Chapter 26.1

Translated by Aviana

As days passed by, Lin Qingwan gradually became accustomed to Yang jia’s ways of living. She also got habituated to He-shi’s every now and then nit-pickings.

After all, it hadn’t been long since she had married; as such, there wasn’t an issue of whether she can or can’t ‘lay eggs.’ So long as she does the work she should properly, He-shi also cannot say anything.

As for He-shi trying hard to find fault with her, she usually would either turn a blind eye to it or just let things slide. If not, then she would just honestly acknowledge her mistake in a fine manner.

He-shi also was unable to do anything. Encountering punching cotton also became a common occurrence with her second erxifu. After a long time, it was also unlikely for her He-shi to find trouble for Lin Qingwan only to suffer from anger in the end. What’s more, she nevertheless has to take lao’er’ feelings into consideration a lot of times.

儿媳妇 (érxífu): daughter-in-law

老二 (lǎo’èr): appellation used for second child in the family.

Although He-shi was unreasonable, she was still aware that lao’er very much cherishes his vixen wife. If you scold him, he would still be fine and also won’t utter a word; however, scolding his wife was out of the question. Several times when He-shi scolded Lin Qingwan, her second son looked at her angrily.

It’s not that enlightenment had dawned upon He-hi and she felt sorry for her son. Rather, it was because she was well aware that for their family income, they still need to rely on Yang Tiezhu. Once you ruffle his feathers, and ask him to go up the mountain, he would simply fling his head and leave, completely ignoring you.

As such, He-shi had been lenient towards Lin Qingwan all along and numerous times just turned a blind eye, while she was quite harsh and fierce with Yao-shi.

In ancient times, a woman’s status was dependent on her husband. If the husband is hardworking, others would surely have to give him a bit of consideration. This principle is not applicable only at home but also outside.

Lin Qingwan and Yao-shi, both of them had a gentle and soft temper, and were with tolerant and mild conduct, also were not the one who would easily get into the conflicts. After interacting for a while, gradually, a sort of friendship formed between them.

As for the Wang-shi, only after interacting with her for a while did Lin Qingwan find she was annoying to the extreme.

In the beginning, she thought Wang-shi was just a bit lazy at best. When He-shi gave her some work to do, she had dilly-dally and use all sorts of excuses, pushing the work away. Also, she would look at her peculiarly, especially when she and Yao-shi would mutually help each other.

It was only later, she found that Wang-shi’s personality was truly too annoying.

Usually, whenever it was Wang-shi’s turn to cook, she would either call Yao-shi or her for help. In the beginning, she was not aware of Wang-shi’s character. Thinking that as her eldest sao had asked for help, she would just lend a hand, it was also not much of a matter.

sao: sister-in-law

But then, every time Wang-shi was doing housework, she would call for help, either letting her feed the pigs or letting her feed chickens, or it was helping her water and fertilize plants in the vegetable garden.

In case if she was truly swamped, one can understand. However, the issue was, once after Wang-shi called her to lend a hand in feeding the pigs, Lin Qingwan, to her surprise, found that she had run away to sleep. Suddenly she felt as if she had swallowed a housefly, feeling disgusted in her heart.

After that, whenever Wang-shi called her out for help, she never went.

Next time, when it was Wang-shi’s turn again, she was unhappy. She eccentrically stabbed her with words, saying she was disrespectful to her elders, and even when her saozi called her out for help, she shirked away. Further adding that she was very pampered and no one could move her at all…

Lin Qingwan was also not a soft bun that could be pinched easily. As such, whenever Wang-shi stabbed her with her words, she either completely ignored her or turned her down.

After arguing several times, unless it was necessary, both of them gradually stopped talking.

…………………

In a flash, it was already the beginning of autumn. Gradually everyone in the Yang jia got busy, as it was time for the many sorts of crops cultivated in the fields to be harvested in batches.

Luoxia Village was situated in the north zone, making the climate here frigid. As such, the crops grown here were all the sort that could be harvested once a year. Thus, autumn was also the time when the nearby eight villages within the ten miles were the busiest.

As for what kinds of crops were planted in the fields, Lin Qingwan was not quite familiar with these both, in her previous life and present life. She was also unclear as to what crops were and were not cultivated in the Daxi dynasty. She was only aware that in the Luoxia village, wheat, sorghum, broomcorn millet, corn, and rapeseeds are grown. But rapeseeds are cultivated less, just sufficient enough to extract oil for household uses in the upcoming year.

But here, no one grows rice, probably because the soil was not fit. Also, very few people here ate rice. If someone wished to eat, it was sold in shops in the small town to buy and eat. However compared with other cereals, it’s a bit expensive.

Here the staple food was sorghum rice, foxtail millet rice (little rice), proso millet rice (similar to little rice, but compared to little rice, these are bigger in size and are commonly referred to as yellow rice), and cornmeal. As for wheat, they cultivate quite a lot here, but as wheat flour is considered a fine grain, the farmers could not bear to consume it by themselves. As such, they sell it all after cultivating them.

Yang jia first harvests the wheat. After harvesting of wheat was finished, the next was sorghum, peanuts, foxtail millet, corn, proso millet, and few other crops.

During the autumn harvest, apart from He-shi and Yang Ermei, who stay back to cook and watch the young kids, all adults and children alike in the Yang jia work together in the fields. Even both the eldest boys must go to the fields to help.

Of course, there is also an exception to this – precisely Yang Xuezhang.

Although the institution lets the students go during the autumn harvest, Yang Xuezhang nonetheless doesn’t have to go to the fields. The first reason is that He-shi can’t bear him doing so. Another reason was that after every year after the autumn harvest, county examinations were conducted. As such Yang Xuezhang had to review his classwork.

Lin Qingwan actually can’t hold the sickle to harvest the crops, so her task was to tie the cut wheat stalks into a bundle neatly with a straw and then load them into the ox cart. And also had to pick up all the wheat heads that fell in the fields during harvest.

Autumn’s hot spell was wreaking havoc on earth. Even though the farmers working in the fields had to shed a layer of skin under the sun, they also didn’t dare to grumble about it much.

Because if the sun was too bright, the harvested cereals would also dry faster under the sun. It was better than having rain, soaking all the cereals, causing the sprouts to grow and making them uneatable.

Lin Qingwan had covered herself entirely along with a straw hat on her head. Even her face was covered up completely, with only on her eyes showing out. Most of the local young women were also dressed as such; because the sun was too fierce. Not only they get tanned, but they can also be sunburnt.

A few men in the Yang jia were also sunburned. Lin Qungwan had found peeling sunburnt skin on Yang Tiezhen’s body. This was just the beginning of the autumn harvest, don’t know how it would be after the autumn harvest.

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