But Dong Qi was rewarded for her outsourcing work this time. Director Xue was very optimistic about this hardworking girl and recommended her to the Medical Glass Company. However, she couldn’t be a formal employee yet, only a temporary worker.

But Dong Qi had no shortage of money, and it didn’t matter to her whether she was a regular worker or a part-time worker, as long as she had a job that kept her from going to the countryside.

Busy at work and busy at home.

Wen Jiajia had been busy teaching Wen Chun recently. She was teaching her to recognize numbers, and if all went well, she would teach her some common characters.

You can’t go to primary school and not be able to write your own name.

After returning from school that evening, Wen Chun stood at the door of her house, hesitating, taking one step forward and two steps back, not wanting to go in.

“Chun’er, what are you doing?” Xie Yi asked her curiously while licking the popsicle he just bought. “Aren’t you going home to listen to the radio? Today is Saturday, and there will be new stories on the radio.”

Wen Chun sat on the threshold of Xie’s house, with her head hung, not wanting to speak.

Wen Xuan poked her head out from her yard and said, “Because my sister doesn’t want to study.”

As she said that, she took a bite of the watermelon, then lifted the watermelon and shook it happily. “Sister, aren’t you coming to eat? Auntie is cutting the watermelon.”

Wen Chun, angry, had tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t want to write numbers anymore. You have to leave two slices of watermelon for me and don’t eat them all.”

Xie Yi exclaimed in surprise, “You’ve just started writing numbers? My mom has already made me memorize the multiplication table.”

Wen Chun was about to cry, sniffing and asking, “Hey, what is the multiplication table?”

“Yes, yes… Well, you’ll know once you learn it. It’s harder than writing numbers anyway.”

Wen Chun’s eyes widened, and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “It’s so hard to write numbers!”

Xie Yi, a clean little boy, quickly moved aside when he saw the snot on her hand. “Chun’er, you’d better go back quickly. If Aunt Wen gets angry, she will definitely ask you to write more numbers. Everyone has to study. If you don’t, you’ll be the last in the class. Do you know what the last is? It means the one with the worst grades.”

Wen Chun was not fooled. “If I don’t learn, and no one else learns, then how come I am the last one?”

Xie Yi replied, “How do you know that other people don’t learn? I learned it. I even learned addition and subtraction. When the time comes, I will have better grades than you, and the teacher will definitely choose me as the class monitor.”

Wen Chun sniffed again. She was very strong-willed. “No way. I’m the team leader now.”

After saying that, she ran back home. Wen Jiajia saw the snot on her face and quickly moved away. “Go, wash your hands and face first, then come and eat watermelon.”

Wen Chun obeyed. After washing, she picked up a piece of watermelon and bit it hard. While eating, she hid in the yard, for fear that she would be caught by her aunt and forced to write numbers.

Wen Jiajia was too busy to take care of her at the moment. Wei Dai had been coming home late recently, so she had to cook dinner every day.

She was lucky today. She bought four pieces of tender tofu from Master He when she got off work. Wen Jiajia fried and braised them, but some of the tofu broke because it was not fried well.

But it didn’t matter because tofu would be mashed when eaten with rice.

Next, she fried another dish, red amaranth.

Red amaranth is only edible now because it becomes old when the weather gets a little colder.

But it can grow everywhere. Wen Jiajia found a lot of red amaranth nearby last year. This year, she picked the newly grown amaranth. Amaranth is very tender and is delicious whether stir-fried, cooked into soup, or cooked into noodles or rice noodles.

However, it is said that this contains high oxalic acid^[1]When consumed in large quantities, can pose health risks.. Wen Jiajia heard about it in her previous life but never checked if it was true or not. To be on the safe side, she blanches it in water before eating it these days.

In the middle of summer, no one likes greasy food, so even without meat, Wen Jiajia and the two girls enjoyed the meal.

After the meal, each person was given a bowl of soft-cooked mung bean soup.

“Is it sweet? I put two spoonfuls of honey in it,” Wen Jiajia asked as she put down the bowl.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan nodded. “So sweet!”

After they finished drinking, Wen Jiajia said, “Take your clothes and go take a shower. I’ll fetch you some water.”

When Wen Chun heard this, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief because her aunt didn’t ask her to write any numbers.

Maybe my aunt forgot?

Thinking of this, Wen Chun’s pace quickened as she returned to her room, and her whole body seemed to become enthusiastic in an instant.

Wen Jiajia’s eyes were meaningful.

Humph, you still want to hide!

Once she finishes all the housework, she will have plenty of time.

The two children went to take a bath while Wen Jiajia washed dishes in the kitchen.

If Wen Chun and Wen Xuan take a bath by themselves, it usually takes a long time.

Children love to play with water. It was summer and their home was theirs, so Wen Jiajia ignored them. After washing the dishes, she went to wash the two sisters’ clothes first.

They are particularly good at dressing themselves, perhaps because they know that there is no shortage of fabrics at home, so they usually don’t take care of the clothes they wear.

Wen Jiajia had no idea how many times she had mended their clothes. The last time she had mended them was a month ago, and now she saw that the threads were unraveling again.

Wen Jiajia stood up and said to the two of them, “You climbed trees again today!”

“No, not at all,” Wen Xuan said.

“Chun’er, why are your sleeves torn? Xuanxuan, your pants are torn! Luckily, they’re not torn on your butt, otherwise your butt would be exposed.”

Wen Chun said loudly, “Mine was torn when I was playing the spinning game.”

The sound was not false; it seemed real.

“Wen Xuan, what about you?”

“I, I… it broke on its own. I don’t know when it broke.”

Wen Xuan felt very wronged. She didn’t even jump rope today, so how come her pants were torn?

