Chapter 69: Chapter 67: The Coal Is Here

Dandan tugged on the old lady’s hand. “Great-grandmother, I know. Dad said you save the good food for him and just drink cold water yourself. I always finish my food at kindergarten.”

The old lady looked at the two little ones, and her mood brightened. “My dears, you’re both good children.”

Lin Lan hung the washed clothes on a bamboo pole while the old lady set out the bowls and chopsticks, and they began to eat.

There was crisp green water celery, soft white tofu pudding, and a fragrant, spicy dipping sauce. Little Douzi and Dandan ate a rice ball and half a bowl of rice each, then went to the side room to look at picture books.

Lin Lan ate two big bowls of taro rice in a row. She looked at the old lady and said with a laugh, “I’m stuffed.”

“You’re busy from morning to night. You need to eat more to have enough energy.” The old lady noticed the scratch marks on her neck. “Wash that cut on your neck with salt water before you go to sleep.”

“Okay! She got it much worse than I did.” As Lin Lan spoke, she stood up, scooped a ladle of rice, added some rice water, and took it to Dahuang.

Thinking of how Zhang Yazhen had been beaten black and blue, the old lady laughed. “Now that you’ve taught her a lesson, let’s see if she dares to cause trouble again!”

“Who knows. That damn woman is like a cockroach you can’t kill. She pops up to cause trouble every few days.” Lin Lan looked at the old lady, confused. “I haven’t done anything to offend her. Why does she have it in for me?”

The old lady recalled the insults Zhang Yazhen had hurled. She looked at Lin Lan’s pretty face and sighed. “Don’t pay her any mind. She’s just jealous of you.”

Lin Lan laughed. “Jealous of me? There are plenty of people better off than her! Did she get her head stuck in a door or something?”

“There are many women like that!” The old lady chuckled and went to the side room to speak to Dandan. “Dandan, it’s time to go home and sleep.”

“Okay!” Dandan put down his picture book. “Little Douzi, I’ll bring you a picture book tomorrow afternoon.”

Little Douzi looked at Dandan, reluctant to see him go. “Brother Dandan, I like Sun Wukong.”

“Okay, I have a different set than this one,” Dandan readily agreed.

Little Douzi walked the old lady and Dandan to the courtyard gate. He watched them walk away in the beam of their flashlight, then closed the gate and ran back quickly. “Mama, Great-grandmother and Brother Dandan went home.”

“Okay! Does your face still hurt? If it doesn’t, go play by yourself for a bit. Mama’s going to feed the pigs.”

“It doesn’t hurt. I’ll read my picture book!” Little Douzi went back inside, picked up the book, and started mumbling to himself, trying hard to memorize the shapes of the characters on the page.

Lin Lan cleaned up the stove and started cooking the pig feed.

She checked the soybean pulp in the bamboo basket, poured most of it into the slop, and stored the rest in a ceramic jar in the cupboard.

She grabbed a basket of wild celery from her carrying basket, washed it, chopped it into small pieces, and boiled it in the slop before heading to the pigpen to get the feed bucket.

Just as she reached the pigpen entrance, she heard the two little pigs squealing as they crowded around the feeding trough.

She pulled the cord for the electric light and looked at the trough. Seeing it was licked clean, she chided them, “Stop squealing, it’s coming right up.”

The two piglets actually stopped squealing and just grunted and snuffled, nudging around in the trough.

Lin Lan ladled out a bucket of feed, mixed in some rice bran and paper mulberry leaves, stirred it evenly with a spoon, and poured it into the trough. The two piglets squeezed together at the trough, gobbling it down with loud OINKS and SNORTS.

Lin Lan noticed the piglets ate much more enthusiastically with the added vegetable leaves and soybean pulp. ’When Yang Liying moves back home to make tofu, I’ll have to buy some soybean pulp from her for the pigs,’ she thought.

Little Douzi walked into the pigpen, rubbing his eyes. “Mama, I’m sleepy.”

Seeing he could barely keep his eyes open, Lin Lan picked him up. “Okay, let’s go brush our teeth and wash our faces, then we’ll sleep.”

