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Chapter 43: The Substitute
The booth of the garrison base was in the reconstruction area, taking up not a small space and the location wasn’t bad.
When Yang Yang and Monta arrived, there were four soldiers in camouflage uniforms making preparations.
“Major.”
The four gave a military salute, leaving one to speak with Monta, while the others continued to work.
After Monta returned the salute, he introduced the man to Yang Yang: “His name is Mulder, you can call him Mutuo*. He is the chef and comes here every year, the others are this year’s recruits, you can do ask him if you want to know anything.”
lit. wood
Yang Yang: “Okay.”
Yang Yang chatted with Mutuo for a while and got a general understanding of the details about booth organisation, such as income, rent, amount of purchases and so on.
As Yang Yang expected, the booth lost money every year, but what Yang Yang did not expect was that every time it was in deficit it would lose nearly one million.
Yang Yang looked back at Monta: “Are all of your garrison bases so rich?”
Monta looked like a rich second-generation ancestor: “What is this much, just a game.”
Yang Yang: “
”
Yang Yang found out later on that Old Emperor Star was also self-managed, compared to the income of the annual tourism season, the compensating for that this booth’s looses was really nothing.
But at this time, Yang Yang only saw the words “rich and powerful”.
Yang Yang looked at this stall and had an idea.
He asked Monta: “If I can help to make money, will the income be mine?”
Monta said surprised: “You want to help here?”
Yang Yang: ” I want to join.”
Monta: “Join?”
Yang Yang: “Yes, you can tell me first if I can, and if you do agree, how will the profit be shared.”
Monta: “I can’t control this either. You can talk to Byrd later, and what he says will count.”
Although Archibald was not the nominal administrator of Old Emperor Star it was still the home of the Donton family. As the heir to the title, Archibald had absolute rights to decide in this matter.
Monta: “But why are you joining this? You can’t make much money even after tiring yourself out. Why don’t we go and play somewhere? Although I can’t go far, there are a lot of fun things nearby.”
Yang Yang shook his head: “I have to find a way out before the agreement ends.”
His agreement with Archibald would end in another year at most, and he needed to make a living by himself. If he indulges in the days when he has food and clothes as soon as he opens his mouth, when the agreement ends, he’s afraid it’d be too late to cry.
Monta seemed to remember this, and was stunned for a moment.
On the other side, Yang Yang had already called Archibald, but no one answered. Yang Yang was helpless, so he exchanged contact information with Mutao, and then patted Monta: “Go, we’ll go back and ask the Duke before talking about other things.”
Monta recovered: “Oh, right.”
When he returned to the manor, the intelligent housekeeper has cleaned out Yang Yang’s “experimental field”, and Amber was checking it on the side.
Seeing Yang Yang walking over, Amber wondered: “Why did little madam come back? Where’s Monta?”
Yang Yang: “He sent me to the door, and now he’s going to the party city to wait for the opening carnival. ——Already done cleaning up? So quickly.”
Amber smiled and said: “This bit of land is nothing, but if you want to plant something, you have to turn over the soil and distribute the fertilizer. I’ll go to the town to borrow some tools and let the smart housekeeper do it. If you hurry up a little bit, you can finish it tomorrow.”
Yang Yang was very grateful: “Don’t worry, just look at it. By the way, where is the Duke?”
Amber: “In the training room, it is estimated that he will take two or three hours to come out.”
Yang Yang clicked his tongue: “He’s really tireless.”
During the “confinement” in the past few days, Archibald has been training for four or five hours a day. The rest of the time was either simulated combat, or he simply going to the garrison training ground to kill time, as if other than this he wasn’t interested in anything else at all.
Amber smiled: “Next time, I will remind the second young master to leave some time for the little madam.”
Yang Yang was used to this kind of teasing, and said with a calm smile: “Don’t say it, or he will explode again.”
Amber laughed.
Yang Yang said a few more words to Amber and walked towards the training room.
The training room was about 100 meters behind the villa, after a flower vine corridor and a fruit forest. ——Of course, there were neither flower vines nor fruit forests, but only flourishing “jungles”. Even the cleared passage was like the road to the vampire’s lair.
To be honest, the first time he walked this road a few days ago, Yang Yang felt as if he had entered a haunted house.
But the style of the training room was simple and bright. At the end of the road, there were white walls with orange wall paintings. When one walked out of that gloomy path and saw the big house, they would suddenly feel peace of mind.
The door of the training room was locked, but the permission to enter this door was the same as that of the manor gate. Yang Yang could enter.
The training room was large and divided into different areas. Yang Yang pushed open the door and didn’t see Archibald, but heard the heavy “bang bang bang” sounds, appearing in a fast and clear rhythm.
Yang Yang followed the sound and found Archibald in the fighting training area.
Archibald was only wearing shorts and a vest. The vest was already wet with sweat and stuck to his back. The wet fabric outlined his broad and strong back muscles. With Archibald’s movements, the muscles contracted and relaxed, giving a sense of beauty coming with strength.
Yang Yang leaned against the wall and remained silent — one really wouldn’t get tired of this kind of picture even after seeing it many times.
But after watching it for a while, Yang Yang’s attention was attracted by something else.
It wasn’t the first time Yang Yang came to the training ground, but it was the first time he went to the fighting training area, so it was also the first time he saw these combat models.
But even so, he knew that in such a training ground, it was a bit odd to put a “little sheep” models. Generally speaking, even if it was not humanoid, it should be cylindrical.
