Chapter 29
For Shu Wanxiu, after settling down, she received help from the same person time and time again, so it was impossible for her not to be moved.
As Xun Yi spoke, she stared intently at his expression, but he lowered his eyes, and his voice was somewhat softer than before.
He seemed to have no ulterior motives; his purpose in helping himself and Shouyi was simple and pure, merely to help them remember their families and reminisce about their past selves.
Last time, Village Chief Pang already put the matter to that point, so simply refusing might seem ungrateful.
Ultimately, these two items were not as valuable as the previous two. After a mental struggle, Shu Wanxiu accepted the items.
"I'm so grateful for your concern, Brother Xun. A while ago I was thinking of finding someone to exchange some Bai La Yun seeds for next year. Now it's like a godsend."
After she accepted the gifts, Xun Yi felt a surge of anger subside, and his breathing returned to normal.
"As long as you can use it."
The two were about ten feet apart, and snowflakes kept falling between them. After a moment or two of silence, Shu Wanxiu sensed that Xun Yi had nothing more to say.
"Brother Xun, it's freezing cold in the snow. Would you like to go inside the shed for a bowl of hot water, or hurry down the mountain?"
Xun Yi glanced subconsciously at the wooden shed behind Shu Wanxiu, and the scene of eavesdropping outside the house earlier involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
He looked away as if he had been burned.
"I should head down the mountain now."
Shu Wanxiu quickly asked, "Shall I offer you a bundle of straw?"
"No need."
He strode through the snow, and after a dozen or so steps, he heard a bright voice shouting from behind, "Slow down, watch your step!"
Logically, he should have slowed down, but he was so embarrassed that his face turned bright red, and he practically fled at the sound of the voices behind him.
Shu Wanxiu was puzzled. Why was Brother Xun, who was usually so composed, walking so fast tonight as if he were being chased by a ghost?
Unfortunately, she wasn't born from someone else's stomach and had no idea what was going on.
Unable to figure it out, she stopped thinking about it and turned back into the wooden shed.
"Oh no!"
As soon as she entered, a burnt smell filled her nostrils.
"Shouyi, hurry! Dig the tangerines out of the charcoal pile!"
She wasn't idle either; she picked up a stick and followed along to search for things.
Unfortunately, the tangerines they had been looking forward to were indeed burnt, with one side of the peel turning into a black, charred mess.
"I didn't keep a good eye on the fire." Shu Shouyi pouted, feeling wronged and guilty.
Shu Wanxiu was also frustrated.
"Your aunt didn't tell you when you could take it out."
There was no use in dwelling on it now, so she quickly cheered herself up and comforted him, "It's okay, we still have half left to eat, and the burnt bits can be thrown into the pit as fertilizer."
As she blew on her fingers to lower the temperature of her fingertips, she quickly peeled open the tangerine, removed the inedible parts, and divided the remaining good parts into two equal portions.
After blowing hard to cool one of the portions, she smiled and handed it to Shu Shouyi.
"Try it, see if it's sweet."
Seeing his aunt's smiling face, Shu Shouyi's grievances slowly dissipated, and he accepted the things he had been thinking about for most of the day.
The tangerine peel, about the size of a fist, has a thick layer of skin. However, after being roasted over charcoal, much of the moisture in the peel has been lost, and it is no longer as thick as before.
After removing the bad half, the two of them each received three segments of fruit.
Shu Shouyi peeled off some of the outer skin, broke off a piece of crystal-clear flesh, and put it into his mouth. You could even see how many seeds were inside.
On such a cold day, it was so comforting to put the warm fruit flesh in his mouth. He squinted and bit through the peel of the tangerine.
"Sizzle—"
The juice burst open in his mouth immediately.
First, it felt slightly hot, and then when my tongue came into contact with the juice, my taste buds instantly perceived the sour and bitter taste.
Caught off guard, Shu Shouyi frowned.
"aunt……"
Shu Wanxiu smiled at him with narrowed eyes and also put a piece of fruit into her mouth.
Um……
It's really nice to eat something hot on a cold day.
As for the taste?
She spat out three or four seeds until her mouth was completely empty, then said, "There are still five fruits at home. It's okay if I didn't find any sweet ones this time; I'll pick them carefully next time."
