"Mom!" Huo Jianguo called out politely.

"Jianguo? What are you doing here? When did you get back?"

"Last night, I took a two-week leave to visit my family," Song Yinhua said, then picked up a sickle and started working.

With her son-in-law present, Qiao Guilan didn't continue to berate her eldest daughter.

Luo Tianba arrived quickly and called out solicitously from afar, "Yinhua, you're out in the fields so early? Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? I brought you some chicken soup, my mom just cooked it this morning."

Song Yinhua took the chicken soup and looked at the middle-aged woman behind Luo Tianba. "Thank you, Fifth Aunt."

She turned around and handed the chicken soup to her mother, saying, "Mom, you've been busy all morning. Have some chicken soup and rest for a while. I'll do the cooking."

Qiao Guilan took the chicken soup and took a sip. "Why is it so bland? It tastes like it's been diluted with water."

Luo Tianba's biological mother said, "The chicken was just killed this morning."

She was somewhat reluctant. Her son asked her to kill a chicken and make chicken soup to bring to Song Yinhua in order to please her. She secretly ladled out all the chicken soup and added boiling water to it.

"You guys cut the rice here, I'll go bundle it up and transport it to the threshing ground." Song Yinhua put down her sickle and went to work with Huo Jianguo.

"Yinhua, let me help you!" Luo Tianba chased after her, trying to snatch the bundle of rice from Song Yinhua's hand, and took the opportunity to touch her hand. "Let me do it..."

"I'll do it!" Huo Jianguo stood in front of Song Yinhua and reached out to block Luo Tianba's hand.

"Huo Jianguo?" Luo Tianba exclaimed in surprise, "Didn't you go to join the army?"

Upon learning that Huo Jianguo had returned last night and taken a two-week leave to visit his family, Luo Xiangling immediately went back to tell him the news.

Luo Xiangling arrived quickly, using the excuse of helping with chores to try and get closer to Huo Jianguo.

Song Yinhua was more than happy to have someone help her with the work.

Huo Jianguo worked quickly. Luo Xiangling was squatting on the ground bundling rice. When she saw Huo Jianguo walking over to pick up the bundles, she pretended to walk by, deliberately twisted her ankle, and fell into Huo Jianguo's arms.

The man picked up the bundle of rice, turned and left, cleverly avoiding Luo Xiangling's approach.

Luo Xiangling fell to the ground.

"Cousin Jianguo, I think I sprained my ankle. I can't stand up. Can you help me?"

Song Yinhua went over to pull her, but Luo Xiangling saw Song Yinhua with a displeased look and stood up on her own.

By noon, the rice in the fields had been almost completely harvested.

Qiao Guilan exclaimed, "Working with more people makes it faster!"

"Cousin Jianguo, I've tied it up here, come and take it."

“Cousin Jianguo, I’m over here.”

"Cousin Jianguo, my hands are blistered."

"Cousin Jianguo..."

Qiao Guilan sulked and walked over to Song Yinhua, whispering, "What's this girl's relationship with Jianguo? She's been seducing him all along. A young woman like her, flirting with a married man in broad daylight."

"Xiangling is the granddaughter of Jianguo's grandmother's brother, so she is his cousin."

“Jianguo’s father is his grandmother’s adopted son, not her biological son. This woman named Luo Xiangling is eyeing your man. Yinhua, you finally got married, you can’t let someone else take him away.”

"Mom, let's get to work."

-

As soon as Huo Jianguo appeared, Luo Tianba and his mother began to slack off.

Every now and then they'll say they're thirsty and go get a drink of water, and that drink can last for half an hour.

A little while later he'd say he needed to go to the toilet, and once he was there he'd be gone for fifty minutes.

Luo Tianba sat on the handle of the cart. His father and grandmother urged him to continue to please Song Yinhua, saying that Huo Jianguo would be leaving after his family visit, and that he might not be back for another year or two. They said there would be plenty of opportunities to take Song Yinhua into his household later.

