49.049 My mom is the best.

"Oh, you're off work so early?" asked Aunt Wu, who was sitting at the door shelling peanuts.

"Okay, you can leave early once the work is finished." Su Yu slowed down the car. "Auntie, I'm going back now, I'm very thirsty."

As Su Yu rode her shiny black bicycle home, Aunt Wu said to the other old neighbors, "Xiao Wuzi has a sharp eye; he married a money-making machine. Other people stick to one job until they die, but she changes jobs three times in a year. My son, who only graduated from high school, is not as good as her."

Everyone secretly envies this, but some people can say it out loud, while others keep their envy to themselves and say sarcastic things like, "They've been married for a year and a half, right? Why doesn't she seem to be pregnant?"

No one can say for sure about this issue except for the two people involved. If they say she can't have children, she already has an eight or nine-year-old son. If they say she can have children, she only has one son after marrying two men.

As the door creaked open, Su Yu emerged again, pushing her bicycle with a basket hanging from the handlebars. Someone craned their neck to look into the basket and asked with a laugh, "Going out again? You're always busy, don't you ever get tired?"

"We're not walking, what's so tiring about riding a bicycle?" Su Yu sped up and was out of the alley in less than a minute.

"What is that?" someone asked the old woman who had just craned her neck.

"It looks like oil, it must be. It's even in a can, so it must weigh at least a pound." The old woman scoffed. "It's gone to her parents' house again."

"If I had a capable daughter-in-law, she could manage everything while her husband was away, earning money and raising the children. What's wrong with her supporting her parents' family? It's not like she's stealing it." Aunt Wu's eyes were red with envy.

Some people fell silent, while others clicked their tongues and joked that Old Man Ning must be kicking himself for giving away his most promising son.

Su Yu took off her hat, and the warm evening breeze ruffled her hair. She smoothed her slightly sticky ends, wondering when she should get a haircut. When her hair grew long, it would look like a bird's nest when she woke up, and she would have to use water to comb it.

She first went to her third sister's house, which was her first time there. She heard that the family had separated, and she had to ask the villagers for directions to find the door.

"Xiaoxing, aren't your parents home?" She asked her nephew, who was sweeping the floor, as the front door was open.

"I haven't finished work yet, Auntie, please come inside. I'm going to the fields to call my mom back." The child with dry, yellow hair wiggled his thin legs, ready to leave.

"No need to call, I just came to bring you some oil. It's fine if she's not home, and even if she comes back, we won't talk for long. I'm going to your grandpa's house later." Su Yu stopped him and handed him two catties of cottonseed oil from the jar and rapeseed oil from the small earthenware pot, saying, "We don't have much rapeseed oil left at home. I'll bring you some more when your aunt's husband buys some more, just for you." This child looks malnourished, with sparse teeth.

"No need, we have some at home, Auntie, you can take it back..." he awkwardly declined.

"Alright, your aunt isn't an outsider." She poured the scattered milk candies from the bottom of the basket into his hands. "And there's a portion for your sister too. Could you give it to her for me?" Su Yu rubbed the back of his head, telling him to come to her house to play with his two older brothers during summer vacation.

Seeing that Su Yu was about to leave, Xiao Xing pulled on the back seat of her car and said, "Auntie, wait a minute, I'll pick some vegetables for you. My family grows good vegetables, and you have to pay money to buy vegetables in town." He grabbed the basket from the front of the car and ran out.

Su Yu went with him without mentioning that she also had a vegetable garden at home. She thought the child was physically weak but intelligent, and that taking his vegetables would probably make him feel better.

"Then Auntie is leaving. I'll have them pick you up when your brother starts summer vacation." Su Yu waved to him. It only took her less than ten minutes to ride her bike out of the village to Xinhe Brigade. As she rode past, she happened to see her father sitting with someone outside the brigade office.

"Father, let's go back?" she called out.

When Su Changguo saw that it was her, he said to his old buddy who had been chatting, "My little girl is here, I'll head back now." He was all smiles.

"Dad, get in, I'll take you back." Su Yu propped herself up on the ground and urged the old man to get in.

"Is this your car? Then I'll have to sit in it." He wasn't intimidated at all, and even told her to hold the car steady so he wouldn't fall and hurt his old bones.

"Sit tight, let's go." Old Man Su straddled the back of the bicycle, pulling on the seat as the girl took him home.

"Hey, the old village chief is riding a bicycle too!" People on the road asked the two of them. He waved to them like a leader. Su Yu heard him laughing all the way. When they got home and got off the bicycle, he started to groan and rubbed his butt, saying, "This bicycle is not fit for a human to ride. It's so uncomfortable on my butt."

"I took the cushion off. You can sit on it again next time you put it on." She thought the cushion looked ugly and not cool.

“I’m not sitting here anymore. I’m old and all I’m left with is skin and bones. Even if you tied me to a blanket, I’d still find it too uncomfortable.” He had changed his previous adventurous attitude and became stubborn again.

"Dad, I want to buy sweet potato flour and sweet potato noodles from the village. Do you know which family still has a lot of these left?" She didn't argue with him and stated her purpose.

“We have them all. If each family buys a pound or two, three to five families will be enough for your family.” He took out a clean bag from his house and led Su Yu to buy some from the families he was on good terms with.

"Xiaoyu, are you still going to buy eggs? Your aunt is saving some for you," Su Yu's aunt asked.

