Chapter 415 I'm Not Stupid
Without having to bring breakfast to her senior brother, Song Chunxue leisurely ate her breakfast.
Then she went to the fourth brother's room and woke him up.
"Mother?" The fourth son rubbed his eyes. "Let me sleep a little longer."
"Wake up, everyone's busy. Your sister and brother-in-law are busy harvesting crops. There's a good amount of buckwheat this year, let's harvest it together to speed things up."
The fourth brother didn't move.
"Can you really bear to watch your sister and her two children wilt like radishes in the sun?" Song Chunxue sighed softly. "We have plenty of grain; we can't let them do all the work. They're not servants or maids."
The fourth brother, with his eyes closed, struggled to sit up in bed.
"Mom, I understand. Can I take a little more nap?"
"No, you'll fall asleep again if you keep dozing off. I can't stand you being idle all day long; it makes me angry."
The fourth brother immediately opened his eyes and said, "I'm going to wash my face."
"That's more like it. No matter how high your ambition is, if you're held back by laziness, you'll never achieve anything in your life."
The fourth brother looked unwell, but did not refute.
Song Chunxue came out of the house and said, "Change into your old clothes and shoes."
"knew."
The mother and daughter went to the field and helped Jiang Hongying and the others pull up wheat.
After an hour and a half, Song Chunxue and Lao Si returned early with the children; one cooked and the other played with the kids.
She scooped out two large pieces of dough; her appetite had increased from doing physical labor, and she was afraid one piece wouldn't be enough.
She cooked three dishes, mixed some dry noodles for the Taoist priest, and asked the fourth brother to deliver them.
They ate only the fermented noodle soup, finding it refreshing and thirst-quenching, but couldn't stomach anything else.
Just then, Mulan returned.
"You look after the child first, I'll make some radish salad, your sister and brother-in-law should be back soon."
"Okay, sure."
Mulan held Xiaolong in her arms and slowly walked into the kitchen, handing a cloth bag to Song Chunxue.
She whispered, "This is from Lord Xie for Mother."
Song Chunxue was somewhat surprised, but she wiped her hands and accepted it nonetheless.
"Okay, you can go ahead and get busy."
Mulan carried the child to the courtyard.
After mixing the radishes, Song Chunxue took the cloth bag and went to her room.
The cloth bag looked ordinary on the outside, but it seemed to be the kind that Lord Xie used himself. It was filled with brand new fabric, a thin and soft material that Song Chunxue had never seen before, and it was very silky.
I've been doing hard work these past few days, and my hands are calloused. When I touch this moss-green fabric, it just sticks to my hands.
Upon tearing it open, it was at least five feet long and must have been made of silk.
This material is very expensive; it must be worth a lot of money.
She gently stroked the soft fabric, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
When she was about to put the cloth back, she found a letter and a hairpin made of some unknown wood inside the cloth bag.
A pearl is inlaid in the openwork of the hairpin, making it exquisite and elegant.
She couldn't help but smile bitterly. Who could refuse a man like Lord Xie?
With a mix of trepidation and excitement, she opened the envelope.
"My dear friend Chunxue, seeing this letter is like seeing you in person; opening it brings a smile to my face."
Lord Xie's powerful and vigorous calligraphy reflects his character and integrity.
Perhaps because he was considerate of her limited education, she could understand every single word he wrote, but when put together, they stirred up a multitude of thoughts within her.
But she couldn't understand a certain passage in the middle.
"My heart is not a stone, it cannot be turned..."
She could barely understand the last paragraph.
"True friends are hard to find, and I, Xie, am all alone in this world... A true friendship asks for nothing more than this; may you find peace of mind..."
Song Chunxue read it over and over again, but still couldn't understand it. She couldn't very well ask someone else, could she?
That would kill her.
But when he said he had no other requests and that their friendship was based on mutual respect, did he mean that they were still friends?
