“Don’t scream, it’s me, Ah Jiao.”  

“Ha?”  

Yang Xiaoye didn’t react immediately. Who was Ah Jiao?  

The bushes rustled and a person emerged. A girl, older than Yang Xiaoye who is probably in her twenties.  

Most people around this age in the village were married, but Yang Xiaoye noticed that this girl still had her hair braided^[1]In traditional Chinese culture, unmarried young women often wore their hair in braids. Braiding was a symbol of youth and unmarried status. As women grew older or married, they usually changed their … Continue reading.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Ah Jiao.”

She was still talking in the same tone. When she got closer to Yang Xiaoye, she realized that this girl’s eyes were a little unfocused and she looked silly.

“Who is Ah Jiao?”

Yang Xiaoye asked again.

“Ah Jiao is Ah Jiao.”

The girl repeated it again.

Well, she really looks like a silly girl.

Yang Xiaoye felt relieved. There were also advantages to being a silly girl. As long as she wasn’t seen taking things from the space, it was good enough.

“So what is Ah Jiao doing behind the bushes?”

Yang Xiaoye asked casually.

“Eat. Ah Huai said that if we hide our food, it won’t be snatched away.”

The silly girl spoke very seriously and solemnly. It was obvious that she was very convinced of Ah Huai.

Yang Xiaoye didn’t know who this Ah Huai was, but she guessed that this elder sister was a little silly and her lunch was often snatched away, so ‘Ah Huai’ taught her to hide it and eat it secretly.

I don’t know which silly girl she is.

Yang Xiaoye looked at Ah Jiao carefully. Although she looked a little silly, her eyes were bright and her appearance wasn’t bad. She was just a little dark and thin, which was a typical sign of not having enough food.

“Ah Jiao, this is for you.”

Yang Xiaoye handed the bag in her hand to Ah Jiao.

She can’t eat it anyway and who knows who will eat it when she gets home, so it’s better to give it to this silly girl now.

Yang Xiaoye likes good-looking people, regardless of gender and she is naturally attracted to them.

“Give it to… to me.”

Ah Jiao seemed very surprised, but the way she swallowed her saliva revealed that she really wanted it.

“Well, I’ll give it to you, secretly. You can’t tell anyone, or they’ll snatch it away.”

Yang Xiaoye imitated Ah Jiao’s speech, trying to make her understand.

Ah Jiao seems to react slowly to other things, but she may be naturally sensitive to food.

As soon as she heard Yang Xiaoye speak, she nodded immediately.

Then she took the bag and started eating it in big mouthfuls.

Yang Xiaoye noticed that Ah Jiao’s food was just black flour cakes mixed with a little cornmeal. No wonder she was so greedy when she saw the yellow and white flour cakes.

“Eat slowly and don’t choke. They’re all yours. I won’t take them away from you.”

Yang Xiaoye found it a little funny.

Ah Jiao’s eyes brightened when she ate. She liked it.

After resting enough, Yang Xiaoye looked at the sun and knew that it would be really late if she didn’t work anymore.

There was no choice but to resign herself to putting on gloves and walking towards the field reluctantly step by step.

“Why are you… following me?”

Yang Xiaoye asked the silly girl Ah Jiao who was following behind her in confusion.

“I…I can’t eat for free.”

Ah Jiao tried hard to say something, but nothing came out.

“It’s okay. There’s no point in you following me.”

Yang Xiaoye patted Ah Jiao’s head in amusement.

“Help you, work and eat.”

Ah Jiao uttered a few words sporadically.

“You help me?”

Yang Xiaoye looked at Ah Jiao, who was not much stronger than her and did not believe it.

“Forget it, just do your own thing first.”

“Done!”

Speaking of this, Ah Jiao proudly pointed to the three ridges of land next to Yang Xiaoye.

“You did all this?”

Yang Xiaoye said in surprise.

She had noticed the situation next door before, but she came late and when she arrived, the house had already been turned over quite far away.

Yang Xiaoye only saw a back figure from a distance, but that did not stop her from paying attention to that side.

Because when Yang Xiaoye took only a small step, the neighbor had already finished turning over a ridge and when Yang Xiaoye wanted to give up for the first time, the neighbor had already turned over three ridges.

She was still sighing at the time, wondering who was such a skilled worker. She thought it was some middle-aged aunt, but unexpectedly it was Ah Jiao, who was as thin as her.

“Great!”

When Ah Jiao heard Yang Xiaoye praising her, she pointed to her hand proudly.

“Ah Jiao, this is beyond description.”

Yang Xiaoye sighed. Perhaps this silly girl is really a strong woman.

“Originally, all of them were mine.”

Ah Jiao pointed to the ground behind Yang Xiaoye.

“I don’t know why, but they won’t let me do it anymore.”

Oh!

Yang Xiaoye suddenly realized that the five ridges of land here had previously belonged to Ah Jiao and only after she came did two of them get allocated to her.

When Yang Xiaoye thought about the fact that Ah Jiao could turn over five ridges of land a day, she felt that she did not deserve to be alive.

“Okay, if you help me with the work, I’ll give you something delicious to eat. Delicious.”

Yang Xiaoye didn’t know whether Ah Jiao knew what the delicious food was, so she could only point at the wrapping paper.

