Chapter 129 Two-in-One: Your physical strength is so poor, when you get married...
Li Chunmiao initially guessed that it was Lin Shu who was teaching Lin Yushu to read, and he didn't have any extra thoughts.
Lin Dashan has no son. After his relationship with his brother Lin Dashui was restored, since Lin Shu can read and write, there is nothing wrong with letting Lin Shu, his cousin, go to school.
At that time, she was just a little envious. She envied Lin Dashui for having a good brother like Lin Dashan, and envied Lin Yushu for having a good cousin like Lin Shu who could teach him to read. Unlike their Wang family, which had only one son in the family for generations, they had no brothers or sisters to help them.
She envied other people's children who could sit still and study hard, unlike her own Wang Yingen...
Li Chunmiao gets angry just thinking about this bastard. Didn't she make sure Wang Yingen studied? He did! Two years ago, she sent him to the old student at Daoxiang Village for education, but the boy just couldn't sit still. Not only could he not sit still, but he also disrupted the others' studies. He was punished by the old student's ruler for this, and after a few visits, he stopped going. The old student also disliked her son and voluntarily returned her share of rice.
Last year, she thought her son, now a year older, would be more sensible, so she considered sending him to the old student's school for enlightenment. But just as the idea came to her mind, that bastard Wang Yingen started hugging his grandparents and acting like a spoiled child. But everyone in the family listened to her, and acting like a spoiled child to the grandparents was useless, so the little brat turned around and hugged her thighs again, howling and refusing to go.
Even though Li Chunmiao wanted his son to learn a few more words, he could only give up after seeing how disappointing his son was.
But Li Chunmiao just realized that Lin Xiaopu, a little girl, could sit down and read peacefully! Wang Yingen had been competing with Lin Xiaopu these days. If she took this opportunity to encourage her with words, maybe her Yingen would also be willing to sit down and read.
It was impossible to send it to the old student, and the old student probably wouldn't want to accept the one he had returned. Li Chunmiao thought that when Lin Shu taught Lin Xiaopu, he could also teach her family Yin Gen. With Lin Xiaopu learning beside him, if his son didn't want to lose to Lin Xiaopu, he might really be able to read the book.
Li Chunmiao suppressed the thoughts that were about to stir in his heart and continued to do the work in his hands, praising the two sisters of the Lin family again and again.
Seeing that she didn't ask any further questions, He Guixiang didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or sigh.
She could see that Li Chunmiao might have some thoughts on something.
He Guixiang is not a stingy person. If there is someone like Lin Yushu who likes to read and is willing to obey discipline, it would be no problem for Ah Shu to teach one more person. But her Wang Yingen is a little devil and it is impossible for him to sit down and read obediently.
Forget it, Ah Shu has her own thoughts on this matter, so she won’t think too much about it.
In the courtyard, Lin Xiaopu practiced with the bamboo slingshot for a while, then turned to He Guixiang and the others and said, "Mother, Aunt Lin, Aunt Li, I'm going out to play!"
He Guixiang waved her hand and said, "Go ahead. Be careful on the road and don't fall."
Lin Xiaopu smiled and not only took his own bamboo water gun and bamboo slingshot, but also brought a slingshot and water gun that Zhou Ye had made in his spare time.
She has made an appointment with Wang Yingen to compete in slingshot today. Wang Yingen's subordinates will come to watch. Today, she will put an end to Wang Yingen's arrogance in front of everyone.
Lin Xiaopu no longer studied with Lin Yushu. She used to listen to a few of the stories her elder sister told her cousin Yushu, and she enjoyed them. But as her elder sister's teachings grew increasingly complex, she stopped participating and sat down to write. After her elder sister finished teaching Yushu, she would return home and teach her some simpler lessons at another time.
So she thought, since that was the case, she might as well have a good time while her elder sister was teaching her cousin Yushu. When her elder sister came back, it would be noon. She didn't like to take a nap, so she would sit in the room and write for a while. This way, she wouldn't delay anything. When her elder sister came back from her nap, she would be in good spirits and could continue teaching her.
After listening to her suggestion, her elder sister agreed decisively and praised her for her boldness in thinking and speaking out. Now she not only has fun playing, but also has fun learning.
As for Brother Aye, the relationship between him and sister is even easier to explain. Sister can teach him whenever she wants. Anyway, whenever Brother Aye is free, his eyes will always be glued to sister, and he has no other thoughts at all. Unlike her, now that she has a bamboo slingshot and a bamboo water gun, she has a lot of little thoughts of her own.
Lin Xiaopu smiled happily in his heart, took the things and slipped away. His jumping figure looked full of energy.
He Guixiang shook her head, but her face was full of a gentle and indulgent smile.
