"You're weak, and your pregnancy is inherently harder than normal. I don't want you to suffer, and I'm content now that we have a pair of children," Liu Dalin hugged his wife and spoke steadily, "Let's bring up the children well, and see them get married and have children."
"When we get old, we'll be like our parents. You'll wipe my sweat and hand me water while I work in the fields. We'll spend our free time together nagging our neighbors under the ancient acacia tree at the entrance to the village, watch the sunset together, and when the kids have little ones, we'll take care of the babies. This life is wonderful."
"Yeah," Chen Xiulan replied softly, hugging the man with a tender smile. "Dalin, it's been nice meeting you."
A short while after dawn, the sound of children laughing and hip-hopping rang out in the courtyard.
Liu Yusheng was the first to get up.
Two of her cousins also stayed yesterday and there were limited rooms. In the end, the mother and daughter, Chen Xiuying and Yang Shuyue, slept in a room, while she slept with her first cousin Yang Shufang in another room.
As a result, she didn't sleep well the whole night. In addition to the strange bed, she wasn't used to sleeping next to someone she wasn't familiar with. She saw the light seeping through the sky in a daze and simply got up.
In a short while, Liu Zhixia also opened the door and came out, followed by Chen Changdong, who was yawning.
Chen Changdong was a chatterbox. With him, the tranquility of the morning was immediately broken.
"Zhixia, Nannan, let's not have breakfast at home later. I'll take you out to eat something delicious." After fetching water and washing his face indiscriminately, Chen Changdong mysteriously bewitched the two kids.
"There's no snack shop in the village, so what delicious food can we eat when we go outside? You're not wanting to shoot wild game, are you?" Lu Zhixia wondered.
"Wild game, no. But it sure is better than the corn flatbread at home. Let's go!"
"Cousins aren't up yet. Aren't we going to wait for them to come along?", Liu Yusheng asked.
"We can't wait. Teenage girls are squirmy and shriek at the slightest thing. It's annoying." Chen Changdong didn't give Liu Yusheng a chance to consider. He went forward and picked her up and strode out, walking speedly as if a ghost was chasing behind him.
Out of the door, Liu Zhixia quipped, "I think you just don't want to bring our two cousins along for fun. I just heard movement and they should be up."
Busted, Chen Changdong gave him a contemptuous look. "I've taken them out with me before to play with my village friends. At some point, a naughty boy kicked a toad out of the curb, and it fell right in front of them. They were scared to death and ran home screaming at the top of their lungs and complained while crying. I got a beating from my father when I got back. They're squeamish, as if they're some city girl who has never seen a toad before."
Liu Zhixia and Liu Yusheng's mouths twitched.
"Nannan, don't worry. I'll definitely not scare you with a toad!"
"…" She really wasn't afraid. Toad skin could be used in medicine, and in her previous life, she had dissected countless of them.
If she were to dissect one, she was afraid that her cousin would be the one scared.
Morning air in the countryside was fresh; it was very quiet and peaceful.
As the sky brightened, a pale red glow rose on the horizon.
Chen Changdong led the siblings down winding trails in the village, whistling along the road and shouting across farmhouses. It didn't take long for someone to come out and join the team.
By the time they got out of the village, Liu Yusheng's early morning squad already accumulated nearly ten people, all young teenagers.
Liu Yusheng was the only girl among them and also the youngest.
She frequently drew curious stares from the teenagers.
"This is my cousin, nicknamed Nannan. You all know her, right? The most famous blessed baby of all the ten villages!"
The teenagers burst out laughing. "We know! The Young Doctor of Xinghua Village's Winery!"
Liu Yusheng was embarrassed.
The group bantered and laughed, until they reached the fields. Only then did Liu Yusheng understand what they were doing there.
They were at the rice fields in Liangshui Village. The paddy was a glorious yellow, bathed in the morning dew, and the rice plants sometimes swayed with the wind, making golden rice waves.
Because of the impending harvest, the fields had been cut off from water and the rice mud had become neither soft nor hard. They were now standing between the rice field and a small hillside, across a dried up ditch.
"Get ready guys, do a great job!" Chen Changdong rallied, distributing hay and flint. "We let them feed all autumn. They're fat enough. Now, it's our turn to have a full meal."
Liu Yusheng and Liu Zhixia were beside him and wanted to smack their foreheads straight.
Were they just going to catch voles? It looked like they were about to do something big with even an opening ceremony and a trumpet call.
"Nannan, stay away, else the voles will leap out and scare you later," Liu Zhixia instructed Liu Yusheng to go farther away and followed the group of teenagers looking for mouse holes by the ditch and on the ridges.
They separated and blocked several holes, then ignited the hay that were plugged in the mouth of the holes. A few teenagers waited for the voles at the other end of the hole with bamboo baskets.
As long as there were voles in the hole, they would escape to another hole if they were smoked, and the people who were waiting would be rewarded.
Liu Yusheng was quite interested in this original practice of catching voles. Thus, she crouched by the roadside and watched with some excitement.
"Hey! Hey! There it is. It crashed in!" At a hole entrance, a young man excitedly flew to cover the basket lid and proudly raised it towards the crowd. "Three of them!"
Good news came from the other side too: "Hahaha, I caught one too! It's chubby, fat enough!"
...
The teenagers got more and more excited as good news successively trickled in. Only the hole that Chen Changdong was guarding remained quiet. He was so angry that he swore.
"Dong, don't guard that. I don't think there's any goods in that one you're guarding."
"The ones we caught add up enough for a meal, hurry up and withdraw!"
Chen Changdong blew his bangs. "Wait a little longer; I don't believe it. Am I the only Yang Bailao?" His cousins were both watching. How disgraceful it would be for him to return empty-handed.
"Ahai, add more hay to that end to thicken the smoke!"
"If the smoke is thicker, the voles might faint inside and can't make it outside…"
"If you add more, it might escape faster."
This time, he finally heard faint movement coming from inside the hole.
Chen Changdong's eyes glowed, and he grabbed the basket to get ready.
As faint smoke rose, a fellow also emerged from inside.
"…" After seeing what it was, Chen Changdong trembled, threw the bamboo basket, and ran. "Oh, shit! Snake! Snake! Get out of here!"
The buddies immediately scattered like birds and beasts. Liu Zhixia carried Liu Yusheng and also jumped far away.
When Chen Changdong came running still in fright, everyone looked at each other…
In the next instant, laughter erupted.
"Hahaha! Ouch, you're killing me!"
"Dong, you unlucky bastard. I told you not to guard that one, but you just have to insist. Heck, I could laugh at this joke for a year!"
"Did you see Dong's face just now? His face turned white. Seriously, this is the fastest I've ever seen him run! Hahaha!"
Chen Changdong looked at the sky speechlessly.
His dignity was all gone.
If possible, should he talk to his cousins and tell them to forget about the picture they've seen earlier?