Ah Jiao seemed to understand. Her eyes lit up and she picked up the hoe and went to work.

Yang Xiaoye was even more surprised to see Ah Jiao working with her own eyes.

The extremely hard ground seemed to turn into tofu in Ah Jiao’s hands.

It didn’t take long for her to finish flipping through the pages.

“Great job, Ah Jiao.”

Yang Xiaoye estimated that Wulongdi ^[2]a term used for a type of farmland seemed to be just Ah Jiao’s lowest level. If she worked hard, she could probably achieve even better results.

However, Ah Jiao worked on the three ridges in the morning for the whole morning, but how come she only finished the two ridges in the afternoon in a short time? There is such a big time difference.

Yang Xiaoye thought it must be her family, or maybe that ‘Ah Huai’ who taught her not to work hard and hide her incompetence.

When this silly girl heard that I gave her food, she exploded immediately and finished it quickly without hiding anything.

This Ah Huai is quite smart and Yang Xiaoye couldn’t help but feel a little curious about him.

“This is for you, secretly.”

Yang Xiaoye took out a homemade white steamed bun from the space, with a few slices of sausage from Yang Guoyao’s factory in the middle.

She handed one to Ah Jiao and ate one herself.

Yang Xiaoye had thought it through. It didn’t matter even if someone knew about it. The steamed buns and sausages were all preservable foods. It was normal for her to take some of these things when she came to the village carrying such a big bag.

As for why she didn’t give it to the Yang family, no one can interfere. She can give it to whoever she wants.

“This…this…”

Ah Jiao was stunned. She looked at the white steamed bun in her hand and didn’t dare to eat it.

There seemed to be such white cakes in her memory. When she was a child, she was pushed down and her head was broken. Since then, she has been a little silly and has forgotten a lot of things. But she still remembers that when her father was still alive, the family was not as poor as it is now and they could have enough food…

There seem to be soft cakes like this.

Ah Jiao lost her mind.

“Eat, what are you looking at?”

Seeing that she didn’t want to eat, Yang Xiaoye pushed her.

The soft steamed bun had already been deformed in Ah Jiao’s hands. When she came to her senses, she was shocked to see that the bun had been pinched like that by herself.

“I…I…”

“It’s okay to eat. If you help me with the work, I’ll give you food.”

Yang Xiaoye explained to her.

Ah Jiao couldn’t resist the charm of the white steamed bun and took a bite.

It tasted very sweet in her mouth, completely different from the cakes she usually ate.

The biscuits she usually ate were hard and irritated her throat, but this one was not like that.

The soft texture with a hint of sweetness and the stuff in the middle made Ah Jiao enjoy it to the fullest.

Once during Chinese New Year, her younger brother had brought home a small piece, claiming it was meat.

After it was cooked, she was given a small piece to try.

The taste was unforgettable. It’s the best thing she had ever eaten.

But now this meat is a hundred times, a thousand times more delicious than anything she had eaten before.

Ah Jiao ate uncontrollably, while Yang Xiaoye was very gentle. However, she was hungry as she hadn’t eaten for a day.

After pouring out a little more water from the spiritual spring, Yang Xiaoye felt that she was much less tired.

“Ah!”

Suddenly Ah Jiao screamed, which scared Yang Xiaoye.

“What’s wrong? Someone’s coming?”

Yang Xiaoye’s first reaction was that someone was coming.

Her side was at the edge of the field and there were seldom people coming, which was why she dared to let Ah Jiao help her with the work and eat lazily.

“There is none left…”

Ah Jiao looked at her hands with a frustrated look on her face.

“I’m done.”

“You scared me, so just eat it, it’s all for you anyway.”

Yang Xiaoye looked around and felt relieved only after making sure that there was no one around.

“Ah Huai, Ah Qiao, Ah Niang, no.”

As Ah Jiao spoke, she seemed like she was about to cry.

Yang Xiaoye understood. It turned out that Ah Jiao ate too fast and forgot to leave any food for her family. She was feeling guilty about it now.

“It’s okay. This is for you. Take it back and give it to them secretly.”

Yang Xiaoye did not forget to add “secretly.”

But she was not worried because based on the way Ah Jiao was protecting her food when it was snatched away, she would definitely be able to do it ‘secretly’.

Ah Huai should be the one who came up with the idea just now and Ah Qiao is probably her sister.

Yang Xiaoye thought, Ah Jiao has a pretty face and this Ah Qiao must be pretty too, so calling the two sisters Jiaoqiao is just right for their looks.

So she waved her hand and gave Ah Jiao another steamed bun with sausage in it.

Chen Yu steamed a lot of it overnight and told her to leave it frozen outside and just take it out and heat it up when she wanted to eat it.

Yang Xiaoye had space, so there was no need to freeze it. She could just take it out and eat it, which was very convenient. So she asked Chen Yu to steam a lot more, enough for her to eat for a while.

“Yeah, secretly.”

When Ah Jiao saw another plump white pancake coming, she happily wrapped it up in a bag and hid it in her arms.

Then she smiled and waved her big hand towards Yang Xiaoye, pointing at the two ridges of land she was holding.

“I’ll do it all!”

Yang Xiaoye felt amused. This silly girl wasn’t that silly after all.