He Zhiran helplessly looked at the rice ball sitting to the side leisurely eating bamboo shoots.
"Stinky rice ball, you have really made a terrible mistake."
When the rice ball saw that his master was complaining about him, his movements of eating bamboo shoots suddenly froze. He then looked at her blankly, appearing extremely aggrieved.
He Zhiran's heart instantly softened and the tone of her voice became much gentler.
"Baby, this golden-winged sculpture is very important to me. I want to find its original owner through it. Now that you have tamed it, what should I do?"
The rice ball's dark eyes rolled around. He got up and walked towards the golden-winged sculpture.
It was seen that the little guy gesticulated towards the golden-winged sculpture. The golden-winged sculpture once again became the same ruffled appearance as before.
Facing He Zhiran again, it no longer had the earlier fawning manner and had an appearance of avoiding strangers.
Soon, after the little thing took a few steps back, it flapped its wings and flew very high, wanting to get as far away as possible from the person and bear.
In the space, He Zhiran was not worried at all about losing the golden-winged sculpture. When needed, she only needed a thought to recall it.
Anyway, there was a lot of food in the space and there was no need to worry about the golden-winged sculpture starving to death.
As for using it to find clues about Mr. Si Meng, it would have to wait until Mo Jiuye came back to discuss and make a decision together.
...
He Zhiran looked at the time displayed on the clock in the infirmary. She had already been inside for several hours. She estimated that Mo Jiuye would be back soon too.
Therefore, after hugging the rice ball, she flashed out of the space.
Mo Jiuye returned earlier than she had expected. He had even sent those items and the palace maids serving Consort De to the haunted house.
Seeing He Zhiran come out from the space, he knew that she had gone in to check on the white dove.
Before he could ask, He Zhiran said first, "Have you heard of the golden-winged sculpture?"
Mo Jiuye didn't even need to think before answering, "No."
He Zhiran explained the characteristics of the golden-winged sculpture in detail and told Mo Jiuye that it was not at all some white dove, but a very rare golden-winged sculpture.
No matter where his wife had learned this information from, Mo Jiuye's main goal was to find Mr. Si Meng through the golden-winged sculpture.
"Ranran, let the golden-winged sculpture out. Will it go to find its original owner?"
He Zhiran nodded, "I think it should be like this. The loyalty of the golden-winged sculpture to its owner is extremely strong."
Since Mr. Si Meng's whereabouts were uncertain, only this golden-winged sculpture would likely be able to find him.
Mo Jiuye pondered deeply before saying, "Ranran, I plan to prepare tomorrow and follow the golden-winged sculpture out to look for clues."
In fact, He Zhiran hadn't thought of a better way either.
Hoping that the golden-winged sculpture would find Mr. Si Meng was probably the only way out, as Mo Jiuye said.
It's just that she had just seen it in the space earlier that the flight speed of the golden-winged sculpture was especially fast. Even with Mo Jiuye's superb qinggong, his stamina probably could not compare with such a naturally flying animal.
"Are you sure you can keep up with the speed of a bird that flies extremely fast?"
Mo Jiuye also did not dare to fully guarantee this. His qinggong was not weak and was even considered one of the best in the Da Shun Dynasty.
It was just that people do get tired at times. If the golden-winged sculpture kept flying without stopping, he really might not be able to keep up.
If there were high mountains, big rivers and such, he might directly lose track of it.
After thinking it over, neither of them could come up with a good plan.
To put it bluntly, the most reliable approach would be to bring the golden-winged sculpture with them in July when they headed to the western border.
Because at that time, Mr. Si Meng would very likely appear there. Releasing the golden-winged sculpture within a fixed range, Mo Jiuye would definitely be able to keep up with its speed.
To play it safe, He Zhiran and Mo Jiuye immediately decided that they could not recklessly let the golden-winged sculpture out. Once it got lost, this clue would be completely broken.
It seemed that even with this golden-winged sculpture in hand, they could not do anything in advance.
Third Brother had already taken people rushing to the western border. It was believed that it would not take long for them to bring back some news.
They could make a decision when that time came, so it would not be too late.
...
Time flew, and March arrived in the blink of an eye.
The weather in the northwest was much warmer than that of the north. The little ice and snow that was originally there had long since melted away.
Fourth Brother's surgery was very successful. Although he still could not walk with his legs, his hands that had their tendons reconnected could slowly move after the surgery.
This gave Fourth Brother hope. He looked forward every day to recovering sooner, as he could not be a cripple of the Mo family.
After recuperation, Seventh Brother's health had also basically recovered. Apart from still looking somewhat thin and frail, he had no obstacles at all to moving around.
Consort De's health had also recovered very well. Nan Rui indeed had no intention of returning to the capital.
He felt that though the Xi Ling Village place was a bit remote, it was a suitable place to recuperate.
Without having to face those deceitful things every day, as long as taking good care of Mother was alright, he had no rush to leave either and temporarily settled down in that haunted house for now.
When he had nothing to do, Nan Rui would also bring Consort De to walk around the Mo family.
Facing the Mo family brothers, he did not put on any airs at all. Seeing the Mo brothers busying about, he would also actively go over to help.
As for Consort De, she would go chat with Old Madam Mo.
The two were of similar ages and were once prominent family daughters, so they talked very happily.
There was another person who had been running over to the Mo family most diligently recently, and that was Meng Huaining.
He was slowly revealing his intentions in front of Old Madam Mo bit by bit.
Old Madam Mo had also vaguely revealed her own feelings. In short, this pair also had great progress.
He Zhiran was now over four months pregnant with twins. Because of this, her small belly was already bulging high and her figure had also become increasingly plump.
Fortunately, the two little ones took very good care of her and never made trouble. This made her pregnancy a lot more relaxed.
Seeing that there were still more than twenty days before it was time to start planting crops again when the farmers were free, they had to hurry and start working on the house at the foot of the mountain.
He Zhiran spent two days' time drawing house structure diagrams in the space.
If nothing unexpected happened, this place would be where they permanently lived in the future, so it definitely had to be built to be comfortable and practical.
Although there were many people in the family, they had always gotten along harmoniously without any intrigue happening between the women.
Even so, He Zhiran was a modern person after all and did not want to live the life of a big family.
This was also why she and Mo Jiuye had bought such a large piece of land in the first place.
Now they could basically confirm that Old Master Mo and the brothers in the family were all alive. It would be appropriate for the yard to have an area for each small family.
Calculating it this way, with two elders and nine brothers, they needed courtyards for at least ten units.
He Zhiran planned to build these ten courtyards all according to the pattern of traditional Chinese quadrangle courtyards from her previous life. After all, this was the countryside, so there was no need to differentiate between interior and exterior courtyards. As long as it was comfortable to live in, that was good.
Of course, the most important thing was the facilities and layout inside the rooms.
It was without doubt that glass would be used for all the windows. She had previously purchased a large amount of glass with Henry in the space, enough to use when building the new house.
There were also heating facilities inside the rooms.
After coming to the northwest, He Zhiran had chatted with surrounding villagers when free and asked around about their heating facilities for passing the winter. Most of them mainly used kang stove-beds, and those better-off families would also light up one or two braziers for heating.
