This year's Dragon Boat Festival was more lively than ever before, and the food was more abundant. Xingxing and Ruru spent a whole day trying to learn how to wrap zongzi, but they still couldn't. The bamboo leaves kept splitting open, and they couldn't tie the straw tightly. In the end, they gave up and waited to eat the zongzi.
No one from the Zhou family came to cause trouble during the holidays this year, which puzzled Zhou Laoda and Zhao Guihua. Had Zhou Laosan and Zhou Laosi changed their ways?
Actually, it wasn't that Zhou Laosan and Zhou Laosi didn't want to come; it was that Old Man Zhou had taken the wrong medicine. He absolutely refused to go to his eldest son's house this year, no matter what. Since the old man wouldn't go, the old woman couldn't go by herself either. Zhou Laosan and Zhou Laosi couldn't persuade the two old people, so how could they dare to go to their door? They would be lucky if their eldest brother chopped them up.
The rice harvest began just two days after the festival. With the help of Mo Tianzhu's family, Zhou Laoda's rice harvest was completed a few days earlier than in previous years.
After the rice was harvested, Zhao Guihua, Zhao Guizhi, and Chen Shunping dried the rice every day, and Xingxing and Ruru also helped out in a similar manner.
Old Zhou led Mo Tianzhu and his two sons to plow the field with oxen. Old Zhou plowed the field while Mo Tianzhu and his two sons carried hoes to turn the soil, catching eels as they turned the soil.
After the land was plowed, rice seedlings were planted, and then the land reclamation continued. With so many people from the Zhou family helping, the farm work was completed the fastest in the entire village.
Zhou Lao Er and Chen Cao Cao have been having a tough time lately. Old Zhou gave them the three mu of the farthest and least fertile land, which takes more than an hour to travel to and from. They dare not go back too late. Zhou Da Fa is still unable to get out of bed and walk. When the couple went out to harvest rice, they left Zhou Daya to take care of her brother.
The second wife's family didn't get a kitchen, so they had to build a makeshift stove outside their sleeping room. Since Zhou Lao Er and Chen Cao Cao weren't there, Da Ya didn't dare to cook, fearing her food rations would be stolen. For lunch, she ate the food that had been prepared in the morning and left in the room.
Because they didn't have much money on them and needed to save it for Zhou Dafa's medicine, they didn't buy much grain when they returned to the village. So the second son's family ate porridge almost every day, and Zhou Lao Er would go into the mountains every day to collect bird eggs to nourish his son.
Occasionally, they could catch a wild rabbit, but after cooking it, they would give a bowl to Old Man Zhou and Old Woman Zhou. The couple, Old Man Zhou and his wife, couldn't bear to eat it and saved it all for their son.
Last time, Boss Zhou secretly sent over a bowl of stewed pig's stomach and heart, along with a few pounds of wild boar meat with alternating layers of fat and lean meat. He instructed, "Second brother, save this meat for Dafa. Don't let anyone else see it. If all else fails, wait until they leave before cooking it."
Zhou Lao Er listened to what Zhou Lao Da said, but since Zhou Lao Tai stayed at home all year round and never went out to harvest rice, it was impossible to avoid everyone. He could only cook the meat in front of Zhou Lao Tai.
However, he always added a kind of herb when cooking meat. The herb had a strong smell. When Grandma Zhou asked him why he added the herb when cooking meat, he said it was the doctor's instruction. This kind of medicine is only effective when cooked with meat.
"I don't believe you! You just don't want your old mother to eat, so you deliberately put herbs in the meat. You unfilial son, you black-hearted, short-lived devil..." Old Mrs. Zhou pointed at Zhou Lao Er and cursed him.
Zhou Lao Er remained silent with a sullen face. He had deliberately put herbs in the meat to prevent his mother from fighting with him for it. Let her scold him if she wanted; he would just ignore her.
This method was taught to him by his older brother. These herbs are really good for healing injuries, but they smell terrible. Dafa has to hold his nose and force himself to swallow them. Most people can't eat them. Luckily, Dafa is sensible, can endure hardship, and doesn't dare to waste food, so he forces himself to eat them.
It's so hard on the child, such a miserable life. To be born into such a family, even the meat eaten by those with a miserable life tastes bitter. Sigh.
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