He must have gone to Jincheng, and we won't have many chances to meet again.
The fact that he left this letter proves that he understood her concerns and feelings.
If she were to go and confront him to make things clear, it would be pointless.
After a long while, she put the things in a cloth bag and locked them in the box, untouched.
...
In the following days, Song Chunxue would drag her fourth son to the fields to harvest grain in the mornings, and rest at home in the afternoons, reading medical books and meditating.
After harvesting the wheat, we had to haul it home. Before we finished harvesting the sorghum, we could harvest the corn. After harvesting the sorghum, we could harvest the corn. After harvesting the corn, we had to dig up potatoes.
Before the potatoes were all dug up, the buckwheat could be harvested.
In less than half a month, Song Chunxue was extremely busy.
On August 29th, the second brother wrote again.
The fourth brother frowned more and more deeply as he read the letter.
"Mother, the second son said he was beaten. Someone was unhappy that he left the army and injured his leg. He needs to recover for a while, and he wants to see you."
The fourth son was extremely anxious. "Mother, let's go to Jincheng to see our second brother. He's going to take up his post in the government office in a few days. We absolutely cannot let anything go wrong at this time."
Song Chunxue wasn't in a hurry. "What help could I possibly be? Do you expect me to trouble Lord Xie?"
The fourth son shook Song Chunxue's arm, "Mother, you haven't seen your second brother for three years, don't you miss him?"
"No rush, let's go in a few days and finish picking the buckwheat first."
The fourth brother was extremely anxious, but he knew that his advice was useless.
Let's wait until Sanwa comes back tonight and let him try to persuade him.
I don't know why, but when a mother hears her son's name after not seeing him for a year, she bursts into tears.
Why isn't Mother in a hurry at all?
Could it be that because he and his second brother didn't like to work back then, their mother still remembers it and is angry with them for the sake of their third son?
The fourth brother thought about it more and more and felt that this was the case. Otherwise, why would his second brother want such a good job? His mother did not show a trace of pride for her second brother.
In the evening, Sanwa and Mulan returned from outside, chatting and laughing.
"Sanwa, I need to talk to you." The fourth brother grabbed Sanwa's arm and handed him the letter from his second brother. "Second brother got beaten up."
As he spoke, the fourth brother looked at Mulan and said, "Sister-in-law, you go ahead and do your work. I need to talk to him about something."
Mulan nodded shyly and hurried to their room.
Turning his head, the fourth brother saw the third brother grinning foolishly at Xia Mulan's back.
He raised his hand and waved it in front of his eyes, looking annoyed.
"Aren't you two getting tired of each other? You've been married for a month, and you're still so lovey-dovey. Is your wife that important?"
Sanwa stopped smiling and sat on the stone bench to read the letter.
“I know you’re fickle. I’ve been married for almost a month, and since you came back from your uncle’s house, you haven’t even thought about going to Ji County anymore. And that girl from Gaojiazhuang, you two have been completely honest with each other…”
The fourth brother quickly covered his mouth, "Third Brother, don't talk nonsense. I was naive and got scammed back then, and you're going to expose my past? Don't I have any dignity?"
He lowered his voice and warned, "If you dare tell your sister-in-law, I'll strangle your mouth."
“I won’t say that. Mulan is a young girl. Wouldn’t talking about such things lead her astray?” Sanwa’s gaze fell on the letter. He said seriously, “I’m not stupid.”
The fourth brother retorted defiantly, "I just feel that I'm different from you. I can't marry someone just because I'm attracted to them. I admit that I'm easily attracted to one person after another, simply because I like good-looking women."
"But my uncle said that you can't be careless when you marry a wife. You have to look at her character and upbringing, and you also have to get to know her family and her background. You can't make a decision lightly. Besides, after thinking about it carefully, Ji County is a bit far from here. My second brother also told me to go to Jincheng to make my way in the world, and it would be best to live in Jincheng in the future."
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