This suggestion coincided with Shu Shouyi's own thoughts.
Although the stinky tangerine tasted bitter and sour, he didn't say he would never eat it again. Instead, he became determined—he firmly believed that there were sweet stinky tangerines in the world.
However, after eating all five remaining tangerines at home and not finding a single sweet one, he silently stopped Shu Wanxiu from planting more tangerines, saying, "Planting too many will leave us unable to eat them all."
One person can really only eat one a day at most; any more and it will make your teeth ache from the sourness.
...
That said, after eating the stinky tangerine, the aunt and niece finished washing up. Shu Wanxiu carefully put the Hundred Spicy Clouds that Xun Yi had sent into the hanging basket in the main room, and then put the rough pottery brazier that Xun Yi had sent into use again.
He took some cold ash from the stove and spread it as a base, then used a wooden stick as fire tongs to scoop large chunks of red-hot coals from the fire pit into the earthenware basin.
Since it would just turn to ashes anyway if left in the fire pit, she scooped out most of the basin.
I must say, adding a brazier of charcoal did raise the bedroom temperature considerably. Although it wasn't as warm as a heated kang bed, it was still quite nice.
One night, Shu Wanxiu woke up feeling stuffy in her sleep because she thought the smell of charcoal in the room was too strong. After that, she left a small crack in the window every night.
The next day, when Shu Wanxiu woke up, she found that the snow that had fallen for two nights had stopped and the howling wind had subsided.
However, a thick layer of snow had been added to the ground, completely covering their footprints from before they went to bed last night. It was clear that the snow had been falling for quite some time after they had fallen asleep.
She rubbed her hands together and stepped out from under the eaves. Before she knew it, her leg sank deep into the ground, and she almost fell over.
After regaining her balance, Shu Wanxiu was still feeling quite flustered. She patted her chest and took her second step, no longer daring to be careless. With great hesitation, she slowly stepped her leg into the snow.
Shu Wanxiu is not short for a woman, but the snow covered more than half of her calves.
Young children would not be able to walk more than a few steps in such thick snow.
She stood in front of the house and looked around. Several vegetable plots not far ahead were completely covered by snow. Only some small bumps could distinguish the vegetable plots from the flat land next to them.
In the surrounding mountains and forests, many large and small trees with lush foliage had their branches broken by the weight of the snow, and in the distant bamboo forest, countless bamboo stalks were bent over and broken in the middle.
How pitiful.
It was growing so well, but a snowstorm ravaged it into this state.
Looking at the devastation of these trees, for a moment, Shu Wanxiu thought of herself, whose family had been destroyed by natural disasters, and felt a sense of sympathy and compassion for these trees.
After a brief moment of regret, she took a broom and went to the vegetable garden to sweep away the snow covering the vegetables until she could see the dry grass covering them.
After finishing this task, I walked around the house again. I didn't find any wild animal tracks around the house, nor did I see any collapsed parts of the roof. Only then did I feel relieved.
However, another layer of snow has accumulated on the roof, so we need to be careful and it would be best to borrow a ladder as soon as possible to climb up and sweep it away.
After a while, Shu Wanxiu put a match into the hearth, lit the fire with the remaining embers, and then transferred the fire to the stove to cook.
After preparing the simple vegetable porridge, she added a ladle of water to the pot, took a piece of spicy cloud, washed it, put it in a bowl, crushed it with chopsticks, and put it into the pot.
She added two more pieces of firewood to the stove and let them burn slowly. She then turned and went to the bedroom to pull Shu Shouyi out of bed.
Shu Shouyi hadn't slept enough; his eyelids were so heavy they were practically glued shut. He asked, bewildered, why he was up so early.
“We need to hurry to your great-uncle’s house; we can’t wait for them to come pick us up this afternoon. Last night, your Uncle Xun specially delivered the news about collecting grain; we need to tell your great-uncle as soon as possible so they can make a decision.”
"Oh." Shu Shouyi only half understood, but that didn't stop him from getting up obediently.
Walking several miles in the snow is no easy feat. After Shu Wanxiu put on his clothes, she carefully tidied them up before allowing him to step out of the bedroom.
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