The next day, Mingjue and Mingheng were still driving the bullock cart to deliver firewood to the city. Their opponents
Qiao Mingjin just got up early and made breakfast for the two of them. After the two brothers came back from catching pheasants from the mountains and had breakfast, Qiao Mingjin went to bed to sleep for a while after seeing them off.
After dawn, she took her things into the mountain.
Ming Qi and Xiao Wan'er didn't go into the mountains with her today. They said they had an appointment with Chang He and Liu Zhi to play by the river.
Are you waiting for another snipe-clam fight?
Qiao Mingjin smiled and ignored them.
Both children were fresh. Before they had enough fun, the snipe was picked up by Mingheng and went to the city to exchange for money.
These two children have been following her either to the city early in the morning or to the mountains early in the morning to cut firewood. Wan'er is only over three years old and Mingqi is only nine years old. The two children are so sensible that it makes her heartache.
Let them take a break and have fun.
When Qiao Mingjin went into the mountains with her things, the two little things also jumped out hand in hand. Each carried buckets and other tools. There is no such thing as a country child sleeping in. At dawn, the adults called out, the farmer's family
As soon as children learn to walk, they know that they have to get up early and help with household chores.
Qiao Mingjin spent the whole morning chopping firewood on the mountain and did not go down the mountain at noon. Lunch was served on the mountain. Mingqi brought her food alone, but before she could eat it, he ran down the mountain again in the blink of an eye.
Qiao Mingjin looked at his sister's figure running down the mountain, smiled, and ate sweet potato rice with rice soup.
Because He Xiaochun was at home these two days, he cooked rice and fried two vegetables for lunch.
He Xiaochun didn't go into the mountains today. After getting the drawings drawn by Qiao Mingjin, he worked hard at home planing wood.
There was no food box at home, so the rice Mingqi brought was placed in a large porcelain bowl. To prevent it from getting cold, he put a plate on top and wrapped it in a coarse cloth.
Qiao Mingjin took off the plate that covered it. Inside the large coarse porcelain bowl were the cattail sprouts fried at noon and some pickles sent by Sister Xiu, which were generously covered with dried sweet potato rice.
Qiao Mingjin sat on a dead tree branch and started eating.
She was really hungry.
Chopping wood was particularly demanding, and she was already very hungry.
Qiao Mingjin drank a few mouthfuls of rice soup, then dug out the rice with a spoon and ate it in big gulps. The two children were probably having too much fun, so they only brought her food now. She was so hungry that her stomach twitched...
Yue Zhongyao stood far away behind a bush, watching his wife dig into the rice with a spoon in an indistinct manner, one bite after another, looking rather ravenous.
A man was sitting alone in a huge forest, and the forest was eerily quiet. My wife was sitting alone on a dead tree branch, with her feet curled up and feeding food into her mouth...
Yue Zhongyao felt like his heart was being pinched so hard that he could hardly breathe.
Have you ever seen a wife who can’t even move her skirt when walking, and looks so dishonorable when eating? When does a wife who usually looks more elegant than a lady raised in a wealthy family gorge herself like this?
How hungry do you have to be?
Yue Zhongyao felt his eyes were hot. Seeing his wife sitting in a small ball in front of him, huddled there to eat, with a lot of thick firewood piled not far away, he felt that his chest was going to explode with pain.
Yue Zhongyao raised his head and blinked his eyes desperately, blinking back the tears. He walked around the bushes and walked towards his wife.
"Jin Niang."
When Qiao Mingjin heard the sound, she raised her head from her rice bowl and looked towards the sound. She didn't have time to swallow the food in her mouth, so she just stood there.
Yue Zhongyao? When did you stand there?
When Yue Zhongyao saw his wife looking at him in a daze, he walked over and sat next to Qiao Mingjin.
I glanced into Qiao Mingjin's large porcelain bowl, and my heart began to ache again.
"Why are you eating so late? You must be hungry, right?" Yue Zhongyao's voice was extremely soft, as if he was afraid that speaking loudly would scare the birds in the forest.
Qiao Mingjin looked at him and blinked, then buried her head in the large porcelain bowl again.
