Chapter 132
After studying for a while, Su Cang finally came up with a preliminary plan.
He looked at Jiaojiao, who was sitting on the ground beside him, and sighed for no apparent reason: "Raising a child is so hard!"
His words reached the sea of consciousness directly. Jiaojiao, who understood, tilted her head, her big dark eyes sparkling: "Ah Jiaojiao, wu ao ah ah ~"
It's not hard to raise Jiaojiao~
Su Cang walked over and squatted down, stretched out his hand to poke Jiaojiao's face, and said seriously: "Don't refute what I say!"
Jiaojiao, whose face was poked, nodded obediently and subconsciously rubbed her furry head against his hand.
Seeing him nod, Su Cang nodded slightly with satisfaction, and rubbed Jiaojiao's head. The furry touch made his fingers curl up slightly.
Jiaojiao held his hand with her backhand. He looked down at him and saw Jiaojiao looking up at him with confused eyes: "Ah, Dad~"
Su Cang: "...I understand. After I finish transforming your body, I will send you to find your father."
When Jiaojiao heard the word "Dad", her eyes lit up, and she waved her hands happily and said incoherently: "Dad Wow~"
It was just daybreak, and as the dim light filtered through the dense treetops and fell into the mountain forest, a figure began to move in the woods.
The man walking in the woods was very tall, wearing a gray-brown coarse linen short coat that was obviously ill-fitting. When he walked, a large part of his ankles and wrists were exposed.
This piece of clothing was the only one he had that he could change into, so he couldn't help but be careful when walking, obviously because he was afraid that the branches would scratch his clothes.
This short coat is already torn enough. At a glance, you can see four or five patches with crude stitching. If it gets torn any further, judging from his craftsmanship, this short coat will be completely ruined.
The man was carrying a roe deer with broken legs on his shoulder, and a few pheasants and rabbits that were not yet dead were hanging around his waist. In his hands, which were covered with sores and calluses, he was holding a wooden stick with a sharpened tip. He looked around, carefully searching for traces of prey. After pushing aside a patch of grass, he looked at the damaged trap on the ground and knew that the prey had escaped.
He buried the trap again and stood up to continue walking forward.
Not long after walking, the man who was walking silently in the woods suddenly stopped and looked in the direction of the noise with his dark and calm eyes.
He walked forward, parted the dense grass, and lowered his head to meet a pair of innocent and clear eyes.
The man was stunned for no reason, because there was a child about two years old sitting on the grass in front of him.
Jiaojiao, who was sitting on the ground, opened her eyes wide and looked at the person who suddenly appeared. There was a hint of curiosity in her dark and ignorant eyes.
"Gurgle gurgle~"
The sound of his stomach rumbling drew Jiaojiao's attention away from the man. He looked down at his stomach and stuffed the grass in his hand into his mouth.
The man who saw this scene felt a sudden jump in his heart, and strode forward to snatch the grass from his hand.
Jiaojiao, whose grass was taken away, looked up at him. Because he was too tall, Jiaojiao had to lean back hard to see his face, causing her to lose her balance and fall backwards to the ground with a thud.
Jiaojiao, who fell to the ground with his feet up, was stunned for a while. Because the ground was covered with grass and dirt, he rolled over and sat up again without getting hurt. He looked at the person in front of him with his big eyes curiously, and pointed at the grass in his hand with his little finger: "Ah~"
Bright and clear~
The man squatted down and put the roe deer off his shoulder. He frowned and took out half a rough bread from his pocket and handed it to him. His already unfriendly face looked even more ferocious: "Here, eat this."
His voice was already deep, and now it was a little hoarse from not having spoken for a long time, sounding even more unfriendly.
However, the child in front of him was surprisingly not scared by him, and his dark and ignorant eyes were fixed on his face.
The man, puzzled, handed the cake forward again and said taciturnly, "Eat."