The profitable wonton shop, the grain in the fields, and the large orchards all belong to their family.

Luo Tianba looked at the large fruit trees next to the rice paddy. Each tree was growing vigorously with lush green leaves, and some of the trees had already borne fruit.

Once he gets Song Yinhua, all of these will be his.

Thinking of this, Luo Tianba immediately got up and went to work. Seeing his mother going to the toilet and being thirsty, he scolded her and gave her a meaningful look, telling her to work hard and leave a good impression on Song Yinhua and her mother.

At noon, Song Yinhua cooked a table full of dishes.

While eating, Aunt Luo kept praising Song Yinhua for her good skills, hard work, and ability to endure hardship, wishing she could praise Song Yinhua to the skies.

He even jokingly said, "It would be great if our Tianba could marry a girl as wonderful as Yinhua."

“She almost never got married.” Qiao Guilan had a lot to say about her eldest daughter’s marriage. “She was already an old maid, and it wasn’t easy for her to finally marry Jianguo.”

The baby inside started to cry, so Song Yinhua went into the inner room to check on the child, and Huo Jianguo followed her in.

Luo Xiangling followed them inside.

Only the madwoman and Luo Tianba remained at the dinner table. Qiao Guilan whispered to Aunt Luo Wu, "Luckily, Jianguo's mother is mad. Otherwise, she wouldn't have agreed to Jianguo's marriage to Yinhua."

"Yinhua seems fine, how could this happen?" Aunt Luo asked, then suddenly remembered something, "Yinhua's third aunt came to our house before, and she said that Yinhua was a jinx, who killed her grandparents at birth..."

"It was all my sister-in-law and her father who framed our family," Qiao Guilan whispered to Aunt Luo, repeating the story once more.

As Qiao Guilan spoke, she began to wipe away tears.

“Yinhua’s father can’t do heavy work anymore, so the family has to rely on me for everything. The third daughter won’t acknowledge me anymore. My life is so miserable!”

Aunt Luo offered a few words of comfort, but in her heart she thought that Song Yinhua's family was utterly useless, being bullied like this by her sisters-in-law and relatives.

If I marry her as a concubine, she'll be easy to manipulate since she has no family to back her up.

Inside the room, Huo Jianguo prepared the baby formula according to Song Yinhua's instructions. At this time, Song Yinhua changed the baby's diaper and took the bottle to feed the baby.

“Cousin Jianguo, this child looks exactly like Yinhua. No one would believe he’s not her biological son.” Luo Xiangling deliberately stirred up trouble, implying that the child was born to Song Yinhua and her lover.

Huo Jianguo opened the door and chased Luo Xiangling out.

-

Two weeks later, Huo Jianguo was to return to his unit.

Before he left, he finished all the chores at home, chopped firewood for the storage room, and fertilized and watered the vegetables and fruit trees in the field. Only then did he leave with reluctance.

The wild fruit trees on the back hill are laden with large, sweet fruit this year.

Villagers from nearby villages flocked to the mountains to pick wild fruits and sell them in town.

Song Yinhua collected a lot of medicinal herbs in the back mountain and transported a cartload of fruit from her spatial storage to a restaurant in the county town. Chef Tang weighed the fruit and paid her.

Song Yinhua bought a stroller and entered her spatial dimension when no one was around.

The madwoman was focused on drawing in the space, while the baby crawled around, sometimes trying to reach the fat bird in the sky, and sometimes trying to grab the long hair of the black wolfhound.

Song Yinhua played with the baby for a while, fed her some formula, and then left the space.

Before we knew it, the first snow of winter arrived.

The wonton shop closes at night.

Song Yinhua paid the two young girls she had hired at the shop, gave them a few instructions, and then carried the child home.

The black wolfhound, heavily pregnant, followed beside them.

As soon as she arrived at her doorstep, she saw Aunt Luo standing at the gate with a large bowl of chicken soup.