Chapter 228: Chapter 124: Under the Plum Tree (Part 2)

Mrs. Yang asked, “Auntie, these eggs are a bit salty. Can Shi Tou’s mother eat them?”

Shi Tou’s maternal grandmother said with a smile, “These are for our guests. We’ll cook different ones for Shi Tou’s mother—poached eggs. You came all this way just to see the baby, yet you brought a hen and so many eggs. You must have been saving them up to sell, weren’t you? Now you’ve brought them all here. All that saving for nothing.”

Mrs. Yang laughed. “Oh, Auntie, listen to you. A new addition to the family is such a joyous occasion. Of course it’s worth a few eggs! Please, don’t say things that will make me feel embarrassed. It’s only because the chickens we raised this year grew so well that I had one to bring. In the past, I had nothing at all and couldn’t have even offered a few eggs.”

Her family, the Zheng Family, was close with the Zhao San family, and she often sent them gifts of food. On top of that, the chickens she raised were doing quite well, and the chicks that hatched this year had grown to be over a pound each. So, for Shi Tou’s mother’s postpartum confinement, she had brought a chicken and several dozen eggs. It was a very generous gift, which was why Shi Tou’s maternal grandmother had said what she did.

Juhua ate two eggs and suddenly remembered the plum tree at Liu Xiaomei’s house. They should be ripe by now. She had just eaten peaches and apricots a few days ago, and plums always ripened a little later. Mei had told her to come over and have some.

So, she said to Mrs. Yang, “Mom, I’m going to pop over to Mei’s house.”

Seeing that Juhua rarely had a chance to go out and have fun, Mrs. Yang quickly said, “Go on, then. I’ll head home in a little while to start on dinner. You can stay out for a bit longer, it’s no problem.”

When Juhua arrived at the front of Liu Xiaomei’s yard, she saw a flock of chickens scratching for grubs at the base of a tree inside the fence. The yard itself was still and silent, with no sound of human activity.

Juhua raised her voice and called out, “Mei! Mei!”

Instead, Liu Sanshun walked out of the house carrying a fish creel. He smiled as soon as he saw Juhua. “Juhua! Quick, come in and sit down.”

Juhua walked into the yard. Noticing the creel in his hand, she asked, “Sanshun, did you go fishing again?”

Liu Sanshun hadn’t expected Juhua to come over at this hour, and a string of joyful bubbles seemed to rise in his heart. He grinned. “Yep! I went this morning and just got back. My sister Mei must have gone to gather pig feed—we’re raising an extra pig this year, and it’s a real headache. We never have enough to feed it.”

Juhua smiled. “It’ll get easier in a few months. Since Mei isn’t home, I’ll just come back another time!” With that, she turned to leave.

“Juhua, wait a minute,” Liu Sanshun called out, stopping her.

He watched her with a smile. ’She probably came for the plums,’ he thought. He said to her, “Our plums are ripe now. I’ll pick some for you.”

’Alright, that works,’ Juhua thought. ’It saves me a second trip, and it’s not like there’s anything to be embarrassed about.’

So she smiled at Liu Sanshun and said, “Well, don’t mind if I do, then. Haven’t you all had any yet?”

Liu Sanshun grabbed a small basket and led Juhua to the backyard. “Not really,” he said. “We’ve only eaten a few that fell off the tree. This plum tree is hard to take care of. Right when the plums are about to ripen, they always get infested with pests. A perfectly good plum gets a bite mark, and then it just falls off the tree. Mei and I have already picked off a ton of them. If we hadn’t, all the plums on this tree would have been ruined.”

Juhua wracked her brain, trying to recall some method of pest control, but came up with nothing. She hadn’t studied agriculture, and the few bits of information she remembered were incomplete. She had to let it go.

The plum tree was short, with a dense tangle of branches and leaves. It was so laden with fruit that the boughs bent and drooped. Many plums had also fallen to the ground below. They were flushed with red and looked very tempting.

Seeing her looking at the fruit on the ground, Liu Sanshun said, “Don’t be fooled because those fallen ones are red. They’re actually no good and aren’t sweet. They’ve all been bitten by bugs, so the flavor is bland.”

As he spoke, he began picking some of the larger plums from the branches.

Juhua examined the plum tree. “Does this tree have too many branches?” she asked Liu Sanshun. “Would it be better to prune some of them back in the early spring? If our Shanyu vines grow too long, we have to trim them, or the Shanyu themselves won’t grow large. Isn’t it the same principle for a plum tree?”

Liu Sanshun thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll try that next year, then. The other day, Sishun tried smoking the pests out by burning mugwort, and it worked pretty well. When your family’s plum tree gets bigger, you can use that method too. It’s easier than picking the bugs off by hand.”

Standing under the plum tree, picking plums, chatting with Juhua, and waving away the BUZZING bees for her—Liu Sanshun felt happy, comfortable, and a profound sense of warmth.

He chuckled softly, glancing sideways at Juhua from time to time as he taught her how to spot the ripe plums. The ones with a faint blush of red showing through the green were ready, while the ones that were still solid green were definitely not.

Juhua watched the chubby boy. He was wearing only a coarse cloth vest and gave off a faint smell of fish. His smile was so open, crinkling the corners of his eyes, that for some reason, she suddenly wanted to smile too.

His round face was almost identical to Liu Xiaomei’s. When Mei smiled, it was adorable. Liu Sanshun’s smile, however, definitely couldn’t be described as ’adorable.’

’Jolly-looking?’ No, that wasn’t it either.

’Endearing?’ That was closer.

As she mentally critiqued him, she couldn’t stop her own eyes from crinkling into a smile. Then she felt that she wasn’t smiling out of natural happiness, but was smiling *at* him, which felt a little mean. Afraid he would notice, she quickly turned her head to hide it.

Liu Sanshun watched the grinning Juhua, and for some reason, he had a feeling she was laughing at him.

’But so what if she is?’

’Let her laugh!’ He liked standing under the plum tree with her, laughing. He liked picking plums and talking with her.

He saw that when Juhua turned her head, her hair had snagged on a plum branch. “Hey! Don’t move,” he said quickly. “Your hair is caught.”

Juhua felt the painful tug and froze, not daring to move. ’This is what I get for laughing at someone,’ she thought.

Liu Sanshun gently untangled her hair from the branch. He saw a lock of hair had been pulled loose and was now sticking straight up. He raised his hand to smooth it down for her, but then realized it probably wouldn’t work. She would need a comb.

He smiled at Juhua. “Your hair’s a little messy now. Why don’t you use Mei’s comb to fix it?”

Juhua shook her head. “It’s fine. I’ll just leave it. I can fix it when I get home.”

After picking half a basket of plums, Liu Sanshun finally stopped. He glanced at Juhua, then went back inside the house. He returned with a small creel containing over a pound of small fish and handed it to Juhua along with the plums.

Juhua quickly waved her hands in refusal. “Oh my! I can’t possibly take so many plums. A single tree doesn’t produce that much. I’ll just take a few. Otherwise, with so many people in your family, there won’t be enough for you to eat!” She insisted on refusing the rest. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian.com to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep