Chapter 29 Sister Shu, it’s time to reciprocate. You should also call me Hello…
"Wow, it smells so good, Sister and Brother Ye, can you smell it? The big bone soup that Mom made is starting to smell delicious!" Lin Xiaopu picked up the empty wooden basin and ran away. "I'll go back and give you a taste of the bone soup!"
Lin Shu laughed out loud at her greedy look.
Zhou Ye, who was busy at work, came over and said, "You go back to the courtyard too. I'll go back by myself after I dig until dinner is ready."
"You must be so bored, I can chat with you while we work, so you won't be so tired."
Zhou Ye opened his mouth, and the words were on the tip of his tongue, but he suddenly changed his tone, "It's up to you."
"Xiao Pu said you rarely mentioned fleeing famine. Can I ask? If not, forget it."
Zhou Ye paused in his shoveling motion, his tone flat, "There's nothing I can't ask."
After hearing this, Lin Shu asked, "Is your family wealthy? I mean, with a large population? Are all the people you brought with you to escape the famine your family?"
Zhou Ye continued to move, his voice expressionless as he replied, "We have quite a few people in my family, almost as many as the headman's. I'm the eldest grandson of the eldest son's family. My grandparents and my mother died before we fled the famine. Because of the locust plague, grain prices in town and county soared, reaching three hundred coins a bushel. To avoid starvation, we sold all our ancestral land at a low price for grain, but we still couldn't survive until the imperial government provided relief. Later, my father knocked on the door and took the whole family with him to flee the famine. Our village is different from mixed-surname villages like Tianshui Village. It's a clan-based village, and the villagers are all related. When my father called out, everyone was willing to follow him."
His tone gradually slowed down. "The road to escape the famine was bumpy and difficult. Several counties in the north were hit by a locust plague. We could only go south and west. However, the southwest was mountainous and the road was difficult to travel. We had to cross mountains and ridges. Because I often went into the mountains to hunt, I became the leader. Later..."
Seeing that he didn't say anything next and didn't ask any further questions, Lin Shu could guess what was going on.
People's hearts are complicated. In peacetime, everyone is a kind family, but if they go through hardships together, there will always be bumps and bumps, and they may even feel resentful. Those who dare not make decisions often jump out to point fingers after the leader makes a wrong decision, as if everyone will live a better life if these people take the lead.
Zhou Ye continued: "We encountered a group of wild beasts on the road. My father died while trying to protect the tribe. My third aunt and a little cousin were also killed."
Lin Shu listened quietly, not interrupting him. She didn't ask any questions, but Zhou Ye told her everything. Perhaps he had been holding these words in his heart for a long time, and he just needed someone to listen.
But she thought Zhou Ye would be filled with guilt and sadness when he mentioned this, but she didn't expect Zhou Ye's expression to be unusually cold when he mentioned this. "It wasn't my father who deserved death, but the tribesman my father protected. He violated the rules I set and acted on his own, which attracted the wild beasts and killed my father, my third aunt, and my cousin. Later, I killed the beasts, but the dead can't come back."
"That deep mountain three miles away is where I led my people through. There were plenty of things in the mountains to fill our stomachs, and even if we didn't grow any crops year-round, we wouldn't starve to death. But everyone was afraid and didn't want to hide in the deep mountains and old forests to avoid disaster, so I had no choice but to lead them on, and that's how we came to Tianshui Village. I'm sure my aunt has already told you about what happened next, so you should know everything."
Lin Shu was curious: "Why did you stay?"
Zhou Ye looked gloomy. "I'm the only one left in the eldest branch of the family. My two uncles blame me, my cousins are afraid of me after seeing my immense strength, and my clansmen are even more resentful. So why not just go our separate ways?"
He still clearly remembered that day. Furious over his father's death, he tore the beast's mouth apart with his bare hands, splitting its head in two. Blood mixed with brain matter splattered all over his face, while his family and tribesmen looked at him as if he were a bloodthirsty monster.
Lin Shu sensed a sense of world-weariness from him. No wonder she felt Zhou Ye was so indifferent the first time she met him, as if he didn't really care about anything. This wasn't a good sign.
The end of the world is so difficult, and she often feels hungry, but she still feels that being alive is good. Only by being alive can she see hope, eat all kinds of delicious food, and enjoy all kinds of beautiful scenery.
"Brother Aye, you won't be alone anymore. We are all your relatives."
Zhou Ye paused with the shovel in his hand and looked up at her.
Lin Shu teased him deliberately, "Why are you so surprised? I'll let it go, but don't you consider your father, mother, and Xiao Pu as your family? If you dare to say a word, I will tell Xiao Pu right away, and she will definitely cry in front of you."
Zhou Ye's face showed a trace of helplessness, "That's not true, don't talk nonsense."
