Chapter 227: Chapter 223: I’m Not Cold

After Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang got up and washed, they stood in the Zhou family’s courtyard, watching thick billows of mist drift through the air. Through the morning fog, they could faintly make out houses at the foot of a distant hill, cascading downward like terraced fields. From afar, the scene looked like a fairyland.

Unknown birds chirped from the withered branches at the edge of the vegetable patch. In the patch below the courtyard, garlic shoots curled over. The leafy greens, having been hit by the frost, were coated in an icy layer, and the stem mustard had already put out two or three new shoots.

Lin Lan felt that leafy greens and stem mustard developed a delightfully sweet flavor after a frost. Soon, once the pork and chicken were cured and the sausages were stuffed, these vegetables would be perfect for stewing with the cured meat, sausages, or twice-cooked pork. Nothing could be more delicious.

Li Xiangyang saw her standing there in a little floral padded jacket, the tip of her nose flushed red from the cold. He thought back to last night, how Lin Guoliang had first yanked the blanket off him, waking him up, and then proceeded to cuddle him as if he were his wife. A pang of frustration hit him, and he asked softly, “Were you cold last night?”

Lin Lan noticed he wasn’t wearing his padded jacket. “Why don’t you put your jacket on? It’s much colder up here than down the mountain.”

Li Xiangyang smiled and shook his head. “I’m not cold. Back when I used to feed pigs in the mountains, I’d just throw a coat on over my regular clothes, even on snowy days, and I felt fine.”

Lin Lan smiled, shooting him a sidelong glance. “Choosing style over warmth!”

“We’ll see about that!” Li Xiangyang said, glancing around. Seeing they were alone, he reached out and took Lin Lan’s hand, his eyes filled with a smile as he looked at her. “Warm, isn’t it? When it gets cold from now on, I’ll be your designated hand-warmer.”

As her icy hand was enveloped by his large, warm one, Lin Lan was suddenly reminded of the hand warmers from a later era. She beamed at him. “Mhm! An energy-efficient hand-warmer. I accept.”

Li Xiangyang looked at her radiant smile and squeezed her hand tighter.

“Well, well! You must be Qiaohui’s cousin and her husband, right? Just look at you. City folks really are different from us mountain folk. Your skin is as fair and smooth as a peeled egg.”

Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang quickly let go of each other’s hands and turned to see Aunt Zhou and Zhou Qiaoyan standing outside the wicker fence. They had no idea how long they had been there.

Zhou Qiaoyan glanced at Li Xiangyang standing beside Lin Lan, then blushed and lowered her head. ’City men are so handsome,’ she thought. ’If only I could move to the city and find a man like him.’

“And you are?” Lin Lan asked, glancing at the mother and daughter who were staring at her and Li Xiangyang like they were some kind of spectacle. She figured this must be the pair Wu Shufang had mentioned last night, Zhou Qiaoyan and her mother.

Aunt Zhou pushed open the wicker gate without an invitation and walked in, grinning. “I’m Qiaohui’s aunt, Aunt Zhou! And this is my daughter, Qiaoyan!” ’Last time, I was too late,’ she thought. ’Lin Guoliang had already left with Lin Lan early in the morning. This time, I brought Qiaoyan over nice and early. They won’t have any excuses now!’

“Oh.” Lin Lan immediately disliked the way the mother and daughter’s eyes darted about. “I heard from my aunt that you want your daughter to come and help me. I’m sorry, but we have enough help as it is.”

Aunt Zhou looked at Lin Lan and said, “Cousin, my Qiaoyan is a very capable worker. As long as you agree to take her with you, we don’t want any wages. All we ask is that you help her find a husband in the city, to save her from suffering her whole life cooped up in these mountains.”

Lin Lan refused point-blank. “Absolutely not. People would accuse me of exploiting laborers, of human trafficking. I could be arrested for re-education.” Even if Wu Shufang hadn’t warned her, she wouldn’t have agreed to take Zhou Qiaoyan home. ’There’s something devious in that girl’s eyes,’ she thought.

When Wu Shufang heard Aunt Zhou’s voice, she rushed out of the kitchen. She sent Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang back into the house before turning to the mother and daughter. “Aunt Zhou, you heard her. Go on home and stop making things difficult for my niece.”