She knew that Xiao Pu dreamed of being as strong as Wang Yingen. Although Xiao Pu couldn't compare to the calf-like Wang Yingen, her body was getting stronger and stronger. He Guixiang could hardly remember how Xiao Pu looked before, with her cheeks sallow and fleshy.
After Lin Shu and Lin Xiaopu left one after another, there were only three women left in the yard. They chatted with each other and finished the work in their hands without realizing it.
"Sister He, I don't have anything to do at home. Why don't I bring some chores over and do them while we chat?" Li Chunmiao said.
"Okay, bring it here. My hemp work is almost finished, so I'll help you weave it."
Li Chunmiao was surprised, "So fast?"
He Guixiang explained, "We harvested the hemp early at home, so the quantity is not much."
Li Chunmiao smiled and said, "I don't have much at home, but I'm just lazy and can't be as hardworking as Sister He. The first batch of hemp traders will be here around the end of the month, so I have to be more diligent. If I delay, I don't know what will happen."
Farmers like them, who harvest hemp every year, have specialized merchants come to the village every year to collect the best hemp. The first batch of merchants pay the same price as the first year, and then there are the second and third batches. However, over time, the price fluctuates. If the harvest is low, the price of a pound of hemp will increase by a few copper coins, or if the harvest is high and there's no shortage of hemp, the price will drop. On the off chance that luck is unfavorable, the price may even be cut in half.
To be on the safe side, Li Chunmiao wanted to pick all the hemp before the first batch of merchants came to collect it.
Lin Zhaodi had been doing the hemp work at home, but after the family division, she probably wouldn't get a penny from the hemp she plucked. Since that was the case, she was too lazy to do the superficial work anymore and simply ignored the hemp that hadn't been plucked yet.
Hearing this, she added, "I don't have much work to do, so I'll help you spin hemp."
Li Chunmiao smiled when he heard this, "Hey, I was originally here to help, but now you guys are helping me..."
When Li Chunmiao came home and brought some hemp, the three of them sat in the courtyard and spun hemp together. Of course, they also went to the house construction site a few times to bring tea to the men working on the project to prevent them from getting thirsty.
Li Chunmiao was busy until it was almost time to prepare dinner before he got up.
During this time, Lin Shu and Lin Xiaopu also came back one after another. One was taking a break and being lazy, while the other was writing in the room. When Li Chunmiao was about to leave, Lin Shu had already gotten up and was telling Xiaopu a story.
"We have dinner early at home, so it's time to prepare it. Otherwise, I would stay and help you." Li Chunmiao said, glancing into the house subconsciously.
He Guixiang saw through her thoughts, but Lin Zhaodi didn't notice. She replied, "Don't come over after dinner. We'll make dinner simple, with only a few plates. Sister He and I can handle it."
"Okay, I'll come back tomorrow."
Lin Zhaodi said she wanted to keep dinner simple, but she hadn't made up her mind yet. So she looked into the room and asked Lin Shu, "Ah Shu, what do you think we should make for dinner today?"
After Lin Shu learned from her mother that she had let the cat out of the bag, she stopped hiding it and taught Lin Xiaopu openly. Hearing this, she looked up and replied, "Aunt Lin, I think we can make a pot of porridge and steam two steamers of wild vegetable dumplings. The wild vegetable dumplings can be made with fresh dandelions, oh, the ones you often call cattail roots, and use the leaves of this wild vegetable as the filling. When the sun gets a little lower, Xiaopu and I will go outside to pick a basket of them and bring them back. You and mother can start to make the dough first."
After hearing this, Lin Zhaodi sighed twice, but did not ask how to eat the cattail root or how to make wild vegetable dumplings. Anyway, she was right to listen to Ah Shu.
Lin Zhaodi didn't ask about this, but Lin Xiaopu was curious, "Sister, why haven't I heard you mention that cattail root is edible before? There are so many in the fields on this mountain!" Lin Shu smiled and said, "There are so many edible wild vegetables in the fields on the mountain. Do I have to tell you about every one of them? Wild vegetables like cattail root, which has a slightly bitter taste, are not the first choice of wild game. But cattail root is good to eat. Not only can it relieve heat and reduce internal heat, it can also nourish and protect the liver. Now is the best time to eat it. Cattail root in summer is not as fresh and fragrant as in early spring, and the bitterness is a little stronger, but it is more plump and has a better effect in relieving heat and reducing internal heat. Let's pick more later. If we can't finish the cattail root today, we can make it into dried vegetables and store it like we did with the purslane last time."
Thinking that the purslane we stockpiled last time wasn't enough, Lin Shu added, "Not just today, let's go pick it if we have nothing to do these days, dry it, and store it. You don't notice how much vegetables there are now, but when winter comes and there's not much to eat, you'll realize how good these vegetables are."
