Chapter 26: Husband and wife bet
"I'm rich, I'm rich..." Zhou Huaian thought that he would have money to buy cigarettes tomorrow, so he happily took the Polygonum multiflorum vine and put it all in his backpack. "It's over a hundred kilograms, why do we need to share half of it? You don't have to carry it, give it all to me."
Yang Chunyan was not polite and said with a smile: "Thank you very much."
"You and I are a couple, why are you being so polite!" Zhou Huaian looked at her with a smile, "As long as you don't give me a bad look at every turn in the future, and don't chase me away at night..."
"Pa~" Yang Chunyan hit him with a bamboo pole, walked straight past him and went up the mountain.
Zhou Huaian stared at the woman who was walking very fast in front of him and shouted, "Yang Chunyan, you are so outrageous! How dare you hit your man!"
“You deserve to be beaten!”
Zhou Huaian said with great sorrow: "Yan'er, you have changed. Not only have you become sharp-tongued, but you also hit people and despise your own man..."
"I, I'm telling you, I'll let you off this time because it's your first offense, but if you dare to hit me again next time, I won't be polite to you..."
Yang Chunyan ignored him muttering behind her and quickly climbed to the top of the mountain. She pulled out the sack hidden in the cave, put Patchouli and Houttuynia cordata into the backpack, and tied the sack of Leonurus japonicus on top of the backpack. Only then did Zhou Huaian climb up the mountain.
Yang Chunyan picked up the backpack and walked down the mountain. Zhou Huaian followed her breathlessly, "Wait a moment. Why are you running so fast? I can't even walk anymore."
Yang Chunyan stopped and said, "I think you just lack exercise. At this speed, it will be dark when you get home. Also, these herbs need to be sorted and hung up quickly. If they get spoiled, it will be a waste of time."
"I don't care," Zhou Huaian put down the backpack and sat on the ground, "I can't walk anymore, I need to rest."
Yang Chunyan didn't believe that he wasn't afraid of the dark, so she waved her hand and said, "It's up to you. I'll go first, and you can follow slowly."
Seeing that she really ignored him and left, Zhou Huaian quickly got up, picked up his backpack and chased after her, "Chunyan, wait until..."
Zhou Huaian caught up with Yang Chunyan breathlessly, carrying a basket on his back. "Yan'er, you have become bad. You knew I was afraid of the dark, but you didn't wait for me."
"If you know you are afraid of the dark, why don't you run faster?"
"I'm only afraid when I'm alone. If there's someone with me, I dare to go to the cemetery in the middle of the night."
"You've blown me up." Yang Chunyan turned her head and looked at him with a burning gaze. "Since you're not afraid of the dark, let's go to the county town and sell some herbs. When it gets dark, we'll go to the woods over there and catch some cicadas to eat. After frying them, sprinkle some chili powder and Sichuan pepper powder on them. They taste really good and are very filling!"
Zhou Huaian, who hadn't eaten fried lazy cicadas for many years, swallowed his saliva involuntarily when he thought of the meaty aroma of fried lazy cicadas made by his grandmother. "Fried lazy cicadas use a lot of oil, and you have to use a flashlight to light it. I don't think I'd be willing to do that!"
"If I promise to fry some lazy cicadas for me, you will have to go with me to dig herbs for a month. You are not allowed to touch me without my permission. If I tell you to run faster, you have to run faster."
"What if I don't agree?"
"I promise you two things."
"Hehe~" Zhou Huaian looked at Yang Chunyan with a smirk, "One month too? Whatever I say, you'll agree to it?"
In his mind, he had already imagined his young wife letting him twist and turn her into a ball...
Yang Chunyan looked at his wretched appearance, turned her head and rolled her eyes wildly, then said, "A gentleman's word is his bond."
"Hurry up and whip the horse." Zhou Huaian raised his palm, "High five as an oath!"
Yang Chunyan also raised her hand, and with a "pa" sound, the two of them high-fived as an oath.
