CHAPTER 44: 44 RAINY

Thinning seedlings is actually particularly exhausting. Because you have to squat for a long time, and now the weeds are already sprouting, so it’s much better to weed now than later.

Su Yuanyuan looked at the gloomy weather and sighed. It’s going to rain, but she still hasn’t finished an acre of land. Could it wait for her to finish before raining?

Thinking of the sorghum that still needed weeding, Su Yuanyuan had a self-destructive urge to give up on everything.

She didn’t even go back at noon. When hungry, she ate meat buns.

There were many families like hers; almost everyone was the same. There were quite a few children in the fields now, and they could handle this kind of work.

It wasn’t until evening when it was too dark to see. There was still about half an acre left unfinished, but there was no other option.

She dragged her legs home. She heard the sheep bleating. She still had to bring them back home. She really didn’t want to move, but she couldn’t let them go hungry while raising sheep.

She went directly into the space after entering the house, and after drinking Spiritual Spring Water, her fatigue disappeared. In the middle of the night, she heard thunder, and Su Yuanyuan angrily patted the pillow.

"So annoying. Really irritating."

The next morning, dawn broke, and the rain still hadn’t stopped.

She checked the three sheep outside, which were doing well and knew to hide from the rain.

In the afternoon, it was too damp and all she could do was make a fire. She didn’t want to cook, but she prepared food for the sheep.

Luckily, she had laid the stones picked from reclaiming land in the yard, otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the courage to step outside.

After calming down, Su Yuanyuan felt that the rain was quite good. Although the weeds might grow wildly, the crops were growing too.

Light rain continued until the afternoon before stopping. Now she didn’t have to work for the next two days.

Su Yuanyuan lay on the kang reading books and making shoes.

"Yuanyuan!"

"Aunt, why are you here? Anything up?"

"Calling you to gather wild vegetables."

"Wait a moment, I’ll go grab a basket."

Now was when there was no vegetables to eat, so everyone went to gather wild vegetables in the wild. Su Yuanyuan didn’t like it, as she had eaten enough in her previous life. However, she didn’t want to refuse Hu Chunhua; she could gather them for the sheep.

"Yuanyuan, why are you picking everything?" Hu Chunhua’s ten-year-old daughter Yang Xue asked her.

"Big sister, I’m gathering this for the sheep."

"It’s true, Yuanyuan, your sheep are really capable. Several families have seen you using the sheep to plow and have tried it, but it didn’t work."

"My plow was ordered from the county and it’s smaller, so the sheep can pull it."

"But your sheep can walk in a straight line."

"Indeed, this is really good. Otherwise, just relying on me, when would I be able to finish planting these two acres of land?"

"My dad said the seedlings in your field came out the best."

"I spent money to buy seeds from the county’s seed station."

After a few months of nutrition, although her height was a year younger than Yang Xue, eating well gradually made up for it, and now she was similar to Yang Xue.

The two little girls followed around the adults, chatting intermittently.

Su Yuanyuan actually felt a bit irritated, as her shoes were covered in mud. It felt especially uncomfortable.

"Big sister. Did my Uncle say when we can start working the fields again?"

"No way, look at the mud on our shoe soles. Probably not until the day after tomorrow, the earliest. Children from poor families become responsible early; rural kids understand these things."

"Sigh! I still have half an acre of seedlings unthinned."

"I haven’t finished thinning ours either." It wasn’t until after ten that everyone went home. Su Yuanyuan used a small knife to dig out the winter melon seedlings she had raised and put them into a crate, then went to the foot of the hill with a small hoe and planted about twenty.

By the time autumn harvest came, she’d have over a hundred winter melons. Back home, she planted the winter melon near the fence.

She had just checked it out. The sorghum was also coming out well, which was good.

It was now five or six years in, and in two years, she would be able to tell if this future would be similar to the history of her previous life.

In truth, she didn’t want it to be similar because life was too hard that way.

She had seen it all in her past life, but she still didn’t want to witness such misery.

Since she couldn’t work the fields today, she tidied up the yard and the reclaimed land. In the countryside, there’s never idle time; it’s always full of chores.

Su Yuanyuan thought to herself, finding joy amidst the hardships, that in the future, she would be eating all-natural, pollution-free green food. Where could you find that in the future? Even in the countryside, pesticides would be used.

The vegetable seedlings in the yard had sprouted. There were no chives, nor any in her space; it would be great if she could buy them. Chives were her favorite food, and she thought of having dumplings with chive and egg today.

With nothing to do in the afternoon, she thought about taking the sheep out to graze? Then she could also dig up some wild vegetables. This ewe was indeed a great contributor.

No need to lead it, the ewe followed behind her, and two half-grown lambs followed behind the ewe.

Her impression was that there was a large wasteland to the northeast of the village, it would be good to graze the sheep there.

She met quite a few people along the way, but no one spoke to her.

Su Yuanyuan was indifferent; she had grown accustomed to being free and independent in her past life and was unwilling to interact with people. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with this. This time around, living like this was also fine.

She leisurely led the sheep to the wasteland. The dry grass here had probably been set on fire by mischievous children. Thus there wasn’t as much dry grass as Su Yuanyuan had imagined.

Su Yuanyuan patted the ewe next to her, "Look, there’s still a lot of fresh wild vegetables. You take them to eat, and I’ll go dig up some wild vegetables."

The ewe raised its head to look at Su Yuanyuan, bleated a few times, and then walked in.

Su Yuanyuan observed this area of wasteland; possibly due to geological changes, it used to be a mountain, as there were many rocks visible everywhere.

The wild vegetables were still very tender; even if she didn’t eat them, she could dry them to feed the sheep in the future.

Su Yuanyuan noticed two more children coming over, taller than her, suggesting they were older; they were also here to graze sheep.

Actually, the Sun siblings came here to graze sheep because they saw Su Yuanyuan doing so.

They were from the same village and knew each other, but they had never spoken.

This year Sun Hongying, eight years old, was the same age as Su Yuanyuan and also a girl, which made her relatively approachable. "Yuanyuan, I’m Sun Hongying from Sun Dazhuang’s family."

Su Yuanyuan didn’t expect someone would come up to talk to her, was momentarily stunned, then smiled a little, "I know, you’re the same age as me, but you’re older."

"That’s right. My brother and I were also planning to graze sheep and saw you heading this way. We thought it must be here, so we followed along.

Yuanyuan, why do you dig up all kinds of wild vegetables? This curved leaf vegetable isn’t tasty."

Regarding others’ kindness, Su Yuanyuan was willing to accept it.

"I’ll sort them out when I get back. The ones that aren’t tasty will be for the sheep; the good ones we’ll keep for ourselves. If there’s too much, we’ll dry it and eat it when there are no vegetables."

"If you want to dry them, it’s still a bit early now; the wild vegetables are too tender, and hardly anything will be left after drying."