They got home at noon.

Qiu Yan doesn't have anything good to thank the Li family for right now, and is only thinking about finding an opportunity to repay them in the future.

While cooking lunch, Qiu Yan realized that her family was really missing a wooden bucket, as it was so inconvenient to use water for cooking.

Since she didn't have a wooden bucket, she took a wooden bowl to the upper reaches of the stream and washed it carefully.

Qiu Xu then took his younger sister's hand and washed her face and hands, and also cleaned the mushrooms they had picked the day before.

At noon, Qiu Yan borrowed an iron pot from her neighbor and cooked a pot of mushroom soup and a pot of cornmeal porridge.

This was the first time the three of them had a proper meal. The two children ate with great relish, but Qiu Yan didn't quite like the food.

After finishing their meal, the three of them cleared away the weeds in the yard, rested for a while, and then went to the mountains and forests again.

Living off the land, they have no choice but to go there when they have free time.

This time, they went a little further and dug up some wild vegetables.

Wild vegetables are really hard to find; they searched for a long time and only managed to fill a basket. However, Qiu Xu and Qiu Ling'er did find some mushrooms.

The three walked through the woods. After turning past a few dense bushes, Qiu Ling'er, being playful, ran a little further away.

Looking up, she saw a figure appear on the treetop ahead.

Qiu Ling'er turned around and found her sister. She tugged at her sister's sleeve and pointed to a peach tree in the distance, asking:

"Sister, look, isn't that Uncle?"

On a distant peach tree branch, a seventeen-year-old boy stands, struggling to reach the pale pink peaches high up on the branch.

Qiu Yan looked closely and realized that the figure and appearance were none other than Qiu Laowu.

Looking at the peach tree again, she realized that the peach trees she usually saw were short, but this one looked to be over seven meters tall.

"Uncle!" Qiu Ling'er shouted towards the peach tree. Qiu Dayu was startled and lost his balance. His legs slipped and he turned around. Just as he saw who it was, he suddenly felt his body sink and fell straight down.

He screamed in terror, "Qiu Yan, save me!"

Qiu Ling'er's heart jumped into her throat. "Uncle..." She really didn't mean it. Who knew her uncle was so timid?

Qiu Xu tightened his grip. His uncle was so tough; even if he fell... he probably wouldn't die. At most, he'd be crippled.

"How stupid!" Qiu Yan immediately took off running.

As soon as Qiu Dayu's feet touched the ground, she first stretched one leg under his feet to slow his descent, and then supported his upper body with both hands.

Even so, due to the great inertia, the two still staggered and swayed.

Qiu Dayu, who had been rescued, gasped for breath, never expecting that Qiu Yan could actually save him.

“Little girl, why are you shouting so loudly? You scared me to death, are you going to pay for it with your life… Qiu Yan, I didn’t see you when I got home this morning. When I asked, I found out that the three of you moved to the old courtyard. Why did you move to the old courtyard all of a sudden?” He asked knowingly, omitting some unpleasant details from his words.

"If you don't know the reason, go ask your mother!" Qiu Yan didn't have a good impression of Qiu Dayu.

Qiu Dayu spends his days hanging out with a bunch of hooligans, stealing chickens and dogs, doing nothing productive, and always getting into trouble. If anyone marries a man like that, their life is over.

After Qiu Yan finished speaking in a dry tone, she looked at the few peaches on the top of the tree, jumped up the tree, and headed straight for the treetop.

When she was struggling to get enough to eat, how could she not pick wild peaches when she saw them?

"Qiu Yan, I found those peaches first." Qiu Dayu had been eyeing those peaches for a long time, and he followed Qiu Yan's steps, climbing the tree again.

Villagers living near the mountain often come and go in the forest, and they start picking the fruits in the forest before they are ripe.

It's quite remarkable that the few peaches on the tree have survived until now.