“Mhm!” Little Douzi rested his head on her shoulder as mother and son returned to the kitchen.

Little Douzi got down and grabbed his small toothbrush and toothpaste from the bottom shelf of the cupboard. He squeezed a little onto the brush, took the mug Lin Lan handed him, and went to the backyard to squat and brush his teeth slowly.

Hearing his mother repeatedly warn him not to swallow the toothpaste, Little Douzi nodded, his eyes crinkling with a smile. ’But what if I really want to swallow it?’ he thought.

Lin Lan brought out a washbasin and poured it half full of water from a kettle. She washed her own face, then washed Little Douzi’s face and feet before carrying him to the bed. She gave him a kiss and patted him gently. “You go to sleep first. Mama will be there after I wash up.”

“Oh,” Little Douzi closed his eyes and was fast asleep in moments.

Lin Lan looked at his small, swollen face, her heart aching. She tucked the quilt around him snugly and went out to finish cleaning up.

She cleaned a corner of the woodshed to make space for the coal. After washing her feet, she got into bed but only leaned against the headboard, not daring to get under the covers for fear she’d fall asleep and miss the knock on the door.

In a half-asleep state, she heard Dahuang bark twice—WOOF WOOF—and then fall silent.

She hurriedly got out of bed, opened the kitchen door, and heard a knock. She walked quickly to the courtyard gate and asked, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Liying!”

Lin Lan opened the courtyard gate and saw Yang Liying and her husband standing in the chilly moonlight, holding a flashlight. “Third Sister, Third Brother-in-law, come in, quick, have a seat.”

Yang Liying entered the courtyard, pulled Lin Lan close, and shone the flashlight on her neck, hissing, “Are you okay? We heard that bitch Zhang Yazhen hit Douzi and you nearly beat her crippled? That’s why we didn’t rush over.”

“Mhm,” Lin Lan recounted what had happened.

Yang Liying angrily went into the room to look at Little Douzi’s face. “Agh! If only I had left a little later!”

Lin Lan laughed. “It would have been hard for you to get involved anyway. The whole Xiong family was there! But one-on-one, I’m not afraid of her!”

Yang Liying smiled and nodded. “That’s true. We were worried we came too late. How much longer until Xiangyang gets here?”

Lin Lan nodded. “He’s not here yet. I don’t even know what time it is.”

“See? I told you he wasn’t here yet,” Zhao Dehai said, then added after a thought, “Once you earn some money, you two sisters-in-law should buy watches. That way you’ll at least know the time.”

Yang Liying burst out laughing. “Buy watches? We can’t even get industrial coupons. Even if we had the money, there’d be nowhere to buy them.”

Lin Lan thought about how after the economic reforms, the watches sold by private vendors were even cheaper than those in department stores. She smiled. “Third Sister, just focus on making money. Who knows, in a couple of years, you might be able to buy anything you want as long as you have the cash.”

Yang Liying thought about it and felt it was impossible. “It’d be nice if days like that ever came!”

Zhao Dehai also said, “If days like that really do come, life would be much more convenient.”

Lin Lan encouraged them, “Things will get better and better. Look, they’re not really cracking down on us setting up stalls anymore!”

The three of them talked for a while longer when a steady knock sounded from outside.

Zhao Dehai crossed to the courtyard gate in a few long strides, pulled out the steel bar used to lock it, and opened the gate. He saw Li Xiangyang pulling a handcart, accompanied by two young men.

“Brother Li, please, come in!”

Lin Lan smiled and stepped forward. “Master Li, and you two young men, thank you for your hard work so late at night.”

“It’s no trouble!” Li Xiangyang gave a slight smile and pulled the handcart into the courtyard.

The two young men just smiled and said nothing.

Lin Lan had him park the cart under the eaves outside the woodshed. The handcart was stacked with about ten large baskets, all filled with dark chunks of coal.

Lin Lan hurried to the kitchen to pour three bowls of warm water. She added white sugar to each and, with Yang Liying’s help, carried them out to the courtyard. She said to the three men, who were panting for breath, “Have some water first!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep