The next morning, although she didn't have to go to the city to deliver goods, Yang Chunyan still woke up early. Hearing voices in the yard, she prepared to get dressed and get up.

Zhou Huaian opened his eyes and looked at her, "Don't go into the city or go up the mountain, just sleep for a while!"

"I woke up!" Yang Chunyan rubbed her face, "I couldn't fall asleep after waking up."

Zhou Huaian put his arm around her waist and said, "I can't sleep, let's do something else!"

"Behave yourself. Mom and sister-in-law are outside. If they hear me, I won't be able to face people!" Yang Chunyan slapped his dishonest hand away and sat up.

"Oh! Move out early and do whatever you want!" Zhou Huaian saw her get out of bed and sat up muttering.

Yang Chunyan rolled her eyes at him, put on her shoes, opened the door and walked out.

Zhao Huifang was spreading a drying mat in the yard, preparing to dry the herbs, while Zhou's father was adding thicker bamboo strips to the fence.

The fence is made of bamboo strips and is inserted on the mixing barrel to cover the grains when threshing. It surrounds the mixing barrel on three sides to prevent the rice from falling outside the mixing barrel during threshing.

Zhao Huifang spread out the drying mat and asked, "Chunyan, are you planning to go to the farm this afternoon?"

Yang Chunyan nodded, "We want to go to the ditch we passed last time and dig up those herbs."

Zhao Huifang thought for a moment and said, "The youngest said that the price of the cicada flowers they dug last time was not bad. We want to go to the bamboo forest to take a look."

"Yes." After washing up, Yang Chunyan went to the kitchen to help.

"Chunyan, the meal is ready." Zhou's mother called her. "Qiuyue and Xiuxiang have gone to the ditch to wash herbs. I washed some Houttuynia cordata and put it in the colander. You can cut some pickled cabbage and mix it in."

"Hmm!" Yang Chunyan went to the kitchen and saw a big pot of braised multi-grain porridge cooked in the pot.

He took out the jar, fished out the sauerkraut that Yang's mother had given him, squeezed out the excess sour water, cut it into small pieces and rolled it into a ceramic basin, then scooped two spoonfuls of fermented black beans, red chili oil, Sichuan pepper powder and watercress and mixed them together.

Seeing the blanched taro stalks and a handful of coriander in the basin, he took out some pickled peppers, pickled ginger and radish tops from the kimchi jar with long chopsticks, lit the fire and prepared to stew the taro stalks.

Zhou Huaian stayed in the room for a long time before leaving. Seeing that it was still early, he yawned and prepared to go back for a nap.

Father Zhou glanced at him and said sullenly, "Youngest, why are you still going in after getting up? Come with us to the mountains to chop firewood after dinner."

The lazy guy has to harness the plow every day to avoid him falling into laziness when he has nothing to do.

Zhou Huaian sighed after hearing this, turned around and said, "Old man, I want to go with Yiding to see the barren hills. After we see them, we'll go to the forest farm to dig herbs."

After hearing this, Zhou's father didn't say much. He lit a fire and started roasting the bamboo strips. After a while, the green bamboo strips were roasted into a brown color by the fire.

Zhou Huaian looked at it, thought for a moment, and then squatted by the fire. "Old man, has anyone contracted the barren mountain land in the past of my eldest brother's family?"

Father Zhou put the baked bamboo strips on the ground, stepped on one end to bend it, and looked up at him. "What's wrong? Do you want to wrap another piece?"

"No, Yiding wants to wrap a piece. What do you think of that piece?"

"That piece of land has a lot of rocks, so it's a bit difficult to dig it out, otherwise it would have been dug out long ago."

"That's right!" Zhou's mother took over the conversation, "It's next to the ravine, so it's convenient for watering. If there weren't so many rocks, it would have been dug out long ago."

Zhou Huaian: "Is it a big rock or a small rock?"

"There are small stones, too, and quite a few large rocks!"