Jiaojiao, who didn't understand, tilted her head, looked up at him, then looked at the pancake in his hand, moved forward and sniffed it with her little nose. After smelling the pleasant wheat aroma, she curiously reached out to take the pancake, put it in her mouth and took a tentative bite.
Unfortunately, this half of the pancake was too hard and he couldn't bite it.
Jiaojiao took the biscuit out of her mouth, looked at it curiously, and then put it back into her mouth and ground it hard with her teeth.
Seeing that the child was having difficulty biting it, the man took the cake back from his hand, took out a bamboo tube and poured some water on the cake, preparing to wait until the cake softened a little before giving it to the child.
Even though the pancake in her hand was taken away, Jiaojiao did not make a fuss. She opened her clear and innocent eyes and looked at the actions of the person in front of her curiously.
As she looked at him, Jiaojiao's gaze fell on the face of the person in front of her again.
After staring at his face for a long time, Jiaojiao suddenly blinked and stood up shakily with her little hands on the ground.
Seeing that the child in front of him was about to fall, the man who was still holding the pancake in his hand quickly reached out to support him.
Jiaojiao, who was supported, looked up at him, and stood on tiptoe and stretched out her little hand with difficulty to touch the hideous scar on his left cheek, which ran directly from the center of his eyebrows to his jaw.
The white and tender short fingers gently touched the uneven scar, Jiaojiao arched her eyebrows and called out softly and childishly: "Dad~"
Yin Zheng was stunned, and his heart tightened inexplicably.
He looked down into the child's dark eyes full of admiration.
When he was doing labor service, he met a man who came from nowhere. In their local language, "baba" means "daddy", which means that the child in front of him mistook him for his father.
Jiaojiao swayed and squeezed into her father's arms. Her little hands grabbed the clothes on his chest, and she raised her head with sparkling eyes and called out again, "Dad."
The child's eyes were dark and bright, reflecting the hideous scars on his face. There was no fear, rejection or alienation in them, only a smile that sparkled as brightly as the stars in the sky.
Yin Zheng subconsciously folded his arms and murmured, "Yeah."
In fact, he shouldn't have called him "Dad", but he subconsciously felt that... he was the father of this child...
The sun gradually rose higher, and the light golden sunlight penetrated the dense treetops and sprinkled into the forest. Yin Zheng, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, lowered his eyes and broke the biscuit in his hand, then patiently fed it to the child in his arms bit by bit.
Children’s teeth are too small and too tender to bite the biscuits at all. Even after soaking them to soften them, they still have difficulty biting them.
After eating one-third of the pancake, Jiaojiao shook her head and refused to eat anymore, pushing her father's hand to let him eat.
Yin Zheng thought he was finding it too hard to bite, so he stuffed the remaining biscuit in his hand into his mouth without saying anything and ate it in two bites.
When dad was eating biscuits, Jiaojiao looked up at him, her black eyes unblinking, as if she could never see enough of him.
After eating the pancakes, it was getting late, so Yin Zheng planned to go back. He held the child in his arms and picked up the roe deer on the ground with his other hand.
It was obviously his first time holding a child, but his movements were surprisingly skillful.
As they walked back, Yin Zheng subconsciously hid Jiaojiao in his arms. His action was filled with possessiveness and cherishment that he himself was not even aware of. It was as if a dragon had found his long-lost treasure and carefully hid it in his arms, not allowing anyone to peek.
"Have you heard? Yin Zheng from the Yin family picked up a child from the mountain this morning. I heard that he wanted to raise the child under his care. The Yin family has fallen out." Mrs. Wu, who came to wash clothes with a wooden basin, found a place to squat down and couldn't wait to share what she had just heard.
The women who were washing clothes by the river stopped what they were doing when they heard the words, and even a few unmarried girls pricked up their ears to listen quietly.
There was not much fun in the village, so the women would just listen to the gossip of the neighbors to have fun.
"Really?" Aunt Li's eyes widened. "Yin Zheng, that taciturn guy, finally thinks for himself."
