Lin Guoqing had been forcing himself to work all morning. He was terribly sleepy, and he had to yell at Lin Shuchao from time to time, telling him not to run too far, not to go to the river, but also not to go into the fields...
At 12 o'clock, it was time for dinner. The couple and their child were both in a hurry to eat. One just wanted to go home to sleep, and the other just wanted to go home to continue the topic that had not been finished in the morning.
Youqing and his wife were stunned. What was going on? Why were they eating so quickly? Before they could even ask, the couple had already packed up and left.
After running back home, Lin Guoqing fell directly onto the bed in the room and started snoring the next second. He didn't even hear Chen Chunhua scolding him.
"Why don't you take off your clothes before going to bed!!!"
Forget it, there was nothing she could do. Seeing the bruises under Lin Guoqing's eyelids, Chen Chunhua couldn't scold him anymore. She helped him take off his cotton jacket and trousers, put his shoes beside the bed, and then pushed him into bed.
Turning around, she saw three little kids looking at them eagerly. She put a finger on her lips and said, "Shh~"
She led the children out of the room and closed the door before softly instructing them, "Daddy is tired and wants to take a nap. Don't disturb him."
The three carrot heads nodded in unison.
Chen Chunhua thought for a moment and said, "It's time for you to take a nap. If you don't, go in now. Just stop making noise and go to sleep."
Lin Shugan shook his head and said, "I don't want to take a nap." He was so bored at home that he could sleep anytime he wanted. He wasn't sleepy at all now.
"Mom, I don't want to sleep either!" Lin Shuchao quickly raised his hand to express his feelings. He hadn't seen his brother for the whole morning. He didn't want to sleep and just wanted to play with his brother.
Chen Chunhua: ...That’s why she sometimes thinks boys are really annoying.
Only the youngest, Shumei, had been rubbing her eyes since a while ago. "Mom... Tu Tu..."
Tutu means sleeping, and is used in the local dialect to coax children.
Chen Chunhua picked up her little daughter and started patting her butt. She was about to go back to the bedroom and put her next to Lin Guoqing when she suddenly felt something was wrong. She turned around and glanced around the room.
"Second brother, where's your grandma?"
"She hasn't come back yet." Lin Shugan said honestly. He had wanted to wait for his grandmother to have dinner together, but she didn't show up after waiting for a long time. He was hungry again, so he ate a sweet potato by himself.
Chen Chunhua: ???
She was shocked. Did something happen to Liang Shengdi on the road or did she really intend to be a model worker from now on?
Before she could say anything else, she heard the door creak open, and the next second Liang Shengdi's loud voice came in.
"I'm back! I'm starving! I need to read! Where's my meal..."
Chen Chunhua looked at her little daughter, who had just closed her eyes in her arms. Her mouth was now pouting, and she was clearly about to cry. She sighed, then told her second son to quickly get Liang Shengdi lunch and told her to keep her voice down while she went into her room first.
By the time she came out of the room after coaxing the child, Liang Shengdi had already finished cooking two sweet potatoes and a bowl of vegetable rice.
Although the vegetables had turned a little yellow due to being simmered for too long, Liang Shengdi still ate them with relish. She had really consumed too much energy, so she started to eat the last sweet potato.
The second and third children were squatting at Liang Shengdi's feet, gathered together and were whispering in surprise. When they saw Chen Chunhua coming out, they quickly waved to their mother.
"Mom, come and see, grandma has dug up a lot of things!"
Chen Chunhua knew that Liang Shengdi was going to dig bamboo shoots. When she heard this, she felt that her mother-in-law was really successful. It seemed that she had dug quite a lot of bamboo shoots. It turned out that rewards are motivation.
"Mom, you're so busy today... What is this?"
"Mushrooms! Haven't you seen them before?" Liang Shengdi chewed a sweet potato, her face full of longing.
"Chunhua, why don't you have a plate of braised bamboo shoots with oil and a plate of stir-fried bamboo shoots with mushrooms for dinner? No, didn't you say you'd make meat today? You don't need to add anything to stir-fried meat with mushrooms, just a little salt, it's very fresh~"
It seemed as if what she was eating was not sweet potatoes, but fried meat with mushrooms. The old lady was almost dancing with joy.
Chen Chunhua squatted on the ground with the children, looking at the basket of bamboo shoots and the... basket? A basket of mushrooms.
"I know these are mushrooms. I'm just wondering if this basket you put them in was made temporarily?"
Many thin branches were intertwined together, some of which even had leaves on them. Without the help of anything else but the branches, a basket of neither too big nor too small was woven.
It cannot be made perfect and seamless. If you fill it with water, it will definitely leak, and bamboo shoots will not be able to bear the weight.
But it is just right for storing mushrooms.
"Yes, the basket is full of bamboo shoots. If I want to put more, I can only stuff it into the cracks, but it's not enough. The mushrooms are tender, and I'm afraid they will be crushed if I put them together with the bamboo shoots, so I made another one."
Liang Shengdi said this as a matter of course, and did not think that weaving a basket was a big deal. Instead, she was always thinking about her own business.
"These mushrooms are also picked by me. They should be cooked and eaten like bamboo shoots. Can you put the extra half of them into my account?"
"Yes! Definitely!" Chen Chunhua slapped her thigh and promised.
"I'll divide it up now and sell the better ones, but I promise there'll be enough for us to eat at the dinner table tonight! If we sell a lot, I'll see if I can buy some more meat tomorrow."
Lin Fuqiang only gave one pound of meat. After making lard, it was only enough for the seven people in his family to taste.
Liang Shengdi was overjoyed when she heard this. "Good! Good! Good!"
After finishing the meal, she felt full of energy again. "I see there are still a lot over there. How about I pick some more?"
Chen Chunhua's back teeth were almost exposed. "Mom, you don't want to rest? It's been the whole morning. I see you are very tired. Take a rest first. You can go tomorrow!"
"If we go there tomorrow, we'll have to postpone eating the meat for another day. I'm going now!"
"Hey, wait, wait, I haven't sorted them out yet, there are still mushrooms in the basket!"
"It's okay. That basket can be woven very quickly. I'll just make another one on the mountain later."
After Liang Shengdi finished speaking, she picked up the hoe and went out again, without giving Chen Chunhua any chance to react.
Chen Chunhua had seen how hard Liang Shengdi worked, so why was this old lady so notorious for being so lazy in her first half of her life? If she had been more diligent, maybe Lin Guoqing could have really become a wealthy second-generation.
Liang Shengdi's thinking was simple: work should be rewarded. If she dug bamboo shoots, she should eat them; if she raised chickens, she should eat meat. She couldn't work so hard and then be told she couldn't eat anything.
This thing needs to be sold for money, that thing needs to be exchanged for money. Exchanging money is fine, and with the money, can I buy rice to eat? No, that's not possible.
The head of the household would tell her that food and daily necessities all cost money, and even a penny split in half wouldn't be enough, so how could she think about food all day long? But isn't the purpose of life to eat?
So Liang Shengdi started to give in. After all, the Lin family couldn't really starve her to death. Whether she worked or not, she would eat sweet potatoes. It would be better not to work and save some energy.
But Chen Chunhua was different. She promised herself that she could eat meat, and promised herself that any work she did would be counted on her head and could be converted into food.
If you don’t do this, you’d be a fool.
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