Ye Lingyu had just put down the bucket and vegetable basket when she saw Cheng Qingyan follow her over.
Why did you come out?
"I can help you carry water and wash vegetables, that's all I need."
Ye Lingyu didn't reply and silently washed the wild vegetables.
An old man passing by saw Cheng Qingyan and couldn't help but stop and exclaim, "Isn't this Cheng San? The sun must be rising from the north today, not the west! I actually saw Cheng San accompanying his wife to the riverbank!"
His sarcastic remarks were really annoying. Just as he was about to retort, Ye Lingyu put down the wild vegetables in her hand, turned around and greeted the old man.
"Uncle Cheng, where are you going?"
The old man smiled kindly at Ye Lingyu: "Cheng family, huh? I just had nothing to do, so I came out for a stroll to see how the millet is ripening. This year should be a good harvest."
"Going to dig for wild vegetables again? It's been a bit dangerous in the mountains lately, so be careful when you go out. If there's really nothing to eat..." The old man glanced at Cheng Qingyan, but didn't finish his sentence.
Ye Lingyu smiled and said, "It's alright, Uncle Cheng, I'll be careful. I'll send you the rice I owe you after the harvest."
The old man waved his hand: "Alright, don't worry about it too much."
After the old man left, Cheng Qingyan asked Ye Lingyu, "Who was that man? Why do you owe him rice?"
"It's not me, it's you who owes it."
Cheng Qingyan felt a little pain in her face. What kind of person was the original owner? How did she end up owing this person and that person?
"Then I'm such a scoundrel, owing money to several families."
“It’s not just a few households, it’s all the families in the village, you basically owe them all.”
Cheng Qingyan couldn't even manage an awkward smile. Look at this! What kind of person does this?
His stomach rumbled, and he realized that Ye Lingyu had already heard it.
Cheng Qingyan sighed, "Wife, I'm hungry~"
Ye Lingyu put the wild vegetables back into the basket, and water dripped out from the bottom of the basket.
"Go back and cook now, just bear with it for a little while."
Cheng Qingyan picked up the bucket to fetch water from the river, but... huh? Huh? She almost strained her back!
What kind of bucket is this?! How can it be so heavy!
Ye Lingyu silently placed the basket of wild vegetables on the grass and took the bucket that Cheng Qingyan had just lifted with all his might.
The skilled person walked into the deep water and filled half a bucket with water.
The river in their village is a flowing river, and Ye Lingyu has always drunk water from it.
Digging a well is too costly. There's only one well in their village, and they have to queue up every time they need water.
She didn't like queuing with so many people, nor did she want to hear what the villagers said about her and Cheng Qingyan. So she always went to the river to fetch water, including the water she used for cooking last night.
Seeing that Ye Lingyu was even thinner than herself, yet she could lift more than half a bucket of water, Cheng Qingyan walked behind her with a basket on her shoulder, thinking that she was the one who should be digging for wild vegetables.
For lunch, they ate leftover rice from yesterday, added some water, and Ye Lingyu sprinkled in some salt, which turned it into porridge.
Ignoring the color, it could be described as a modern version of savory porridge.
Just as Ye Lingyu was about to serve the rice, Cheng Qingyan handed her two eggs.
"Egg drop porridge, put two eggs in it! How can you possibly get enough nutrition just by eating wild vegetables? What if you get sick!"
Ye Lingyu remained unmoved, preparing to extinguish the fire and serve the porridge.
Cheng Qingyan, unwilling to give up, kept pleading, "Wife, I want to eat egg porridge, just one egg will do, please~"
Finally, after Cheng Qingyan's persistent pleading, Ye Lingyu cracked an egg and put it in.
I don't know if it was just my imagination, but the moment the pot was opened, the whole house smelled wonderful.
It's definitely not an illusion. The eggs laid by the chickens in this space are just as delicious as the apples produced here, even better than regular apples.
Of course, it's also very possible that Cheng Qingyan was hungry, while Ye Lingyu might not have eaten apples and eggs for too long.
To be honest, wild vegetables don't taste good. They're hard to chew and a bit irritating to the throat.
Cheng Qingyan held her bowl, looking at the porridge inside. She wanted to tell Ye Lingyu that there was really no need to eat this wild vegetable. But she couldn't reveal her intentions yet, and besides, Ye Lingyu had already tried to serve her as few wild vegetables as possible.
Looking into Ye Lingyu's bowl, it was almost entirely filled with wild vegetables, with hardly any rice in sight.
Ye Lingyu is a bit too foolish.
She filled her own rice bowl with extra rice, so she could only eat more wild vegetables to fill her stomach.
"Wife, do you always eat like this?"
Ye Lingyu swallowed the wild vegetables in her mouth, slowly raised her head, and looked at the person in front of her with a frown: "No, there was no rice or eggs in the wild vegetable soup in the past."
It turns out that this unpalatable meal was actually a rather luxurious one in Ye Lingyu's life.
Ye Lingyu saw heartache in Cheng Qingyan's eyes, but it was only for a moment, because Cheng Qingyan turned his head away.
Cheng Qingyan looked around the house again; it was truly bare and drafty. In such an environment, having enough to eat and drink was easily a luxury.
"Are you going out after you finish eating? If so, take me with you. Maybe I can help."
Ye Lingyu didn't look up at her this time, but just responded to her softly.
After finishing their meal, Ye Lingyu tidied up their broken bowls and then stepped onto the tattered basket.
Cheng Qingyan followed Ye Lingyu up the mountain. She was panting heavily and fanning herself with a tattered sleeve.
As she walked up the mountain, Ye Lingyu also dug up two wild vegetables.
When they were almost at their destination, Cheng Qingyan was too tired to walk any further and leaned against a tree by the roadside to rest.
"My wife, I'm thirsty."
"Go a little further ahead, there's a stream over there."
Cheng Qingyan had no choice but to get up and keep walking; without water to drink, she feared she would die of thirst.
The stream was a real stream, crystal clear, the kind where you could fall in and not drown.
But at least there was water. Cheng Qingyan scooped up some stream water and was about to drink when Ye Lingyu stopped him.
Ye Lingyu picked a slender blade of grass, broke it, and threw it into the stream.
"You can drink it now."
Although he didn't understand, Cheng Qingyan knew to adapt to local customs.
After resting for a while, they followed Ye Lingyu to dig for wild vegetables.
She followed Ye Lingyu, watching how she searched for and dug for wild vegetables. Afterwards, she followed suit and started digging herself.
As a result, when she showed off the wild vegetables she had dug up to Ye Lingyu, Ye Lingyu said that only a few of them were wild vegetables.
It looks almost exactly like the wild vegetables Ye Lingyu put in the basket, so why isn't what she dug up considered wild vegetables?
Ye Lingyu put down the wild vegetables she was holding, picked up the wild grass that Cheng Qingyan had dug up, and pointed it out to her.
“Look, the leaves in my basket have smooth edges and no fuzzy membranes.”
"Eating this won't kill you, but it's easy to get diarrhea, and it tastes extremely bitter."
Then pick up one from the basket and compare it in your hand.
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