"Isn't it!" Mrs. Wu said with a sigh on her dark face: "What do you say about my nephew who will take care of me in my old age? In my opinion, it's not as reliable as Yin Zheng taking in an ignorant little kid."
"Even though I say that, I still think my nephew is more reliable. After all, we are blood relatives." Zhao, a newly married woman from the neighboring village, couldn't help but interrupt.
"Hey, Changyuan's new wife, as soon as I heard you say that, I know you don't understand what's going on."
"Do you know where Yin Zheng has been these days?"
Hearing this, Zhao's face fell and she squinted her eyes at her: "How can a newly married bride like me know where Yin Zheng from the Yin family has been these days? Auntie, please don't say anything nonsense."
A woman's chastity is very important these days. If people really mistakenly think that she has something going on with Yin Zheng from the Yin family, she will have no choice but to jump into the river.
Aunt Li, having come to her senses, smacked her lips twice. If she had angered the new wife of Li Changyuan, the third son of the village chief of the Zhao family, and the village chief's family were to cause trouble for her husband in the future, she would be in trouble. She smiled apologetically and said, "Look at my mouth. She speaks without thinking."
Seeing this, the people on the side also hurriedly said: "Sister, don't be angry. His second aunt is just like that. She never thinks before she speaks. Don't bother with her."
Seeing that Zhao's anger had subsided, Aunt Li continued, "To understand this matter, we have to start from the beginning. The Yin family is the only two outsiders in our Lijia Village. It is said that Old Man Yin fled here during the war. The village chief felt sorry for him because his family had all died. He allocated him a piece of land at the foot of the mountain and gave him the dilapidated house there, allowing him to settle down in Lijia Village."
However, because he was the only person with a different surname in the village, the villagers were quite hostile to him. Later, Yin Fugui married the daughter of Li Dashan in the village, and only then was he able to truly settle down in Dashan Village.
Old Man Yin and his wife were both hardworking people and willing to endure hardships. They rented a lot of land for farming. In addition, the war had just ended in those years, and the government focused on recuperation and the taxes were not very high, which allowed their children to grow up and start their own families.
Excluding those who died young, Mr. and Mrs. Yin raised two sons and a daughter, named Yin Dazhu, Yin Erzhu and Yin Xiaohua. Later, when the two sons got married, they separated because the house was too small for them to live in.
Because the bulk of the property was given to the eldest son Yin Dazhu when the family was divided, the old man Yin and his wife lived with Yin Dazhu, but they both passed away a few years ago.
Yin Dazhu married Wu Chunhua from the next village and had three sons and one daughter, namely the eldest son Yin Yuanzhi, the second son Yin Zheng, the third son Yin Youcai, and the youngest daughter Yin Fang.
Because he hoped that his sons would have a bright future, Yin Dazhu went to the town and paid a scholar to give him the names of his three sons. He also asked a passing Taoist priest to tell his sons' fortunes.
The first two sons didn't figure anything out, but the last son actually figured it out.
When the Taoist priest told him that the youngest son of the Yin family was the God of Literature from heaven and would become a scholar in the future, the Taoist priest praised the youngest son of the Yin family to the point that he was the best in the world. This made the usually stingy Yin Dazhu so happy that he gave him fifty more coins.
That's fifty cents, enough to buy more than four pounds of pork.
Just because of the Taoist's words about a potential scholar, Yin Dazhu thought about it all night. Thinking that his youngest son was indeed smarter, he gritted his teeth and slammed the table, deciding that the whole family would tighten their belts to support his youngest son's schooling.
When they heard the news, everyone in the village laughed at Yin Dazhu's family.
Everyone in the village knew what kind of situation the Yin family was in. Every year, after paying taxes on the harvest, there was barely enough food left to feed themselves, and yet they still wanted to send their son to school? It was simply hilarious; this whole family had lost their minds.
Take the three sons of the Yin family for example. Yin Yuanzhi was tired during Wu's pregnancy, so he was weaker than his peers when he was born. He was also the first child of the Yin couple, so naturally they were more worried about him.
