultimate unlucky draw king, remained calm, his heart completely unruffled. He read the description of the frozen belt fish once more and figured it was some sort of weapon, though he wasn’t sure how effective it would be.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, Rong Ziyin retrieved the belt fish from his system storage.

Immediately, a faint fishy smell permeated the air, and a bone-chilling cold seeped into his palm as he grasped the frozen fish, making his entire arm feel like it was about to freeze solid—just as the item description had stated.

Now it was time to test its actual effect. Rong Ziyin endured the relentless cold emanating from the fish and waved it over the troublesome duck. The once rowdy duck instantly fell silent.

Duck: Dad, I’m sorry.

The effect was immediate and impressive. Unfortunately, it came at a cost—Rong Ziyin’s left hand was now bright red from the cold.

Rong Ziyin: It seems this secret weapon should be used sparingly in the future.

System: … Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Heaven must’ve taken some fake medicine.

Despite everything, the rest of the journey was finally peaceful—at least one good thing happened that day.

Meanwhile, chaos had erupted in the county.

The village chief had initially taken the troublemaker to the women’s federation, not for further questioning, but to get help!

Despite his outwardly simple and steady demeanor, the village chief had the kind of shrewdness that had earned him the respect of the entire village. He had been the village’s guardian for years, a position that required both skill and wisdom.

When Li Tiezhu mentioned that the duck came from the neighboring village, the village chief’s mind started calculating. On the surface, this was just a small feud between two veterinarians, but the village chief knew exactly who Rong Ziyin was.

There was no such thing as a free lunch; why would someone like Rong Ziyin, a top scholar, settle in a small village? Though the village chief wasn’t in the veterinary field, he could guess that Rong Ziyin had likely been sidelined by someone.

However, after observing him for a while, the village chief could see that Rong Ziyin was truly good—both in skill and character, genuinely caring for the villagers. This made the chief inclined to protect him.

It wasn’t because the chief was opportunistic and valued Rong Ziyin’s knowledge but because he cared for the welfare of the entire village.

After all, replacing Rong Ziyin with another veterinarian might not yield someone as knowledgeable or as dedicated. For these reasons, the village chief was determined to support Rong Ziyin.

The incident with Li Tiezhu trying to set up Rong Ziyin was the last straw for the chief.

The villagers worked hard to eke out a living from the land and their livestock. This was their lifeline. The village chief didn’t care about the power struggles happening above him—no one could touch the lifeline of his village.

Cross the line, and you’ll get hit! Even a mighty dragon can’t suppress the local serpent.

So this time, the village chief was determined to help Rong Ziyin establish his authority in the region, to show everyone that as long as Rong Ziyin was in the village’s veterinary station, no one could mess with them.

After leaving the station, the village chief gathered the women from the federation and headed to the county to lodge their complaint.

Normally, he would have gone himself, but he knew that no matter how pitifully he cried, it wouldn’t have the same effect as bringing the women along. After all, women were generally better at expressing grievances.

Now, the county secretary’s office was crowded with people from the village, all there to voice their complaints.

Two of the women, red-eyed and looking incredibly aggrieved, stared pitifully at the young county secretary.

Though they cried pitifully, their words were sharp and to the point, quickly explaining the situation.

“Comrade Leader, our Dr. Rong is young and innocent, completely focused on his research. He doesn’t understand all these schemes and was still trying to treat that duck to prevent it from harming the village.”

“That’s right! Dr. Rong is so dedicated that he even goes out at three or four in the morning to help a sow in labor.”

“Sigh, it’s our fault for being too honest and not daring to handle the situation ourselves. Now we’ve brought it to you, hoping the state and the organization will help us get justice!”

One after another, they sang Rong Ziyin’s praises, placing a metaphorical crown on his head. The county secretary hadn’t even questioned Li Tiezhu and Wang Dazhuang yet, but he was already inclined to side with Rong Ziyin.

He couldn’t help but think that Wang Dazhuang was both foolish and malicious—trying to frame Rong Ziyin and poison the village’s poultry.

“No, that’s not it!” Li Tiezhu and Wang Dazhuang tried desperately to explain.

“Even if it is duck plague, there needs to be evidence—at the very least, some test results! You can’t convict someone just based on a phone call!”

“What? You still want to deny it? Our Dr. Rong is a top scholar! He was a valedictorian, how could he make things up!?” The two women were relentless, not giving them a chance to speak.

The county secretary was intrigued. “A valedictorian?”

“Yes! Dr. Rong was the top scorer in his class in Beijing.”

“That’s impressive!” The county secretary nodded, his opinion of Rong Ziyin improving even more.

What on earth is going on? Does being a top student give you a free pass to do anything? Wang Dazhuang was on the verge of tears. He and Li Tiezhu could only resist, refusing to admit anything.

