Song Anbang said, "Brother Peng, it's alright. We've only been delayed a little."
Master Sun said, "Now that everyone is here, and it's getting late, you should set off as soon as possible."
So the three of them got into the carriage. Qingyun drove, and Angui sat on the side. The carriage slowly moved forward on the official road, and Song Anxin and the others waved goodbye from behind.
Song Anbang and Sun Lixi parted ways shortly after confirming their feelings for each other. Sun Lixi looked very reluctant to part, but the Song and Sun families agreed to propose marriage when Song Anbang returned.
Springtime arrived in March, and the weather warmed up. The chili peppers Song Anxin planted had sprouted tender shoots, and after a while, once they emerged and grew true leaves, they could be transplanted. Before the new year, her family had bought ten acres of wasteland. Lin Fengnian, along with Anfu, Anshou, Qingshan, and others, invited some villagers to help cultivate the land. They planned to plant five acres with chili peppers and five acres with potatoes.
On March 3rd, the prefectural examination in Liuzhou began. When it was time to eat in the examination hall, a handsome young man took out a large bowl, put a piece of curved dough into the bowl, slowly poured in boiling water, and then covered the bowl with a wooden board.
Lin Fenghe frowned slightly. Could he really get a bowl of steaming hot noodles like this? But since his mother told him this, she certainly wouldn't lie to him.
Soon, the exam room was filled with the enticing aroma of food. Lin Fenghe lifted the partition, and a steaming bowl of noodles appeared before him.
Lin Fenghe's eyes lit up with a smile; his mother was right after all.
The proctors present were dumbfounded. If they weren't mistaken, that kid had just turned a piece of dry dough into a bowl of hot noodles. There really were noodles that didn't need to be boiled, just soaked in water?!
Before long, the sound of someone eating noodles came from Lin Fenghe's cell. The candidates in the next cell, and the next even more cells, were drooling as they silently gnawed on their cold, hard flatbreads.
Meanwhile, Song Anxin had finally finished her busy work. That day, she was reviewing accounts in her courtyard, but her thoughts kept drifting away. Today should be the day the results of Fenghe's first provincial examination are released. She didn't even need to know if Fenghe had passed; what would she do if she failed and was heartbroken? She wondered if Anbang would offer any comfort...
At that moment, the grass, big and small, ran into the yard.
"Second Grandma, Second Grandma, let's go to the mountain to dig bamboo shoots! There are so many bamboo shoots growing there!" Da Cao said, pulling Song Anxin's hand as soon as she came in.
"Second Grandma, go dig bamboo shoots, they've grown... lots of bamboo shoots."
Xiao Cao, holding Song Anxin's other hand, followed along, learning the way. Xiao Cao was already three years old, and her speech had become much more fluent.
Song Anxin pinched the two little cheeks and said, "Okay, why don't you ask your Aunt Erxi and Uncle Dongzi to take you with you?"
"My aunt and uncle asked us to come and call my second maternal grandmother. They're waiting for us outside," Da Cao said.
Xiao Cao chimed in, "Yes, my aunt and uncle said to call her Second Grandmother."
Song Anxin had no idea what Erxi was up to this time, but she smiled and agreed.
And so the group of people, carrying small hoes and baskets on their backs, went up the mountain. On the way, Erxi said to her with a smile that she knew Fenghe was taking the exam today and that she had invited her out to dig bamboo shoots so that she wouldn't overthink things at home.
Song Anxin smiled and shook her head helplessly; Erxi had meant well. Being on the mountain, surrounded by the vibrant scents of flowers, trees, and all things alive, did indeed bring her a great deal of peace of mind.
They soon arrived at a bamboo forest on the mountain. Many pointed bamboo shoots had already sprouted in the forest. Lin Erxi, holding a small hoe, said:
"Second Aunt, let's dig here. Dongzi, big and small grass, you have to dig hard. Let's dig more today so we can give the mother rabbits who are having babies a better diet."
As he spoke, he led Dongzi and Dacao to start digging for bamboo shoots. In reality, Dacao and Dacao were too small to dig up any bamboo shoots; it was just for fun.
"Hey, I have a little hoe, I never dig, but one day I dug and dug up a lot of bamboo shoots..."
The four of them dug bamboo shoots while happily humming a little tune.
Song Anxin was amused by them and kept laughing. This was a children's song that she taught Da Xiaocao to sing in her spare time. Er Xi seemed to particularly like to make wild adaptations of this song.
"Second Aunt, what are you laughing at all by yourself? Hurry up and dig, or your rabbits won't have anything to eat."
"Second Grandma, hurry up and dig it up, give it to the rabbit to eat," Little Grass said.
Inspired by their enthusiasm, Song Anxin hummed a tune as she began digging for bamboo shoots. As she hummed, she thought to herself that bamboo shoots could improve the mother rabbits' diet; they had worked so hard raising their young.
As soon as spring arrived, their rabbits were incredibly prolific, with almost every female rabbit giving birth to six or seven offspring. The rabbit hutch had been moved to her old house and was now being cared for by Angie, the youngest rabbit in the yard. By now, they had nearly three or four hundred rabbits. It seemed that their older brother and sister-in-law's family was doing similarly. Now that people in the village were doing better, they would occasionally come to their house to buy rabbits to improve their diet, which was also a source of income.
It has to be said that digging bamboo shoots is a really stress-relieving process. When you finally dig out a whole bamboo shoot, you feel incredibly satisfied. Just as Song Anxin and Lin Erxi were engrossed in digging bamboo shoots, they didn't notice that the two little radish heads, Da Xiaocao and Xiao Cao, were heading deeper into the mountains.
........
"Big and Little Grass, where are you? Oh no, I've lost Big and Little Grass! What will Second Aunt do? Waaah..."
Song Anxin and the others only realized that Da Cao and Xiao Cao were missing after they had dug up half a basket of bamboo shoots. At first, they thought that Da Cao and Xiao Cao might have gotten bored of digging bamboo shoots and were hiding in some corner of the bamboo forest to play. However, she and Lin Erxi circled the bamboo forest and still couldn't find Da Cao and Xiao Cao. At this point, Lin Erxi was so anxious that tears were welling up in her eyes.
Song Anxin reassured her with a serious expression, "Dacao and Xiaocao are both small, so even if they go up the mountain, they shouldn't go far. Let's look along the easier parts of the mountain. Dongzi has already gone down to call for help. Don't worry, nothing will happen."
Actually, she was also very anxious, but she had to stay calm at this critical moment.
When she first noticed that Da Xiaocao had disappeared, she quickly sent Dongzi down to call for help. Since the group was not far from their home in the back mountain, they thought it was just a spring outing and bamboo shoot digging, so they didn't bring anyone with them.
Song Anxin led Lin Erxi up the mountain while calling out:
"Big grass! Little grass! Can you hear your second maternal grandmother's voice? If you can, respond to her."
"Big grass! Little grass! Don't scare your auntie! Come out quickly, playing hide-and-seek on the mountain isn't fun."
Lin Erxi shouted at the top of his lungs.
As the two ventured deeper into the mountains, they began to hear the howling of wild animals.
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