With her, a burden to him, her father naturally wouldn't act chivalrously. After those people climbed over the wall, he immediately pushed his cart and walked away quickly, acting as if he didn't care about anything. Xiao Jiu pretended not to know what her father meant by "thief" and didn't ask any further questions.
He thought they were leaving, but to his surprise, his father took him to the police station and told the officers on duty what had just happened.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, comrades. Look, I have a child with me, so I can only give you the specific address. I'll leave the rest to you. I have to get on my way with the child!"
The police officer shook hands with the old man, expressed his understanding and gratitude, and gave him some instructions.
"Comrade, it's best to avoid taking your children out at night. It's very unsafe. Please be careful on the road."
"Okay, okay, I got it, I'll be right back."
On the way home, her father, worried that his image in her mind wasn't impressive enough, made a point of explaining.
"Jiu'er, it's not that your father isn't brave enough, but there are several of them. What if you were left out alone?"
Before he could finish speaking, he turned around and saw that Xiao Jiu was already fast asleep on the tattered quilt covering the vegetables.
Actually, she was just sleepy. She hadn't slept that afternoon and was feeling a bit tired, but she didn't want her father to feel guilty, so she pretended to be asleep.
As she slept, she indeed heard her father breathe a sigh of relief. She didn't know when they got home.
However, the next morning, her father did not take her to the county town, and she slept until dawn.
Grandma even waited for her to wake up before dressing her.
"Jiu'er, your father saw you were sleeping so soundly that he didn't have the heart to wake you. Are you going to the fields with Grandma today, or are you staying home alone?"
"Grandma, I went to dig for wild vegetables, I'm not home."
"That's great! It drizzled for a while last night. Go to the field and see if you can pick any mushrooms."
"Yay, mushroom picking! I'm a little girl picking mushrooms!"
Grandma lovingly patted her head, braided two cute little braids for her, fed her breakfast, and after getting her all tidied up, she specially carried the little basket that Grandpa had woven for her on her back, and happily took Grandma's hand to the fields.
Grandpa was weeding and pulling oats in the neat wheat field, while my older sister was watering the sweet potato field. The water was carried from a sewer pit near the town. This was all sewage discharged from every household, which was fermented before being used to irrigate the fields.
In the days when there were few chemicals and oil, this water was not actually polluted. Rainwater was also discharged here, which was much easier than fetching water from the river.
Today, Grandma went to the vegetable garden in the woods to water and fertilize the vegetables she had planted.
As early as last month, she planted a series of crops that she had secretly planted last year and saved for this year, including purple-skinned potatoes, yellow-fleshed potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, and Jerusalem artichokes, which had sprouted and been rolled in wood ash.
In their yard, sugarcane was planted early this year, and other plants such as Panax notoginseng, tofu vegetables, Jerusalem artichoke, and perilla sprouted again without any care. By summer, there will be more varieties than they can eat.
Perhaps because it rained yesterday, the air was filled with a heavy, earthy smell. My shoes were soaked with dew as I walked from home to the fields.
Little Jiu loves this smell the most. Seeing that her grandparents and sister were all busy, she obediently carried her little bamboo basket and played on the ridge of the field.
Not to mention mushrooms, even wild vegetables on the ridges of the fields had been dug up clean. In those days, working people went to the fields every day. Every time they went into the fields, they would weed and dig for wild vegetables. They could gather a little bit every day and make enough for a dish for the family.
While Xiao Jiu appears to be playing on the edge of the field, he is actually already searching for things in the warehouse.
White button mushrooms usually grow in pairs. They prefer shade and damp environments, so she eventually found about ten in the dark, damp woods.
Next up were the more expensive matsutake mushrooms, which were gray and hemispherical. I didn't dare take too many; I only got three or four plump ones.
I originally wanted to bring out some common button mushrooms, but I was afraid that my grandma would become suspicious. Besides, how could I possibly collect so many mushrooms at once?
So when she excitedly took the pile of mushrooms to show her grandmother, she was completely astonished.
"My goodness, how can my granddaughter be so capable? Where did you find such big and fresh mushrooms?"
Grandma was too curious and insisted on taking her to see it. Luckily, she knew to dig a hole and leave traces of picking, which she pointed out to Grandma.
"Usually, you can still find mushrooms like these after you've harvested them. Okay, I'll check again in a few days, maybe I can still find some. When your dad comes back today, he can take these to your mom and add them to the wontons, they'll taste even better!"
Well, after all that hard work, Grandma can't bear to eat any of them; instead, she wants to give them to Mother as a side dish.
Sigh, life is really tough these days.
There wasn't much work to do in the fields today, so around noon Grandma cut a big basket of grass and took her home.
Grandpa is still busy in the field, and my sister is gathering firewood in the grove. She'll be back in a little while.
As soon as the grandfather and grandson arrived at their doorstep, they saw the elderly couple who rented their house to run a noodle shop entangled with a middle-aged man and woman.
"You old hag, do you think you can give me this little bit of money? Your grandchildren are all in school, and they need money for everything. Hurry up and hand over all the money you've earned, or you'll regret it."
"Mom and Dad, hurry up and give it to her! If you don't, she won't even let you see your grandchildren. It won't be my fault then! Hurry up and give her the money. We need this money to pay the children's tuition!"
"Didn't we pay in March? Why do we have to pay tuition again? Xiangqian, it's not that your mother doesn't want to give it to you, it's just that your mother really has no money left. With the little money we have, we need to buy noodles. If we don't have money to buy noodles and vegetables, how can we sell noodles? Please, don't make things difficult for us!"
...
The couple ignored all advice, robbed the money and left, completely disregarding the elderly couple's heart-wrenching cries behind them.
This wasn't the first time the grandfather and grandson had witnessed this scene. The woman had a mean-looking face, and the man looked fierce. They heard that the old couple's only son had died in the army. This was a son from the same clan who had been adopted by them. This child had never been close to them since he was a child. He took all the money that the old couple had worked so hard to earn to support his own parents, making them feel like they were in a bad situation.
Having lost all their capital, the elderly couple sat on the ground and wailed. The diners had long since been frightened away, and it was the neighbors who came to persuade them.
They hadn't even paid the rent for this month, and now their money had been stolen. The elderly couple felt they couldn't keep the shop open any longer. After calming down, they could only talk to the grandmother about terminating the lease, saying they couldn't go on like this. If things continued like this, they would become servants to the family, working for free and going hungry.
Feeling utterly hopeless, I decided to pack my bags, go back to my hometown to farm, and stop trying, because I couldn't afford to keep going.
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