Chapter 606 A Change of Fortune
Seeing his mother’s look of disgust, Zhou Huaian stood up dejectedly with a potato in his hand and followed Zhou Huaishan.
After seeing him leave, Zhou's mother carried Zhou Xiaolin to her room to sleep, while Zhou's father sat at the door smoking leaf cigarettes.
Yang Chunyan and Zhang Xiuxiang cleaned up the dishes and brought them to the kitchen for Zhao Huifang to wash.
After the four sisters-in-law cleaned up, they carried their hoes and walked towards the rice fields at the foot of the mountain.
The Funiu Brigade is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The mountains in the distance are covered with dense forests and are green all year round. A clear stream flows around the small village.
There are some low ridges near the village, and you will enter the deep mountains only after climbing over two or three low mountains.
Most of the village is sloping land, with rice fields at the foot of the mountain and on both sides of the river, but the area is not large.
After the land was distributed to each household, the Zhou family's third team, with 17 people, received only eight acres of land in total, as well as 34 acres of contiguous mountain land and more than ten acres of wasteland reclaimed by the family.
A family works like cattle for a year, and after paying the agricultural taxes and levies, the remaining food is theirs. If they want to eat white rice every meal, there is only one word: difficult!
Yang Chunyan felt that the Funiu Brigade was called the Funiu Brigade precisely because it was not rich, because everyone hoped to become rich and be able to eat white rice every meal.
The sisters-in-law walked forward in silence. The villagers they met along the way looked at them with sympathy, and some of them started whispering to each other as they walked by.
After walking for a while, Zhao Huifang suddenly remembered something, "Chunyan, didn't you go to dig wild radishes this morning? Why did you come back with a rabbit?"
"Just as I started, I saw a gray rabbit running out of the woods. I chased it and fell down. I got up dazed and saw that the rabbit had crashed into a tree stump and died. I picked up the rabbit and came back with the hoe."
Yang Chunyan skipped over the matter of her rebirth and recounted the origin of the rabbit.
Li Qiuyue took two steps forward and whispered, "Chunyan, your luck has changed! Fortunately, you found the rabbit and came back. It would have been bad if you had come back later."
Zhao Huifang coughed dryly and said to the skinny woman walking over, "Aunt San, you're back. Is Dad San feeling better?"
"Much better." Aunt Zhou's eyes swept over the sisters-in-law and finally landed on Yang Chunyan. "I heard that Huai'an chased the plague cow of Lao Xiong's family down a ridge and caused it to fall to death?"
"The Xiong family's cow was sick to begin with, so we can't blame Huaian entirely for this. We can only say that he was unlucky." Yang Chunyan remembered that in her previous life, everyone blamed Zhou Huaian. Now she thinks that she really can't put all the blame on him.
"You are quite generous!" Aunt Zhou gave her a complicated look, "Chunyan, whether a man is a good person or not is also half determined by women. You married Huai'an, and you will live with him for the rest of your life, good or bad. You should be more careful when you need to be, otherwise life will be hard when you separate and live on your own!"
Yang Chunyan nodded, "I understand. Huai'an suffered a loss this time, but he will be fine in the future."
"I hope so!" Aunt Zhou San sighed and left in a hurry.
The four sisters-in-law walked down the mountain. The rice seedlings in the rice fields had passed the greening period. From a distance, they looked lush green. In every field, there were people bending over and pulling weeds.
Only four acres of the Zhou family's rice fields are connected, and the remaining four acres are each half an acre in size, scattered east and west at the foot of the mountain.
When he passed the first piece of field, Zhou Huaishan was working hard.
In a field nearby, Zhou Huaian supported his left elbow on his knee, slowly pulled up the weeds with his right hand, then slowly stood up, and when he weeded the field, he moved slowly like an old lady with bound feet.
Zhao Huifang and Zhang Xiuxiang both laughed.
Li Qiuyue curled her lips, "The youngest one doesn't work as well as Jiaming."
"Slacking off!" Yang Chunyan felt it was too shameful to watch, so she rolled up her trouser legs and went down to the rice field next to her.
Zhao Huifang and the other two went to a rice field each.
There are barnyard grass and water weeds in the fields, and barnyard grass and rice look very similar.