Yin Zheng is the second child. He is the child that Yin and his wife conceived after six years. When he was born, he was a healthy and fat boy. He should have been favored. However, within a year, Wu became pregnant again, and the baby was also a fat boy.
When their youngest son was just born, Mr. and Mrs. Yin had no time to take care of their two-year-old second son and focused all their attention on their youngest son.
Especially when Yin Youcai was five years old, he was diagnosed by a Taoist priest as a potential scholar. His family treated him like their darling, and Yin Zheng, who was born a year and a half before him, was completely ignored.
Because they had to pay a lot of tuition fees to support his schooling, the Yin family, which had been able to barely fill their stomachs, had a sharp decline in their situation. Except for Yin Youcai who was in school and the weak Yin Yuanzhi who could barely eat until they were 70% full, the rest of the family could only barely eat until they were 50% full.
When Yin Zheng was very hungry, he would go to the mountains to get some bird eggs, or hunt some pheasants and rabbits. However, after taking them home, the chicken legs and rabbit legs were given to Yin Yuanzhi and Yin Youcai, and he could only chew on the bones.
Since the older brother couldn't work, all the work at home and in the fields fell on little Yin Zheng.
Although he is still young and cannot do heavy work, Yin Zheng has never had a day off since he was six years old and able to go to the fields. When other children of the same age in the village were climbing trees and going to the river, he was seen cutting grass for pigs, going to the fields, collecting firewood, washing clothes, and cooking every day.
Strangely enough, the one who cooked the most but ate the worst in the Yin family was Yin Zheng, yet the tallest and strongest among the children was Yin Zheng.
Without mentioning the distant past, let's just say that Yin Yuanzhi and Yin Youcai both got married and had children, but Yin Zheng didn't. Why? Of course, it was because the Yin couple was reluctant to spend money to help him get married.
There was a horrifying scar on Yin Zheng's face. This scar was left when Yin Da and his wife forced Yin Zheng, who had just finished serving in the army, to perform labor service for Yin Youcai.
His facial features were not very good and his stature was unusually tall. The women in the village were a little scared when they saw him. Not to mention that he had a scary scar on his face. Even adult men rarely dared to look him in the face.
In addition, he gave all the money he earned to the public, and Mr. and Mrs. Yin were notoriously partial, which led to no woman being willing to marry him.
In this case, unless the Yin family is willing to offer a high enough betrothal gift, no one would be willing to marry Yin Zheng.
It stands to reason that most of the Yin family's money was earned by Yin Zheng. Since the Yin couple were willing to spend so much money on their youngest son's schooling, they wouldn't feel bad about spending some money on Yin Zheng's marriage. However, the Yin couple just refused to pay any money, not even a penny.
He dragged Yin Zheng to the age of 24 without getting married, and then said that there was nothing wrong with getting married. As long as he took good care of Youcai and helped him pass the imperial examination, he would support his second uncle in his old age.
Youbai is Yin Youcai's son, who is four years old and named Yin Youzhi.
It is said that all ten fingers are of different lengths, and it is normal for parents to be a little partial, but it is rare to be so partial. They are simply treating Yin Zheng like a mule and not even giving him any fodder to eat.
"What do you mean by blood relationship? Broken bones are still connected. As long as we provide for them well, this nephew will be half a son in the future. Bah, if you ask me, this adopted child is no more reliable than this brother's son."
"That's right, it's just that Yin Zheng has a temper like a clay man. If that happened to my kid, he would have overturned the dinner table."
"I think Yin Zheng is such a good guy. He's strong, filial, and willing to work. I don't know what the Yin family thinks."
"It's a waste for a good boy like Yin Zheng to be born into their family."
"I haven't seen Yin Zheng these past few days because the Yins asked him to go to the mountains to hunt a roe deer so they could sell it to Yin Youcai to pay the tuition."