This made the situation even more chaotic.

As the county secretary’s head was spinning, the office door was knocked on, and a young man walked in.

He was strikingly handsome, enough to catch anyone’s eye, though his attire was somewhat bizarre—carrying a half-dead duck in his left hand and what looked like a silver, shining whip in his right?

The village chief was delighted. “Dr. Rong, you’re here just in time! We were just talking about you!”

Rong Ziyin smiled but didn’t say anything. The frozen belt fish in his right hand subtly revealed a small section of its shiny tail to Wang Dazhuang and Li Tiezhu.

The “Frozen Belt Fish Love Education” was triggered, as the system announced with an awkward, overly dramatic tone. Meanwhile, Wang Dazhuang and Li Tiezhu suddenly collapsed to their knees with a loud thud, kowtowing to Rong Ziyin.

Li Tiezhu & Wang Dazhuang: Dad! Dad, we’re sorry, Dad.

The village chief, standing nearby, was startled. What’s wrong with these two? It’s not like they were tortured.

Then he glanced at the duck in Rong Ziyin’s hand and realized what was going on. These two wouldn’t admit to anything without concrete evidence. But now that they saw it, they had no choice but to concede.

Fortunately, the others shared the village chief’s perspective and didn’t press the issue too much, which allowed Rong Ziyin to breathe a sigh of relief.

The earlier incident further validated the effectiveness of the frozen belt fish. Although its appearance was somewhat amusing, its effects were undeniably impressive. Rong Ziyin thought he could definitely make good use of it in the future.

The incident where the rich young master tried to frame Rong Ziyin had yet to be exposed. If he couldn’t find another way to resolve it, he could consider using the frozen belt fish to test its effect.

As Rong Ziyin considered this, he discreetly put the frozen belt fish away. He then set down the duck and handed his report to the county secretary.

Heavenly items never exaggerate or falsify their properties, and ultimately, Li Tiezhu and Wang Dazhuang confessed to everything.

Moreover, they revealed a small but crucial detail: Wang Dazhuang had been incited to go after Rong Ziyin during a drinking session.

“What do you mean?” The village chief’s eyes lit up at this revelation. He had suspected there was more to this, and now it seemed he was right. However, it wasn’t as he initially thought—this wasn’t about Rong Ziyin’s enemies, but rather his problematic relatives.

“Ah,” Wang Dazhuang lamented, clearly full of regret.

“After the incident with the duck tuberculosis, I was scolded by our village chief and had to work extra hard for a few days. Then, I went back to my wife’s hometown, and during a drinking session, my brother-in-law and the others egged me on. I got carried away and… acted out.”

Now that things had reached this point, he saw no reason to hide anything and laid it all out.

The village chief was puzzled. “Why did your brother-in-law provoke you?”

Wang Dazhuang glanced at Rong Ziyin. “My brother-in-law and he are cousins.”

“I understand now,” Rong Ziyin said, addressing the village chief with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, this is purely a personal matter that has unfortunately affected the villagers.”

The brother-in-law Wang Dazhuang mentioned was none other than Rong Ziyin’s cousin—the very one who had taken over the family home when Rong Ziyin was young and, on New Year’s Eve, had kicked him out.

Rong Ziyin’s parents had died when he was very young, leaving the family estate undivided. His grandparents were too old and senile to care for him, so his uncles and aunts conspired to take over.

But Rong Ziyin wasn’t one to be easily pushed around, and the situation became ugly. Eventually, the dispute escalated to the village committee, where they formally divided the estate. While it was said that Rong Ziyin left with his share, in reality, it was barely anything.

At the time, Rong Ziyin was only twelve years old. The first couple of years were tough, but things improved once he got into the county’s middle school.

“My uncles said I was stupid and that studying was pointless. They wanted me to quit school and help with the farm. They claimed that my cousins had more potential. When I refused and insisted on continuing my education, they said the family couldn’t afford to support three students, so I was left to fend for myself.”

“Later, I got into university, while neither of my cousins even managed to pass high school. The villagers began to compare us, which embarrassed my uncles and angered my cousins. So it’s no surprise they hold a grudge against me.”

In the end, it all came down to a family feud. The village chief was relieved but also deeply sympathetic toward Rong Ziyin. The women from the local federation were even more moved, wanting to comfort him.

The village’s young veterinarian, Dr. Rong, was such a good person—handsome, well-mannered, and highly educated. Just the other day, he had saved all the ducks in the village.

The Rong family must have been blind to treat him so poorly.

It was heartbreaking—he had lost his parents at twelve and had to work odd jobs to support himself and his studies. Who knew how much hardship he had endured to get this far?

