Xu Lai turned her head and saw Zhao Qingyun. He put the bag on his shoulder and said, "Let me do it. This must weigh several dozen kilograms."
He and his grandfather made two or three trips back and forth to move the load when Xu Shen drove up in his tricycle. He stopped and asked, "Do you need any help?"
Xu Lai felt like she had met a savior. She nodded and said, "It's so necessary. If someone carries it back, it will take at least a dozen trips."
Xu Shen lowered the tricycle's side panel, picked up a bag of millet and threw it on. Xu Lai and Xia Ning also started lifting, and soon, half of it was gone from the ground.
Xu Lai got into a tricycle and went home with Xu Shen to unload the grain.
Zhao Qingyun wiped away his sweat; his clothes were soaked through, and his shoulders and waist ached slightly. Just as he was about to go to the field to fetch another bag, he saw Xu Lai driving up in a tricycle.
She called out, "No need to go, just unload the grain at home. The tricycle is a great helper."
Upon hearing this, Xu Shen exclaimed from the side, "What do you mean by a tricycle being such a helpful tool? Don't I count?"
Xu Lai nodded perfunctorily: "You're such a good calculator, you're practically my god."
Seeing that the gate was open and that the tricycle should be able to pass through completely, she turned directly and drove to the front of her house. The front of the tricycle crashed into the not-fully-open gate, and the vehicle drove into the yard.
Xu Shen gripped the armrest of the car seat tightly, still somewhat shaken, and said, "That was too reckless. I will never ride in your car again, unless I think I'm too old to live."
Xu Lai was genuinely surprised; she thought she could drive in, but this time her judgment was wrong.
Zhao Qingyun's forehead twitched when he saw her run straight into him. He had originally intended to open the door completely, but she just swung it in. He was even glad he hadn't opened the door, otherwise he might already be lying on the ground.
The three men unloaded the millet. Xu Lai turned the truck around and let Xu Shen get on so they could load another load and bring all the millet back home.
Xu Shen shook his head vigorously, "I'm not going, I'll wait for you at home."
Zhao Qingyun waited for her to drive the car onto the road before getting in. Because she was driving, Xu Lai's arms were spread out very wide, so he could only squeeze into a corner, and the two of them were pressed tightly together.
Xu Lai didn't have time to think about those romantic things. When she arrived at the destination, she parked the car and started moving the millet. Her grandparents were still in the field, using sickles to cut the millet that the combine harvester hadn't reached, so they could bring it back to feed the chickens and ducks.
She told her grandparents and prepared to go back. Xia Ning sat in the front, while Zhao Qingyun stepped onto the back of the car and sat on the bag.
On the way, they met Aunt Hongmei, who asked, "Xiao Lai, can I borrow your tricycle?"
Since it was Xu Shen's car, she couldn't make a decision, so she said, "I'll go back and ask my brother for you, and he can drive it over later."
When Xu Lai got back, she told Xu Shen, who was very happy to oblige. "Of course, it's about serving the villagers. I'll drive the car over to her later."
Xu Shen drove away. Xu Lai untied the rope and released the millet from the bag. The yard was quite large, but there were still a few bags of millet that couldn't be dried.
Zhao Qingyun carried a few bags to his place, and the space here was just right.
The millet harvested by hand this morning has just begun to dry, and there is still a lot of straw inside. We need to wait for Grandma to come back and remove the straw.
The harvester harvested the millet very cleanly, skipping the step of cutting the straw. She took the rake used for drying millet and spread it out.
She was in a dilemma; there wasn't enough space at home to dry the grain, and there were still several piles of grain in the field that hadn't been threshed.
Xia Ning pushed open the door and came in. "We put the millet outside to dry. Many people are drying it on the road."
Xu Lai also thought it was feasible, and the two of them carried three or four bags out and dried them all.
After figuring out what was going on at home, she went to check on the situation at the edge of the fields. Most of the fields in the village had been harvested, and many people were surrounding Qin Huan, asking about the harvest price.
Xu Lai and the others had dwindled in number when they went over. Qin Huan saw her and said, "I was just about to look for you. The harvest fee for your field is 350 yuan."
Xu Lai gave her four banknotes, which Qin Huan put in her waist bag, ticked off a note in the register, and then gave her fifty yuan in change.
Grandpa and Grandma came over carrying a large sack of grain and asked, "How much is it in total?"
Xu Lai smiled and said, "Not much, a little over two hundred." She didn't give the exact amount, because her grandparents would definitely think it was expensive.
Qin Huan was right next to them. She heard the conversation, opened her mouth but ultimately said nothing.
After paying the bill, on her way home, Xu Lai could still see Xu Shen's tricycle passing by. She couldn't help but wonder, did Aunt Hongmei's family have a lot of millet? How come they hadn't finished transporting it by now?
"Alright, alright, take it and drive it yourself." Xu Shen nodded for the nth time, agreeing to the requests from those who came to borrow the tricycle.
Originally, I was only helping Aunt Hongmei transport grain, but when everyone saw it, they all came to borrow it. There are very few people in the village who own tricycles; there should only be two or three people with them.
When Xu Lai returned home, she looked at the millet scattered on the ground and felt that something was missing. Suddenly, she remembered, "Oh my god, there are still a few bags of millet next door."
She hurried over, thinking that the millet was still safely packed in the bags, waiting for her to dry it. But when she went in, she found the ground covered in golden grains, neatly arranged, already laid out to dry.
Grandma Jiang came out when she heard the noise and said, "We know you're busy over there, so Xiaoyun and I helped you dry them."
Xu Lai said somewhat embarrassedly, "You've gone to so much trouble."
Grandma Jiang invited her to sit down, saying, "It's no trouble at all. It's just a few bags of grain. Consider it a little exercise."
Xu Lai didn't see Zhao Qingyun, so she asked, "Why don't I see him?"
Grandma Jiang pointed upstairs: "My back seems to be uncomfortable."
Xu Lai's expression changed dramatically, and then she said, "Then I'll buy him some plasters to put on."
She went to the village clinic. Zhang Ye was about to leave work when she saw someone coming, so she sat back down.
Xu Lai asked directly, "Do you have any plasters? The kind for back pain and shoulder pain."
Zhang Ye rummaged around and took out a box, handing it to her and saying, "Take this." He glanced at Xu Lai and said, "You don't look like you've twisted your back."
Xu Lai asked the price, swept the money over, and said, "I can walk like the wind."
She ran into Qin Huan coming back from the fields as she went downstairs. The two nodded to each other. Qin Huan, with her sharp eyes, glanced at the medicine in her hand and saw that it was an ointment. She was puzzled, as Xu Lai didn't look like she was in any pain.
Xu Lai went home first, ate dinner, and then took a shower. She looked at the ointment on the table and wondered if she should give it to him from the balcony.
She glanced at the room next door; the balcony was pitch black, but a sliver of light shone from the room.
Xu Lai looked around for a long time, but there was no sign of them coming out, so she had no choice but to go downstairs and knock on the gate of the neighboring courtyard.
Xu Lai waved the ointment at Grandma Jiang and said, "I've come to buy him medicine."
Grandma Jiang opened the door and said, "He's in his room upstairs. Go ahead."
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