Mid to late February is the best time to dig bamboo shoots, unlike other seasons when there are many old bamboo shoots.

She's a girl born and raised here, and she works just like a typical Sichuan girl.

No, she is actually a Sichuan girl.

By four o'clock in the afternoon, all three baskets and bags were full. The father said, "Let's stop digging. If we dig any further, we won't be able to take it all back."

"Okay, we're not digging anymore."

After Fang Lin finished speaking, she walked to the stream to wash her hands and helped her younger siblings carry the two baskets on their backs.

She carried the largest basket on her back, while her father carried a large bag.

The four of them walked towards the outside of the ditch, and it took them a long time to reach the outside.

When Fang Lin returned home in the evening, her stepmother had already prepared dinner. Fang Lin took the beef to the kitchen, sliced ​​it, plated it, and then brought it to the dining table. The family sat down to eat.

At this moment, the stepmother breathed a sigh of relief. She believed that Fang Lin had not betrayed her. If she had told her father the truth, her husband would have been furious long ago.

Fang Lin remained smiling, as if nothing had happened, which put her stepmother at ease.

Everything Fang Lin did was for her father. No matter how her stepmother treated her, she only cared about being good to her father.

She plans to work in another city and will only be able to come back once a year at most. She really doesn't want to break up this family.

He didn't want to see his younger siblings lose their father's love, after all, they were also his biological children and had an unbreakable blood relationship with him.

For the sake of her father and younger siblings, Fang Lin had no choice but to compromise. Regardless of her stepmother's character, a family with a woman in it was a family, and she couldn't break up the family from any perspective. It was all for the sake of her younger siblings and father.

Fang Lin's actions at this time were quite well-intentioned, sacrificing one person's happiness for the sake of the whole family.

She returned to her room, which she hadn't been back to for several years. The bed and bedding were all there, and she knew without a doubt that her stepmother had arranged it for her that afternoon. Regardless of her intentions, Fang Lin felt a touch of warmth from home.

After a train journey that lasted several days and nights, and then a half-day of work on the mountain after returning, I was exhausted. I took off my clothes, went to bed, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Fang Lin got up and went to the yard. Her stepmother was cooking in the kitchen, and her younger sister and brother were doing their homework in the yard.

Fang Lin went into her father's room. He had just gotten up. She took out the ten thousand yuan Dong Qing had given her and handed it to him, saying, "Dad, please keep this money safe. Let's rebuild our house."

The father had never seen so much money before. He said, "I never imagined you'd earned so much in just a few years."

Fang Lin's next words shocked her father: "I came back in a hurry. I can't withdraw my own money from the bank. The 10,000 yuan was a gift from my boss. I'll leave 100 yuan so I can get back."

If Fang Lin hadn't given the woman 100 yuan on the train, she wouldn't have been able to spend all the money when she got back.

Upon hearing this, the father looked at his daughter in disbelief and asked, "What kind of business does your boss run that he can give you ten thousand yuan at once?"

Fang Lin simply said, "My boss owns four companies and two wholesale markets."

After she finished speaking, she left her shocked father behind and turned to walk out the door.

The stepmother quickly prepared breakfast: rice, three stir-fried dishes, and a plate of sliced ​​beef.

Regardless of Fang Lin's stepmother's character, the food was beautifully prepared, with a strong spicy flavor. Even a simple stir-fried vegetable was incredibly delicious. If it were her own mother's cooking, Fang Lin would inevitably praise it.

She didn't want to say a word at that moment, she just sat at the table and ate.

After breakfast, the father took his younger siblings up the mountain to dig bamboo shoots.

Before Fang Lin went to university, her father made a living by digging bamboo shoots and selling dried bamboo shoots, and he still does so today.

Fang Lin took some offerings and paper money and went out of her house to visit her mother, who had passed away many years ago, at the ancestral grave.

Fang Lin arrived at the ancestral graves. There were only two graves there, one for her grandparents and the other for her mother. The graves were overgrown with weeds.

She burned some paper money for her grandparents and mother, then lay down on her mother's grave and cried, as if she had cried out all the heartache she had felt over the years.

Fang Lin returned home from the cemetery. Her stepmother started a fire to cook bamboo shoots and sat beside the large pot, cutting bamboo shoots.

This is also her profession; her father goes up the mountain to dig bamboo shoots, and she processes and dries them at home.

The locals are all experts at cutting bamboo shoots. The stepmother first cuts the bamboo shoot in half, peels off the outer skin, then uses a kitchen knife to peel off the hard skin at the nodes and roots, and finally cuts off the hard root.

After this step is completed, wash and drain all the bamboo shoots, then slice them on a cutting board. Once the water boils, put them in a large pot and cook for about 20 minutes. Then take them out and let them dry.

With so many bamboo shoots, she needs to spend the whole morning chopping and cooking them, which is a huge amount of work.

Fang Lin spread the mat in the yard and placed the dried bamboo shoots that her stepmother had cooked on the mat.

She and her stepmother each did their own work, neither of them saying a word. The two seemed like enemies from a past life, adversaries in this one.

At noon, her father and younger siblings returned carrying bamboo shoots. Her stepmother went to the kitchen to cook. Fang Lin sat down and peeled the bamboo shoots, removing the old roots. She was very familiar with this kind of work, having done it many times before going to university.

His stepmother prepared lunch, and he peeled off all the outer skin of the bamboo shoots in the basket.

Her stepmother walked up to her and said, "Linlin, stop working, go wash up and eat."

This was the first thing Fang Lin's stepmother said to her today.

Fang Lin said nothing, put down the knife, stood up, and went inside to eat.

In the afternoon, Fang Lin didn't want to stay at home and planned to let her younger siblings study at home, so she accompanied her father up the mountain to dig bamboo shoots.

I'm leaving tomorrow, and my main wish is to spend half a day alone with my father.

After lunch, Fang Lin and her father each carried a large bamboo basket up the mountain.

The father and daughter walked into a mountain gully. The humid climate in the gully was particularly suitable for the growth of wild bamboo.

The bamboo forest in the gully is so dense that it's hard to see the sunlight when you look up. A person would feel scared if they walked into the bamboo forest at the bottom of the gully.

Of course, Fang Lin's father digs bamboo shoots in the bamboo forest all year round, so this kind of environment is nothing to him. He has been running around in the bamboo forest for more than 20 years since he was young, and he is used to it.

The father and daughter worked for a while and then sat down to rest. The father asked, "Linlin, I heard from your aunt that you went to a classmate's house four years ago during summer vacation. Can you tell me the truth? Why didn't you come back to see me for four years?"

Fang Lin only then realized that her stepmother had lied to her father. Perhaps none of that mattered; what mattered was that her stepmother had sold her back then.

Although she didn't expose her stepmother, she herself couldn't believe she didn't hate her.

Fang Lin didn't know how to answer her father's question. He remained silent for a long time before recounting how human traffickers had sold her to a rural area in the north. He then mentioned that Dong Qing and his wife had pulled her out of the river at night, saving her life.

He kept talking about how Dongqing and his wife took him in and helped him find a job after he graduated from university.

However, she didn't say that her stepmother sold her. Instead, she lied and said that she was kidnapped and sold by human traffickers on her way to a classmate's house. She had no choice but to lie like this for the sake of her family.