"Just watch, once these guys are arrested, anyone in the neighborhood who's been scammed in the same way will report them. They won't miss one more. Can they retaliate? We don't even know if they'll get out! It's a crackdown period right now, these guys are just unlucky. Once they find out how heinous their crimes were, they won't get a light sentence."
“Those kids were instigated by them to lie to people. They are wicked. In order to make the performance more realistic, they really gave the kids medicine and made them writhe on the ground in stomach pain so that they could achieve their goal of extorting more money from people. After they got the money, they would abandon the kids. It was only because kind people around them took them to the hospital that they were able to get help. That’s why I asked them to cooperate. It was also to give them a chance to get revenge!”
Cuihua gritted her teeth in anger, "Where's the child? Is he alright?"
"It's nothing serious, but they've all learned their lesson and will never dare to eat candy that strangers offer them again. Actually, they're not beggars, but their parents don't care about them. When they're hungry, they wander the streets asking for food. When it gets dark, they go back home. During the two days you were home, I gave them the remaining two rounds of steamed buns, and they started to remember how good I was to them."
Upon hearing this, Cuihua immediately felt a sense of empathy: "Why give birth to children and then neglect them? If that's the case, why bring them into the world in the first place?"
Zhao Lingli touched Cuihua's face: "Alright, it's all in the past. Don't think about them anymore. From now on, you'll live with us."
"Auntie, how can you be so kind!" Cuihua's voice choked with emotion as she hugged Zhao Lingli, tears streaming down her face.
"Silly boy, you're Xiaojiu'er's own sister. Maybe we're destined to be together!"
Zhao Lingli patted Cuihua's shoulder, feeling sorry for her while also thinking of her own family. Unfortunately, she no longer had any family members left. A famine had forced her to flee here, and it was her mother-in-law who took her in, which led to her current good fortune. Now, she was transferring this love to others, hoping that the good fortune would be bestowed upon their families in the future, allowing them to safely overcome one difficulty after another.
——
The potato seeds we planted this spring were from the large yellow-fleshed potatoes that were stored in the wine warehouse last year. My grandmother hadn't been able to bear eating them, so this year, after they sprouted, she planted them in our yard.
Before sowing, I made sure to let the soil in the small vegetable garden in the yard decompose for a while to make the soil more fertile.
Planting only begins after the Qingming Festival, when the weather has fully warmed up.
While Grandma was busy in the field, Xiaojiu was playing with a wooden shovel in the corner. When Grandma saw her sitting on the ground, she went about her work after making sure there was no danger. Xiaojiu dug a few holes in an inconspicuous spot in the corner and secretly buried the onions she had prepared beforehand.
She remembered that onions were first grown in the Guangdong area, but she didn't really know if they were grown here. But whatever, she decided to plant them first.
Besides onions, there are also ginger and Jerusalem artichokes, which can be planted in large areas. Jerusalem artichokes are suitable for making pickles. They can grow into a patch just by being thrown in. They are sown in spring and harvested in autumn. You don't need to take care of them the following year; they will sprout on their own. My family does have some Jerusalem artichokes planted behind their house. Ginger likes water, so my grandmother planted them near the drain in the yard so that she wouldn't have to water them every day.
There are many other plants in her warehouse that can be grown even without seeds, such as Malabar spinach, water spinach, scallions, water celery, catnip, and Panax notoginseng. These can all be grown simply by planting them in the soil. However, the yard is still bare right now, so it's not convenient to secretly plant cuttings. Once the surrounding plants have grown, she can secretly find a patch of land to plant them.
She had experimented with this idea countless times in her mind. Even if she didn't plant it at home, planting it in a small flower bed outside the gate would also work. As long as it didn't attract attention, if she succeeded in her experiment, it could be promoted as a variety of vegetables in the future. After all, the vegetables and fruits that were common in this era were all passed down from the ancient Republic of China, and there were far fewer varieties than in later generations.
The seeds that people eat in later generations are all hybrid seeds. It is said that the unhybridized seeds were preserved in the Arctic, but whether this is true or not remains to be verified.
The grain seeds she brought from the future were naturally not as good as the local vegetable seeds from this undeveloped era. So whether or not to promote them was secondary; she just wanted her family to have a taste.
If it could be used in small restaurants to improve the taste, that would be great. After all, other people can't grow it even if they want to, so wouldn't it become unique?
Every time she sat in the warehouse with her small body, looking at the warehouse full of vegetables but unable to cook them, she felt very regretful.
Now she sleeps with her sisters, and she sneaks up in the middle of the night to sit in the warehouse looking for food. Since there are no vegetables available, she goes to the fruit section. Since there is no water to wash things in the warehouse, she eats bananas. She can eat them directly after peeling them, and they can also stave off hunger. She doesn't even need to drink milk at night.
She didn't dare to eat too much, and each night she would only have one extra meal because she was worried that too much sugar would affect her physical development. After eating, she would rinse her mouth with water, because she didn't want her hard-won teeth to decay again.
She takes great care of her teeth. Whenever she sees her grandparents brushing their teeth, she clamors to brush hers too. Her grandma spoils her and has now bought her a set of toothpaste and toothbrush. Every morning, she squats among her brothers, lining up to brush her teeth and wash her face. She does everything by herself and doesn't ask anyone for help. Her independence at such a young age is truly admirable to the whole family.
As she grew older, no one doubted her intelligence, and they became even more convinced that her mother's dream might be true. She was the Tao family's little lucky star!
Look at her, so young yet so clever and shrewd. Even her four grandsons combined aren't as clever as she seems. We must protect her well.
People nowadays are so jealous. The granddaughter they adopted is not only well-raised, but also smart and ambitious. This makes many people envious. They mock them while resenting that the family didn't want the granddaughter they sent out, but instead wanted this poor mountain village girl. In doing so, they have offended many people.
Whenever they saw the Tao family members taking their child out, they would crowd together and gossip about their family. The grandparents probably sensed their hostility and jealousy, so they simply told the grandmother not to take her out and to let her play at home. As a result, the grandmother also stopped going out as often. Mainly because their front door is usually not open now, as the front house has been rented out, and they can't easily come and go. So they opened the back door and often went in and out through the back door. Naturally, they lost contact with the people on the street in front.
Xiao Jiu naturally understood why her grandmother didn't like going out anymore after she could walk and talk. In short, it was because those people felt that she was doing better than them, and they felt dissatisfied. After all, their family still had a class background issue to worry about!
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