Chapter 118: One Word in Front of You, Another Behind Your Back
"Are we going up the mountain now? Should we lock the door?"
Lu Donglin said, "Lock the doors to the new room and the main hall. You don't need to lock the kitchen door, just hang it up."
After finishing, the two of them went out with the basket.
Zhang Hongying and Lu Chun'e were also carrying baskets on their backs and heading towards the cornfield halfway up the hill. It was working time, and the path was bustling with people chattering in groups of three or four.
Lu Chun'e saw Liu Chunyan at Liu Zhaoxing's house and called out from a distance, "Swallow!"
Liu Chunyan also joined her family, carrying a backpack and bringing back pig feed when work was over. She was a year older than Lu Chun'e, who would turn fifteen later this year, and she was already sixteen. She had finished elementary school and helped with chores around the house.
Had a great time playing with Lu Chun'e.
As she grew older, Lu Chun'e went to the commune to attend junior high school, and except for holidays, they didn't spend much time together.
Hearing Lu Chun'e's shout, Liu Chunyan glanced down and waved to her from a distance: "Hurry up, I'll wait for you!"
Lu Chun'e must have been leaving quickly, leaving Zhang Hongying and her husband behind. She came up and greeted Liu Chaoxing and his wife, then Liu Daquan, before speaking to Liu Chunyan.
"Ezi, you're on vacation!"
Lu Chun'e said, "Yes, it's vacation time, we can go up the mountain together."
"Hehe, that's right. It's more fun to go up the mountain with company. Where's Lu Donglin? Is he picking mushrooms?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
Liu Chunyan said, "An Wazi ran away early this morning, how could I not know? We used to be like that too, always in the woods at this time of year." What she didn't want to say was that Lu Donglin was already thirteen years old, and he still didn't go out to the fields, and he treated her like a child, running around all day without any reason! Don't turn around and become like Lu Dongping, with a bad reputation all over the team.
Lu Chun'e smiled, that's exactly what she meant.
Liu Chunyan asked her again, "Is your sister Wen Wan on vacation too? Why didn't I see her going up the mountain with you? Isn't she planning to go back to work?" Not only Wen Wan, but Lu Dongping was also missing. "Today is Sunday, and he still has to go to the commune?" Having work to do would be a big deal. She didn't even want to go to work on Sundays.
Lu Chun'e said, "The holiday isn't over yet. She just finished her exams, and the questions haven't been corrected yet, and the results haven't come out yet! She's busy! Besides, going to the fields is just pulling grass for the pigs, and there's not much work to do in the fields."
They walked and whispered here, and Zhang Hongying also started chatting with Liu Chaoxing's wife Zhou Meiying, also talking about Wen Wan and Lu Dongping.
The topic wasn't about whether to go to work or not, but about the banquet. When Zhou Meiying asked, Zhang Hongying beamed with joy: "It's settled. August 30th. They say it's a good day. It's right at the end of August, so after those two days, things will start to get busy again."
Zhou Meiying smiled and said, "Congratulations first. You're truly blessed. Wen Wan is beautiful and has a good personality. She has a job now, and Dongping works for the commune. You've finally made it. Life is getting better and better. Once you two get married, you can enjoy life in peace." Everyone says nice things. Even if they used to look down on Lu Dongping, thinking he was lazy and unemployed, it couldn't hide the fact that he was now a cadre in the commune. He found a partner who was still a high school student, and he used connections to get him a substitute teacher in an elementary school. With two salaried people in the family, how could life be bad?
No matter what these people say to their faces, they are all jealous behind their backs.
Zhang Hongying knew that these people on the team were all very polite to her in public and very different in private, but she couldn't reach out and hit someone who was smiling. At that time, her smile was even brighter than Zhou Meiying's: "Are you talking about me or yourself? Isn't your Daquan wife, Xiujuan, outstanding in every way? She's beautiful, well-educated, and she has everything. Now she's pregnant again. We'll just wait until autumn when the baby is born. Then you'll have grandchildren."
When this was mentioned, the smile on Zhou Meiying's face suddenly faded. "Hey! Let's stop flattering each other. If others don't know what's going on, how can we not know it ourselves? According to the time, she's due in mid-September, and she's already whispering to Daquan that she should go to the county hospital when the time comes. Who among our ancestors has ever gone to the hospital to give birth? They all just found a midwife at home. She hasn't been out in the fields or into the kitchen since she got pregnant with morning sickness. Now she even has to have Daquan wash her own clothes. She's like a living ancestor, acting like she's the only one who can give birth and other women can't. Why is she so lazy?"
What did Zhang Hongying say? What did Zhang Hongying say? She was the daughter-in-law of the Liu family. They were all family. She was just an outsider. What could she say? What did it have to do with her?
"People with these bodies are not in good spirits. They will be fine after the baby is born. Girls from the city are always a little more delicate. As long as the couple has a good relationship, we as elders can't expect too much, right?"
Zhou Meiying said, "That's right. Girls from our mountain area aren't that lazy. They don't do anything and are always finding fault with everything. The one in our family is like that. I'm afraid your family, Wen Wan, will be like that too in the future. They're all our ancestors."