Seeing Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang retreat into the house, Aunt Zhou glared at Wu Shufang with jealous resentment, pointing a finger in her face. “It must have been you, stirring up trouble! That’s the only reason she won’t agree to take Qiaoyan.”

“You’re just scared that plain, beady-eyed girl of yours will be outshone by my Qiaoyan. You just wait. It’s not like if Butcher Wang dies, we have to eat our pork with the hair still on it. We’ll find another way!” With that, she angrily dragged away Zhou Qiaoyan, who kept looking back reluctantly.

Wu Shufang stormed back into the kitchen, fuming. “From now on, don’t you dare tell Aunt Zhou our family business,” she said to Xu Hongju. “Look at this mess! Is she not the most annoying person you’ve ever met?”

Xu Hongju looked at her, aggrieved. “Ma, I wasn’t the one who told her. Why are you taking it out on me?”

Wu Shufang faltered for a second, then her voice softened. “I was just talking. Little Lan is buying dried goods. Why don’t you head over to your parents’ place in a bit? Tell Qiao’e to bring her dried goods to sell to her cousin, so they can have a little extra money.”

Wu Shufang had four children: two sons and two daughters. She had traded her second daughter to get Xu Hongju as a daughter-in-law. Her other son, Second Brother Zhou, had no money to find a wife and no other sister to trade for one, so he’d had no choice but to marry into another family as a live-in son-in-law.

Xu Hongju and Zhou Qiao’e’s marriages were a bride swap: Zhou Qiao’e married Xu Hongju’s older brother, and in return, Xu Hongju married Zhou Shitou.

It was difficult for men in the mountains to find wives, so many families with daughters would arrange bride swaps for their sons.

“Ma,” Xu Hongju asked in a low voice, “did our cousin really lend us that much money? Isn’t she worried we won’t be able to pay her back? And what’s she going to do with old pumpkins?”

“Beans and pumpkins aren’t picky about soil—you can plant them in any nook and cranny. With dozens of households in the Shishanling Brigade, the pumpkins and beans we grow could make a pile as high as a mountain. Can she really use it all?”

“What do you know?” Wu Shufang shot her a chiding glare. “I’m holding onto the money. And I’m warning you, when you go to your parents’ place, keep your mouth shut.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Xu Hongju retorted. Then she looked at Wu Shufang again. “Ma, on my way, I’ll pass by where Second Brother Zhou lives now. Should I tell him that our cousin is here?”

Wu Shufang frowned and shook her head. “Don’t tell him.”

The two of them, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, fished a few eggs out of the rice pot and set them aside. After ladling out the congee, they washed the pot and fried a panful of flatbreads made with a mix of cornmeal and white flour.

The white flour was something Lin Lan had brought. While they grew wheat in the mountains, it all went toward the public grain tax. The shriveled, leftover grains were divided among the families, ground into flour, and mixed with cornmeal—a rare treat.

The eldest grandson led his younger brother and sister out of their room, all of them rubbing their eyes. When he saw the eggs Wu Shufang had placed in a bowl, his eyes lit up. “Grandma, I want an egg.”

Wu Shufang looked lovingly at her two younger grandchildren. She bent down and whispered, “Be good. These are for your Uncle Guoliang and Aunt Lan and her husband. Grandma fried flatbreads with white flour and there’s some old cured pork. How about you eat in the kitchen in a little while, okay?”

The two little ones obediently replied, “Okay. They’re for Uncle Guoliang and Aunt Lan. Aunt Lan bought us candy.”

Wu Shufang nodded, her heart aching a little. She turned, scooped a handful of pickled greens out of a jar, and stir-fried them with the old cured pork Lin Guoliang had brought on his last visit. She then stir-fried some garlic shoots with fermented black beans, as well as some leafy greens.

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law brought the food to the main hall. “Go on and eat first,” they said to Lin Lan, Li Xiangyang, and Lin Guoliang. “Your uncle and cousin went to notify the families in the brigade that have mountain goods to sell.”

Lin Guoliang smiled. “It’s no problem, we’re not hungry yet. We’ll wait for Uncle and our cousin to get back so we can all eat together.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep