Spring planting is in full swing. After finishing the spring planting, Fang Jie turned over her own private plot and planted vegetables.
In this small plot of land, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, green beans, cucumbers, eggplants, and scallions were planted, and everything was clearly divided up.
Song Fanxing followed behind her, helping to sprinkle the spiritual spring water.
Song Yaohui and Song Yaohua would rush home after school every day and diligently clean the pigsty and chicken coop.
In just one month, the four piglets had grown quite a bit, becoming chubby and pinkish-white.
The vegetables and fruits grown in the space have a special magic that the piglets love to eat. Every time Song Fanxing feeds them, the four piglets scramble for the food.
Fang Jie has hatched another 10 chicks, which have grown quite a bit recently and will be able to lay eggs in another two months.
Every month, Fang Jie would slaughter one or two chickens and stew them to supplement the children's nutrition.
Occasionally, Song Yaohui and Song Yaohua would take Song Fanxing fishing in the river. They would go when no one was around, or to a more secluded or remote place.
Every time they went, they had a great catch, managing to catch three or four big fish. They would then take them home and keep them in a water tank to eat slowly.
Although we don't have pork at home, we have plenty of chicken, fish, and other meats.
Fang Jie was also willing to feed the children, and would boil a few eggs every morning to supplement their nutrition.
After the New Year, Song Yaohui and Song Yaohua had grown quite a bit taller, and Song Fanxing had also grown much taller, taller than all the girls her age in the village.
Fang Jie's family is living a prosperous life.
However, things haven't been peaceful in Song Dalong's family lately.
One of the two piglets he adopted starved to death because there was no food to eat.
Li Zhen blamed Song Xiaomei for being too lazy and cutting too little pig feed, causing the pigs to starve to death.
So he beat Song Xiaomei up badly.
Song Xiaomei was so aggrieved that she cried.
It's not her fault. Every day, she gets up at the crack of dawn, carries a basket on her back, and goes to the fields. After breakfast, while Song Haitao goes to school, she doesn't rest either; she goes to cut pig feed.
She goes home at noon to cook for her family. After Song Dalong and Li Zhen go to work, the job of cooking at home falls to her. If she cooks well, no one praises her; if she cooks poorly, she gets a beating.
After lunch, she didn't dare to delay and went to cut pig feed with her basket on her back. She rushed home to cook dinner for her family at dinner time.
She's working so hard, but her mother is still not satisfied.
Is it her fault that the pigs starved to death? No, you can't blame her. The blame lies with the fact that too many farmers in the village raised pigs this year.
Everyone was short of food, and it was the lean season. Everyone went out to gather pig feed, but the fields and the foot of the mountain were full of saplings. She couldn't find any pig feed to cut, and often it would take her half a day to gather a small basket of pig feed.
Once, when she couldn't find any pig feed, she went to the next village to look for it, but was turned away by the villagers.
Now the pigs have starved to death, and her family blames everything on her; she died unjustly.
That day, Song Guoqiang criticized Song Dalong and Li Zhen in front of everyone.
The reason was that the couple shirked their duties and always dragged their feet on completing the tasks assigned to them, which delayed the progress of the entire village. Many people were dissatisfied and collectively complained to the brigade leader.
“Song Dalong, Li Zhen, can you two change your bad habits? You’re just dragging down the whole Songjiatun.”
Song Dalong chuckled and said, "We are working, but we haven't done any work in a while, so we're a bit slow. If anyone is in a hurry, they can come and help us."
The villagers couldn't stand it anymore. "Pah! You wish! Who's stupid enough to help you with the work? When it comes to distributing grain at the end of the year, are you going to give us your family's grain?"
"We're all from the same village, what's wrong with lending a hand? You want my grain? You're dreaming!"
The villagers remained silent, unwilling to speak to Song Dalong.
Li Zhen threw down the hoe and said, "I'm not doing this anymore. It's given me a huge blister on my hand, and now you guys are making fun of me. I can't do this job."
She was extremely depressed because one of her pigs had died, and she still had to work every day; she couldn't take it anymore.
Song Guoqiang said sternly, "Li Zhen, you'd better straighten out your attitude. You won't earn a single work point if you keep acting like this."
He was truly impressed by this lazy woman's food.
Song Dalong was still somewhat conscious and immediately picked up the hoe and stuffed it into Li Zhen's hand.
He coaxed her softly, "Honey, hang in there a little longer, or all your hard work will have been for nothing. I'll give you a foot massage when we get home tonight."
Li Zhen reluctantly took the hoe.
The villagers gave them a disdainful look and went back to their work.
Song Guoqiang shook his head helplessly.
Every village has one or two households that drag the village down. In Songjia Village, the one that dragged the village down was Song Dalong's family. Even Song Fugui's family was better off than the two of them.
When Song Haitao got home from school, he saw that Song Xiaomei hadn't come home to cook yet. He was starving and searched everywhere for something to eat.
Suddenly, his eyes fell on the chicken coop at his third uncle and aunt's house.
He tiptoed over and saw that there were indeed three eggs in the henhouse. He was overjoyed, stuffed the three eggs into his pocket, and ran away.
Fearing that his third uncle's family would find out, he took the eggs and ran to the back mountain.
He gathered a pile of dry firewood from the woods, lit it with the matches he carried, and threw the eggs into the fire to roast.
Huang Juan entered the yard a step ahead of Song Dalong and his wife, heading straight for her chicken coop.
Her family has three chickens that lay eggs, but she doesn't allow Song Dani and Song Erni to collect them, fearing they might steal them.
She picks them up herself every day after work.
When she happily walked towards the chicken coop, she found it empty, with nothing inside.
She thought she had been picked up by Song Dani and Song Erni.
He shouted, "Da Ni! Er Ni! Didn't I tell you not to touch the eggs? I'll come back and collect them. Who told you to collect the eggs?"
Song Dani and Song Erni, who were cooking, ran out and innocently said, "Mom, we didn't collect any eggs."
Huang Juan immediately realized that her eggs had been stolen, and the thief must be someone from the house across the street.
She stormed into the opposite room, grabbed Li Zhen by the hair, and demanded fiercely, "Where's Song Haitao? Hand him over!"
Li Zhen felt a chill run down her spine as she was being pulled.
He yelled, "Huang Juan, are you crazy? What did I do to you? Let go!"
Song Dalong leaned over and said, "Huang Juan, let's talk this out. Why did you start hitting me right away?"
Huang Juan: "Hand over your son right now! He stole my eggs, and I'm going to kill him today!"
Song Dalong: "It's unreasonable to blame Haitao for your missing eggs."
Li Zhen: "That's right, maybe your eldest and second daughters stole the food and are blaming it on Haitao."
"Pah! Your Song Haitao is a repeat offender. Don't think I don't know how many things he's stolen. He stole flour from Aunt Li's house, eggs from Erzhuang's house, and meat hanging on the wall at Song Laosan's house. I can tell with my toes that he stole our eggs."
Seeing that Song Haitao hadn't returned home yet, Song Dalong figured he was probably up to no good.
But he stubbornly refused to admit it.
"Huang Juan, you have no evidence. Don't frame me, or I'll sue you."
Li Zhen snapped out of her daze and shoved her away.
"That's right, without evidence, you can't frame my Haitao!"
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