By the time Yun Ruochun realized what was happening, all the firewood on the ground had already been chopped up!
A surge of anger welled up in her heart. At dinner, she deliberately sat next to Qin Yu, always taking the food he was about to serve him first, filling her bowl to the brim, and then eating it in front of him.
Qin Yu wasn't angry. He just stared at Yun Ruochun with his big, naturally lined eyes.
Yun Ruochun felt uneasy being stared at, so she slowly turned to the other side. But just as she finished eating the rice in her bowl, she felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw a large chicken leg.
"There's also a big chicken leg here."
Looking at his bowl of plain white rice, devoid of any meat, Yun Ruochun felt too embarrassed to take food from someone else's mouth, so she declined, saying, "You eat it yourself."
"You've worked hard, you eat, I'll just pick out the scraps of meat and eat them."
Qin Yu put the big chicken leg directly into Yun Ruochun's bowl, while he picked up the crumbs from the bowl and plate and mixed them with his rice.
Feeling bad about it, Yun Ruochun used the tip of her chopsticks to cut the chicken leg meat in half and put the slightly larger side into Qin Yu's bowl.
Seeing this, Grandma Yun laughed so hard she didn't even notice the food stuck between her teeth.
Qin Yu didn't stay for more than two days. After this incident, although he didn't know if the letter asking for help had reached his father, he still had to go back and report that he was safe and sound. So, the next day, he rode in Yun Shenghua's donkey cart into the city.
He was also reluctant to leave. He felt the friendliness of Granny Yun and learned how interesting Yun Ruochun was. He thought that he would come back to stay here again next time he sneaked out of the house. So he asked Yun Shenghua's name and surname and remembered the flowers, plants and trees on both sides of the road.
Since I had started chatting with Yun Shenghua, I asked him how he was rescued back then.
Upon learning that the city gates were heavily guarded and the donkey cart had been switched, Qin Yu was certain that the group had found him and wanted to take him away from there. In the end, they encountered a vehicle inspection and had no choice but to strip him of his clothes. But he wouldn't dwell on the past, so he naturally didn't think about it anymore.
Time slipped away as the donkey cart wheels turned.
Yun Chu had already written five strokes of draft paper, and the first five pages of the medical book were creased from being turned over and over again.
Yun Ruoxia was troubled by her small box, which was almost full of coins, and wondered whether she should replace it with a bigger one or buy a smaller one.
Yun Ruochun sat with her father on the edge of the field to watch the wheat seedlings. When she was little, she would sit next to her father and ask when the rice would ripen. She wanted to keep asking.
Old Lady Yun and Madam Zhang were discussing the dowries of their four daughters. Now that royal jelly could earn money, the dowries naturally had to be impressive, so that the husbands' families wouldn't look down on them.
Yunling's plan was simple: she would pry open the termite mushrooms, let the bees roam freely, and raise two more beehives next year.
While some rejoice, others grieve.
Yun Da opened the bucket with great anticipation. He thought that after a whole summer, he should be able to attract a batch of bees and produce two to three catties of honey. If one catty could sell for one string of copper coins, then three catties would be three strings of copper coins. This was comparable to what they earned in a month as laborers at the docks. And it was so easy; they didn't have to think about it and could just wait.
If he had added a few more large round buckets and filled the entire courtyard, he, and even his whole family, wouldn't have needed to go out to find work; they could just wait to collect the money. How come he only found out about such a good idea now? That damned third brother kept it a secret; he's so unkind.
That's what he thought, but reality slapped him hard in the face. There was no honey in the bucket, but some dead bees. His brows furrowed instantly.
Liu was also thinking of collecting honey from Yunda, and even brought a porcelain bowl over, but she didn't expect to find it empty. "Husband, were the bees stolen by the third branch of the family? Otherwise, how come they can keep bees using the same method, but we can't? It can't be that the bees don't collect honey because it's too hot in the summer. They still need to eat."
Yun remained silent, wondering which part of the process had gone wrong.
But after thinking it over, he still felt that his method was correct. It was just that the third brother used some means to control the bee swarm and prevent them from flying over. Otherwise, they would not come to his big yard and would insist on crowding into their small house.
Impossible, absolutely impossible.
Liu continued, "Husband, should we get a ladder and investigate?"
But as soon as she finished speaking, Liu saw a black figure hiding in the tree where the third house was located. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was the stray cat that Yunling had brought back during the New Year.
It squinted its eyes, appearing lazy, yet its aura was extremely intimidating. Liu remembered Yunling's words and feared that if she were grabbed, she would not know whether she would live or die, so she quickly stopped such a dangerous thought.
“Master, since they stole our bees, we’ll steal theirs too. Besides, their bees come back with honey, so we can just sit back and enjoy the benefits.”
Liu's phrase "reap the benefits without sowing" really struck a chord with Yun Da. Indeed, it was the third brother who was unrighteous and unjust first, so don't blame him for being impolite.
Since the two of them thought so, they quickly got to work. They first cut down two long bamboo poles from the mountain, and then made a large bag out of a thin blanket, so that they could wipe out the entire swarm of bees.
As evening fell, the two men would stand guard at the alley entrance, and when the swarm of bees flew back, they would vigorously swing their bamboo poles. When Yun Shenghua returned, they would put the poles away and go home. To be honest, they managed to steal a little bit of bees.
The two men excitedly put the bees into the large round bucket, and had a bountiful harvest for three consecutive days. However, without a queen bee to guard them, even if they stole the bees, they couldn't keep them alive. They would either die or escape. But they were happy to do it, as long as they could cause trouble for the third branch of the family, they were happy.
Yunling discovered the unusual behavior of the bee colony several days later. The reason was that she found the bees fighting at the beehive, which was undoubtedly a case of bee robbing.
Her heart skipped a beat. Usually, it's the strong attacking the weak, so how come their swarm has weakened in just a few days? There must be something fishy going on.
Yunling quickly blocked the entrances of the four beehives and moved them aside, replacing them with two empty hives. Within half an hour, the robbing bees, seeing that there was no honey in the hives, naturally flew away.
Yunling dared not relax. She quickly checked the condition of the four beehives. Nearly half of the bees in the hives were gone, which made her extremely distressed. Too few bees and too many combs was a big problem!
If bees are overburdened, they will become increasingly weak, unwilling to build or bite the comb, and will also develop many diseases, resulting in more deaths and poor honey quality. In addition, they will abscond, with the entire swarm leaving. What's the point of keeping bees then?
Despite her anger, the matter still needed to be resolved. She first removed all the extra combs and queen cells, placing only one or two combs in each hive to alleviate the pressure on the bees to build combs. She also cleaned the pollen and honey around the hives to avoid attracting robbing bees.
The final question is, why did the bees suddenly disappear?
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