"Tsk, it's only spring now, and the wild animals in the mountains that have been hungry all winter are coming out to look for food. Yin Zheng has been staying in the mountains for three days, so they are not afraid that he will be taken away by wild animals."
"You didn't see the dress Yin Zheng was wearing. A few days ago, I saw it was so much shorter. The Yin family didn't even bother making two sets."
"You don't know this. Yin Zheng has been wearing Yin Yuanzhi's old clothes. He is much taller than Yuanzhi, so the clothes must be too short."
"Tsk tsk, I've seen biased parents before, but the Yin family is really an eye-opener."
"The same goes for Mr. and Mrs. Yin. How could a lazy Yin Youcai pass the imperial examination? In my opinion, it would be better to give up this idea as soon as possible and save some money to buy a few more acres of land."
When Aunt Li was speaking excitedly, Aunt Wang nudged her with her elbow.
Aunt Li looked up and saw that it was Yin Yuanzhi's wife, Xiao Wang, who had come. She immediately closed her mouth and smiled and greeted her, "Come and wash your clothes!"
Little Wang, who knew what they were talking about, rolled her eyes inwardly, smiled, found a place to squat, and said, "Yes, Second Aunt, I haven't washed the clothes for a few days. Today is sunny enough, so I took them out and washed them."
There was indeed a big fight at home, and she realized that her second brother, who never contradicted his parents, actually had his own temper.
During dinner, there was one more person at the Yin family's dining table. However, because Jiaojiao was too small to reach the table, he was held in Yin Zheng's arms.
There were only six people at the Yin family's dinner table today besides Jiaojiao, namely Old Man Yin and his wife Wu Chunhua, sister-in-law Wang Xiuli, Yin Yuanzhi's son Yin Youbai and Yin Youcai's son Yin Youzhi.
As for Yin Yuanzhi and Yin Youcai, they both live in the town and usually don't come back unless they have nothing to do.
Dinner was brown rice porridge and wild vegetable soup. Jiaojiao's hands were small and he was not strong enough to lift the bowl, so Yin Zheng lifted the bowl and slowly fed him. Mrs. Wu, who was opposite, saw this scene and clicked her tongue impatiently. The next second, she met the emotionless eyes of her second son.
Mrs. Wu choked. Although her son was not good-looking, he was always quiet and taciturn. He believed everything she said and never contradicted her. She did not find this son scary.
But today he suddenly wasn't as obedient as usual, and when she met his eyes that showed almost no emotion, she felt inexplicably frightened.
But she was just a little scared subconsciously. She didn't believe that her son would dare to do anything to her. She immediately frowned and said, "What are you looking at? If you want to eat, eat. If you don't want to eat, go back to work. You are so rebellious."
Yin Zheng ignored her. He lowered his eyes and saw Jiaojiao stretching her neck to swallow the brown rice with some difficulty. He glanced at the brown rice in the bowl. The brown rice had shells and it was indeed a bit irritating to the throat when he drank it.
Thinking of this, Yin Zheng took the bowl away, held Jiaojiao in his arms and sat her on a stool. He met Jiaojiao's puzzled gaze as she looked up at him, said "wait", and stood up and walked towards the kitchen.
Realizing something, Wu quickly put down her bowl and chopsticks and rushed into the kitchen. Sure enough, she saw Yin Zheng scooping half a bowl of white flour into the pot. She immediately shouted and rushed over to stop him: "That's for Youcai to eat, put it down quickly!"
Yin Zheng blocked her rush, glanced at her, and said calmly: "I bought it. I earned the money."
He didn't care before because he didn't care, but now it's different, he has to raise his son.
As for the roe deer and the pheasants and rabbits outside, I kept two for the child to nourish his body, and sold the others to buy two sets of clothes for the child.
Wu, who was unaware of his intention, started beating, grabbing and kicking him. Yin Zheng stood still as he cooked porridge and let her beat him.
Wu, whose hands were aching from beating herself, looked at the white flour porridge in the pot and cried out in pain: "What's so good about that brat? He's just like your nephew. He can't eat brown rice porridge and he wants to eat white flour. He's not afraid of dying if he eats such good food..."
