For a time, this incident became the hottest news in the village. Under the big tree at the entrance of the village, the villagers sat together, discussing it enthusiastically and for a long time.
After this incident, the village women's impressions of city dwellers changed once again.
The only saving grace was that Wang Xiao hadn't gotten involved with the people in the cowshed. Otherwise, if those two cunning and scheming individuals had gotten together, who knows how many bad things they would have done and how much disaster they would have brought to the village.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, illuminating the villagers' faces, which were filled with shock and emotion. The village remained peaceful, yet it seemed that this event had subtly altered its landscape.
Time flies, and peaceful days flow by like a gentle stream. Before we know it, May has quietly arrived.
Just as May arrived, the yellow cuckoo (a bird named for its call in the Gansu region of Northwest China, its scientific name is the four-tone cuckoo) began to sing in the fields.
There is a heartbreaking and tragic story circulating in the local area about this bird.
Legend has it that once upon a time, there was a simple old farmer. Under the scorching June sun, the wheat in the field gradually turned yellow. However, the wheat did not ripen all at once, but rather ripened little by little here and there.
The old farmer was full of anticipation, thinking that he would harvest all the wheat when it was fully ripe, so as to minimize losses.
Unexpectedly, just as the wheat was about to ripen, dark clouds suddenly filled the sky, and in the blink of an eye, a thunderstorm poured down.
Large raindrops, accompanied by rolling thunder, relentlessly ravaged the wheat fields.
The old farmer's wheat was threshed and scattered, the wheat grains falling to the ground and mixing with the soil.
Finally, the rain stopped and the sky cleared. The old farmer rushed to the wheat field with great anxiety, but the scene before him was like a sharp blade, piercing his heart—the wheat was almost completely destroyed.
At that moment, the old man's hope collapsed instantly, and in his grief, he wept blood and died.
Legend has it that after his death, he transformed into a bird that would cry out day and night in the air during the wheat harvest season: "Choose the yellow ones to harvest, choose the yellow ones to harvest, choose the yellow ones to harvest first!" It seemed to be telling the world about its regrets. It would only die of exhaustion and spitting blood after everyone had finished harvesting the wheat.
At first, Xie Yan believed the rumor to some extent.
After all, he himself had experienced such an incredible rebirth, so he was naturally inclined to believe such legends.
Wang Xiao's incident caused a huge uproar in Xiliu Village. Most of the villagers were honest farmers who had worked hard all their lives. For them, this was like a bombshell, shocking them beyond imagination.
However, during his spare time working in the fields these past few days, he observed carefully and discovered that there was more than one such bird.
In the fields, you can hear their calls from time to time, and looking around, you can see several figures either darting through the sky or crying out.
Since there are so many yellow-skinned calves, it means they reproduce, thus refuting the claim that they were "worked to death".
Thinking of this, Xie Yan couldn't help but chuckle, mocking himself for being so foolish.
If, as the legend says, every bird dies from exhaustion, then where do the birds that continue to sing the following year come from?
After making a self-deprecating remark, Xie Yan gently shook his head and once again focused intently on cutting the wheat.
The sun was high in the sky, and the scorching sunlight poured down without reservation, as if to scorch the earth.
Xie Yan felt a piercing pain in his palm. He sighed softly, deeply experiencing the difficulty of going from extravagance to frugality.
He hadn't held a sickle for a year, and his hands had long forgotten what it felt like to hold one. Now that he was picking it up again, he had to readjust to its roughness and hardness.
Moreover, after working in a bent-over position for a long time, his back seemed to be under a spell, so sore that he couldn't straighten up, and every time he straightened up, it was accompanied by an unbearable stinging pain.
Xie Yan was so exhausted that she didn't even have the energy to curse.
He then understood why everyone was so quiet during the busy farming season; they were all too exhausted from the heavy farm work to think about anything else.
Sweat poured down his forehead like beads from a broken string, flowing into his eyes and stinging them.
He skillfully picked up the towel hanging on his shoulder, gently wiped the sweat from the corners of his eyes, squinted for a few seconds, and then opened his eyes again, his vision becoming clear.
Looking around, most of those who had towels, like Xie Yan, were educated youth or a few villagers from slightly better-off families.
Those villagers from impoverished families could only wipe their sweat by lifting their clothes, like the old man next to Xie Yan.
The old man's face was tanned dark by the sun, almost blending into the ground beneath his feet. His face, full of wrinkles, was a deep mark left by the relentless passage of time.
The old man cut wheat very quickly. His bent back, formed by years of labor, had become a fixed curve and could no longer be straightened.
Most of the elderly people in the village, regardless of gender, look like this.
As they age, their backs become more and more hunched, and they maintain this bent-over posture for life until the very last moment of their lives.
It is known that only after death can the bent back straighten again. The living will break the bones after their death and try their best to restore the upright posture of their youth, as if in this way they can retain their former vigor (mainly so that they can lie in the coffin and go to the other world in a dignified manner, which is to maintain the dignity of the dead).
Xie Yan was immersed in the exhaustion of his work when, in a daze, he seemed to hear someone calling his name.
He numbly raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound, only to see his wife, Yu Yuehui, standing on the edge of the field.
Yu Yuehui was wearing a straw hat, gently supporting her slightly protruding belly with one hand, and carrying a water bottle in the other, smiling tenderly at him.
That smile, like a cool breeze on a scorching summer day, instantly snapped Xie Yan out of his daze from the heat.
He quickly put down his sickle, a smile spreading across his face, and strode towards Yu Yuehui.
I passed by Liu Yihong, who was also working with his back bent over.
Liu Yihong saw Xie Yan walking towards the edge of the field and looked over curiously, where he saw Yu Yuehui standing.
At that moment, Liu Yihong couldn't help but feel a pang of envy.
He glanced at the empty water bottle on the ground, feeling his throat parched as if it were on fire, and a strong craving welled up inside him: "I want to drink water!"
Liu Yihong stared straight at Xie Yan's back, a thought suddenly flashing through her mind: "Should I get married too?"
But soon, he shook his head helplessly and thought to himself, "No, with my current abilities, I simply can't support my wife."
Even if you get married, you still have to work in the fields.
"Everyone's out working in the fields, so who's going to bring water?"
Xie Yan had already walked up to Yu Yuehui's side.
He took off his straw hat, which was soaked with sweat, and gently helped Yu Yuehui sit down. He said with concern, "How did you manage to come here in such hot weather? What if you get heatstroke?"
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