“I’ll buy them, I’ll buy them if they’re eggs. Auntie, lend me your basket first, I didn’t bring anything to put in it.”

"Okay, I'll go out and get some straw to put under you, so you don't break it on the way."

In the end, Su Yu bought seven catties of sweet potato flour, five catties of vermicelli, thirty-seven eggs, and five salted duck eggs. She gave the elderly couple ten eggs so they could eat them themselves and not stuff them into their grandson's mouth.

"What are you buying? You're carrying all these bags and packages, like you're fleeing famine." Su Qingguo waited by the river bridge outside the village and noticed that there was a basket of vegetables hanging on both sides of the bicycle's back seat, and a basket of eggs hanging on the front of the bicycle. He wasn't even worried about falling.

"Brother, wait for me?" Su Yu asked as she got out of the car.

"Yes, the wheat has been harvested. The village agreed to give you the wheat you mentioned last year, but we only planted one mu (approximately 0.16 acres), which weighed a little over 90 jin (approximately 45 kg). When would you like us to deliver it to you?" Su Qingguo said, mentioning his real purpose in keeping watch over her. This matter was decided by the village branch without consulting the villagers, so he was looking for her behind their backs.

"Really for me?" Su Yu was pleasantly surprised. She hadn't held out much hope when she asked, as the villagers would never agree to give her an acre of winter wheat.

"You don't want it?"

"Yes, of course I'll take it." Su Yu happily accepted, asking him if he could grind it into flour for her. Otherwise, she would have hundreds of pounds of wheat but no way to eat it. The rice and flour milling machines in town even required a letter of introduction.

“I’ll give you a letter of introduction, and you can go to town to make noodles yourself. I’m busy to death every day, how can I have the energy to grind grain?” Actually, she was afraid that the villagers would find out and gossip. Even though Su Yu’s method helped them increase their yield by fifty or sixty jin per mu, there were always some people in the village who were suspicious and wanted to cause trouble.

That works too. Su Yu asked him to deliver it to her before 7:30 in the morning or after 7:00 in the evening, as she would be home during those times.

"Then I'll bring it to you tomorrow morning." He set a time and asked her how her work at the orchard was going.

"That's great, bro. If you want to buy fruit later, just ask me. No need for tickets," Su Yu said.

"Okay, that's good." Su Qingguo smiled. "Your brother was furious about you selling your job before, and he even blamed your older sister. He was busy borrowing money in the village, and the next day your older sister came over and said she had bought the job. He was so angry that he called her a bandit and a robber." He said something rather thoughtless, and even said that he knew about it first and wanted Su Min to return the job to him.

"Let him say whatever he wants. Nobody's counting on him for food. He can keep his grievances to himself." As a family of siblings, Su Yu wouldn't bother to hide her disdain for her brother in front of him. If their parents weren't still alive, none of the sisters would want to come back.

When Su Yu arrived home, she caught three elementary school students leaving school. She rang her bicycle bell, startling the three of them to the side of the road. She pedaled her bicycle ahead of them to her doorstep, smiling as she watched the children run towards her.

"Open the door." She raised her chin.

Xiao Yuan obediently took out his keys from around his neck and opened the door, while Ping An peered at the things in the car to see what they had bought.

Su Yu picked up a salted duck egg from the basket and said to Er Ya, "Ask them for it tomorrow morning. If they don't give it to you, it means they secretly ate it. Tell me when they get back, and I'll give them a good spanking."

Ping An rolled his eyes. "We would never do such a thing." He carried the basket of eggs inside.

"Auntie, don't give it to me, I don't need to eat it," Er Ya said softly.

"You're just a little kid, take it if I give it to you, hurry home, I need to go inside and cook too." Su Yu waved her hand to let her go, she patted Xiao Hei's head that was sticking out and let it go inside, she then pushed the cart inside and closed the door with her foot.

Su Yu was washing the rice, Ping An was tending the fire, and Xiao Yuan was picking vegetables. Su Yu heard them say that they had reheated the leftover vermicelli and pancakes from breakfast for lunch, and she felt that it wasn't that simple. She pressed for details, "What else?"

"The glass noodles got soggy and didn't taste good, so Xiaoyuan and I each made a poached egg." He chuckled.

"Just fight, why hide it?" Su Yu put the rice in the pot, told him to turn up the fire, and took out two two-cent coins from her pocket and handed them to the two of them.

Tsk, she really has to pay people to eat well. How come she never gets to experience something so wonderful?

"Mom, Xiaodan from our class is going to get a stepmother too. He only found out last night." Ping An couldn't stop talking, and he started rambling about what happened at school during the day.

Su Yu said "oh" and didn't ask any further questions, but habitually continued to wait for the child to keep babbling.

“I told him that stepmothers are great, they eat well, drink well, have fun, and even give you pocket money. You also gained a brother for free.” He took the scallion that Xiao Yuan handed him and started peeling it. He threw the peeled skin directly into the stove hole to burn it.

"Not all stepmothers are as good as me. You're lucky to have met me, kid," Su Yu boasted without any shame.

"That's probably true. Er Ya's mother didn't treat her well. It would be better to get a new stepmother."

“Not all stepmothers are as good as me,” Su Yu emphasized.

“Okay, you’d better.” Ping An glanced at her.

"My mom is the best anyway." Xiao Yuan was dissatisfied with his perfunctory attitude.