She didn't say the rest of the words because the look in Yin Zheng's eyes was a little scary, and she subconsciously shut up in fear.
Yin Zheng carried the white flour porridge out and held Jiaojiao in his arms again. After blowing the porridge to cool it down, he held the bowl and patiently fed Jiaojiao in his arms.
Jiaojiao lowered her head and took a sip, her eyes lit up. She looked up at her father and pointed at the porridge in the bowl: "Ah."
It’s delicious.
Although he didn't understand, Yin Zheng, who somehow understood what he meant, nodded: "Yeah."
After getting the answer, Jiaojiao curled her eyes, lowered her head, held the edge of the bowl with both hands, and started drinking the fragrant drink.
Wang, who was watching them quietly from the side, thought, this child is so cute, no wonder the second brother insisted on raising him.
Yin Zheng, who was staring at him, saw that his eyes were curved into crescents due to drinking, and his eyes softened. The fierceness and savagery in his body that was aroused by Wu's words subsided a lot, like a wolf that had eaten and drunk enough. His aura was still unfriendly, but he no longer had that fierce and sharp sense of attack.
Seeing this, Mrs. Wu glared at Yin Zheng and Jiaojiao in his arms, spat, and then sat back at the table, planning to take all the flour in the house and hide it in her and the old man's room.
Seeing that the new kid was drinking white flour porridge while they were eating brown rice porridge, Yin Youbai and Yin Youzhi immediately refused to accept it and cried at the top of their lungs, demanding to eat white flour porridge.
The heart-wrenching cry scared Jiaojiao, who was drinking porridge, so much that she burped and raised her head in confusion.
Yin Zheng looked up at his two crying nephews and said coldly, "Shut up."
The frightened Yin Youbai and Yin Youzhi hiccupped subconsciously and stopped crying in fear.
Seeing this, Yin Dazhu frowned and slammed his chopsticks on the table, glaring at Yin Zheng fiercely.
Yin Zheng ignored him and lowered his head to continue feeding Jiaojiao.
Yin Dazhu was so angry that he turned around and went back to his room.
Jiaojiao stopped drinking halfway, stretched out her hand to push the bowl towards her father, looked up at him with her big round eyes and said, "Dad, Dad~"
Afraid that his father didn't understand, he opened his mouth wide to indicate while he was speaking.
Yin Zheng looked down at the half-eaten bowl of porridge in front of him and suddenly remembered the half pancake from that morning. Just as he was about to say something, Mrs. Wu stood up and took the bowl from him: "The little brat can't eat much. Give it to Youzhi. After he eats it, he will become a great scholar."
Obviously, in Wu's view, her son Youcai is ambitious and will become a great scholar in the future.
Seeing that Wu was about to take the bowl over, Jiaojiao stretched out her little hand and grabbed the edge of the bowl, saying anxiously: "Daddy, ah, daddy..."
Dad's, for Dad...
Mrs. Wu frowned fiercely and raised her dark, rough hand to hit Jiaojiao's small hand.
Yin Zheng blocked her hand, snatched the bowl from her hand with force, tilted his head back and drank the porridge in the bowl in two gulps.
Mrs. Wu pulled a face and spat, then sat back and slammed her chopsticks on the table loudly.
Yin Zheng ignored her and turned around to carry Jiaojiao into the house and sit her down. Then he took advantage of the day before it got dark to deal with the prey in the yard.
Originally, these prey should have been taken to the town to be sold today, but because of the children's affairs, it was delayed a bit. However, it doesn't matter. The roe deer and several hares only had broken legs and can survive until tomorrow to be sold in the town.
So Yin Zheng planned to deal with the few pheasants that would not survive, and then take them into the kitchen to stew them.
The child must not have eaten enough before, so I will give him two chicken legs later.
Yin Zheng, who was handling the pheasant skillfully, thought expressionlessly.
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