Lin Xiaopu immediately replied, "Don't worry, sister. We have plenty of vegetables to eat in Tianshui Village after winter. Radishes and greens are common, and there are also winter bamboo shoots to dig. Wild onions and garlic can also be picked on the mountains."
Even in years with poor harvests in Tianshui Village, few people starved to death. After all, if there was no food, there were still vegetables. Green vegetables and radishes could fill the stomach. If lazy men and women did not have these at home, there were plenty of wild vegetables in the mountains. At worst, they could eat bran, which every household stored.
Seeing that Lin Shu was about to reach out and pinch her again, Lin Xiaopu immediately said, "But eating radishes and greens every day is getting boring. Sister said that dried vegetables can be used to stew meat, which I think must be delicious. I'll listen to Sister and pick some every day, dry them and save them all!"
"By the way, sister, guess who won the slingshot competition between me and Wang Yingen today?"
Lin Shu: "You're grinning so hard that your mouth is stretched all the way to your ears. Do you still need me to guess?"
Lin Xiaopu said proudly, "In the first round, Wang Yingen and I competed in shooting firewood. I hit all ten. In the second round, we competed in shooting sticks. The sticks were thinner, so his brothers helped bury them in the soil. Then I shot down eight sticks, while Wang Yingen only hit five. And in this last round, we competed in shooting tree branches. When there was wind, the branches moved, making it difficult to shoot. I only managed to shoot down five branches out of ten attempts. But sister, guess how many branches Wang Yingen shot down? He only shot down one. His face was so ugly at that time, hahaha..."
Lin Xiaopu couldn't help but burst into laughter, and his voice became much higher.
Remembering something, she quickly covered her mouth and glanced towards the yard again.
Aunt Lin and Aunt Li are good friends, so don't let her hear it. Although Aunt Lin is definitely not the kind of person who would gossip like this.
Lin Shu rubbed her little head and praised her generously, "Well done! Wang Yingen, that naughty kid, has had it so easy before that he's never suffered a setback. I'll keep rubbing him hard under my feet."
Lin Xiaopu snorted softly, "He used to have the nerve to call me a sickly sickly person, but now he can't even compare to me."
Lin Shu raised her eyebrows and said, "Then can't you ridicule him harshly and avenge your past?"
"Sister, I'm not him. I won't ridicule him. At most, I'll show off in front of you and tell you a joke about him. Wang Yingen is not a bad guy. Although he looked unhappy after losing to me, he didn't get angry at anyone. He was also willing to accept the loss and will listen to me for the next month."
Not only that, Lin Xiaopu also gave the bamboo slingshot she brought with her to a younger brother. Before she competed with Wang Yingen, this younger brother bet on her to win. He had good vision and deserves praise.
She also gave a bamboo water gun to a younger brother. Whenever he saw her, that guy would call her "Sister Pu" and was very well behaved.
When the slingshot and water gun were given, not only were the two happy, but everyone else's eyes lit up and they all gathered around to flatter her.
For a moment, no one cared about Wang Yingen who lost the competition. Wang Yingen was dumbfounded at that time.
Lin Xiaopu would not mock Wang Yingen. She would only rely on her own ability to make this brat who had ridiculed her call her sister and accept her defeat with a sincere heart.
Seeing that she was enjoying herself among the children, Lin Shu didn't ask any questions. She just praised her when she needed it. After praising her, she brought her back to reality with a sentence, "How many of the words we taught you today have you memorized?"
Lin Xiaopu's smile froze on his face. He collected his attention and continued to learn and memorize words.
Lin Shu stopped teaching her the Three Character Classic and instead read her some idiom stories and famous people's deeds. Afterward, she had her write down some common Chinese characters from the stories. Initially, she'd been teaching her a fable like the Tortoise and the Hare, but Lin Xiaopu found it childish and asked her to switch it to a bedtime story.
Lin Shu grumbled a few words about this, "When I was teaching your brother Aye, he didn't even say that my teaching was childish. How old are you, and you're already looking down on me?"
Lin Xiaopu immediately said, "You can't compare, you can't compare. He thinks everything you say is good. But I think Brother Ye is wrong. What if you do something wrong in the future and he still thinks it's okay? Isn't that...?"
"So what?" Lin Shu narrowed her eyes and asked with a dangerous expression.
Lin Xiaopu was not afraid of her at all, and said with a smile: "Drowning a child is like killing him, and the same goes for a daughter-in-law. He is strangling you - Ouch!" Before she finished speaking, she was hit on the forehead.
When Lin Xiaopu had almost learned everything, the two sisters went out, each carrying a bamboo basket. They were so greedy that they wanted to pick two baskets of wild vegetables.