Zhou Huaian felt that he had won for sure. Thinking that he would be able to hug his sweet-smelling young wife tomorrow night, he suddenly felt strong from nowhere. He walked as fast as if he was on a Hot Wheels and turned back from time to time to urge, "Yan'er, walk faster."
"Yan'er, why are you so slow?"
Yang Chunyan took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off her face. "It's not that I'm slow, it's that you're walking too fast."
"Haha~" Zhou Huaian turned around and smiled proudly at her, "It was me who let you go just now. Now you know how powerful I am!"
Yang Chunyan rolled her eyes at him, "..."
Zhou Huaian put down his backpack proudly and waited for Yang Chunyan to come over. "Wife, give me the sack. I'll carry it with you."
Yang Chunyan glanced at him and asked, "Can you do it?"
Zhou Huaian quickly touched her face and winked at her, "You don't know whether I can do it or not...hiss~"
Yang Chunyan pinched him hard, picked up the backpack which was much lighter, and walked forward.
"It's so heavy. The cruel woman ran away without helping me lift it."
Zhou Huaian squatted down and put on the straps while mumbling something, then stood up with his hands and chased after him.
At dusk, the two men rushed to the corn field at the foot of the mountain and walked down the ridge towards home, sweating profusely.
As soon as he reached the door, he saw Auntie Zhou peeking out. Zhou Huaian tiptoed behind her and shouted in her ear, "Auntie, what are you doing?"
"You scared me to death, you son of a bitch."
Aunt Zhou looked back and saw Zhou Huaian. She grabbed him and patted him hard twice. "Youngest, the whole village is in an uproar. They say your family found a piece of bezoar on the plague cow of the Xiong family. They say your family has become rich." Then she pointed into the house and said, "Xiong Dahai just came into your house."
Zhou Huaian jumped up and started to curse: "Who gave birth to a son without an asshole? Nonsense, I'll fuck him up..."
Yang Chunyan hurriedly pulled Zhou Huaian, who was speaking foul language, and said, "Hurry back to the house and see who is talking nonsense outside."
In the Zhou family's main hall, Xiong Dahai looked at Zhou's father with mixed feelings, "Old Zhou, I came to see you for no other reason than to ask, did your family really find bezoar in the cow's stomach?"
When he heard his relatives from Fangtian Brigade tell him about this, he couldn't believe his ears and immediately came back to question Zhou's father. Who knew that everyone in the village knew about it.
Some said that the prodigal son of the Zhou family had good luck and killed a precious cow.
Some said that he, Xiong Dahai, mistook pearls for dead fish eyes, and some said that his family was not so lucky that if a treasure landed in his home, it would grow wings...
Zhou's father and his wife firmly implemented the central idea agreed upon at the last family meeting. They both looked at Xiong Dahai with sad faces.
"Old Bear, do I look like someone who has found bezoar? I wish I could find some bezoar so I can repair the house for the kids!"
Xiong Dahai looked at Zhou's father and thought that he looked unlucky and did not look like a wealthy man. Then he remembered that a relative had told him that Ma Changgui had come to Zhou's house to see the dead cow and was 90% sure that there was bezoar in the cow's stomach.
Ma Changgui offered three hundred and fifty yuan to buy the dead cow, but Zhou's father refused. The next day, when he met him again on the way to the county town, he thought this was unusual.
He also said that Zhou's youngest daughter-in-law was the youngest daughter of Yang Quanqing, a barefoot doctor in Hengshan Brigade. Chinese medicine practitioners generally knew about bezoar. Thinking of the note Yang Chunyan asked him to write, he felt more and more that Zhou's father was pretending to be in front of him.
Xiong Dahai looked at Zhou's father sincerely, "Old Zhou, don't worry, your youngest daughter-in-law asked me to write you a note that day, saying that our two families are now even.
"You have the note. Even if you really found the bezoar, I have no reason to come to you to ask for it. I just ask you to tell me the truth. Is my cow so thin because it has the bezoar?"
(End of this chapter)
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