Chapter 49 The marriage report has arrived.

After entering the village, Molly encountered several team members on the way.

"Molly, you bought piglets?"

"Oh dear, why does this piglet look so small?"

"Several people from our brigade just bought piglets, and they look much bigger than yours."

Everyone looked at Molly, puzzled. Was she deliberately picking out the smaller size?

Molly paused, a fleeting look of disappointment crossing her face, which was noticed by several team members. Their expressions turned strange; could there be something else going on?

Sure enough, Molly said in a low voice, "I arrived late, and there were only five left. I had no choice."

"That's not right. Why are you late? Your Aunt Guihua said she saw you at the commune and saw you go upstairs with that cadre Zhang."

Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions became even stranger, and they looked at Molly with pity in their eyes.

Was she being bullied?

The promised piglets were replaced with five skinny ones, the ones that had been rejected by others.

Molly lowered her head. "Uncles and aunts, my things are heavy, so I'll head back first."

With that, Molly lowered her head and walked away.

"Molly's two pigs were so good back then, glossy and growing so fast. If the commune people hadn't come, they would have definitely grown to over 200 jin by the New Year."

"Indeed, what a pity."

"The commune is really bullying people. They took away such a good fat pig, but gave Molly, a deformed piglet, to them."

"Shh, keep your voice down, or you'll get into trouble."

"......."

In less than a day, everyone in the brigade knew that Molly had brought back five 20-pound piglets from the commune. Eventually, some people even said that Molly's five pigs looked sickly and probably wouldn't last more than a few days.

Those who were originally envious and jealous of Molly now couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

In the evening, Mo He finished work and Mo An finished school. The two siblings stormed into the house and headed straight for the pigsty.

"It's several sizes thinner than the one I bought. They've gone too far!" Mo He gritted her teeth in anger.

"Sister~" Mo An was about to cry, feeling sorry for her sister and also sad and wronged.

Molly felt a warmth in her heart, but couldn't help but find it a little funny. "It's nothing serious, we can catch up in ten days or half a month."

Her tone was gentle, carrying a certain calming power.

“There are only two people in my family, Mo’an and I. According to the regulations, each person can only raise two pigs, one to be handed over to the commune and the other to keep for themselves. I originally only planned to raise four, because more would attract envy. Now I’ve brought back five. That’s a lot, but they don’t grow well, so the brigade members won’t have too many thoughts about it.”

"Don't try to comfort us." Mo He was still angry, feeling that her sister was just pretending to be strong.

"We really can't raise too many. Right now, we have seven pigs of all sizes, only two fewer than the brigade. Seven pigs, where do you think we're going to get enough food to feed them?"

“That’s true.” Mo He knew her sister was right, but she was still unhappy. “They’re too small.”

"Don't you believe in my abilities? Come back in ten days or so, and they'll definitely be as big as the pig you raised." Molly was quite confident about this. "These pigs didn't look too good, so I took the opportunity to ask them for a lot of tickets and a lot of money."

Molly happily showed off the things she had bought. "Look at this red thermos and sickle, I bought them with my industrial coupons. It will be much more convenient to have hot water at home from now on. I also bought flour and rice, all with coupons from the commune. I also have a few cloth coupons. When the weather gets a little warmer, I'll go buy some fine cotton cloth to make summer clothes for us."

Mohe was captivated by the thermos, but her anger subsided when she saw Molly say she had won the votes. "You can just buy one for yourself and Xiao An. Your brother-in-law said he'd weave some cloth for me, so I'll have something to wear."

“Brother-in-law is quite considerate.” Molly smiled and pointed to the White Rabbit candies and cookies on the table. “I got them from the commune office and left some for you.”

"White Rabbit Creamy Candy!" Mo An's eyes lit up.

“This candy is expensive. The people from the commune are using it to shut you up.” Mo He peeled a piece and put it in her mouth, but didn’t touch the biscuit. “I’m going back. I have to farm tomorrow. I’ll be busy for a while. I’ll come visit again when I’m free.”

"Sister, I'll go cut pig feed after school from now on." With seven pigs at home, Mo An suddenly felt a lot more pressure.

“No need, you have to feed the pigs at noon. I plan to plant pumpkins and sweet potatoes all around our house, that will ease some of the pressure,” Molly said.

Many team members also planted these climbing melons around their houses, and the brigade turned a blind eye to it, generally not interfering unless it was too excessive.

"Sister, all the melons we planted in winter have blossomed and borne fruit. Some of them will be ready to be picked and eaten in a few days." Mo An had been paying close attention to the melons and knew exactly how many flowers had bloomed and how many melons had formed.

"That's good. I'm going to dig up some kudzu roots in the next couple of days. I plan to expand my yam cultivation. I'll just leave one or two kudzu plants."

The yams must have mutated; the fruits are getting bigger and bigger, from the size of a thumb when they first came back to now being almost as thick as bamboo. The kudzu roots are also big, but they're too coarse and don't taste as good as the yams. She's also too lazy to make kudzu root powder, so growing yams is still the more cost-effective option.

"I'll dig with you when I get home from school," Mo An said.

Molly knew she would be busy in the next few days, so she didn't refuse Mo An and said to him, "Come back and dig sweet potatoes. They're quite big now. We can plant new ones after we've dug them up."

The piglets from the brigade have just returned and aren't eating much yet; two pots of pig feed a day are enough.

That day, Molly cooked pig feed, fed the pigs, and after they finished eating, she had to clean the pigsty. While waiting, she went to the wasteland to pull weeds.