Rice leaves are dark green, while barnyard grass has thin stems and lighter color. Its leaves are long and pointed, and they spread out as they grow up, unlike rice leaves which stay together all the time.
If barnyard grass and water weeds are allowed to grow in rice fields, they will compete with rice for nutrients and affect its growth.
Deep water is good for greening, and shallow water is good for root growth. After the greening period, the water in the rice fields is very shallow.
Yang Chunyan went down to the field and stepped the weeds into the mud. After a few steps, she saw a barnyard grass. She grabbed the root of the barnyard grass, pulled it up with the roots, and held it in her hand.
Weeds such as wild arrowhead and duckweed are stepped into the soil when they first grow, and the thick ones are pulled up and rolled into a ball and stepped into the soil to rot and serve as nutrients.
This does not work for barnyard grass, which has a very strong growth ability and has to be thrown on the edge of the field to dry out in the sun.
Yang Chunyan pulled up a few duckweeds. This aquatic plant with small purple flowers is also a herbal medicine. It has the effects of clearing away heat and detoxifying, relieving pain and stopping bleeding. It can be used to treat enteritis and dysentery, and can also be grown as pig feed.
Yang Chunyan was weeding in a field and when she reached the edge of the field she discovered two leeches sucking her blood from her calves.
She was stunned for a moment, then quickly slapped the area near the leech bite. The leech loosened and fell to the ground, with blood flowing down her calf.
Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are rarely used these days, and leeches, loaches and eels are still very common in paddy fields.
"It's time to call it a day, it's time to call it a day!" Zhou Huaian held a handful of barnyard grass and shouted as he climbed up the field ridge. He pointed at her calf in surprise, "Yan'er, your leg is bleeding."
Yang Chunyan glanced at him and didn't answer him. She pointed to the field he had just passed and said, "There's a weed there."
Zhou Huaian looked at her serious expression and suddenly felt that his wife had changed, but he couldn't tell where she had changed. He smiled and said, "I didn't notice it just now. I'll pull it out later."
Yang Chunyan nodded and said, "Let's go quickly. While it's cloudy today, let's pull out all the weeds and barnyard grass in the fields."
Hearing her say that they would have to pull out all the weeds and barnyard grass in the field in one afternoon, Zhou Huaian felt a little annoyed, "Why are you in such a hurry? Won't it be the same if we pull them out tomorrow?"
Yang Chunyan looked around and whispered to him, "We have to go to the city to sell things tomorrow morning. Don't you want to go?"
Zhou Huaian curled his lips, "I would like to go, but will the old man let me go?"
It’s rare to come across someone selling bezoars in a lifetime, so of course I want to see it with my own eyes!
Yang Chunyan looked at him with a slight smile on her face, as if she had made up her mind. "As long as you come with us today and pull all the water plants clean, I will talk to the old man and let him agree to let you go."
Zhou Huaian pointed at her and said, "A gentleman's word is his bond."
Yang Chunyan continued: "Horse a whip!"
"Okay, I'll go right away." Zhou Huaian rolled up his trouser legs and went down to the rice field, pulling out the weed that Yang Chunyan had just mentioned.
Yang Chunyan went to the field to continue pulling weeds. Just as she pulled out a weed, she suddenly saw a white thing. She went forward to take a look and found it was a white-shelled duck egg. She picked it up and held it up to the light and it was still a good egg.
She happily put the duck eggs into her pocket, turned her head to look at the river, and saw a group of ducks lying by the river.
Yang Chunyan continued to pull out the aquatic plants, rolled them into a ball and stepped into the mud. After walking through the four fields, she picked up three duck eggs and was bitten by leeches a few times.
Zhou Huaian also finished pulling a piece of field, walked up to Yang Chunyan, took out two duck eggs, and smiled like a child who had stolen candy, "Wife, I found duck eggs!"
Seeing him smiling like a child, Yang Chunyan also smiled and took out three duck eggs from her pocket, "I have some too."
"What are you two doing?" Li Qiuyue walked over with a smile.
Zhou Huaian held two duck eggs in one hand, "Third sister-in-law, we found five duck eggs."
(End of this chapter)
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