Chapter 53
After Tingyi left, Shu Wanxiu, who had been forcing herself to stay awake every day, was so exhausted that she lay paralyzed in bed all day.
From the start of the wheat harvest at the end of April until now, nearly a month has passed, and she hasn't had a single day of proper rest.
Only God knows how she endured those days by gritting her teeth and forcing herself to stay awake.
Many times, Shu Wanxiu felt utterly exhausted, having reached her limit. But after straightening up and catching her breath, she remembered the days when she had no food, and the bold words she had uttered to Chen Sanhe about never getting married, and she simply couldn't stop working.
As if a ghost was chasing her, after resting for a day and briefly relaxing her overworked muscles, Shu Wanxiu began to ask for advice on what to do next.
Five days have passed since the rice seedlings were planted, and they have gradually taken root in the field.
Pang Zhishan said that it's time to fertilize again. After fertilizing, you can relax for a few days before the weeds grow back.
Shu Wanxiu was not about to let this rare free time go to waste.
Buying those few iron items cost her all her savings.
Since she started earning money herself, Shu Wanxiu could no longer bear the thought of being penniless.
This season, vegetation grows wildly, and wild vegetables abound.
She caught some small fish and shrimp, and picked wild vegetables and her own homegrown greens to sell.
But Shu Yanrong didn't go with her these last few times.
There are two reasons for this. First, the shallow water is large, making it difficult to catch fish; even with traps, there are times when there is no catch. Second, he recently caught some fish and discovered that several of them had eggs in their bellies.
If you only focus on immediate profits when fishing and don't give the fish time to reproduce, then no matter how large the shallow water is, the fish population will eventually die out.
Shu Wanxiu had seen it; the small bitterlings she caught had laid eggs that month. But what Shu Yanrong said frightened her, so these past few times she had tried to go to farther places to catch the small fish.
In short, apart from occasionally going to the fields to check on things, Shu Wanxiu's life seemed to have returned to normal.
The one who is not at peace is someone else.
After Shu Wanxiu gathered the money and gave it to Xun Yi that day, Xun Yi didn't know how to communicate with Shu Wanxiu anymore.
He remained speechless and unable to utter a single word until Shu Wanxiu left his house.
Because... he keenly sensed from Shu Wanxiu's decisive actions a hint that she wanted to draw a line.
Although the feeling was extremely unpleasant at that moment, after a while, Xun Yi was able to understand.
So from then on, Xun Yi decided to grant her wish.
She even paid extra attention to the time every time she went out, trying to choose a time when it was impossible to run into Shu Wanxiu.
But it's one thing to understand something in one's heart; in fact, he seems to have long developed a habit of paying attention to Shu Wanxiu's movements.
After that unpleasant transaction, he couldn't help but start secretly observing Shu Wanxiu's movements.
Farming and transplanting rice seedlings were all extremely difficult tasks for a frail woman, but Shu Wanxiu completed them all successfully.
Xun Yi, who had been anxiously waiting, breathed a sigh of relief after seeing that all the rice seedlings in Shu Wanxiu's two acres of fields had been planted neatly.
He thought that now she could finally rest for a while and get some good sleep.
But he was wrong; Shu Wanxiu was busier than he thought.
According to his discreet observation, after such an intense farming season, Shu Wanxiu had only truly rested for one day.
He found it absurd.
Is making money more important than your health?
Can't she see that she's gotten thinner these days?
What can we do to help her?
These three thoughts flashed through his mind in succession, and the last one made Xun Yi pause.
He then laughed at himself.
How could I forget? Shu Wanxiu was unwilling to accept my help again.
The fire in the furnace made him feel hot all over, and it felt like thousands of ants were gnawing at his heart. After realizing this fact once again, Xun Yi felt extremely uncomfortable.
When your mind is in turmoil, your hands and feet will also be in disarray, and nine times out of ten, what you create will be nothing more than a pile of scrap metal.
He dropped the iron filings in his hand, strode out of the house, went to the well, drew a bucket of ice-cold water, and splashed it on his face.
The cool water sobered him up, and Xun Yi did feel a little better.
But he began to examine his own behavior more closely: why was he still paying attention to the other person's every move after the other person had clearly tried to distance themselves from him?
Upon closer examination, those acts of secretly watching others are not honorable, but rather quite despicable.
Or perhaps I'm holding a grudge?
Am I a vulgar and vengeful person?
Xun Yi asked himself this question.
Vulgar... Xun Yi was unsure.
But he was certain he didn't hold grudges.
After thinking it over and over, Xun Yi smacked his head, convinced that something was definitely wrong with him.
He let out a deep breath.
Looking back, after Xun Ai got married and before Shu Wanxiu appeared, he lived a period of uneventful life.
Back then, he could make a living by selling ironware, and whenever he wanted to eat meat, he could go into the mountains to hunt some wild animals for a treat.
You don't have to worry about making a living, and you can still satisfy your appetite.
Xun Yi longed to return to those days.
From that day on, he tried to remove Shu Wanxiu from his mind.
When he needed to chop firewood, he didn't go to the barren mountain behind his house, but instead took a long detour to the western mountain.
You can go to the woodshed and see the dry straw, which will remind you of the twelve zodiac animals. You might wonder if Shu Shouyi has gotten tired of playing with them yet.
When I went to Guibei Village to visit Xun Ai, who was two months away from giving birth, I was reminded of that thrilling night when I passed by Li Langzhong's house.
As I walk past the stream and through the fields, I subconsciously look for Shu Wanxiu's two acres of land.
Most importantly, he began to repeatedly conduct meaningless analyses.
The analysis suggests that if they had been more careful in providing assistance to Shu Wanxiu in the past, things might have turned out differently.
He thought... he must really be crazy.
Is it really impossible for a grown man to sever some distracting thoughts?!
Xun Yi finally thought: Since we can't fight against all of this, we might as well not fight against it at all.
He started going up the barren mountain to chop firewood again, and even went specifically to the vicinity of the Shu family's house to chop.
He would walk around the two fields belonging to the Shu family several times a day, even more diligently than Shu Wanxiu.
He thought that perhaps seeing Shu Wanxiu would cure his illness.
But fate is a strange thing. Even if you are very close to someone, you just can't meet.
Just when he was being driven mad by the torment, something even more terrifying happened: Shu Wanxiu's image began to appear in his dreams.
Sometimes, it was the day after she returned home from the prefectural city. Shu Wanxiu was bent over turning over the soil in the field, her sweat dripping into the mud. The whole village watched coldly from the side, and no one reached out to take her hoe or lend her a plow.
Sometimes the scene shows rice planting, with Shu Wanxiu barefoot in the mud, head down, planting rice seedlings one after another.
She was so focused that she didn't even realize a leech had crawled up her leg, bit her skin, and sucked blood until it was round and plump.
He wanted to go forward and remove the leech, but his body wouldn't move, because his subconscious told him that Shu Wanxiu didn't want him near...
My heart is breaking.
There was a very real pain.
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