“Clothes and pants are too old, so they’re easy to tear,” Teacher Shen came in with a basket of corn. “I just picked them. They’re very tender and can be eaten raw.”

Wen Jiajia stood up and took it, “Oh, I like to eat this, it tastes so good when roasted.”

“It tastes good when cooked, and the water is sweet after cooking. Drinking it can lower blood pressure,” Teacher Shen said. “I’m washing clothes.”

Wen Jiajia nodded and showed her the torn part, “Look, these clothes were just sewn last month!”

After thinking for a moment, she said, “But you are right, this dress is indeed a bit old.”

These were clothes left by the original owner’s parents and sister that were altered for the two sisters to wear. She tore them with force, and with a “sizzle” sound, a small hole was torn in the clothes.

“…”

Well, she was wrongly accused.

Teacher Shen said, “I heard from Mr. Wang in the logistics department that you are going to be transferred to the newly opened medical glass factory?”

“Yes! But how did Lao Wang know?”

She didn’t remember telling Lao Wang about this.

Teacher Shen smiled and said, “If there are any changes in your unit, he will be the first to know.”

Wen Jiajia really didn’t know about this, “It turns out that we have no secrets from Lao Wang.”

Then she realized, “Could it be that my relationship with the company has been changed?”

That’s not right. The factory didn’t tell her.

As the sky gradually darkened, Wen Chun couldn’t avoid studying and was taken to the room by Wen Jiajia.

There are many mosquitoes when the weather is hot. Her house is close to the mountains and water, so there are even more mosquitoes.

“Auntie, please light the mosquito coils^[2]is a spiral-shaped incense that is burned to repel mosquitoes..”

Wen Chun was scratching her arms and twisting her butt. Three minutes ago, she was shouting for water, two minutes ago, she was hungry, and now she was swatting mosquitoes and scratching her itch.

Wen Jiajia leaned over to take a look and saw that the number was not even three.

“There is no mosquito coil at home,” Wen Jiajia said, but there is a way. Wen Jiajia opened the mosquito net and got out of bed, walked to the desk, opened the drawer, and took out the ointment made of wormwood essential oil^[3]is made from the wormwood plant and has a strong, bitter smell..

“What is this?” Wen Chun asked curiously.

Wen Jiajia straightened her head and said, “Why are you talking so much when you write your words?”

Wen Chun pouted and wrote with great effort, stroke by stroke.

The ointment comes in a clam shell, which you open and rub with your fingertips onto the exposed skin.

For example, the ankles, arms, neck, and behind the ears.

“Hahahaha, it’s so cold, icy cold!” Wen Chun was so itchy that she kept hiding, “Auntie, what is this?”

“Wormwood balm with some peppermint essential oil.”

The reason why Wen Jiajia used essential oils so blatantly was that she worked in a pharmaceutical factory. It was normal for a pharmaceutical factory to have a set of essential oil extraction equipment.

After she goes to the medical glass factory, maybe she can privately purchase a small set of essential oil extraction equipment.

“It feels so comfortable when I apply it to the bitten area.” Wen Jiajia shook her legs, creating airflow, making the area where the medicine was applied cooler.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Wen Jiajia put away the ointment and glanced at her watch. “It’s half past seven now. If you haven’t written ‘ten’ by eight o’clock, you’ll be beaten.”

The plan was exposed, and Wen Chun sighed.

“Aunt, I have one last question for you.” After a few minutes, she suddenly turned around and said,

“Go ahead.”

“Xuanxuan, don’t you want to apply the cooling ointment?”

Wen Jiajia: “… Wen Chun, I really have to bring in the bamboo whip. Are you going to write it or not? If not, I’ll spank you ten times.”

Wen Xuan from next door had already curled up in bed to read comic books, and the mosquitoes were nowhere to be found when the mosquito net was opened. It was obvious that Wen Chun wanted her to go to the next room so that she could sneak away.

Wen Chun quickly picked up the pencil and said, “I won’t dare to do it again.”

Wen Jiajia stared at her seriously for a while before slowly retracting her gaze and continuing to read the book she had found at the scrap collection station.

She often goes to scrap recycling stations and has a good relationship with several employees there.

How good is it? So good that she doesn’t need to check when buying books; she can just weigh them.

At that time, there were many books in the scrap collection station. Although most of them were torn into pieces, you could always find a few that had escaped the net—books that were still well-preserved and could at least be read smoothly.

There are many foreign books among them, such as “Anna Karenina” and “La Dame aux Camélias.” Wen Jiajia had never read these two masterpieces carefully in her previous life, but she had watched the movies four or five times. In this life, without the interference of electronic products, she was able to calm down and read them.

However, these two books can be said to be banned books nowadays. If they are discovered, they will be directly loaded onto trucks and taken to farms for reform. Don’t think this is alarmist. Someone in the pharmaceutical factory was fired for reading foreign novels. Therefore, Wen Jiajia had to be extra careful.

She specially installed a box under the bed to store books, and it could be put into the box. This box was like a rib frame, and even if someone crawled under the bed to look, they wouldn’t easily find the secret.

Besides, she usually only accessed the bedroom and locked the door when she did so, so she wasn’t afraid of being discovered.

Half an hour later, Wen Jiajia quietly stood up and walked to Wen Chun’s side.

Wen Chun was drawing at the moment, sketching flowers on paper with a pencil. It actually looked quite good.

“Have you finished writing?” she asked.

Wen Chun nodded vigorously and turned to the previous page. Wen Jiajia checked it carefully before letting her go.

The writing was satisfactory and not an attempt to deceive. It was clear that Wen Chun could write when she wanted to, but just didn’t want to before.

It seemed that the bamboo whip was still a strong deterrent.