The branches at the top of the tree were very thin, but Qiu Yan was as light as a swallow. She climbed to the top of the tree in a few quick movements and picked peaches.

As Qiu Yan moved, Qiu Xu's heart pounded in his chest, while Qiu Ling'er kept calling out, "Sister, be careful!"

Qiu Dayu watched as Qiu Yan successfully picked the peach, then looked at himself and sighed, "Qiu Yan, you dared to climb such a thin branch? Aren't you afraid the branch will break?" He certainly wouldn't dare.

He had barely finished speaking when a cracking sound was heard, and sure enough, the branch beneath Qiu Yan's feet split.

"You jinx!" Qiu Yan quickly grabbed her pocket with one hand to prevent the peaches from falling and breaking. Then, she leaped up and easily reached another high branch to continue picking peaches.

"Are you... all alright?" Qiu Dayu breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't forget to say, "Qiu Yan, you look so frail, but I didn't expect you to be so fast."

Just then, several little girls carrying baskets came from not far away in the mountains to pick wild vegetables.

A girl with her hair in two buns looked carefully at the peach tree, then asked a girl in pink, "Qiu Hui, is that your cousin on the tree? Who is she picking peaches with?"

The girl with the double buns was Zhao Yuanyuan, the village chief's daughter. They had come together because they had just met by chance in the mountains.

Upon seeing this, Qiu Hui recognized Qiu Yan and immediately wore a disdainful expression. "That troublemaker! How is she...my uncle?"

She shouted at the peach tree, "Uncle, what are you doing here? Didn't Grandma tell you to go hoe the ground?"

Qiu Dayu curled his lip and snorted, "Does she mean I have to go just because she said so?" When did he become so obedient?

These days, because he has incurred huge gambling debts and emptied his family's savings, Yang always looks at him with a disappointed expression. Now she forces him to work every day, which makes Qiu Dayu, who rarely goes home, even more reluctant to go back.

But he can't stay at his best friend's house forever, can he? That's why Qiu Yan was able to see him here today.

Qiu Dayu hated doing farm work the most.

Facing the loess soil with their backs to the sky, after working for a while, their backs ache, their bodies are sore from the sun.

Because of his idle and aimless appearance all day long, Qiu Laosan and his wife now chase and beat him whenever they see him.

Qiu Hui knew Qiu Dayu's temperament, so she didn't waste her breath on the same issue. If she said too much, Qiu Dayu wouldn't listen to her, and she would only suffer complaints.

This morning, when she saw the angry expressions on her parents' faces when they came back, she wanted to confront Qiu Yan and the others, but Qiu Dayong wouldn't let her go, saying that Qiu Yan's personality had changed and she was not someone to be trifled with.

But she refused to believe it. According to her, Qiu Yan and the other two were all worthless and that her grandmother would sell them sooner or later.

Qiu Hui ran a few steps and came to the tree. Her eyes were fixed on the peach in Qiu Yan's pocket. Once Qiu Yan had her eye on the peach, it was hers.

As Qiu Hui passed by Qiu Ling'er, she deliberately swerved halfway and bumped into her.

Little Ling'er was already small and weak, and when Qiu Hui bumped into her, she almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, her brother beside her helped her up.

Qiu Hui bumped into someone and then angrily shoved Qiu Ling'er, yelling, "Aren't you blind? You're blind!"

Qiu Xu shielded his sister behind him, saying, "You're the one who's blind!"

"You, Qiu Xu, how dare you insult me!" In the past, Qiu Hui was treated like a young lady in the Qiu family, while Qiu Yan and the others were like her servants.

Hearing that Qiu Xu dared to talk back to her, Qiu Hui, in a fit of temper, raised her hand to hit him.

"You worthless bastards who were born of a mother but raised by one, how dare you talk back to me? I'll beat you to death!"

Qiu Yan glanced down and saw this scene. She leaped to the broken branch, then stepped on it with one foot and, with a forceful push, heard a crack as the branch snapped...