The pond cleaning lasted for three days. During those three days, every time he finished work, Xiao Cheng would rush to the fire pit, his hands and feet almost touching the firewood, and it would take him half a day to recover.
Moreover, he hasn't even gone into the pond yet, and it's unknown how the people who have been dredging silt from the pond these past few days have managed to persevere.
In the dead of winter, even walking barefoot on dry ground is freezing, let alone standing in wet mud.
He truly and deeply felt the hardships of farmers. These past few days, even Zhan Chunlan, who ate boiled vegetables and steamed rice with sweet potatoes every day, found it difficult to swallow. On the contrary, Xiao Cheng ate every bite of rice in his bowl earnestly, his devout attitude like that of a mortal encountering a true god.
At night, Xiao Cheng was woken up by an itch, concentrated on his hands and feet. No matter how much he scratched, it didn't relieve the itch. He couldn't stop scratching, but it felt like he was scratching an itch through his boots. The itch kept him awake all night.
When I looked in the morning, my hands and feet were swollen like round radishes, and I couldn't even wear my shoes anymore.
"Zhan Chunlan, look at my hands! They've been like this since I woke up this morning. Did I get bitten by bugs?" Xiao Cheng hurriedly came to Zhan Chunlan, holding up his chubby hands.
When Zhan Chunlan saw it, she looked at him with some pity: "It's frostbite, not from being bitten," she paused, and then added, "and not from being poisoned either."
"Frostbite? Is there any medicine? It's so uncomfortable, I couldn't sleep all night."
Zhan Chunlan shook her head, "There's no medicine. Anyway, we don't have any medicine for frostbite here."
"Then do I still have to go to work?" At first, she was a little disappointed to hear that there was no medicine, but then she thought, "Isn't it inconvenient for my hands and feet? Does that mean I don't have to go to work?"
"Have you thought about it? If farmers get frostbite and don't go to work, what will the whole country eat?"
Seeing that she suddenly started talking about values, Xiao Cheng didn't dare to argue and could only leave feeling wronged.
When I came back from work at noon, my chilblains had cracked open.
It wasn't a big deal outside, but as soon as he got home and sat by the fire, the itching started again. His hands and feet were itchy, so he could only scratch his right hand with his left and rub his left foot with his right. The feeling was really intense. The pleasure he felt when he scratched was proportional to the pain after the itching subsided.
He couldn't take it anymore and went to find Zhan Honglin.
"Honglin, what do people here do when they get frostbite?"
Zhan Honglin knew he had chilblains early in the morning, and looked at him pitifully: "You don't want to know, just bear with it, it will get better when spring comes."
Xiao Cheng couldn't stand it anymore. The itching was so bad that he couldn't sleep well, and he had to go to work the next day. Who could stand this? "Just tell me. If it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it anymore."
Seeing his insistence, Zhan Honglin stopped hiding it. The main reason was that this method was something most people couldn't accept: "Everyone just finds a glass bottle, breaks it, or picks up glass shards directly, wraps them in a cloth, puts them on the frostbite, and rubs them back and forth to break the frostbite and make it bleed, then applies wood ash."
Xiao Cheng frowned and grinned as he listened: "Will this really make things better?"
Zhan Honglin: "No!"
Xiao Cheng's eyes widened, his face filled with disbelief: "You can't keep doing this?"
Zhan Honglin nodded: "This will make you feel better for a few days and stop your hands and feet from itching so much. But once the wounds heal, they will start itching again, and you will have to repeat this process until spring."
Xiao Cheng: "...Then...I'll just... leave it like this!"
Looking at her intact hands, Zhan Chunlan, who was eavesdropping nearby, felt extremely grateful that she had persisted in working all the time during her stay.
Of course, she also has her "good fortune".
These past few days, she's been going out at the appointed time to avoid the old lady.
But I made a mistake today, because I was caught by the old lady for eavesdropping.
The old lady held Zhan Chunlan's hand tightly, refusing to let her leave the house and insisting that she stay in the room with her.
The old lady leaned against the bedding and stretched her legs: "Chunlan, come and sit down, my feet are itchy, help me scratch them."
Zhan Chunlan was speechless. This old lady was always looking for someone to scratch her feet, never stopping for a moment, and not afraid of scratching her feet raw: "I don't even want to touch my own feet, why would I let you scratch them?"
Zhan Chunlan got up and went to find a back scratcher, scratching it casually a couple of times.
Seeing this, the old lady became unhappy: "Use your hands, this won't help, I'm still itchy. Are you disgusted with me? My feet don't smell, I wash them every day, they're clean. When you were little, I even changed your diapers!"
"Nonsense! You didn't wash your feet yesterday!" Zhan Chunlan really didn't want to scratch her feet with her hands, so she said, "Grandma, let me massage you. I learned it from someone in the city, it's so comfortable!"
Without waiting for her reply, he went up and started pressing the buttons repeatedly.
She remembered that there was a point called "Sleep Point" on the back of the neck. Pressing this point would make a person fall asleep, but she hadn't studied it systematically and couldn't find it accurately right away.
She pressed one hand on her shoulder and kept pressing on her neck with the other.
The old lady felt the pressure on her body and complained, "Go easy on me, your grandma is going to break my neck, it hurts so much, stop pressing on me."
How could Zhan Chunlan give up? Was she giving a massage? She was fighting for a good night's sleep: "Grandma, you don't know, traditional Chinese medicine often says, 'Where there is pain, there is blockage; where there is free flow, there is no pain.' If you feel pain, it means that the acupoints here are not open. Let me massage you more, and you will feel better."
Then he pressed harder with his hands, and finally, little by little, she fell into a deep sleep.
Zhan Chunlan also relaxed her hands and found a spot on the edge of the bed to sleep. She hadn't slept for almost two days and couldn't take it anymore.
Aunt Xu Fenglian noticed that the old lady's room was unusually quiet today. Feeling a bit strange, she gently pushed open the door and found that the grandmother and granddaughter were sleeping soundly.
She felt extremely resentful: I work myself to the bone every day to earn work points, and when I come back, her family is already resting, but I still have to run around cooking, washing clothes, and cleaning. Why should I?
She immediately called out, "Chunlan? Chunlan? Where have you been? Come and lend your second aunt a hand. You're a teenager now, you should start learning to cook."
Zhan Chunlan was woken up, and quickly put on a pair of cotton shoes before coming out. She said in a low voice, "Second Aunt, please keep your voice down. You know that Grandma didn't sleep all night. She's finally fallen asleep now, so please don't wake her up."
Xu Fenglian gritted her teeth inwardly: That damned girl, she actually used the old lady to suppress her! I'm so angry, why did that damned old woman wake up every one or two hours when I was on night watch, either to poop or to have her feet scratched, while that damned girl Zhan Chunlan could sleep on the side while serving her?
She actually believed the old woman's usual behavior, thinking she didn't like the eldest son and his wife and their three granddaughters. Now it seems that as long as the child is successful, even if it's a girl, she'll still like her.
She had actually been tricked! Noticing Lin Hongcui cleaning nearby, she went over to her. This matter couldn't be kept secret from her. Now that the eldest brother had a career outside, everything back home was no longer his concern.
Zhan Chunlan ignored the bickering between the two sisters-in-law, turned around and went back to her room to continue sleeping. She was thick-skinned and unafraid to talk; besides, she wouldn't be living here in the future, so what did it matter to her what others said?
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