When Aunt Fang came over to hand over the shift, she saw Molly uproot a small sapling with one hand. The sapling was as thick as an adult's wrist. She didn't see her exert much force, but the sapling was pulled up.

Aunt Fang swallowed hard. "Everyone is right, Molly is indeed very strong."

Molly spent an hour weeding before saying goodbye to Aunt Fang.

“You pulled up these grasses and trees, so you can take them home and use them to burn as firewood once they’re dry,” Aunt Fang said.

Molly shook her head. "Stay here and cook pig feed."

There wasn't much of this stuff; it was mostly grass, so she might as well have gone up the mountain to chop firewood.

With many people in the brigade raising pigs, the pig feed on the mountain gradually became scarcer. It was necessary to go to a very far place to pick enough to fill a basket, which made some children and the elderly less willing to do so.

The work points earned from pulling weeds in the fields are better than those earned from cutting pig feed.

Molly's sweet potato vines on that wasteland had grown long, and when there wasn't enough pig feed, she and Aunt Fang would cut these vines to feed the pigs. At first, Molly didn't plant many, but gradually, the large wasteland behind the pigsty turned into a lush green expanse, covered with sweet potato vines and various gourd vines.

"Molly was really farsighted," Aunt Fang praised to the brigade leader. "If it weren't for her, these pigs would be starving right now."

The team leader agreed with Aunt Fang, "She's thinking ahead. You two have raised the pigs very well; they're growing much faster than in previous years." The 30-pound piglets had only been back for a little over three months, and they'd already grown to about 70 pounds—that's quite fast. It seems that having Molly raise the pigs was a wise decision.

"They do grow fast, but we also have our difficulties. The more sweet potatoes and melons we plant, the more we have to do. Just watering them takes up a lot of our time and energy," Aunt Fang said with a troubled expression.

The team leader thought for a moment, "Next is the double harvest season, and everyone is very busy. We can't spare anyone to help you. How about this, I'll give you and Molly two extra work points each day, as payment for planting sweet potatoes and melons."

Aunt Fang's eyes lit up. "That would be perfect."

They had to cut sweet potato vines, dig up sweet potatoes, and climb over piles of stones to pick all kinds of melons. She didn't feel guilty at all about getting the work points.

And whether it was her imagination or not, the nine pigs had recently been eating the sweet potatoes and various melons that Molly had planted, and they were growing much faster than if they had been eating pig feed. At this rate, they would definitely weigh 200 jin (100 kg) by the New Year.

A pig that grows to 200 pounds in less than a year is quite rare.

During the busy harvest season, everyone from adults to children was exhausted.

The aroma of meat can be smelled in the village every night.

"Did you kill a chicken last night? The smell wafted into my house, and my grandson cried all night because he was so hungry for it."

"It wasn't a chicken. Chickens are kept to lay eggs. It was a rabbit that we killed. We ordered a rabbit from Molly. It was raised for three months, and the one we killed last night weighed nine pounds."

"My God, it's so big!" the neighbor exclaimed with envy.

"That's right. But it's not just my rabbit that's big; other people's rabbits are big too. I heard that Guihua's biggest one weighed twelve pounds."

"Wow, it's only been a few months and it's already this big! We're so lucky!" The neighbor's eyes were red with envy.

"That's right. If we're careful with the meat from killing one rabbit, it can last us for several days. You see, everyone's been working so hard these past few days, and many families have been killing rabbits. We've agreed that once we've killed all the rabbits, we'll order baby rabbits from Molly to raise."

"Are her rabbits really that good?"

"If it weren't good, why would so many people be fighting over it?"

"Then I'll raise a few too." The neighbor decided to go find Molly later, as her family also needed to eat meat.

Molly killed a rabbit tonight too. It's been so hot lately, and she hasn't had much of an appetite. She's planning to cook the rabbit differently—cold rabbit with lots of Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers—it'll be spicy, numbing, and fragrant.

School was on summer vacation, and with Mo An helping out at home, Molly spent her free time chopping firewood on the mountain, aside from taking care of things at the brigade's pigsty.

When she returned home that night, she found an extra person in her house. A tall figure was fetching water to water her vegetable garden. His movements were somewhat clumsy, as if it were the first time he had done something like this.

"Molly?"

The man looked at her; Molly recognized the voice—it was Ji Hefeng.

Molly put down the firewood and went inside. "When did you get back?"

"Four o'clock in the afternoon," Ji Hefeng said, putting down the bucket and following Molly into the house.

Mo An was cooking when Molly smelled the chicken soup, indicating that Mo An must have killed some chickens. Most of the previous thirty-four chickens had already been killed, leaving a few hens and two roosters. Now, three more hens were incubating eggs.

Molly went to wash her hands. Under the kerosene lamp, she noticed that Ji Hefeng had lost even more weight, his features had become more sharp, and his dark eyes gave off an indescribable pressure.

"Sister, I made chicken soup, stir-fried bok choy, and stir-fried wood ear mushrooms with meat. Is that enough?" Mo An asked.

The meat was cooked in a clay pot; they had already finished a large pot, and there was still one pot left.

Molly nodded. "That's enough."

Mo An grinned, "We'll have rice as our staple food."

Molly replied, "Okay."

Mo An: "That's what my brother-in-law said too."

Molly then asked Ji Hefeng, "Did you just pass by this time, or did you come back specifically for this?"

“I came back specifically because the marriage application has been approved. When are you free? Let’s go get our marriage certificate.”