There were a few rare sunny days in a row, and A'ruan worked alone to harvest the rice in the field. When he carried the rice ears on his thin shoulders, he did not let the women do the same.
When he picked up the carrying pole, A Ruan's face turned red, he bent down and lowered his head, and gritted his teeth to move forward. Only he knows how painful it is. When he goes home at night and looks at the redness and swelling on his shoulders, he can only rub them himself.
When A Ruan was extremely tired, he looked at the bundles of rice on the ground and felt so aggrieved that he wanted to sit on the ground and cry. For some reason, he felt resentful in his heart.
In other people's fields, it's women who work, but in his home, he's the only man who's busy running around.
Wang, who worked in the field next door, always came to talk to him without any courtesy. Whenever Ah Ruan heard him talking, he felt uncomfortable and couldn't breathe.
But he couldn't open his mouth to retaliate sarcastically.
The weather is exceptionally hot today. A'ruan has been busy for most of the day and is feeling a little irritated.
Wang came back from a stroll somewhere and saw A'ruan still picking rice ears. Thinking of Sun's expression that day, she felt a little angry.
"Oh my," Wang shouted exaggeratedly, "Is it the 10th of August today? Oh, it's already the 14th of August, and tomorrow is the 15th of August. Why hasn't Scholar Wei come back yet? Could it be that he really stayed in the provincial capital like Scholar Zhang?"
A Ruan turned her back to Wang and ignored him, not even bothering to put on a false good face.
Wang refused to give in and said insinuatingly that Wei Min had passed the imperial examination and no longer wanted him.
Ah Ruan had heard enough, so he turned around and glared at Wang fiercely, then slammed the carrying pole in his hand in front of him with a "bang", his meaning was very clear.
——Why don’t you try saying it again?
Wang was frightened by him. Seeing Ah Ruan's stern face and his messy hair soaked with sweat, she glanced at the carrying pole on the ground. She was afraid that this soft rabbit would really open its mouth to bite people, so she turned around and walked away embarrassedly, muttering, "Don't listen to good or bad words. You will regret it in the future, and then you will know that what I said is for your own good."
After Wang left, A Ruan bent down and picked up the carrying pole on the ground.
Wang was a person who bullied the weak and feared the strong. Since he was a mute, she thought he was easy to bully and always came to provoke him. Now seeing that he was a little tougher, he walked away obediently with his tail between his legs.
It’s no wonder that his wife doesn’t like this kind of person and doesn’t allow herself to say hello to him.
Thinking of Wei Min and considering the reason why she didn't want him to come into contact with Wang, somewhere in A'ruan's heart softened uncontrollably.
Looking at the piles of rice ears on the ground, Ah Ruan let out an almost inaudible sigh. The resentment that had been building up in my heart over the past two days seemed to have been secretly poked in a small hole, and all the anger disappeared without a trace.
He had been feeling unwell these past two days, partly because he was extremely tired, and partly because the Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching and Wei Min had not returned yet. In addition, Wang Shi kept whispering in his ear that Wei Min didn't want him anymore, which made him feel aggrieved and resentful.
A Ruan raised his hand to wipe the sweat off his forehead, tied the rice ears and hung them on both ends of the carrying pole, lowered his head and gritted his teeth, pressed the carrying pole against the back of his neck and onto his shoulders, and walked forward unsteadily, holding on to the carrying poles on both sides with both hands.
When women carry a shoulder pole, some of them do it on one shoulder, because carrying it on both shoulders can easily hurt their necks. But Aruan was a man after all, and he was not as strong as a woman. If he carried the load on one shoulder, his body would tilt to one side, so he gritted his teeth and carried the load on both shoulders.
The consequence is that when I get home, I am so tired that I don’t even want to twist my neck.
After Wei Lian finished his work, he pulled a cart over and brought the pile of rice ears that A Ruan had picked to the open space in front of the house, where they would be threshed and shelled the next day.
It was late after they finished their work, and Sun wanted to keep Aruan for dinner, but Aruan was tired after a whole day and was not hungry at all except for being thirsty.
When I got home, it was already dark.
A Ruan lit the candlestick, added two spoonfuls of water into the pot, lit a handful of firewood and threw it in. After making sure that no sparks would fall out, A Ruan couldn't hold on any longer and wanted to go back to the inner room to lie down for a while, and then get up to take a bath when the water was hot.
He fell asleep and forgot the time. When he woke up again, he heard a knock on the door.
A Ruan's eyelids were glued together, his eyes were almost narrowed into a slit, he glanced at the candlestick on the bedside, looking at the swaying candlelight, his eyes were so sleepy that tears came out, he closed his eyes and couldn't help falling asleep again.
The knocks on the door became louder and louder, disturbing A Ruan's sleep. He struggled to move, but felt his limbs were sore and weak, and even moving his neck slightly was difficult.
Who could it be at this late hour?
A Ruan sat up with difficulty, rubbed his neck with his hand, and went out in his slippers.
When passing by the main room, I noticed that the firewood in the stove had burned out without me noticing, and there was not even a spark at the bottom of the pot.
It seems that I have been lying here for too long.
There was no woman at home, so A Ruan didn't dare to open the door easily. He just opened the door of the main room and stood in the yard to listen to the noise outside.
As soon as he stepped out of the door, A Ruan heard a familiar voice. He woke up with a start and immediately ran to open the door.
The provincial examination can only be held the day after the exam. Since the 12th, Wei Min has been traveling day and night, fearing that he would be delayed on the road and would not be able to return on August 15th.
It was dark before they reached the county today. Thinking of A Ruan, Wei Min simply walked at night and returned under the moonlight.
She thought A'ruan was asleep, but when she looked at the tall pile of rice at the door, she guessed that he must have been very tired during this period.
Wei Min prepared to wrap himself in clothes and let him stay overnight on the rice pile at the door so that he could sleep well. But when I got to the door, I saw light in the house through the crack.
Why is A'ruan still awake in the middle of the night?
Wei Min was worried, so he knocked on the door.
After standing at the door and knocking for a long time and calling out "A Ruan" a few times, Wei Min was planning to climb over the wall if A Ruan still didn't respond when the door of the main room was opened from the inside and the candlelight on the table instantly spread from the room to the ground in the yard.
Wei Min saw that the light had become brighter, and quickly called out again, "A Ruan."
She knew that A'ruan would be more cautious when he was alone at home. When she was about to shout twice to let him know that the person knocking on the door was indeed her, she heard the sound of his shoes slipping on the ground as he ran towards her in the yard.
Wei Min was stunned, and when she came to her senses, A Ruan had already opened the door and stood in front of her.
Wei Min's heart softened when he saw the joy in A'ruan's eyes that could not be hidden. But when he saw the fatigue between his brows and the clothes he was still wearing at this hour, his heart ached again.
Opening his arms and holding the person in his arms, Wei Min tilted his head and kissed A Ruan's hair, saying softly: "I'm back." I'm back to spend the fifteenth with you.
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