Seeing that his wife didn't respond to her, Yue Zhongyao didn't take it seriously.
He looked around and said to himself: "I'll have a rest today and tomorrow. I rushed back from the city before dawn today. I didn't meet you either. Aren't you going to deliver firewood today? Where is Wan'er?"
Qiao Mingjin didn't even raise her head and said vaguely: "Mingheng and Mingjue went to see them off. Wan'er went to play."
Yue Zhongyao stared at his wife and said: "Eat your food quickly. Don't starve if you eat so late."
After he finished speaking, his wife didn't even look at him. She thought about it and asked again: "I went to the house before going up the mountain. There was a man in the house who said you hired him to do carpentry work?"
Qiao Mingjin didn't even raise her head, she hummed and immersed herself in eating.
Yue Zhongyao opened his mouth and quickly closed it again.
Looking at Qiao Mingjin holding the dry rice with so few grains of rice that only shredded sweet potatoes could be seen, and then looking at the dishes that his wife ate, there was not a piece of meat, not even an egg. I felt sour in my heart.
Although the conditions of their in-laws' family are not good and meat is not always available, they can at least have three or four dishes, and they don't put so much sweet potato shreds in the rice. What Jin Niang eats is no longer considered rice.
Said it was sweet potato shreds.
Yue Zhongyao sat next to Qiao Mingjin, looking at her unconsciously.
I haven't seen her for a few days, and my wife seems to have lost weight again, her face is rougher, her hair is a little messy, probably from scratching by branches, and her clothes are a little dirty and wrinkled.
Although Jin Niang did not wear expensive clothes in the past, her clothes and hair must have been done very well. Her shoes were spotless.
Yue Zhongyao felt very uncomfortable. An unspeakable sourness quickly filled his heart.
The forest was extremely quiet, except for the occasional chirping of unknown birds in the forest.
Yue Zhongyao sat next to his wife and looked at her face quietly, watching her eat the food in the bowl as if she were eating the most delicious food.
Yue Zhongyao always wanted to open his mouth to say something, but he couldn't open his mouth when looking at Jin Niang's indifferent eyes...
Qiao Mingjin finished the meal quickly, covered it with a plate, wrapped it in coarse cloth and put it in a basket.
Yue Zhongyao also stood up: "You sit down while I chop the firewood. We have just finished eating, so you can take a walk to eat."
Qiao Mingjin watched blankly as Yue Zhongyao picked up the hatchet she had chopped on the branch, shook it twice, took it off, then turned around to find dead wood and chopped it. A moment later, she heard the sound of chopping wood in the forest.
Qiao Mingjin watched from behind him as he swung his knife very fast. Yue Zhongyao only cut four or five times on a dead branch as thick as a thigh before it fell. If she had to cut twenty or thirty times, sometimes her arms would shake.
Even though it's numb, the dead tree can't fall down. It has to be pressed hard to break it.
It's really irritating to see people compare to each other.
Qiao Mingjin was also happy and relaxed. She looked at the traps dug by her brothers and sisters in the forest, found a place where she sprinkled distiller's yeast and made a trap, ready to catch pheasants, and then returned to the place where Yue Zhongyao was cutting firewood.
She only had a hatchet. She looked behind Yue Xuyao for a while, then grabbed a bamboo rake and raked up the loose hair.
Yue Zhongyao took the opportunity to look at his wife, then turned back to focus on chopping firewood.
In the middle of the afternoon, due to the addition of Yue Zhongyao, there were already several piles of firewood. It was more than Qiao Mingjin could make in a whole day.
Later, the pine hair was raked more often, so Qiao Mingjin helped remove branches from the dead trees that Yue Zhongyao had chopped down, then broke them into shorter pieces and piled them up. The two of them cooperated in a tacit understanding.
Yue Zhongyao looked at his wife's busy figure. Although she didn't say a few words to him and her expression was indifferent, as long as his wife stayed by his side, Yue Zhongyao felt unusually satisfied.
Neither of them spoke, the forest was very quiet, and the sounds coming from the distance seemed particularly clear...
