Chapter 116: Chapter 113: Heartache

Lin Lan had just gotten home from work and started cooking when Little Douzi returned. He looked at her with a big smile. “Mom, my teacher said you came to school to see me.”

“Mhm! Mommy was worried you weren’t feeling well.”

“It’s nothing, I’m all better now.” Little Douzi put down his schoolbag. “My teacher said we’re getting a ten-day break for the busy farming season. I already talked to Brother Kai and Little Yun. We’re going to the fields this afternoon to glean grain for the chickens.”

Lin Lan nodded. “Okay. After you eat and take a nap, you can go. Take the straw hat Grandpa wove for you and your little back-basket.”

“Okay!” Little Douzi rubbed his belly. “I’m hungry.”

“There are some mung bean cakes on the table. You can have a couple to tide you over.”

“Okay!”

Little Douzi washed his hands, ate the mung bean cakes, and then gathered up some of the ramie leaves Lin Lan had cut and left on the steps. He put them in a vegetable basket and carried it to the backyard to feed the chickens and collect eggs.

When the two big white geese saw him coming, they led their flock of little soldiers over, scrambling to eat the ramie leaves.

He went to the nesting shed built against the fence for the hens to lay their eggs. In one of the nests, he found an unusually large egg. He picked it up, put it in the basket, and counted a total of sixteen chicken eggs.

Little Douzi carried the eggs back to the kitchen. “Mom, look at this huge egg!”

Lin Lan turned to look and smiled. “That’s a goose egg. The big white goose has started laying. Mommy will steam an egg custard for you this afternoon.”

Little Douzi nodded. “Let’s wait for Auntie to come back and eat it together.”

Lin Lan said, gratified, “Your auntie hasn’t doted on you for nothing.”

Lin Yuezhen came back at noon, bringing three buckets of oil, several bags of mung beans, peanuts, soybeans, and two small bags of sesame seeds.

When she learned that a burglar had broken in and that Dahuang had been killed by Ye San, she grew more and more frightened the more she thought about it. She felt she shouldn’t have come home, believing she had almost put Lin Lan and her son in danger.

Seeing her sister’s face turn pale, Lin Lan smiled reassuringly. “Sis, I’m perfectly fine. Don’t overthink it.”

Lin Yuezhen looked at her, gesturing through her tears: “From now on, I’ll only come back for Tomb-Sweeping Day to visit the graves. I won’t come back any other time. This time when I went to burn blessing paper, that couple wouldn’t even let me in the door. I had to stay at your place anyway.”

Lin Lan patted her hand. “Sis, don’t be sad. From now on, this is your home.”

Lin Yuezhen nodded emphatically, then pointed to the dark circles under Lin Lan’s eyes, gesturing for her to go get some sleep.

“Alright, I’ll go take a quick nap.”

Before Lin Lan could even go inside, she saw Li Xiangyang arrive at the courtyard gate on his bicycle. He got off, took a back-basket from the rear rack, and pulled out a black dog with brown fur.

Li Xiangyang saw her exhausted expression and the dark circles under her eyes, and his heart sank. He quickly looked down, petting the puppy’s head to hide his concern, and said in as light a tone as he could manage, “Lin Lan, this is a pup from one of the dogs at my family’s pig farm. He’s almost two months old. He’s the cleverest one of the litter.”

Lin Lan looked at the puppy lying on the ground watching her, then turned to Li Xiangyang with a smile. “How did you know my Dahuang was gone?”

“Zhilin asked Gangzi to help find a dog, and that’s how I learned you’d had a break-in.” As Li Xiangyang spoke, he patted the puppy’s head. “From now on, she is your master, and this is your home.”

Lin Lan crouched down and stroked the puppy’s fur. “What’s his name? He’s so big for only two months old. Is he part wolfdog?”

“His name is Wangcai. Both his parents are local wolfdogs. They’re good at guarding the house and herding chickens.” Li Xiangyang took a collar and leash out of his basket and smiled at Lin Lan. “If you want to rename him, just call him by the new name every time you feed him. He’ll get it in a few days.”

Lin Lan nodded and said sincerely, “Thank you. I’m always troubling you.”

Li Xiangyang glanced at the dark circles under her eyes. “We’re all so familiar with each other, you don’t have to be so formal. I’ll head back now. You should get some rest too.” ’What he wanted to say was, ’Just let me know if you need any help. My only fear is that you’ll be unwilling to trouble me.’’