He Guixiang watched the two of them leave with a relaxed smile on her face.
The rice porridge in the pot was already cooking. In the past, the family mostly cooked porridge in a clay pot on a small stove. After cooking, they would put it directly in the clay pot to cool, which would not affect the iron pot for making pancakes or cooking. But now there are several more mouths to feed, and the clay pot is not enough. So He Guixiang asked Lin Zhaodi to use the iron pot directly and cook most of the pot.
The dough was also rising. Lin Zhaodi was better at rising the dough than He Guixiang. In just a short while, the dough in the basin had more than doubled in size.
According to Ah Shu, the dough does not need to be fermented too much, just enough to wrap thirty or forty wild vegetable dumplings will be enough, and the wild vegetable dumplings will taste better if the skin is wrapped thinner.
"Wait until Ah Shu comes back after picking cattail roots and mix the stuffing and we can make dumplings. If the stuffing is large and the wrappers are thin, this dough will be enough to make forty or fifty dumplings! Ah Shu really saves me money. Sister He, I was so shameless to find you and Ah Shu and I think I made the right choice!" Lin Zhaodi was delighted.
If you don’t put stuffing in it and just make it into steamed buns, this amount of dough will not be enough!
He Guixiang replied, "We'll be neighbors in the future, so there's no need to be so polite. Besides, I didn't help much, and Ah Shu only offered advice. You're the one who should handle all this."
Lin Zhaodi didn't say anything else. She wasn't the type to like to give in to others. Anyway, Mrs. He and Ashu had helped her so much this time, and she would remember it in her heart.
Putting aside other things, what Mrs. He and Ah Shu said was right. In the future, the two families will be neighbors. She will always find a chance to repay the favor she owes today, so there is no need to rush.
Lin Shu was teaching Lin Xiaopu how to choose Pueraria root.
Cattails can be found everywhere in fields, meadows, and hillsides. In summer, many cattails have begun to flower and set seed. Choose those that have flowered but haven't yet set seed; they have a less bitter taste, though they can't compare to the tender shoots of early spring. Also, choose those with bright green leaves, free of yellowing or insect holes.
Lin Shu and Lin Xiaopu each brought a small bamboo shovel—Zhou Ye had made it specifically for them because they often dug wild vegetables. When picking the cattail roots, they used the shovel to dig directly from the plant above the roots, so that the remaining cattail roots could continue to grow.
The two of them did not specifically look for cattail root. There were many purslane and cattail root in the wild grass. They picked whatever they saw and soon filled half of their backpack.
Picking wild vegetables is not a physically demanding job, but squatting and bending over from time to time can be tiring over time.
Lin Shu stole a glance at Lin Xiaopu, who didn't seem tired at all, and silently reflected on it. Could it be that she wasn't exercising enough, and that was why she couldn't even keep up with Xiaopu? But Xiaopu wasn't necessarily exercising much more than she was. When Ping'er didn't go out, at most she liked to jump around more than she did, sometimes skipping stones and using a water gun in the fish pond behind the house, and sometimes practicing her bamboo slingshot with sticks in the yard.
As she thought about it, Lin Shu fell silent.
Looking at this, Xiao Pu's exercise is quite good. Why not jump a few more times starting tomorrow?
"Sister, are you tired? I see you are sweating." Lin Xiaopu had just dug a nest of purslane. He looked up and saw Lin Shu holding her waist and not moving, so he couldn't help but ask.
Lin Shu laughed dryly, "It's okay, it's okay, but these cattail and purslane have grown too much. Every time I dig, I find a nest. There's no time to stop."
For example, when she was picking mushrooms before, she had to look for the mushrooms first, and then dig them up after finding them. She had a break in between, so she didn't feel tired.
When Lin Xiaopu heard this, he didn't know what he was thinking about. He looked worried and suddenly said to her, "Sister, you are so weak. You will definitely suffer when you get married."
Lin Shu's expression suddenly froze. "What did you say?"
Lin Xiaopu lowered her voice and said with a self-righteous understanding, "Sister is a virgin, so it's normal for her not to understand these things. Making and giving birth to a baby is very physically demanding. Wang Yingen said that her parents didn't believe in the Wang family's one-child policy and always wanted to give him a brother or sister. Every time they made a baby, her mother would scream miserably at night, and she would wake up the next morning with back pain and not want to do any work."
Lin Shu: ...
If Aunt Li knew that her son secretly told other children about her sex life, she would be so angry that she would kick Wang Yingen into the toilet.
However, just as Lin Shu expressed her sympathy to Aunt Li, she heard Lin Xiaopu say with a worried tone, "Brother Aye is so tall and strong. Won't you suffer even more in the future, Sister?"
As soon as these words were spoken, Lin Shu's pretty face turned red in an instant.
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