Chapter 141

Chapter 141

Astonished Gaze

As for the harvester, who wouldn’t want a better one?

"We can modify the harvester," Lin Nannan explained, "but someone needs to bring it to my house. On paper, Lu Ming will be the one repairing it, and I’ll just be the assistant."

Zhang Dabang was puzzled. "Why?"

Lin Nannan shrugged. "I hate crowds!"

Zhang Dabang nodded in agreement. "You shouldn’t draw too much attention right now. Let Lu Ming handle the spotlight. I’ll coordinate with your village chief to make sure everything goes smoothly. Don’t worry, you’ll get your fair share."

"Can I earn money by repairing harvesters?" Lin Nannan asked.

"Money?" Zhang Dabang blinked, caught off guard.

"Of course," she deadpanned, leaving no room for doubt. "Lu Hang can’t move right now, and our family relies on farming to survive. We were barely scraping by before because of his medical expenses. So, I need to find ways to earn money. If I can’t, then I won’t do it."

Lu Hang stayed calm as Zhang Dabang gaped. He had long known his wife was determined to make money—there was no room for doubt.

"Absolutely!" Zhang Dabang hesitated for a moment. He was a patriot through and through, ready to give his all, but he didn’t see anything wrong with Lin Nannan’s stance. After all, everyone knew about Lu Hang’s condition.

"You can set your own rates—you keep all the profits," Zhang Dabang said generously.

They wouldn’t interfere with the money. Lin Nannan had far greater talents.

Moreover, for her to fully unleash her abilities, the Lu family’s livelihood had to be secure—only then could she work without worries.

Satisfied with his offer, Lin Nannan said cheerfully, "With the right tools and parts, I can improve my research. Take those parts I dismantled—if they were more precise, I could build something even better."

Zhang Dabang had his suspicions, but hearing Lin Nannan’s assurance confirmed her capabilities. He nodded. "Good, I’ll arrange it."

The trio talked in the backyard for ages. Worried Lu Hang might tire, Zhang Dabang suggested Lin Nannan help him back to rest. Just then, Lu Hang said to her, "Give me a hand..."

Lin Nannan looked at him in surprise. The Lu family didn’t know he could stand, yet he chose to reveal this to Zhang Dabang. Her gaze toward Zhang Dabang shifted subtly.

"Help with what?" Sensing something unusual, Zhang Dabang instinctively asked.

Lu Hang didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at the stunned woman beside him and called again...

Lin Nannan snapped out of it. Since it was Lu Hang’s decision, she hauled him up unceremoniously from the wheelchair, her movements anything but gentle. Zhang Dabang nearly reached out, fearing Lu Hang might fall.

But when he saw Lu Hang—who was supposed to be permanently bedridden, unable to even turn over—standing independently before him, he was utterly stunned, speechless for a long moment.

That wasn’t even the most shocking part. Under Zhang Dabang’s wide-eyed gaze, Lu Hang took a shaky step forward and said with a smile, "I’m not fully recovered yet, but the next time you see me, Old Zhang, I might even be walking."

He grinned like a kid who’d gotten away with mischief, making Lin Nannan roll her eyes.

She pushed the wheelchair over, cutting his grandstanding short...

Zhang Dabang gaped as Lu Hang settled back into the wheelchair. After a long pause, he finally regained his composure. "A Hang... you’re recovering? You can *walk*?"

Lu Hang smiled, his eyes glistening, and nodded firmly.

He’d kept it from his family, not wanting to risk drawing eyes their way. So, he’d endured in silence.

The agony of paralysis, the slow return of hope—no one else knew what it had cost him.

He trusted Zhang Dabang and wanted him to know...

"How... how did this happen?" Seeing him nod, Zhang Dabang said in disbelief, "Last time I heard from A'guo, your injury was a shattered fracture with zero chance of recovery at all. That's why they sent you back home. How... how are you better now?"

He knew Lu Hang's capabilities and never doubted him, so faced with such a change, he was even more excited than Lu Hang himself.

"I’ve been taking herbal medicine!" Lu Hang didn’t fully understand the specifics but still shared some details. "My wife gathered all the herbs from the mountains. I’m still taking them now. If I stick with it, I’ll walk again for sure."

Zhang Dabang found it unbelievable. "How is that possible? A shattered fracture healed by herbal medicine?"

"You saw it yourself, Uncle Zhang, didn’t you?" Lu Hang said calmly.

Looking at Lu Hang’s composed expression, clearly long past the initial excitement, Zhang Dabang couldn’t help but turn his gaze to Lin Nannan. "Your medical skills are *that* good?"

Lin Nannan shook her head. She wasn’t one to show off about this because she couldn’t diagnose pulses, and even if she explained, people wouldn’t believe her. Besides, she relied on the Healing Solution and didn’t want to admit it.

"We were treating a lost cause as a last-ditch effort. It’s just a coincidence!" Lin Nannan instinctively explained.

