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Wen Chun quickly closed the fence door of the vegetable garden and ran to the room to get chicken feed.
The food that Wen Jiajia had sent from her hometown had arrived a long time ago. Not only did it fill up the rice jar, but there were also several bags left in the utility room.
The chicks were small at that time, so Wen Jiajia had given Wen Chun two handfuls of corn crumbs to feed them.
Corn crumbs alone were definitely not enough, so leftover vegetable leaves were also thrown to the chickens every day.
In addition, the chickens could find their own food, so some of them grew faster than chickens of the same age in other households.
Wen Chun grabbed two handfuls of corn crumbs, and a few chickens started to cluck around her like spirits.
“Eat, eat.” Wen Chun scattered the corn crumbs on the bluestone slabs in the yard, and the chickens immediately started pecking at them.
Only…
“Huh?”
Wen Chun rubbed her eyes, looked carefully again, and then pointed at the chickens with her index finger.
“One, two, three.”
Why are there only three?
Wen Chun suddenly became anxious and ran into the house, shouting as she ran, “Oh no, Auntie, one of our chickens is missing.”
Wen Jiajia immediately poked her head out from the kitchen, widened her eyes, and asked, “One is missing?” She looked at the chickens eating the corn crumbs, and sure enough, there were only three.
Wen Chun was so anxious that she was about to cry. “Did it run away secretly? Or was it captured and eaten by someone?”
Wen Jiajia hurriedly said, “No, I counted them yesterday.”
She wiped her hands on her apron, then hurried to the yard and walked towards the chicken coop.
Wen Jiajia had a vague guess.
The next second, sure enough!
The chicken had died in the chicken coop.
Wen Jiajia covered her chest with her hands, feeling extremely sad. If she had known earlier…
She should have cooked this chicken sooner!
Now she didn’t know how the chicken had died. Wen Jiajia worried that it might be sick.
But the other three chickens were full of energy, so they were probably not sick. They might have been scared to death by the hail, the storm, and the rain last night.
It’s one thing for rabbits to be frightened to death easily, but she hadn’t expected chickens to be so susceptible.
Wen Jiajia took out the chicken with tongs, and Wen Chun burst into tears.
“Aunt, what should I do?” she asked.
Wen Jiajia spread her hands and said, “Auntie, there’s nothing I can do. It’s dead, not sick. If it’s dead, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Wen Chun sobbed, her eyelashes wet and sticking together, and her sad mood was about to affect Wen Xuan.
Wen Jiajia thought she would comfort her for a while, but a few seconds later, the girl sobbed and asked, “Auntie, can we eat the chicken now?”
Wen Jiajia: “We need to see if it’s still good.”
The temperature hadn’t been very high last night, so maybe it was still edible.
Wen Jiajia thought to herself that Wen Chun’s mentality had changed quickly, and she felt she had to move fast; otherwise, the chicken would start to stink.
She ran to boil water, and fortunately, the charcoal fire in the stove was still burning.
“Chun’er and Xuanxuan, I won’t see you off. Why don’t you go to school with Xiaoyi today?” Wen Jiajia asked.
Wen Chun and Wen Xuan nodded. Before leaving, Wen Xuan hugged Wen Jiajia’s thigh and said, “Aunt, please save a chicken wing for me.”
Wen Jiajia nodded absently.
This unfortunate child probably eats too much meat. When eating chicken, she doesn’t like chicken legs and prefers gnawing on chicken wings instead.
After the two sisters left, the yard suddenly became quiet.
The fire in the stove crackled, steam rose, and the water in the pot began to boil.
You have to open up the chicken to know whether it is edible.
After plucking the feathers, she cut open the chicken’s belly with a machete, and Wen Jiajia went closer to sniff it.
Fortunately, it wasn’t spoiled.
The chicken was so stiff that it looked scary.
If it had been in her previous life, she would definitely not have eaten it, but now she was poor, and Wen Jiajia would feel really sad if she simply threw it away.
Besides, these were chickens that died from fright. Some families even eat chickens that died from illness.
The chicken was small, and the meat was tender.
Wen Jiajia thought about it and decided not to boil it. She planned to make fried chicken instead.
To make fried chicken, you need to marinate the chicken first.
Wen Jiajia didn’t have any quick seasonings like Orleans powder or marinated chicken powder. She only used scallion and ginger water, five-spice powder, onion rice wine, and salt for marinating.
There wasn’t much five-spice powder, so Wen Jiajia sprinkled it carefully, not daring to use too much. She had pounded it with great difficulty, and it was very precious.
The chicken was marinated in a pot. Wen Jiajia looked at her watch. It was not yet eight o’clock.
Shen Xunzhen had classes today, so Wen Jiajia did not go to look for her. Instead, she carried a backpack and her small flower hoe to the vegetable field.
It was a long way to walk from Beishan to the family housing area.
It was exactly eight o’clock when Wen Jiajia set out, and it was already eight-fifteen when she arrived at the family building.
There are five residential buildings in total, each four stories high. Looking up at the buildings, she saw clothes hanging densely in the corridors.
These were the clothes that had gotten wet yesterday. There was no room for them in the drying yard downstairs, so they had to be hung in the corridor to dry.
The family area was very lively, with many children running around in the drying yard downstairs, weaving in and out of the clothes.
The aunties upstairs were scolding, and while scolding, they were worried about knocking their clothes down.
In fact, most—no, the vast majority—of military dependents do not have jobs.
They can only stay at home, occasionally taking on some work making matchboxes or insoles, earning two or three yuan a month or so to supplement the family income.
Don’t think that all military families are rich.
It’s rare to find someone like Wei Dai who manages to save money before getting married.
