Chapter 18: The disheveled cousin
As soon as she got home, Ye Xiaomei was busy and sweating all over.
The old house of the Ye family was not big. Li Cuihua lived in the main hall, the three rooms in the east wing were occupied by Wang Minzhi and her mother, and the west wing where Ye Xiaomei lived had only two rooms, strictly speaking. There was a narrow alley in the northwest corner of the west wing, which was used to store broken things in the past. Later, Ye Xiaomei cleaned it up and built a shed to raise rabbits.
Look, the leftover feces from the last time we raised rabbits need to be cleaned up. These are treasures, so Ye Xiaomei carried them all to the vegetable patch to dry in the sun. Once they are dry, they can be used as fertilizer.
The next step was to fetch water to clean the rabbit cage and sprinkle it with grass ash for disinfection. The cage of the mother rabbit and her five cubs had to be covered with some soft grass. The drinking water container was a bamboo tube that Ye Xiaomei had cut on the mountain. It had two holes drilled in it and was fixed in the cage with wire. It was already sunset when all the work was done.
"Hey, Xiaomei is bringing back rabbits to raise again." Wang Minzhi leaned against the wall at the corner of the alley, eating melon seeds: "Can you make money from this?"
Ye Xiaomei washed her hands, loosened her sleeves, and went straight to the kitchen to cook.
After a busy day today, the job of weeding the fields fell entirely on Mother and Xiaoya, and she couldn't let them come back to cook again.
The smile on Wang Minzhi's face gradually froze, and she spat out the melon seed shells: "You don't know what's good for you."
If her mother-in-law hadn't said that she wanted to see the girl before getting married, she wouldn't have said anything so flattering.
This scene happened to be seen by Li Cuihua who was coming back from a walk: "It's not cloudy, what's wrong? Isn't the face a nose? Look, the fish pond of Old Chen's family just caught a fish, you cook for me today."
As she spoke, Li Cuihua lifted the grass carp whose gills were tied with straw.
Wang Minzhi's eyes lit up and she took it quickly. As soon as she entered the kitchen, she felt something was wrong. Looking back at her mother-in-law, she couldn't help feeling a little forbearing. In all these years, she had never been humble to those women.
But if you think about it, one thousand yuan is a lot of money in this era. There are not many people in the village who can take out one thousand yuan.
She had already written to the man and asked him to ask his old colleagues in the coal yard to find someone of similar age for Ye Qiang, after all, he was almost thirty years old.
"Xiao Mei, let's eat fish today. Auntie will cook it." Wang Minzhi knew clearly which side was more important. When it came to a boy Ye Qiang's age, even a child would quarrel with others.
While lighting a fire, Ye Xiaomei was flipping through a small booklet she had sewed on her knees. The booklet contained records of useful herbs from the herb garden.
"Oh, okay." Ye Xiaomei stood up and left the bedroom, her eyes never leaving the notebook.
Wang Minzhi glared at the figure from behind: "She is just a piece of dead flesh, and can't even kick a fart. She is just like her mother. When I said I was cooking, couldn't you give me some more firewood?"
Ye Xiaomei went back to her room and read the breeding book carefully again. She thought that now that the grass was growing and the birds were singing, she should take this opportunity to prepare fodder for the winter.
The radish seedlings and sweet potato seedlings after the fall are both fine. Thinking of this, Ye Xiaomei remembered the rabbit dung she collected today.
Why doesn't she plant some radishes and sweet potatoes in the yard? The radishes and sweet potatoes can be eaten when the weather gets cold, the seedlings can be dried to prepare food for the rabbits for the winter, and the rabbit feces can be used as fertilizer.
As the sunset spread across the horizon, Zhao Mei returned with Ye Xiaoya. The creaking sound of the water pump could be heard from the yard:
"Little girl, school will start in a few days. Don't follow me to the fields these days. Review what you learned last semester and wash your schoolbag."
"Okay." Ye Xiaoya responded.
Ye Xiaomei was worried. Not to mention she had no money to buy seeds to grow radishes and sweet potatoes, Xiao Ya had to walk to Tieqiao Mountain to go to school. She had to leave at five in the morning and it took her more than an hour to walk there, and then another hour to walk along the mountain road to get there. Unfortunately, she didn't even have a pair of durable shoes.
At dinner time, Wang Minzhi's face turned dark red from the heat, and she threw a plate of braised grass carp on the table.
Zhao Meile was so happy that she couldn't close her mouth: "Sister-in-law, you have worked hard today."
"Why should I work so hard? We are all family." Wang Minzhi took a big bite of the steamed bun, looked sideways at the rooster in the inner room, stretched her neck and called out, "Mom, Xiaolin, it's time to eat."
Soon, Li Cuihua came out and sat in the seat of honor again: "Where's Xiaolin?"
"Who would have known? He's been out a lot these past few days and hasn't been seen since." Wang Minzhi grabbed a big piece of fish with her chopsticks.
"You don't care about her. She's just a little girl. She runs around all day and people will gossip about her." Li Cuihua scolded.
"What's there to gossip about? Besides, gossip won't spread the scandal to the whole village."
Wang Minzhi was furious, but she couldn't let the fish down, so she stuffed it into her mouth in big mouthfuls, and from time to time she put her fingers into her mouth to pinch out a few fish bones and rubbed them on the corner of the table.
Ye Xiaomei was only concerned with helping her sister pick out fish bones, and whispered to her, "Be careful, this fish has a lot of small bones."
"Xiao Mei, you should eat more too." Zhao Mei picked up the good meat from the fish belly in the bowl and gave it to Ye Xiaomei.
"Mom, why don't we go to the fields tomorrow? Let's hurry up and get together." Ye Xiaomei suggested.
"Gathering? Don't you know what the conditions are at home?" When Li Cuihua heard that she had to spend money, she felt like an electric shock on her waist. She suddenly straightened her back and said, "We are not a rich family. Why do we have to gather all day long?"
Wang Minzhi rolled her eyes. Where did this girl get the money? Could it be that raising a rabbit really make money? Or did her mother-in-law secretly give Ye Xiaoya some pocket money in order to catch a big fish? She had been to the market several times recently.
In the early morning, before daybreak, Ye Xiaomei was already dressed. The floral dress she had bought for Xiaoya had been kept under her pillow like a treasure, and today she finally wore it.
What disappointed Ye Xiaomei was that her mother was unwilling to go, fearing that her grandmother would gossip about her. In fact, as far as Ye Xiaomei could remember when she was a child, she was beaten by her grandmother before she had Xiaoya, so she had always been sullen and dared not speak.
Ye Xiaomei didn't force it, she took Xiaoya's hand and hurried out.
Ye Xiaomei almost got startled when she opened the gate of the yard.
Ye Xiaolin, who was standing outside the door, had her hair like a mess and her eyes were lifeless, like a female ghost.
The little girl was so scared that she quickly hid behind her sister.
"Sister, what's wrong?" Ye Xiaomei saw that there was a bruise on her neck, two buttons on her collar were missing, and her collar was torn, as if she had been beaten.
I lowered my eyes subconsciously and found that she was wearing a pair of crystal sandals with a beautiful bow on the upper. They were obviously much more fashionable than my own.
Ye Xiaolin's face turned pale and she slowly raised her head, her eyes full of coldness and determination, which frightened Ye Xiaomei so much that she took two steps back: "Sister... Auntie, I'm back."
Ye Xiaomei could only shout towards the east room.
At this time, Ye Xiaolin curled her lips and smiled palely: "Have you and Ma Qijun decided on a date?"
Ye Xiaomei was stunned by this sudden question.
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