The system, hearing Rong Ziyin’s story, also felt a pang of sorrow. Host, if you’re feeling down, just tell me. My strong shoulder is here for you to lean on!

Rong Ziyin was silent for a moment before responding, You systems have physical forms?

System: Nope, now I’m sulking. Rong Ziyin, you heartless straight guy, I’m breaking up with you for five minutes.

Rong Ziyin chuckled but didn’t try to comfort it. Unlike others, he didn’t see his life as particularly hard.

Sure, his parents died young and didn’t leave much behind, but at least there were no debts. His relatives were terrible, but he left early and didn’t suffer too much under them. To Rong Ziyin, having the chance to work hard was already a blessing. After all, many people in dire straits don’t even get that opportunity.

Even if things had been tough, Rong Ziyin never thought his hardships were something to be pitied. In his view, only those who couldn’t live well truly deserved sympathy.

This perspective was something his parents had instilled in him, and he had lived by it ever since.

Nevertheless, Rong Ziyin wasn’t planning to let those who had instigated the trouble get away with it. His philosophy was simple: if no one bothers him, he won’t bother anyone. But if someone comes after him, there’s no need to hold back. Still, there were more pressing matters to address first.

The duck he tested had indeed been infected with duck plague.

Duck plague spreads rapidly and is highly contagious, making it one of the most serious threats to the poultry industry.

The critical point is that this disease can infect ducks of all breeds and ages, especially crossbreeds.

Wang Dazhuang didn’t raise poultry himself; the duck was actually taken from Rong Ziyin’s cousin’s farm and had contracted duck tuberculosis after being kept with infected ducks for several days.

Duck plague has an incubation period of 3 to 5 days, so based on the timeline, the source of the infection was likely in Rong Ziyin’s original village.

So the first thing Rong Ziyin did when he returned to the village was to contact the village chief of Lujia Village and inform him about the duck plague. He also called the local veterinary station there to report the outbreak.

“Thank you, thank you!” The old vet at the Lujia Village veterinary station, a farmer by origin, knew all too well the severity of such an infectious disease.

Even though Rong Ziyin’s call was just a routine reminder, the old vet was extremely grateful and immediately gathered the villagers to inform them.

At first, the villagers didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation and assumed it was just another routine vaccination directive from higher-ups. But when the testing was done, it turned out that more than half the ducks in the village were infected.

Duck plague is deadly! It was fortunate they caught it early because a full-blown outbreak could have had disastrous consequences.

The old vet wiped the sweat from his forehead and promptly credited Rong Ziyin with 3,000 gratitude points.

And it wasn’t just the old vet who was grateful—many of the large-scale duck farmers in the village were as well.

Rong Ziyin’s early warning had saved them from significant losses. To put it bluntly, if the disease had spread unchecked, it would have led to bankruptcy, with families potentially driven to despair.

When they learned that it was Rong Ziyin who had identified the problem, many in Lujia Village realized his name sounded familiar. Especially those who had played with him as children—upon recalling, they were shocked: Wait, isn’t this the same guy who was the top student back in the day? The one who got into the county’s top high school?

Turns out, he was one of their own.

Over at Rong Ziyin’s veterinary station, the system was utterly bewildered. Rong Ziyin had just made a phone call to the veterinary station in Lujia Village, and in no time at all, he began accumulating gold coins again! By midday, he had already gathered over 30,000 gold coins.

What stood out was that a significant portion of these were intimacy points. Intimacy points, when they reach a certain level, typically evolve into admiration points and then into affection points. Generally, this progression is used to develop relationships with girls and start a harem. But in Rong Ziyin’s case, he was receiving points from people like Grandpa Wang from Lujia Village, Auntie Li from Lujia Village, Lujia Village’s heartthrob Mu Tiezhu, and even a sick duck from Lujia Village—crossing species lines, no less.

So, where on earth were these points coming from? The system was in a state of total disbelief, feeling like it was witnessing something completely beyond its comprehension.

But Rong Ziyin was calm and collected. He knew exactly what was happening. He was originally from Lujia Village, and although he had left for the county at a young age, the villagers had still watched him grow up. If it were an ordinary veterinarian, the villagers would only feel gratitude, but since it was him, there was an added layer of intimacy.

In villages like this, relationships often ran deep—this was the villagers treating him like one of their own!

Just then, two particularly special system notifications caught Rong Ziyin’s attention.

Rong Cun Distress Points +1000, Rong Cun Anxiety Points +1000

That name was all too familiar.

System: !!! Host, isn’t that the scumbag cousin who tried to set you up?

Rong Ziyin: Yes, exactly! So, given how scared he is, should I go comfort him?

🍉🫐🍇🍒🥝