After hearing this, Zhou Huaian felt that there was nothing to be afraid of with the big rocks. He could plant herbs there anyway. The rocks could be used to plant olives, selaginella, and schisandra. "When Yiding comes, I'll take him to have a look."

Father Zhou nodded, "Tell Yiding that if he doesn't mind the trouble, he can take over that piece of land. This side is adjacent to your eldest brother's. It used to be Captain Zhou's private land. They are all reasonable people, so they don't argue too much."

After the household contract responsibility system was implemented, some greedy families dug up the field ridges that were originally more than one meter wide and were shared by two families, inch by inch towards their own land.

After digging all the way, only a small ridge of field remained, and walking on it with a load on one's shoulder was no different from walking like a cat.

Zhou Huaian thought so too, "Let me take Yiding to have a look."

Father Zhou handed him the bamboo strips and said, "I'll teach you how to repair the fence, so that when I die, you won't even know how to repair the fence."

"Puh, puh, puh!" Zhou Huaian spat several times in succession and looked at him disapprovingly, "Old man, it's so early in the morning, you should be more careful with your words!"

Father Zhou was somewhat happy, and when he saw him, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, "Isn't it good for you to have no one to take care of you after I die?"

Zhou Huaian stepped forward to take the roasted bamboo strips and looked at him with a smile, "Didn't you say last time that you still have to control me even though I'm eighty years old? Now I feel like I'm just a jerk and I just like you to control me!"

After hearing this, the wrinkles at the corners of Zhou's father's eyes were squeezed together, and he patted him lightly, "I think you are a hard nut to crack, you have to give in!"

"Hehe! The walnut nature is born from you!" Zhou Huaian followed him and started working.

After breakfast, those who needed to work took their tools and went out.

Yang Chunyan and Zhou's mother took down the herbs that were drying on the bamboo rack, spread them out on the drying mat, and walked back and forth several times and saw that Zhou Huaian was still slumped in the recliner.

"Huaian, wait a little longer until the sun comes out, you should go to Yiding's house and call him."

Zhou Huaian opened his eyes and looked at the two of them, then stretched and stood up, "I'll go check it out, that guy probably hasn't woken up yet!"

Yang Chunyan felt that they were both similar and didn't know where they got so much sleepiness every day!

Mother Zhou glanced at him, then thought about it and said worriedly, "Go and check it out quickly, and go up the mountain as soon as possible."

Zhou Huaian nodded and walked straight out of the yard.

Mother Zhou said to Yang Chunyan, "I plan to go to town to see Yumei tomorrow and bring some rapeseed oil to her family. She's already five months pregnant. I wonder if she's seen a midwife yet?"

"Don't worry, Grandma Yumei knows." Yang Chunyan remembered that in her previous life, before Yumei gave birth to a child, her in-laws treated her very well. It was not until she gave birth to a daughter that her parents-in-law, who used to favor boys over girls, changed their attitude.

He tried every means to make Yumei give birth to a second child, and she managed to get the second child to be a girl.

Later, the He family connected the house and built a storefront. After opening a clothing store and making money, they hooked up with their former lover Bai Yueguang...

After hearing this, Zhou's mother thought about it and looked at her belly, "Yan'er, it's time for you to have a baby."

Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "I asked Doctor Wang to check my pulse. Maybe it's not my destiny yet!"

After hearing this, Zhou's mother was relieved. "That's right. Having a baby depends on fate. It will come naturally when fate arrives."

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dried the herbs, and then carried baskets to the sorghum field on the back mountain to pick beans.

Sweet potatoes, cowpeas and mung beans are interplanted in the sorghum fields, and the vines are climbing everywhere along the sorghum stalks.

Cowpeas mature late, and have just formed pods at this time of year. They are all green and tender. They are best picked, washed, dried, and made into pickles.

There were a lot of radishes growing in the ridges of the field. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law picked cowpeas while pulling out the radishes. (End of this chapter)