“Okay, take care!” Lin Lan graciously saw him to the courtyard gate.

“Go on back!” Li Xiangyang quickly got on his bike and left.

After seeing Li Xiangyang off, Lin Lan went back and looked at Wangcai, who was tied to a pillar on the covered porch. “How about I call you Dahuang from now on?”

The puppy lifted its head, gave her a coolly detached look, and lay back down.

Lin Lan went back to her room and found Little Douzi fast asleep with his little belly sticking out, his head beaded with sweat. She picked up a bamboo fan and fanned him for a while before falling asleep herself.

When she woke up, Little Douzi was gone. Lin Yuezhen and Yang Liying were in the kitchen, mashing bean paste.

Yang Liying looked at her with pity. “I only found out you were robbed last night after I got here. That bastard Ye San is a real piece of work.”

“I’m fine. Sister Yuezhen is back, and Xiangyang even brought over a local wolfdog. We won’t have to worry about burglars coming to our door anymore.”

Yang Liying said with a grin, “Mhm! Xiangyang is a really good guy. Little Douzi says this new dog is even more impressive than Dahuang.”

The three of them chatted as they worked. Frying broad beans in the hot weather was a miserable job. They were smoked by the hot oil, their backs soaked with sweat, and the towels around their necks were drenched in no time.

Before it was time to set up the stall, Little Douzi returned with his little back-basket. The tip of his nose and his forehead were smudged with soot, and there was a dark ring around his mouth.

“Auntie, our big white goose laid an egg! I gleaned some grain to feed them.”

“Our Little Douzi is so capable!” Yang Liying pulled him over, wiped the soot from his face with a handkerchief, and shot him a look. “Did you boys go roast grasshoppers to eat?”

“Mhm! Brother Kai and I roasted grasshoppers and sweet potatoes at the foot of the mountain. They were delicious!”

Lin Lan’s face fell as she looked at him. “You talked Little Kai into taking you to roast things again? Last time you roasted beanstalks, Little Kai got a beating when he went home. Besides, the fishpond at the foot of the mountain isn’t safe. What if you fell in?”

Little Douzi tugged at Lin Lan, trying to placate her. “Mom, I didn’t go near the edge of the pond, and Brother Kai put out the fire before we left.”

Lin Lan dusted the ash off his clothes. “The grain in the fields is ripe. If it caught fire, everyone would have no food to eat next year and would go hungry. Next time you catch grasshoppers, bring them back. Mommy will deep-fry them with salt and pepper for you. They’re even tastier that way.”

Yang Liying played the bad cop, glaring at him. “Your mom spoils you too much. Look how hard she works! If you don’t listen, Auntie will take a bamboo switch to you.”

Little Douzi pouted for a moment before saying, “I’ll remember! I’m going to feed the big white goose.”

Watching him go out the door toward the bamboo grove with his basket, Yang Liying laughed again. “We were just like them when we were kids. Roasting beanstalks, sweet potatoes… whatever grew in the fields, we’d go roast it at the foot of the mountain.”

“We had even more to eat in the mountains. After the busy season, everyone would go up the mountain to knock down chestnuts, and if we got hungry, we’d just roast them right there.”

After closing the stall in the afternoon, Lin Lan went to Zhou Xiaohong’s house to look at her oven. It was over a meter tall, squarish, and somewhat resembled a modern oven.

After seeing it, Lin Lan decided to build a slightly larger earthen oven to bake mooncakes.

Zhou Xiaohong then took her to Master Lu’s house, a street over, to find him.

Master Lu said he didn’t have any more iron plates or thick sheet metal at his house. He told her to let him know once she had the clay, bricks, cement, iron plates, and sheet metal ready, and he could build it in a day or two.

Lin Lan nodded. “Alright, I’ll come get you once I have all the materials prepared.”

After leaving Master Lu’s house, Zhou Xiaohong said, “The cement and bricks are easy to find, but the iron plates and thick sheet metal will be difficult.”

Lin Lan thought for a moment. “I’ll ask Li Wu and Hou Bing.”

“I’ll help you ask around too.”

The next day at the stall, Lin Lan asked several black market dealers but couldn’t find the parts. She decided she would ask Zhao Dehai for help buying the bricks and cement first and have them delivered to her home. She could worry about the thick sheet metal later.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep