Yan Zheng's fingertips gently traced down the spine, feeling its warmth and smoothness. In just those two touches, he could already feel the curve of the person's lower back.

Yan Zheng's throat felt slightly dry.

Jiang Xi's back also tensed slightly, and her breathing gradually became rapid.

Seemingly having reached the boundary, Yan Zheng rolled over and embraced her, placing one hand behind her head and the other hand moving up her spine before returning to her front.

At this moment, the person beneath him was already flushed.

Everything was just right, and Yan Zheng lowered his head to kiss her soft lips.

She was exceptionally sensitive; before the kiss was even over, a layer of smooth, warm sweat appeared on her back, and her voice trembled slightly.

Yan Zheng heard this and froze. After a long pause, he gritted his teeth, brushed aside the messy hair by her ear, and said in a hoarse voice, "How about we go to the hot springs tomorrow morning?"

He didn't want anyone else to hear a sound that might lead to wild speculation, especially her voice, which Yan Zheng preferred to keep to himself.

At this moment, Jiang Xi's face was as red as if she had applied blush, and she nodded while biting her lip.

Then, as expected, he did nothing, and the two of them fell asleep in each other's arms.

The next morning, Jiang Xi woke up to the sound of drizzling rain.

The first spring rain after winter has finally arrived.

The dripping sound against the window was like the sound of a music box.

Yan Zheng kissed Jiang Xi's forehead, sat up and put on his clothes: "You sleep a little longer, I'll get up and take a look."

Jiang Xi rubbed her eyes: "I can't sleep anymore, I'll get up too."

Pushing open the door, I was greeted by a misty, rainy scene.

Yan Zheng put on a straw hat and went to the kitchen.

Fortunately, they had cleared the ditches on both sides of the wall beforehand, so there wasn't much standing water in the yard, and all the rainwater flowed out through the ditches under the wall.

After a while, Jiang Xi came in and prepared two more dishes of wild vegetables.

I hadn't thought about the problems with snowy and rainy days before. Now that it's raining, I realize how inconvenient it is that the kitchen door opens to the outside.

You have to use a plate to cover the food while eating to prevent it from getting wet in the rain.

A spring rain disrupted all plans.

Everyone was trapped inside the house and couldn't get out, so Yan Jing'an simply took out the stone arrows and applied anesthetic to each of the arrowheads.

Yan Zheng took two sickles to sharpen. Jiang Xi, having nothing else to do, took out her crochet hook after a long time and started crocheting summer shirts for the group.

The morning passed quickly as we worked and chatted.

In the afternoon, Yan Zheng thought it would be a good opportunity to take Yan Jing'an to inspect the irrigation ditch that led from the stone house to the fields.

In some places, the water couldn't flow through because it was blocked by dead leaves, branches, and stones, and it flooded the surrounding area. The two of them took shovels and rakes and cleared the blockage bit by bit to open up the channel.

Only when all water sources are ensured to flow into the fields can the entire irrigation system be considered to be on the right track.

After the spring rain, the forests and fields came alive. Overnight, the world was covered in emerald green, and everywhere was a scene of vibrant spring.

Even the corners of the yard were overgrown with weeds. These plants had been neglected for years, and their roots had grown long and deep. It took Yan Zheng a lot of effort just to remove these weeds from the yard, and he even wore out a shovel.

The next day, Jiang Xi couldn't wait to go to the field to check on the seedlings she had grown. The tomatoes had already grown very tall, so she had to transplant them quickly.

To reduce pests and diseases, Jiang Xi had previously collected a lot of wood ash, and now she sprinkled it evenly on the ground and mixed it with the soil.

I learned this from watching old people grow vegetables when I was a child. Wood ash can not only reduce pests and diseases, but also has a certain fertilizing effect. It is an alkaline fertilizer that helps to improve the pH value of the soil.

To avoid affecting the development of the seedlings, she kept each tomato seedling about half a meter apart, and the cucumbers were spaced more than a meter apart.

As for the sweet potatoes, which grew densely, Jiang Xi would pick out the larger ones and plant them one by one.

These three types of food occupy about ten square meters.

Jiang Xi kept all the roots that had sprouted earlier, planting one of each about a meter apart.

The remaining cleared areas were reserved for shrubs and raspberries. Jiang Xi planned to have Yan Jing'an dig them up directly from the forest.

Not only is it laborious to grow your own fruit, but you also have to wait a long time to get it. It's much faster to just dig it up from the forest.

Worried that the seedlings might be targeted by small animals, Yan Zheng and Yan Jing'an built another wooden fence around the small plot of land where they were growing vegetables. It wasn't particularly beautiful, but it was functional.

Besides wood ash, there was no other fertilizer. Jiang Xi was worried about not getting a harvest, so she gathered all the droppings from the ewe and the rabbit together and added some damp leaves to compost them.

It will take two or three months; hopefully, these plants will be able to wait that long.

After planting all the seedlings, the work in the field was temporarily put on hold. Jiang Xi then tidied up the yard at home. The fig tree had already sprouted green buds. Jiang Xi thought that the yard was several dozen square meters and was just sitting empty anyway, so she might as well turn one corner into a small vegetable garden of twenty or thirty square meters.

Sow some sweet lettuce seeds and other wild vegetable seeds, so you don't have to go into the ground to grow vegetables.

Yan Zheng's original plan was to divert the water from the mountain spring behind the house into the irrigation ditch, changing the original flow of the spring. Instead, he decided to divert some of the water into the yard to irrigate the vegetable garden, so that the water would not be wasted.

Her suggestion drew frequent nods from Yan Zheng. In fact, he didn't want Jiang Xi to go to the fields too often, since there were wild animals around, and it would be too dangerous for her to pick vegetables by herself.

So Yan Zheng and Yan Jing'an started digging irrigation ditches while simultaneously turning over the soil in the yard.

After turning over the soil, the yard was full of dirt. Jiang Xi was sweeping the yard when she suddenly heard two chirping birds. She looked up and saw that two swallows had come to build a nest under the eaves at some point.

She remembered her grandmother saying that swallows are lucky birds, and that if a swallow builds its nest in someone's house, it means that the family is harmonious and happy.

She thought they were probably like that too, which was why they attracted such little lives.

In the afternoon, Jiang Xi was preparing to cook when she went into the granary and dug out last year's dried black fungus and wild mushrooms. She was heartbroken to find that after the spring rains a couple of days ago, the air humidity had increased, and all the dried black fungus and wild mushrooms she had dried last year had grown a layer of mold.

There was only half a basket of wild mushrooms left, and now they had to be thrown away. Jiang Xi felt an indescribable heartache.

With no vegetables left to eat, she had no choice but to go into the woods to find fresh mushrooms. It just so happened that it had rained the day before yesterday, and she thought that the dozens of acres of fields were overgrown with weeds and damp, so she might have a different kind of harvest. Mushrooms and such were not hard to find.

She originally intended to tell Yan Zheng that she would go by herself, but Yan Zheng was worried and insisted on coming with her.

Jiang Xi couldn't refuse, so she took him along.