"People can't be treated the same. Wen Wan hasn't even married yet, so I can't treat her like a daughter-in-law and order her around right now! Even if she does marry, she's come all the way here to settle down, so I have to treat her well. I didn't have a mother-in-law when I got married, so do I have to be that nasty woman who tortures her daughter-in-law when I become a mother-in-law?"
Zhou Meiying: - Am I the evil woman who tortures her daughter-in-law?
Besides, people have already arrived at the fields, and each family has started working according to the harvest from yesterday, and they have all dispersed.
Zhang Hongying breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't afraid of offending anyone. She just wanted to save face for the team. If someone insisted on being unacceptable, she wasn't a pushover. She just didn't want to talk to Zhou Meiying anymore.
The woods were bustling with chirping. Many children ran to the mountains as soon as they had their holidays. This season was not too busy and they did not need to work in the fields, so they went into the woods and brought back whatever they could eat, at least to fill their stomachs.
Wen Wan is probably the oldest "kid" in this group. She feels a little embarrassed and always feels that she is being lazy and not doing her job properly.
But the harvest was also considerable. Compared with the last time she came to the mountain, she knew several more kinds of wild mushrooms. In addition to yellow shit mushrooms, big red mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, there were also moss mushrooms, chicken mushrooms, and pine mushrooms.
This season is indeed the season for picking mushrooms. The sun has just risen and the baskets we brought out are almost full.
Lu Donglin shouted that he wanted to go back: "Let's go, the baskets are full, let's come back in the afternoon." The leaves of the trees were covered with dew early in the morning, and both of their clothes were wet, and their hair was wet.
When he got home, Lu Donglin took out the bamboo mat that was rolled up at home and threw it in the middle of the yard. He poured all the mushrooms and ground mushrooms in the basket onto it and said, "Sister, the sun has just come out. I'll go over there again. You can stay home and peel the pine needles off the mushrooms if you're not busy. If you don't have time, it's okay. They will fall off by themselves when they dry."
So, should we peel or not?
Lu Donglin has already run away.
Wen Wan looked at the time. It was almost nine o'clock. The door to the main room was still locked, and the door to the kitchen was still open. It seemed that Lu Dongping still hadn't returned.
It’s Sunday. Do we still need to go to the commune?
She didn't care about the mushrooms on the bamboo mat, but took the basket and went to her private plot while covered in dew. She compared the vegetables with those that Lu Chun'e usually picked, and picked out some that she thought were edible.
No one feeds the pigs at home, and the noise they make is heartbreaking.
She simply picked up two handfuls of pig feed and threw them directly into the pen, letting them chew on their own. After appeasing several mouths, she went into the house to change her clothes.
When it comes to cooking, she still knows how to cook corn porridge. She used to cook for four people when she was at the educated youth camp. Now there are six people at home, so she just needs to add an extra bucket of water and more grains.
Then, she made pancakes. She wasn't very good at this as she didn't know how to knead the dough. She had to learn it well next time. Cooking was something she really had to learn well.
As for the dishes, she didn't know what to make. While the pot was still hot and the food was still in, she picked up some potatoes, washed them, chopped them up, and poured them into the pot. Then she went outside to pick up some mushrooms, washed them, chopped them, and poured them in. It seemed that chopped cowpeas could also be mixed in?
Just do it as you think it is, and then there will be crumbs of several colors in the pot.
After everything boiled, she started to use a spoon to stir the pot with one hand and add the rice with the other. This was taught to her by Wang Jianmao, who said that this way there would be no lumps and the rice would not be undercooked.
When the food is put into the pot, the fire in the pot needs to be raised and the pot needs to be stirred constantly to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot and getting burnt.
When it was thoroughly cooked and bubbles were bubbling in the pot, she scooped some lard from the jar and put it into the porridge, then added some salt, and the flavor came out immediately.
She was somewhat satisfied with the smell. The aroma of potatoes, cowpeas, mushrooms, combined with lard and salt, was quite good.
When the porridge in the pot became thick, she stopped adding firewood to the pot, used fire scissors to dig out the fire, and slowly roasted it.
Her face was sweating from cooking, so she added some hot water and went outside to wash her face.
As soon as the sun came out, it shone on half of the wall of the main room. Now it had begun to retreat, and when it retreated to the front of the pillar, it was almost time to finish work.
He took a broom and swept the house inside and outside, and moved the table at the door to a shady place.
Then go back to the house and continue to deal with the cloth.
Floral Dacron fabric is perfect for this season, but sewing it stitch by stitch is a bit laborious.
Lu Dongping walked into the yard sweating profusely. The yard was quiet, with only occasional noises coming from the pigpen and chicken coop.
He glanced at the kitchen door and went in. The kitchen was steaming hot, with a faint aroma of rice wafting from the pot.
He went out to scoop some water, brush his teeth, and wash his face, then called out, "Wanwan?"
Wen Wan responded from inside the room, not knowing whether he heard her or not. She finished sewing a few stitches on her hand before going out. When she went out, she saw him standing on the eaves with his upper body naked and his head stuck in the washbasin.
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