One reason is that Wei Dai is the third child in his family and doesn’t need his “eldest brother-like-a-father” to earn extra money to support the family.
Secondly, because Wei Dai’s parents were not very reliable, he didn’t dare give them any money. As a result, he had saved up two thousand yuan after joining the army for several years.
Thinking of this, Wen Jiajia couldn’t help but wonder. She still didn’t understand where Wei Dai earned his extra money. He must have earned some extra money; otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to save 2,000!
Most soldiers have large families to support—wives, children, parents, and sometimes even siblings.
By the end of the month, it would be considered good if they could save five yuan.
“Is this Wei Dai’s family?” someone asked as Wen Jiajia approached.
Before Wen Jiajia could answer, someone nearby said, “Yes, Wei Dai brought them here last year. You didn’t know because you went back to your hometown.”
Wen Jiajia smiled and greeted everyone one by one.
In fact, the family members in the family quarters also have their own “groups,” and they don’t easily accept people like Wen Jiajia.
One reason is that her home is far away, in Beishan.
She seldom goes out, so who would be willing to travel a long way just to chat with her?
Then there’s her silence.
Yes, she is taciturn. Even though she says hello, she doesn’t like to chat. In the eyes of her family members, this can seem a bit aloof.
Some petty-minded people might wonder behind Wen Jiajia’s back whether she looks down on them.
If Wen Jiajia knew this, she would definitely shout, “I am innocent!”
God knows she never thought she would be associated with the word “quiet.”
The family members were generally “wild,” and sometimes their conversations were beyond her imagination. The family building was not soundproof; you could hear the couples’ intimate moments in the middle of the night. They didn’t mind discussing dirty jokes or anything else. Wen Jiajia never dared join them again after overhearing it once.
If she really listened for a few days, she would be able to write explicit stories.
When they didn’t tell dirty jokes, they just talked about family matters. Wen Jiajia was willing to listen, but if you didn’t share some gossip they were familiar with, they wouldn’t engage with you.
They feared that you might spread the gossip they said behind their backs!
But it’s not true that they dislike Wen Jiajia.
After all, there was no friction, and she greeted everyone with a smile every time they met. How could anyone truly hate her?
Wen Jiajia did the same today. She smiled, said hello, and then went up the mountain.
The aunt who had returned from her hometown secretly felt sorry for her and whispered to those around her, “Did Wei Dai’s parents help him get married?”
“How could that be possible? Do you think it’s the same?”
No. She is young, energetic, and good-looking. It seems the man found her himself.
She sighed, “What a pity. I wanted to introduce my niece from my mother’s family to Wei Dai.”
Wei Dai’s appearance aligns with the aesthetics of women in this era, and now he is a company commander, so who knows when he might be promoted. Unlike in his hometown, in the army, he is definitely a hot commodity in the marriage market.
“If you ask me, Xiao Wenren is a nice girl—generous and honest. The girls from Beishan Bao all say she’s a good person, but she doesn’t like to interact with people from our family compound…”
As she spoke, Wen Jiajia turned a corner and disappeared from view.
The vegetable garden is on the back mountain of the residential area, and one must climb a mountain road to reach it.
The mountain road is easy to climb, as people have trampled out steps. Even if the road is slippery after rain, you can still climb up to the vegetable field by grabbing onto the small trees along the way.
The vegetable field slope has been cultivated into terraced shapes.
Wen Jiajia arrived at the vegetable field on the third step from the top, took out the hoe from her backpack, and began to dig out the vegetables that had been smashed by the hail.
These vegetables can be made into a dish if cleaned up, but if left like this, they will rot in two days.
Wei Dai had planted eggplants, beans, and different varieties of cabbage in the fields.
Wen Jiajia didn’t know the specific scientific names, so she simply referred to them as cabbage.
After cleaning up the vegetable patch, she went to the uncultivated slope on the other side to pick some wild vegetables.
In fact, family members in the compound don’t like to pick vegetables here. There aren’t many, and you might not even get enough for a dish after picking for half a day.
They prefer to go to the mountains outside the army. Although the nearby villagers are not very happy about it, they don’t drive them away.
Just kidding—because there are troops stationed here, thefts still occur nearby, but there are no more village tyrants or bullies, and even kidnappers dare not come here.
The family members also reciprocate the favor. They have tickets, and when they occasionally need to buy chickens, ducks, and eggs, they ask the villagers to buy them privately, benefiting everyone.
The rain last night made the shepherd’s purse grow taller.
In Wen Jiajia’s hometown, shepherd’s purse is eaten in March. It’s colder there, and you only see it in large quantities in April.
Wen Jiajia picked the tender ones, and after half an hour of picking, she had barely enough to cover the bottom of the basket.
That’s enough, she thought. She was going to use it to make shepherd’s purse wontons.
Then there is Chinese toon, which has brownish-red leaves and is a tree vegetable that is delicious when fried with eggs.
Because Wen Jiajia came early today, she was able to see the Chinese toon trees, as they would have been picked long ago otherwise.
The sound of picking Chinese toon is crisp. After picking those on the ground, she climbed up to pick more.
Because the tree was slippery, Wen Jiajia took a lot of effort to reach the top of the tree.
She grunted and hugged the tree trunk tightly.
Fearing she might fall, she raised her feet and carefully maneuvered herself onto a sturdy branch.
Wen Jiajia let out a breath, wiped the sweat off her face, and reached out to start picking.
There were many Chinese toon trees, enough to fry two plates of eggs. She was very happy.
Only…
She moved, and she moved again.
Wen Jiajia was horrified to find that she couldn’t move at the moment.
The tree was slippery, and she couldn’t find a foothold to free herself from the branch.
“Damn it!”
***
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