Chapter 20 Meager Income

On the third day of Shen Xuewei's summer vacation, after working for four months since the Lunar New Year, Chen Fangyang, who had resigned and been traveling for more than a month, finally returned home.

He had spent half of his money, and planned to use the remaining half to get through the year, until after the New Year.

He went home at a good time.

The Chen family grows many crops, with corn being the most common.

The corn was all harvested at the end of last month, and the rice was also harvested a couple of days ago.

Now, they are being dried in batches on the drying ground.

The scorching sun played a crucial role at this time, drying the crops in just a few days.

Chen Fangyang is young now, and he still pays attention to his appearance when he's out.

After lying in bed for two days at home, I stopped caring about my hairstyle and it was a mess all the time.

However, he is good-looking, and even when he looks messy, there is a kind of chaotic beauty to it.

After lunch, the three elderly people in the family went out to work, weeding and chopping firewood, leaving only Shen Xuewei and Chen Fangyang at home.

Shen Xuewei looked at the meal that had been specially reserved for Chen Fangyang on the table, remembered her grandparents' instructions, sighed, and went up to knock on Chen Fangyang's door.

"Second Uncle, Second Uncle, get up! If you don't get up, Big Yellow will eat your food."

Chen Fangyang, still half asleep, replied, "Then let's feed it to the dog."

Holding her breath, Shen Xuewei asked again, "Second Uncle, are you really not going to eat?"

Chen Fangyang scratched his hair in frustration and shouted, "I'm not eating!"

This time, Shen Xuewei didn't continue talking to him; she quickly went downstairs.

He picked up the rice in Chen Fangyang's bowl and ate half of it.

She poured the remaining half bowl into Dahuang's dog bowl, amidst Dahuang's excited expression.

Big Yellow pounced over, burying its entire head in the dog bowl and eating heartily.

If its owner provides food, what dog would want to keep eating poop?

Even after the three elderly people in the family returned from the fields, Chen Fangyang still hadn't gotten out of bed.

When Grandpa Chen asked, Shen Xuewei pointed upstairs and said, "Grandpa, I called my second uncle to get up for breakfast. But he said he didn't want to get up and told me to feed the dog..."

So, the kid upstairs slept all day?

Grandpa Chen went upstairs, both angry and worried. When he got upstairs and saw Chen Fangyang still fast asleep, he was furious.

Shen Xuewei was helping Grandma Xi thread a needle. Grandma Xi was old and her eyesight was failing, so she had difficulty threading the needle and asked Shen Xuewei to help her.

Just as the thread in my hand was being threaded through, Grandpa Chen's thunderous, furious voice came from upstairs.

Shen Xuewei's hand trembled, and the needle pierced her hand.

Grandma Xi quickly smeared some saliva on her hand, and once the bleeding stopped, she rushed into the house to see what was wrong.

Chen Fangyang screamed as his maternal grandfather chased him down from upstairs.

"Dad, Dad, stop hitting me. Just this once. I promise I'll never sleep in again."

He ran away with his head in his hands, his voice carrying far.

Hearing the commotion, the Wu family, who were having dinner next door, grabbed their bowls and ran to the Chen family's house.

When they arrived outside the Chen family's house, they saw Chen Fangyang being beaten like a grandson, squatting to the side holding a bowl and watching the commotion.

Grandpa Chen beat him for a while before he could barely calm down. But when he saw Chen Fangyang grinning, his anger flared up again.

No matter how much he was beaten or scolded, Chen Fangyang remained unmoved, like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

With no excitement left to watch, the Wu family shook their heads regretfully, picked up their bowls, and left.

After being beaten, Chen Fangyang got up early the next day.

But... "Little Weiwei, could you also wash your second uncle's clothes while you're at it?"

Shen Xuewei was carrying a bucket and was about to go with Wu Yuhong to the reservoir near the back woods to wash clothes.

The Chen family has a well, but ever since Shen Xuewei came, the well has been covered with a stone slab.

The stone slab would only be moved when an adult needed to draw water from the well.

Shen Xuewei didn't want to use the water in the family's water tank to wash her clothes, so she decided to go to the water storage pond in the back woods.

The reservoir was very large, but a water pipe was specially left next to it.

Simply pull out the stopper to let the water flow out.

She was young, and her maternal grandparents didn't want her to help with the laundry. However, at her insistence, she would go to the reservoir to wash her own clothes every day.

I hadn't walked more than a few steps with the bucket when I heard this sentence.

Even though she already knew her second uncle's lazy nature, she still couldn't help but widen her eyes.

"Second Uncle, you're already twenty-five years old, and I'm only six. How can you treat a child laborer like this!"

Chen Fangyang's face was full of embarrassment. "What's wrong with that? You're my own niece. What's so hard about ordering you around?"

Seeing this, Wu Yuhong added a thought to Shen Xuewei's mind: "Shameless, lazybones."

The two stared at each other for a while, but in the end, Shen Xuewei succumbed to Chen Fangyang's temptation of two yuan and helped him wash his clothes.

Having experienced a lot, Shen Xuewei has always felt that money brings a sense of security.

Two yuan is simply too hard for Shen Xuewei to earn these days.

Even a mosquito's leg is still a piece of meat!

Chen Fangyang provided the money, and Shen Xuewei provided the labor; they managed to get along peacefully for several days.

The deal ended when Chen Fangyang asked Shen Xuewei to do the laundry, which was discovered by Chen's maternal grandfather.

After being reprimanded again, Chen Fangyang had no choice but to wash his own clothes, and Shen Xuewei also lost her source of income.

Shen Xuewei was briefly disappointed, but she cheered up again after her maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather said they would take her to the town market.

However, this time, going to the market wasn't just about buying things; it was also about selling things.

Grandpa Chen carried a load on a shoulder pole, with several chickens on one side and a basket of grain on the other.

Grandma Xi was carrying a large bag, which looked quite big, but it wasn't very heavy.

The three of them set off from the mountains early in the morning and finally arrived at the brigade outside.

One of the three-wheeled motorcycles was full, and the other half of the passengers were going to the town market.

Fortunately, they didn't intend to bring anything to sell, which gave Shen Xuewei and the others enough space to put their things.

After finally arriving in town by car, Grandpa Chen was selling chickens by the roadside.

Shen Xuewei followed her maternal grandmother to a nearby grain shop to sell glutinous rice.

The purchase price of glutinous rice was nine cents per pound. Grandpa Chen brought forty pounds and sold it for thirty-six yuan.

After selling the glutinous rice, Grandma Xi took Shen Xuewei to the herbal medicine vendor.

She first took out a plastic bag.

The plastic bag was opened, revealing about a dozen centipedes strung together with bamboo strips.

Centipedes appear in the mountains every summer when it gets hot.

Centipedes can be used as medicinal materials and sold to medicine dealers. A centipede can fetch one dollar, so when they come across one, they usually catch it and sell it to the medicine dealers.

Besides centipedes, Grandma Xi's bag also contained dried medicinal herbs.

It looked like a big, bulging bag, but when it was weighed, it weighed less than three pounds.

These two medicinal herbs brought in twenty-seven yuan and fifty cents.

Shen Xuewei helped Grandma Xi sell three items, but they still couldn't earn a hundred yuan in total.

At that moment, a sentence came to mind.

No one becomes rich by farming.

Yet those who farm the land use such meager income to support their descendants.