Li Xiuju looked at Baoyu's forced smile, then turned to Zhou Chenyu with tears in her eyes, "And you? Were you hurt?"
Zhou Chenyu had been annoyed by the woman's watchful gaze for a while, and was overjoyed to have the chance to teach them a lesson. "Don't worry, I'm fine."
As soon as the wound healed, Baoyu forgot the pain and was even smug. "Mother, you didn't see it just now, but when my sister slapped that person, it was so satisfying. That brat didn't dare to utter a sound and kept calling for his mother."
"Keep it down, keep it down." Zhou Chenyu was afraid that he would say too much and make Li Xiuju worry too much, so she quickly took the dog out of the winnowing basket. "Grandma, look, isn't it cute?"
Li Xiuju looked at the puppy with surprise: "What's this?"
Zhou Chenyu, realizing that her relationship with Chen Tongsheng was clear, directly recounted her encounter with Chen Tongsheng and the incident of giving him a dog. Sure enough, Li Xiuju brought up the matter of her acknowledging him as her brother without prior notice, and Zhou Chenyu couldn't help but mutter a few words. However, what's done is done, and nothing can be changed.
Li Xiuju originally didn't want to keep a dog. Raising a dog is different from raising chickens and ducks; they can't just eat wild grass and rice bran, they need to be fed rice and meat. In their family's situation, they could barely feed themselves, let alone take care of a dog.
But this little yellow dog was surprisingly obedient. It didn't bark when it entered the yard, didn't disturb the ducks nearby, and wasn't picky about food. It ate whatever was fed to it and was very easy to raise.
Seeing the two children having a great time playing with the dog, Li Xiuju gradually accepted this uninvited guest.
They named it soybean.
During their absence, Li Xiuju was never idle at home.
As the weather gets warmer, the delicate spring bamboo shoots have disappeared, but the thick bamboo shoots are ready to grow.
Thick bamboo shoots are much easier to obtain than spring bamboo shoots. They grow as thick as a person's thigh. If you find a bamboo grove, you can dig up five or six of them and they will weigh about ten kilograms.
Keep two for immediate consumption, and cut the rest into strips and dry them in the sun. They can be stored for several months, especially in winter. Pick some out, soak them in cold water to soften them, and stir-fry them with cured pork. The taste is absolutely amazing.
After digging up bamboo shoots in the morning and having a simple lunch, I'm busy feeding the chickens and ducks. The ducks I bought can't eat rice bran and tender grass like chickens; they can only eat earthworms and insects.
Earthworms prefer dark, damp places under rocks or rotten wood, and the banks of streams are mostly covered with dead branches and rotten wood.
Li Xiuju took a basket to the stream, dug up a jar of earthworms, and then bumped into Hongmei and the others fishing in the stream.
She thought that her family usually couldn't afford to buy meat, and they couldn't kill chickens and ducks to eat every day, so catching some fish to tide them over was a good idea.
The fish caught from the stream are not as large as those specially farmed; most are small fry, no bigger than a little finger. These boneless fry can be kept for months after being fried in hot oil. They are convenient to eat and taste delicious.
By evening, before cooking dinner, all the ripe pumpkins in the garden had been harvested, but the pumpkin leaves remained untouched. Pumpkin leaves taste sweet and delicious, and with meat dishes available, they would be perfect for a vegetarian dish. So, Li Xiuju went to the garden and cut a bunch of pumpkin leaves.
Pumpkin leaves and stems are covered in thorns, so you have to break them off piece by piece and pull out the sharp thorns before you can stir-fry them.
Zhou Chenyu enjoyed doing this work. She moved a small stool to the doorway and sat down. Soybeans lay sprawled at her feet as she tore pumpkin leaves while looking at the rice paddies in the distance.
I heard that this year's harvest is good, with two more bags of rice per mu than in previous years. The men carried bags of rice home barefoot, their faces and bodies soaked with sweat, but it did not hide their joy of the harvest.
"How much did that bag of rice we bought last time cost?" Zhou Chenyu asked Baoyu.
Baoyu forcibly picked up the soybeans, saying, "One hundred and fifty copper coins."
"One hundred and fifty copper coins can only buy a little bit of rice, which will only last for a little over a month at most." Zhou Chenyu looked at the rice paddies. One acre of rice paddy doesn't produce much grain. She thought about it seriously, "It's still better to have your own land, don't you think?"
Baoyu stared at the piece of land that his uncle had taken away, looking sullen. "Of course."
Based on the local market price for land, one mu (approximately 0.16 acres) is worth about three taels of silver. If they can sustain their income from selling sugar water for a while, there is still hope.
Zhou Chenyu looked at Baoyu, and Baoyu looked over as well. Their eyes met, and their thoughts coincided: to save money to buy land!
That night, Li Xiuju made a stir-fried small fish with chili peppers and a stir-fried pumpkin leaf dish. The small fish was spicy and flavorful, while the pumpkin leaf was sweet and refreshing. One dish was strong and the other was light, providing both meat and vegetables. Everyone ate two bowls of rice.
After the people finished eating, they mixed the remaining rice with some pumpkin leaves and dried fish, and the dog ate it all.
After finishing their meal, Li Xiuju boiled two eggs, peeled them, wrapped them in a cloth, and rolled them on Baoyu's wound. She said anxiously, "Although you've fought back, those people might not let it go. If you go back to your stall tomorrow, will they bring some helpers to make things difficult for you?"
Compared to making a lot of money, Li Xiuju would be content if her two children were safe and sound, well-fed and warm, and not hungry or cold.
"Shenyu, Baoyu, why don't we not go?"
Upon hearing this, Baoyu, remembering his earlier idea of saving money to buy land, was the first to disagree. "Mother," he said, "we've only been here two days and we've already earned almost two hundred coins. If we keep it up for several dozen days while it's hot, we can earn one or two taels of silver. In the past, how long would we have had to dig up bamboo shoots on the mountain to earn that much?"
Like Zhou Chenyu, he believed that fortune favored those who took risks.
Moreover, setting up a stall is just the first step; selling sweet soup is a seasonal business and not very stable.
Her ultimate goal is to buy a permanent stall in the city and run a unique business so that money can flow into her pocket continuously.
“Baoyu is right, we still have to keep doing business. We scared Qian Rushan away, so I’m not afraid of that mother and son.” Zhou Chenyu picked up Huangdou and stroked its head. “If they dare to bully us again, I’ll have Huangdou bite them to death!”
Baoyu imitated the barking of the village's vicious dogs, howling a couple of times.
As if understanding their words, Huangdou opened its eyes wide, faced the door, and barked excitedly three times.
Zhou Chenyu was also surprised, "Hey, listen, it really made a sound!"
“Mother heard it, it called out. This little guy is quite intelligent.” Li Xiuju smiled, couldn’t help but reach out and touch it a few times, and then didn’t mention what she had just said again.
As night deepened and the dew grew heavy, the group returned to their respective rooms.
Passersby walked by outside the window with torches in their hands, and occasionally the sound of soybeans calling could be heard. Zhou Chenyu lay on the bed, the sheets of which must have been washed by Li Xiuju, and the smell of sun-baked soot could be faintly smelled.
This time was far too early for Zhou Chenyu's biological clock, and she couldn't fall asleep no matter what.
Zhou Chenyu turned over, clamping the blanket between her legs, recalling the events of the day, a lazy and languid smile appearing in her clear eyes.
"Goodbye...." She mimicked the man's tone, low and calm, "Is this person always this boring? No wonder he's still single despite his looks; girls would have been scared away long ago."
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