Chapter 62 was pretty boring.
The fourth brother got off the kang (heated brick bed) and walked out of the room, only to hear his sister-in-law cursing.
He came to the outside of the courtyard and saw Li Dazui walking back with his hands behind his back and a displeased look on his face.
"You're only getting up when the sun's already high in the sky? Have you forgotten you still have a flock of sheep to herd?"
Li Dazui looked him up and down, and said with a disdainful look, "You don't like reading or herding sheep, and you really think you're a rich young master. You're a good-for-nothing."
"..." The fourth brother clenched his fists. What did this old man do to deserve this?
As Li Dazui walked, he said, "It's also Song Chunxue's fault. Why did she have so many children? They're all here to drink blood and eat flesh. What sins did she commit in her past life?"
"..." The fourth brother's face darkened, and he wished he could rush up and kick him a couple of times.
Watching Li Dazui's figure disappear into the distance, Lao Si couldn't help but spit.
"Old man, mind your own business."
Turning around, Jiang Hongying came out carrying Xiujuan.
"If you're free, please watch the children for me. I'll go shovel grass for the sheep." Jiang Hongying said sternly. "So many sheep are starving and thin, which will cost several taels of silver. I'm heartbroken even if you don't care."
The fourth brother frowned and pushed little Xiujuan into her arms.
"I didn't say I wasn't going, why are you yelling?"
He turned around irritably, picked up the sheep shovel, went to the kitchen to get some food and drinks, and muttered irritably, "I'd rather herd sheep than shovel grass."
"Will you release it? Don't let it eat other people's wheat and then make your mother pay for it." Jiang Hongying deliberately provoked him. "If you won't release it, I will, as long as you keep an eye on the child."
"No way!" The fourth brother glared at her. "Taking care of the kids is the most tiring thing. I'm not that stupid."
Hearing the bleating of lambs coming from the sheepfold, Jiang Hongying laughed and said, "This child is teachable; he's not entirely hopeless."
*
After the broad beans were harvested, there were peas to pick, and apricots to gather in the afternoon. Song Chunxue suddenly felt quite bored.
She's always lived like this in her past life. In the end, did she manage to save up money and food?
After lunch, she took a nap and stopped picking apricots from other people's trees; it was no fun anymore.
The apricot trees on my own land bear a lot of apricots, and I can sell the apricot kernels for a good amount of money.
It's much faster than shoveling wormwood and dandelion.
She used to be always in a hurry, rushing to work and trying every possible way to earn copper coins.
Now that she has no intention of giving her savings to her children, why should she work so hard?
The third child has gone to school, and the fourth child won't obediently herd sheep. He can only herd them for a few months at most before he'll definitely find a way to leave home.
Instead of spending all her time shoveling dandelions on the mountain, she'd rather herd sheep.
Although herding sheep requires traveling long distances every day with little rest, it's a reliable way to make money.
She sat on the steps in the courtyard, pondering how she should live her future days.
Anyway, she can't make a lot of money; how much time can she dig out of the loess soil?
Actually, after the eldest brother broke into her suitcase last time, she was thinking about whether to take Sanwa to the county to buy a piece of land.
Because she had come up with a way to make money while sitting back: the county would become prosperous in a few years, and the currently inconspicuous land would become extremely valuable.
She only needs to buy a few acres of land, and in another ten or eight years she can make a steady profit of several hundred taels of silver.
Thinking this, she was eager to wait for Sanwa to come back and discuss it.
However, even after she finished cooking dinner and filled the water troughs in each enclosure with water from the cistern, Sanwa still didn't return.
Normally, he comes back before sunset, and lately he's been the one doing the IV drips.
"Mother, why hasn't Sanwa come back yet? Has he been kept behind by the teacher to be punished?"
Jiang Hongying looked at the mountains to the south. There wasn't a soul in sight on the long mountain road. She peeked out with some worry.
"You watch the child, I'll go check on him." Song Chunxue handed Xiujuan to Jiang Hongying, preparing to go and bring him back.
"I think he probably got into a fight, or he's too stupid to memorize an article and is too embarrassed to come back."
Just then, the fourth son came from around the corner with a sheep shovel in his hand. "He hasn't been to school for so many years. Mother thinks it's enough to make up for the shortfall. Do you expect him to become a scholar?"
Hearing the fourth brother's sarcastic remarks, Song Chunxue knew that he was extremely dissatisfied with the fact that the third child was going to school.
But she didn't want to argue with him about it.
"If you're hungry, eat first. I'll go check on you." Song Chunxue said as she walked out of the arena, determined to go and bring Sanwa back.
No matter what the reason is that Sanwa didn't come back, she wouldn't stop him from going to school.
"Mother, where are you going?"
As they approached the entrance, Sanwa saw Song Chunxue, who was approaching Shanshan, and called out to her.
"You're not going to the school to find me, are you?" Sanwa asked, a cloth book bag slung over his shoulder. "I went to Master Jiang Yao's house today. He gave me several books and told me to read them carefully. He insisted that I stay for dinner before coming back."
When Song Chunxue turned around, she saw a smile of joy and pride on his face, and felt very at ease.
She was genuinely happy for Sanwa; she had rarely seen such a smile on his face in recent years.
In the two weeks since she started going to school, she felt that Sanwa seemed to have grown taller, with a straight back, full of energy, and with a light in his eyes she had never seen before.
Although Song Chunxue couldn't say what it was, she understood that Sanwa had changed and was no longer as self-conscious and timid as before.
very nice.
If it can make up for the regrets in the hearts of the mother and son, then her second chance at life will not have been in vain.
"Mother, come back, I brought you something good." As he spoke, he pulled two plums out of the coarse cloth bag.
Where did it come from?
Song Chunxue looked at the still green plums in his hand and her mouth watered instantly because of the sourness.
They didn't have any plum trees at home, so Sanwa must have picked them from someone else's tree.
She used to be reluctant to spend money on saplings, and her family had no other fruit trees besides apricot trees. Every year when other people's plums and apricots were ripe and yellow, her children could only look on with envy.
Especially in autumn, when the plums ripen, she really wants to buy a few fruit trees.
But none of the saplings she bought because they were cheap survived, so she never bought any more after that.
But now, she wants to spend a lot of money to buy some large saplings.
During the meal, Sanwa distributed plums to everyone, but Lao Si refused to take them with a stern face and instead placed them in front of his bowl.
As Sanwa ate with his head down, an undisguised smile played on his lips.
"Why did Jiang Yao take you to his house and give you books? I remember he wasn't very enthusiastic towards us before. What did you do?" Song Chunxue deliberately asked in front of Lao Si. "What books did he give you? Let me see them."
Sanwa hadn't thought of any of this. He put down his chopsticks, got up, and went inside to get a few books.
“This is a book that his family still reads. Master Jiang said it was better to keep it anyway, so he let me take it home to look at. It will be mine from now on.” He handed it to Song Chunxue with both hands as if presenting a treasure.
The fourth brother glanced at it dismissively, "They're just books for kids, it's not like we don't have any at home."
"Then why don't you take yours out and give it to Sanwa?" Song Chunxue said indifferently. "If you don't like reading it and lock it in the cabinet so no one can read it, even the best book is wasted."
"..." The fourth brother buried his head and ate a few mouthfuls of rice. "I'll take it out tonight, but Mother has to promise me that I can go back to school next year."
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