"Then why don't you always look at me with that world-weary look of 'Ah, I find this world so boring,' 'I'll just muddle through and live whatever comes my way,' or 'I might as well just starve to death if I never have enough to eat,' okay?"
Zhou Ye:......
Lin Shu couldn't help but laugh at his speechless look.
"There's no trouble in this world that can't be solved by a delicious meal. Once you finish my fragrant bamboo shoot and pork bone soup, you'll feel like tomorrow is bright again." Lin Shu sniffed, "Hmm~ It smells really good. We'll also have braised pork and stir-fried large and small intestines for dinner tonight. I can eat half an extra bowl of rice just thinking about it."
"If it weren't for the wrong season, these small intestines would be perfect for making sausages. Just add enough salt and liquor to the pork, stuff it into the small intestines, and dry it. This salty sausage is already incredibly fragrant. If you like a stronger flavor, grind dried peppercorns, cornel fruit, fennel, cinnamon, and other spices, mix them in, and then smoke them with cedar branches. It's incredibly delicious."
In Tianshui Village, every household would cut a piece of pork or two pieces of pork and make bacon at the end of the twelfth lunar month, which could be stored for a year or two. However, the villagers were poor and made little, so the bacon would be mostly eaten by the beginning of the next spring, leaving little to be stored until the end of the year.
Many people make bacon, but sausage has not yet been discovered. Nowadays, only poor people eat pig offal. Rich people don't eat it because they think it is dirty.
"If you can hunt a wild boar in the twelfth lunar month, I'll make you all kinds of bacon, sausage, pork ribs, and pig's tongue. I guarantee you'll enjoy it to your heart's content!"
Zhou Ye: ...He didn't know about sausages, but he had tasted bacon. Sliced or diced, it was delicious when stir-fried with anything. But the ones my aunt made at the end of the year were only enough to fill his stomach. According to Lin Shu, sausages are even better than bacon?
Zhou Ye, who had just eaten a large bowl of Guanyin tofu, suddenly felt hungry again.
"Okay, I'll go back to the woods and see if I can catch another wild boar. I won't sell it, I'll keep it all for myself."
Lin Shu laughed muffledly. As she said, there is nothing that can't be solved by a delicious meal. Doesn't this seem to be quite popular?
Zhou Ye, the taciturn man, seemed to have been opened up a little by Lin Shu, and he actually took the initiative to chat with her, "You think differently than I do."
"What do you mean by 'you' or 'my'? I've called you 'Aye brother' so many times. It's only courtesy that counts. Shouldn't you call me something nice?"
Zhou Ye was slightly startled, "...what's so nice?"
"For example, sister A Shu. You can just call her A Shu. Then don't even think about me calling you brother. I will just call you A Ye." Lin Shu raised her chin and snorted.
Zhou Ye covered his chest with his hands, said nothing, and continued to work hard.
Seeing that he was indifferent, Lin Shu couldn't help but clench her fists.
This unromantic piece of wood!
If she hadn't been tempted by his strength and his taste for beauty, and if she hadn't said that, she would have wanted to turn around and leave.
"You better scream. Scream now. I'm listening."
Zhou Ye:......
Seeing that he didn't say anything for a long time and was just shoveling the soil and digging the hole, Lin Shu was speechless for a moment.
She suddenly covered her eyes with her sleeves and asked through sobs, "You dislike me so much, are you also like those people in the capital, blaming me for taking Sister Yao's status as the daughter of a marquis? Everyone laughs at me for being a pheasant that can't turn into a phoenix. It's ridiculous that I, a pheasant, have returned to the pheasant nest and still not be welcomed. After all, you've seen a real phoenix like Sister Yao, how can you look down on a fake phoenix, a real pheasant like me?"
"I didn't." Zhou Ye's thick black eyebrows knitted together. He put down the shovel and wanted to come over, but then stopped. He just stood in the pit, looking at a loss. "I didn't, don't think too much, I'm just not good at speaking."
He mumbled, unable to utter any words of comfort, and finally managed to utter, "Sister Shu, I don't dislike you. You're very nice. The first time you asked me for water, I knew you were a good girl."
Lin Shu's sobbing paused.
Zhou Ye continued, "A noble like that wouldn't even be happy to speak to common people like us. You're not that kind of person."
"What else?"
Zhou Ye: ...Isn’t this enough?
"You seem like a kind girl, not as delicate as I thought. The Guanyin tofu you made for me today was delicious. I like it very much. Thank you very much."
Lin Shu lowered the sleeve that covered her brows and eyes. Her eyes were bright and moist, but there was no trace of tears. Her rosy and plump lips were still slightly raised. "I take what you said seriously."
Zhou Ye was not angry when he found out that he had been deceived. Instead, he breathed a sigh of relief.
It’s okay if he lies, as long as he doesn’t make me cry.
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