Yang Yang: “
”
He guessed that these models should not have been bought at random.
“Bang bang bang!”
Archibald punched and kicked, with each blow of his tail a depression appeared on the “little sheep”, even if it was a material with super resilience it wasn’t able to recover for a while.
Yang Yang: “
”
He felt that his mood was a little subtle.
“Bang bang bang!”
Archibald continued to fight.
It may be that the force was too strong, or the force of this model wasn’t scientific. When Archibald swept his tail, the sheep was knocked off balance and its tail hit Yang Yang.
“Ah!”
Yang Yang exclaimed, subconsciously reaching out to block it.
The tail of the flying sheep wasn’t heavy, the material was quite soft, but the edge was very sharp. Yang Yang’s forearm was scratched with a wound, just a shallow scratch like being scratched by a milk cat, but it blood seed-sized beads still appeared on its edges quickly.
“Hiss.”
Yang Yang gasped and turned his hand to look at the wound.
But before the hand was turned back, a bigger hand grabbed it.
“Don’t do it, it will tear the wound.”
Yang Yang looked up and saw Archibald’s sweaty face.
Archibald’s hair was also soaked, and strands fell on his forehead. His brows furrowed, and his deep eyes were staring solemnly at the wound on Yang Yang’s arm with a serious and grave expression.
Yang Yang looked up at Archibald’s face that was close at hand, and the sound of his own heartbeat could be heard in his ears.
Humans were visual animals. ——It was like a curse.
Archibald took Yang Yang to the rest bench and sat down, then took out the medicine box that was always available in the training room, and while treating Yang Yang’s bleeding, he said: “I told me to tell me when you enter the training room, Although I can detect you, I might not notice you in my training state.”
Yang Yang tore away his sight from Archibald’s face, leaned back slightly, and kept a little distance from the humanoid hormone diffuser. Only then did he regain his rhythm.
Yang Yang: “Oh, so you hurt me and you’re still blaming me?”
Archibald: “
”
Archibald remained silent, but the movements of his hands became more gentle.
Yang Yang glanced at Archibald’s tail, and the tip of the tail trembled in a small arc.
It means nervous.
Yang Yang pursed the corners of his mouth, swallowed his smile, and continued to deceive people with “injury”.
“It hurts.”
Archibald frowned even deeper, paused, and said in a smaller tone: “You can’t take my medicine when you are pregnant, I will take you to Aunt Gu to get you some painkillers.”
Yang Yang smiled: “Forget it, it’s not a serious injury.”
Archibald looked up at Yang Yang, and after another two seconds of silence, he said, “I’m sorry.”
He apologized.
Yang Yang’s eyes widened slightly—ever since he lied to Archibald to make him apologize last time and recorded it, Archibald didn’t apologize even if he was in the wrong.
Yang Yang looked at Archibald, his eyes swept across the tip of his tail, which was quivering more and more, and suddenly laughed, his heart softened.
“I’m too sorry, I’ll remember to stand outside the training ground next time.”
When Archibald heard the words, he raised his head and looked at Yang Yang in surprise, as if he had seen an alien. A sentence swirled back and forth in his eyes — you actually apologized to me?
Yang Yang: “
”
I can’t be nice to you.
Yang Yang felt helpless and amused, abandoned his gentle mode and gestured towards the model in the training area with his chin: “So, these are my substitutes?”
Archibald: “
”
Archibald: “No.”
Yang Yang: “Do you know that when you lie, your expression will become very strange?”
Archibald: “
”
Yang Yang: “You hate me this much?”
Archibald: “
”
Yang Yang: “Ah, so sad, I thought we were already friends, but it turned out to just be my wishful thinking.”
Archibald: “
”
Archibald knew that Yang Yang was acting, but even if it was acting, he couldn’t ignore it — even if he beat Monta into a pig’s head, he wouldn’t have any psychological burden, but it wasn’t like this with Yang Yang.
Probably because Yang Yang is pregnant. The guilt of hurting a pregnant female is great.
After Archibald treated Yang Yang’s wound, he closed the medicine box, looked at Yang Yang, and compromised, “Say, what do you want to do?”
Yang Yang gave Archibald a “plan success” look, and then asked: “Why is your tail so sensitive?”
He checked the Starnet and found that Leicester’s scales do have a sensations, but they are slow to react and tend to be more sensitive to soul power. There were very few people who would react so strongly when touched like Archibald.
Archibald suddenly looked reluctant, but after waiting for a while, Yang Yang still got the answer.
Archibald: “When I was a kid, I went out to play, and was accidentally trampled in the crowd. After my tail healed, it became like this.”
In fact, it may not be that his tail was too sensitive, but it was the psychological shadow from that time was still there, and the neural response amplified the senses.
Yang Yang suddenly said, “Ah, so that’s why you hate shopping.”
Archibald didn’t refute—that was indeed the case.
Yang Yang answered two questions in one breath and was satisfied. Then went to talk about business.
Yang Yang: “By the way, I have something to ask you. I want to join the store in the the garrison base’s booth, can I?”
Archibald immediately became vigilant: “Join? What identity do you want to join as?
Yang Yang blinked, froze for a moment, and then his eyes gradually brightened: “Yes! I can take this opportunity to get a new identity, maybe I can make a brand! —Duke, you are so smart!”
Archibald: “
”
You go out, let me be quiet for a while.
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Author has something to say:
Little Sheep: this baby is bitter but this baby does not say anything QVQ
Yang Yang: This baby is also bitter but does not say anything (melancholy.jpg)