Chapter 67: The reborn of paranoid boss cannon fodder wife
Chapter 67: She is Warm
In the dim light, Bai Lu's eyebrows slightly curved, a few strands of hair at her temples lifted by the wind, clear eyes shining like sunlight, carrying a warm smile. With a windproof straw hat, she swept through the cold wind, unstoppable as she crashed into his heart, holding back the temperature plunging into the abyss.
The dark clouds broke at dawn, and the sky cleared.
Golden sunlight bathed the earth, illuminating Bai Lu's figure, fingertips, clothes, and hair all radiating a halo.
Xiao Cheng's dark eyes were illuminated, and he lit a pair of candles in his hand, the red flame flickering. Despite the harsh wind, the flame remained unshaken, a fiery companion born in silence.
Xiao Wei, holding a just lit incense, looked at Bai Lu standing in the sunlight, lost in thought for a while.
Only when a pair of candles approached the grave did he come back to his senses, placing his incense in front of the grave.
Bai Lu also lit incense, and everyone remained silent, sweeping through the graves in silence.
Finally, they reached Xiao Wei's mother's grave.
After clearing the weeds and lighting incense...
Xiao Cheng did not leave immediately, as he did in previous years. Instead, he turned and walked outside the grave, stopping.
In front of the grave, Bai Lu touched the little one's head, gently guiding the trembling shoulders towards her.
Xiao Wei leaned against the warm waist surrounded by sunlight, hot tears silently falling.
The clothes around Bai Lu's waist were soaked, but she didn't take a step back, gently patting the little one's back.
In previous years, after lighting incense, everyone would leave without saying a word, leaving no one to mourn in front of the grave.
If Xiao Wei dared to cry, Xiao Cheng would turn and leave immediately, not waiting for half a second.
Today was different; even though he still wore a cold expression, he stayed outside the grave.
Even the faint sobbing sounds from the grave reached their ears: "...bought new clothes..." "Mom..." "Big brother and sister-in-law are very good to me..." The usual farewells were not spoken.
...
They arrived home by noon, and as they passed through the town, Xiao Cheng bought some cooked food. They could have a meal after returning home.
After lunch, Bai Lu took a small stool and a pair of pliers, sitting by the well in the courtyard, cutting snail tails.
Xiao Wei watched for a while, then also grabbed a pair of pliers and imitated her in cutting snail tails.
Tomorrow they would go to the countryside to buy chestnut boards. Xiao Cheng went to buy rice, not from Li Shuixian, but from a rice processing factory outside the town, driving a brick truck.
The factory owner not only offered Xiao Cheng the lowest market price but also invited him for tea, and they chatted happily.
Knowing that Xiao Cheng was not working under the big boss anymore, the rice boss half-jokingly suggested that Xiao Cheng become a supervisor in the factory. The work was easy, and there was money to be made.
In essence, the boss saw Xiao Cheng's ruthless reputation in the past and wanted him to intimidate the people under him.
Moreover, when the cooperative partner who sold rice abroad couldn't pay, Xiao Cheng was asked to collect the money.
The amount wasn't much, but there was plenty of work to do. In the end, Xiao Cheng returned to his old profession, making a living on the edge of the storm.
Xiao Cheng knew the boss's intentions, but he casually used the excuse of building a house to brush off the offer.
He casually mentioned the fluctuating prices in the city.
The rice boss immediately engaged him in a lively conversation.
There were a lot of rice fields outside the town, not far from the countryside. The rice processing factory owned by the rice boss was located here, making it convenient to shell the rice after harvesting. Once shelled, it was sold to the city. He had a good grasp of the market price of rice.
The conversation continued endlessly...
Bai Lu and Xiao Wei cut about three or four pounds of snails, and there were still many left in the basin, more than they could eat at once.
"How long will they survive?" Xiao Wei stared at the small creatures in the basin, asking straightforwardly.
"Without mud, they'll die in two or three days."
Bai Lu pursed her lips. "There are no snails for sale on the street. We could bring the ones from the countryside and sell them. However, the quantity is not large, and we won't earn much money. It's better to eat them ourselves. It not only fills our stomachs but also avoids waste."
Xiao Wei suspected she wanted to keep them for herself.
"I've got it!" Bai Lu's eyes brightened. "Let's raise the snails. We can eat them whenever we want in the future. Whenever we feel like it, we can catch and cook them."
Xiao Wei: "..."
"How do we raise them?"
"In the backyard vegetable garden, there's a small stream, right? Let's pour the snails into the stream. Upstream and downstream, we can set up bamboo poles at intervals to enclose them, letting them grow freely. When they are big enough, we can catch them and cook them."
Bai Lu seemed to have already envisioned the entire river of stir-fried snails waving at her, urging her to toss the pot quickly.
"Xiao Wei, help me scoop the snails into the sieve. I'll send them to the oil later... I mean, to the river!"
The small river in the backyard, a branch of the big river outside the town, was temporarily free from industrial pollution.
The river in the countryside and the small river in the backyard both appeared clear, so they should be able to support the snails.
Bai Lu, walking with excited little steps, quickly placed the cut snails back in the kitchen and returned the pliers to their original place.
Xiao Wei took a large and a small sieve, scooping all the snails out of the basin to drain the water.
After scooping, both of them took a sieve, carrying the remaining snails to the small river in the backyard.
"Boom, boom, boom," the sound of water echoed, and only then did they realize that they didn't seem to have any bamboo.
Bai Lu looked up and saw the big chestnut trees surrounding the vegetable garden... branches, thick and sturdy branches.
However, the chestnut trees had already started to bud, and at the latest, they would bloom next month. After blooming, in a few more months, all the nuts on the tree would be golden tickets.
They couldn't cut them down.
Moreover, cutting them down now seemed to harm the tree.
The firewood used for cooking in the kitchen was short, not even halfway into the river. The snails could escape.
Bai Lu was thinking hard about a solution when a small voice suddenly sounded next to her: "Wang Cuihua has bamboo."
"Two days before Qingming Festival, I saw Dashuang help her pull it back with a wooden cart. There is a bamboo forest by the river, and there are many dry bamboo there. Wang Cuihua goes there to cut dry bamboo to burn firewood."
Xiao Wei explained in detail.
As soon as the words were finished, a knocking sound came from outside the door.
Opening the door revealed it was Wang Cuihua.
Both Bai Lu and Xiao Wei were stunned, what a coincidence!
"Bai Lu, Xiao Cheng... Is Big Brother Xiao Cheng at home?" Wang Cuihua, covered in dust, her face still black and gray, as if she had just crawled out of the stove, stood at the door.
The address of "Big Brother" was used during the ancestral worship in the countryside. Wang Cuihua called him this once, and it happened to be heard by the little girls. They teased her in front of her, and she had to change it back to "Big Brother Xiao Cheng."
"What happened to you?" Bai Lu showed great concern for the bamboo tycoon's safety.
"It seems like the chimney is broken."
Wang Cuihua looked pitiful, her face showing a look of wanting to cry but holding back: "I originally planned to wash my hair with hot water. Suddenly, there was a loud noise from the roof. A lot of chimney bricks fell down. At that time, I had just lit the straw, and when I leaned over to the stove to blow on it, the ash inside all flew out..."
Bai Lu only noticed then that Wang Cuihua's lips were a bit swollen, probably burned by sparks.
A small tuft of bangs on her forehead had turned into curly hair due to burning.
Comments
Post a Comment