Chapter 3 Yanggou Village

Xia Wu was afraid that it was a stuffy canned food truck, but when he looked over, he saw a wooden cart harnessed to a cow. Yang Guojun was standing next to the cart, talking to an old man wearing a straw hat.

"Uncle Si, this is my daughter. Didn't she just come back from the city? She's not used to riding the bus!"

"Oh, this is Xiao Wu!" The old man, known as Fourth Uncle, looked at Xia Wu curiously and praised her endlessly, "This girl is really pretty, but a little thin! My ox cart is also very bumpy, is she used to it?"

Uncle Yang and Yang Guojun are both from Yanggou Village. Some time ago, the news that the Yang family took away the wrong daughter was widely spread. Everyone in the village knew about it and thought that the daughter Yang Guojun had raised with great difficulty had gone away. Unexpectedly, he brought her home again.

Xia Wu had never ridden in an ox cart before. She walked over and listened to Yang's father chatting with someone. She looked at the ox pulling the cart curiously, and the ox also looked at her curiously.

This cow was a strange animal, with a stocky build, gray-black fur, and thick, flat horns that curved backwards. Its eyes were as big as bells, its pupils moist, and it looked at Xia Wu gently. Then it stretched its head toward her. Xia Wu reached out to touch it, and it obediently rubbed against her palm.

Xia Wu laughed out loud. Seeing this, Fourth Uncle Yang also laughed and said, "Old buddy really likes you, girl. Come up quickly!"

Liu Guizhen got on the car first, then pulled Xia Wu up, put the luggage under her body, and let Xia Wu sit.

Uncle Yang patted the cow's butt and said, "Let's go home."

The cow really moved obediently. It walked slowly and the sound of bells could be heard while it moved. Everything was very interesting.

"Mom, what kind of cow is this?" Xia Wu asked curiously.

"Your fourth uncle's family has been raising buffaloes for many years!"

Xia Wu had seen cows, but she had never seen a water buffalo. She asked curiously, "What can a water buffalo do? Can it pull a cart?"

Her words made the adults in the car laugh. Uncle Yang said cheerfully, "Water buffaloes can do a lot of things. Look at the rice growing in our fields. They rely on our old friends to plow the soil. They can also pull crops, pull carts, and even produce milk for drinking!"

"Can buffaloes produce milk?" Xia Wu was amazed.

"Buffalo milk tastes better than cow's milk!"

"Tomorrow, Mom will make you some buffalo milk. I'll let you try it. It's delicious."

"Guizhen, don't bother. If the child wants to drink, just go to my house. My cow is still feeding her calf, so there's plenty of milk."

"Okay, okay, then I'll go to my fourth uncle's house to ask for some." Liu Guizhen didn't bother to be polite.

"I'd like to thank my daughter's fourth grandfather on her behalf," said Yang Guojun.

Xia Wu quickly replied, "Thank you, Fourth Grandpa."

"Hahaha, why are you so polite? You're a good girl and a good son, you're really good!"

The oxcart moved slowly along the asphalt road in the countryside. It took a long time for one or two cars to pass by. The road was winding, with rice fields on one side and a river like a jade belt on the other. Bells were hung on the oxen, like horns to remind people.

The wind blew gently, and sometimes after walking a few steps, the buffaloes could not resist the temptation of the wild grass by the roadside, so they would stop, roll up the grass with their wide tongues and eat it.

Xia Wu stuck his head out to look curiously, and accidentally met the buffalo's eyes again.

She laughed, and the buffalo raised one of its front hooves sheepishly, stopped eating grass, and continued moving forward.

They walked very slowly and chatted all the way. They said that the hustle and bustle of the city was hard to get used to and the food was expensive, but there were so many people and life was convenient.

Liu Guizhen whispered to Xia Wu if she felt dizzy. Xia Wu was drowsy in the ox cart, so he simply leaned on his mother's shoulder, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the peace and leisure.

The voices were getting farther and farther away, and her thoughts were slowly rising into the air. After an unknown amount of time, someone gently shook her shoulder and said, "My daughter, we're home."

Xia Wu opened his sleepy eyes and after adjusting to the light, he saw that the mountain that was far away just now was now very close.

"Home?"

She was helped out of the car by Yang's father. Looking back, she saw that the car was just an empty shell. "Where's my old friend?"

Fourth Uncle Yang laughed heartily and said, "Look at that—"

Xia Wu followed the direction of his finger and looked into the ditch. Under the clear water, a huge creature was swimming slowly. Then it poked its head out, revealing its big, moist and gentle eyes.

"Buffalo, buffalo, you feel uncomfortable if you don't soak in the water for a day! Okay, I'll take my old friend home first, you guys should go back and rest quickly too!"

"Okay, Fourth Uncle, take care. I'll come and thank you tomorrow when I'm free."

"It's not a big deal, what's there to thank me for? I'm leaving."

After waving goodbye to Fourth Uncle Yang, Yang Guojun picked up Xia Wu's luggage and said, "Let's go home."

Although Yanggou Village is remote, in response to the national call, the muddy fields in the village have long been turned into cement roads leading to every household.

Yang Guojun's home is in a very ordinary location in the village, neither far nor near from the village entrance. There are many buildings in the village, but they are some distance apart.

There is a road right in front of the Yang family’s door. Across the road is a pond of more than one acre, and there are two vegetable plots next to it, all owned by the Yang family.

The Yang family's house was just a bungalow, and the door was not locked. Yang Guojun pushed the door open and shouted, "Dad, Xiaowen!"

"I guess Dad took Xiaowen out again," Liu Guizhen said, clearly accustomed to this. She prioritized her daughter's needs. She pulled Xia Wu into the yard and said, "Xiaowu, Mom will go clean up your room first. Wait here."

There were several watermelons with green skin piled up in the corner of the corridor. Yang Guojun said, "Why clean up? Just tidy up the things in Xiaowei's room. Xiaowu can move in directly." He spread out the table, picked up a watermelon and washed it in the well in the yard. Then he went to the kitchen to get a knife and cut it in no time.

The moment the tip of the knife touched the watermelon rind, the watermelon cracked with a "bang", and the unique aroma of watermelon filled the aisle. Xia Wu was thirsty after sitting in the car for most of the day. He couldn't help swallowing his saliva and couldn't take his eyes off the watermelon.

Yang Guojun handed her the first piece of watermelon. She took it and took a bite. Her eyes immediately widened. It tasted so much better than the imported watermelons she had eaten!

Yang Guojun is a man and not that considerate, but Liu Guizhen is considerate. She is afraid that her biological daughter will be wronged when she comes back, and she is also afraid that her adopted daughter will feel wronged when she comes back one day and sees that her bed is gone.

But Xia Wu didn't care about any of this at all. She ate one bite of watermelon after another like a wild goose, and waved her hand, saying, "Mom, just listen to Dad. Just give me a bed to sleep on, and I won't touch her things."

Xia Wu's sensible attitude made Liu Guizhen feel uncomfortable.

There were extra rooms in the house. There were two rooms in the front house. The east side was her and Yang Guojun's bedroom, and the west side was the old man's bedroom.

There are three rooms at the back and a central hall. Through the central hall there is a backyard with a bathroom, a vegetable garden, and a place to store firewood.

There are bedrooms on both sides of the central hall, one for her son and one for her daughter, and the side rooms are the kitchen and bathroom. She originally wanted to pack up her son's things and let Yang Hongwen sleep in the same room with his grandfather.

Now that Xia Wu said this, Liu Guizhen really wanted to hug her and cry. This child has changed so much, she must have been wronged in the Xia family!