The world doesn’t work on coincidences like that, and such words couldn’t fool an old fox like Zhang Dabang. But he didn’t expose it either, choosing to ignore the issue and instead focusing on his high hopes for Lu Hang’s future.

Even in the most desperate times, Lu Hang had never given up on himself. Zhang Dabang felt his willpower was stronger than most, so he was rooting for his comeback.

"Uncle Zhang, please keep this a secret. Aside from you, no one else knows about this," Lu Hang mentioned as Zhang Dabang was about to leave.

Zhang Dabang was surprised—he hadn’t expected Lu Hang to even hide it from his own son.

"Don’t you trust A'guo?" he couldn’t help but ask.

Lu Hang shook his head and smiled. "When the regiment leader came last time, I was still taking the medicine. Since there was no obvious effect, I kept it to myself. Now, the regiment leader’s swamped and can’t drop by. Next time I see him, I’ll tell him personally."

Relieved to hear there was no conflict between them, Zhang Dabang let out a sigh.

After Zhang Dabang left, Lin Nannan pushed Lu Hang out from the backyard. The Lu family crowded around right away, but no one asked too much, worried it might be none of their business.

After reassuring the family, Lin Nannan eyed the yard, scowling. "If Uncle Zhang arranges everything and we start modifying the harvester, our home might be a bit too small."

Taking it personally, as if their home wasn’t good enough, Lu Yuan looked at the courtyard where she ran laps every day until her legs ached, wondering where exactly it was too small.

"We could expand into the hills out back. It’s just unused land. We’ll just need to inform the village chief," Lu Hang suggested.

Lin Nannan looked down at him and reminded, "Everything else can be managed, but Han Yan lives next door, keeping an eagle eye on us. What if she catches wind of something?"

She thought it best to leave this problem to Lu Hang since he was the one who caused it.

"Give the village chief a heads-up. If that doesn’t work, we can just raise the courtyard walls..."

Including the village chief, everyone thought this matter might be tricky, given the feud between the Han and Lu families was at each other’s throats.

So, they braced themselves for the uphill battle of persuading Han Yan.

However, when they entered the Han family’s courtyard, they found Han Yan had long disappeared, and the place was dusty as hell.

"When did she take off? How’d she vanish without a trace?" Lin Nannan swiped a finger through the dust on the table, trying to guess how long Han Yan had been gone.

Lu Ding suddenly remembered something and slapped his forehead. "Last time, when we caught Li Zhang and Yu Yuning, I told her to lay low so she wouldn’t get dragged into it. Maybe she figured her big mouth would land her in hot water, so she fled?"

"But it’s not like she knew anything the whole village didn’t. What couldn’t she say?" Lin Nannan wondered.

"She’s acting out of guilt!" Lu Hang remarked bluntly, then turned to the village chief and asked, "Can we use this land?"

"Of course!" the village chief replied without hesitation. "This land was always village property. The Han family’s gone, so we’ll leave their house standing, but the rest is yours to deal with."

"The village's?" Lu Hang thought of something and asked with concern, "So you mean the house the Han couple built here wasn’t actually theirs?"

"Exactly!" The village chief nodded. "Back then, the village was clannish. Han Li wasn’t from our village, so the requirements were stricter. Plus, getting the paperwork done cost money, and they were reluctant to spend it, so it was never finalized..."

"That’s great!" Lin Nannan said to Lu Hang. "If no one’s in charge, we can claim it first."

"Don’t worry, go ahead and use it. I’ll also greenlight the back hill land for you—no need to worry about this side."

With the Han family’s yard now available, Lin Nannan felt the space was much more spacious. The only downside was the wall between the two houses—it absolutely couldn’t be removed.

Lin Nannan didn’t mind, though, because her big harvester repair project was about to start.

For this, the person most deserving of thanks was the village chief. He was the most eager, even hustling to other villages to drum up business and bringing people over to see the efficiency of their harvester. As a result, business quickly picked up.

Honestly, the village chief didn’t even need to do much. Word about their harvester had already gotten around.

In this village, some women married out, and others married in. A little gossip here and there, and soon the whole area knew. So when the village chief went to promote it, the results were twice as effective with half the effort—no one gave them any pushback.

Everyone was happy—except for Lu Ming, who wanted to cry but couldn’t. Instead, he had to keep a straight face to show others he wasn’t so easy to persuade.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak, but all those in the know didn’t trust him, worried he’d blow his cover if he spoke.

The harvesters could be tweaked, but there was a waitlist. The Lu family’s land was small, so they could only take one village at a time...

At this point, the perks of being tight with Lu Ding paid off. Earlier, because of Lu Hang’s injury, Lu Ding had suffered quite a bit. After all, when Lu Hang was successful, Lu Ding, as part of the same clan, also gained respect. But after Lu Hang’s accident, Lu Ding got sidelined, and people thought their village had no future.

Yet no one could have imagined—first there was Lu Hang in the Lu family, and now there was Lu Ming.

The favoritism was downright unfair.