Font Size:
After eating, Chu Yue went to the fields with Lu Xinghe.
Lu Xingping and Lu Xing’an, after washing the dishes, took their baskets and went around the edge of the forest to look for wild vegetables and medicinal herbs.
Yun Cuihe stayed at home, cutting cloth and sewing clothes, wanting to finish Chu Yue’s two sets of clothes as soon as possible.
When Chu Yue and Lu Xinghe arrived at their field, they found Lu Dagui patching up the dike, which was a rare display of diligence.
Seeing this, Chu Yue leaned close to Lu Xinghe and whispered, “Husband, how did you deal with him this morning?”
“Lu Dagui is afraid of his uncle. Yesterday, before I came home, I went to see the village head about this.” Lu Xinghe answered.
The village head had received wild boar meat from their family, so he was indebted to them. Moreover, this was Lu Dagui’s fault, so he had no reason not to stand by Lu Xinghe’s side.
Lu Dagui saw them from afar. He had been scolded by his uncle this morning and was still angry.
“Lu Xinghe, you have guts! You broke my water field and then had the nerve to complain about it first! You’re such a sneaky person.”
Lu Xinghe smiled nonchalantly, not wanting to stoop to his level.
But Chu Yue didn’t want Lu Xinghe to be bullied.
“You have the nerve to say that? If you hadn’t broken our dike to steal water, who would go and break your dike? I say, you deserve it!”
Lu Dagui angrily threw down his hoe. “Who are you to interfere in my business? Are the things your father did honorable?”
Lu Xinghe frowned in displeasure and pulled Chu Yue behind him.
“If you’re not satisfied, come at me. What kind of man are you, yelling at a woman like that?”
Chu Yue knew that her father’s theft of the pig would make the people of Banpo Village look down on her. But first she was scolded by Aunt Li, and now Lu Dagui was pointing his finger at her and scolding her. She felt a bit stifled inside.
She wasn’t the one who stole the pig. Why does everyone have to bring it up to her every time?
What made it even more infuriating was that her father had stolen the pig, and she had no way to defend herself.
Looking at the tall figure standing in front of her, Chu Yue suddenly felt less angry. She pulled on Lu Xinghe’s sleeve.
“Husband, let’s not waste time with this kind of person. Go fetch water to irrigate the fields. I’ll go pull weeds.”
Their family didn’t have much land. These two acres and three tenths of an acre of land were what Yun Cuihe had bought with her own savings before Lu Xinghe’s father disappeared. It took her six or seven years to save up enough for this little bit of land.
But thankfully, they had these two acres of land. Over the years, it had brought in some income for the family.
“Be careful. Call me if you need anything. The pond is not far from here.”
Lu Xinghe gave Chu Yue a warning and then carried his water bucket along the dike towards the pond.
Chu Yue took off her shoes on the dike and stepped into the muddy water, walking towards the middle of the field. Lu Xinghe had been working in the house and fields every day, so there weren’t many weeds around.
As she walked towards the middle, she occasionally saw a few water bamboo leaves. This was something she hadn’t expected.
Water bamboo leaves are tenacious and grow quickly. If they are not removed in time, they will seriously affect the growth of rice. But they also have a use: they can be eaten as a vegetable. They are very nutritious and have certain medicinal properties.
If it weren’t for her studying medicine in the past and learning about Chinese herbal medicine, she wouldn’t know these details.
Chu Yue hadn’t expected that accompanying Lu Xinghe to the fields would yield some rewards. Her spirits lifted, and she became even more engrossed in searching for water bamboo leaves, not noticing that Lu Dagui who had stepped in the mud stepped on her shoes and sullied her only pair of shoes before leaving.
When Lu Xinghe brought the water to the other side of the field, he saw that Chu Yue had already ventured into the middle of the waterlogged field.
He frowned slightly. “Yueyue, you don’t need to be so thorough. Be careful; there might be snakes in the field.”
Chu Yue waved her hand at Lu Xinghe but kept her eyes on the water, searching. “It’s fine. The snakes in the field are generally not very venomous. I’ll be careful.”
The snakes in the fields were usually water snakes, which were either mildly venomous or non-venomous. If bitten, all one had to do was squeeze out the blood and keep the wound dry to avoid infection; it wouldn’t be serious.
Although she was somewhat apprehensive about snakes, finding more wild vegetables to take home was more important.
Lu Xinghe shook his head helplessly, internally marveling at how bold this girl was. He poured the water from the bucket into the field and continued to fetch more.
Chu Yue searched in the field for about fifteen minutes and had already collected half of the water bamboo leaves and water plants. However, the large bundle in her arms was becoming difficult to hold.
She waded through the muddy field towards the direction where she had left her shoes, but after taking less than ten steps, she suddenly felt something hard under her foot.
The unexpected hard object made her freeze in place.
With a face full of anxiety, she looked down…
It was a turtle.
And not just any turtle; it was a sizable one.
As if realizing it had been stepped on, the turtle poked its head out and tried to bite Chu Yue. Startled, she let out a scream and quickly pulled out the water plants in her hands, shoving them into the turtle’s mouth to distract it.
The turtle, suddenly stuffed with a handful of grass, paused its movements for a moment.
Seeing this, Chu Yue quickly lifted her head to look for Lu Xinghe. He was walking towards her from the pond, having heard her scream, and quickened his pace.
“Husband, come quickly! I stepped on a turtle!”
Lu Xinghe, worried that the turtle might bite her, quickly put down the water bucket, took off his shoes, and ran towards Chu Yue.
“Stay away from that thing; don’t let it bite you.”
Fearing the turtle would escape, Chu Yue didn’t move. When Lu Xinghe reached her side in just a few steps, he saw that the turtle was still holding onto a large bunch of grass with its mouth, maintaining the posture as if it was about to bite.
He let out a sigh of relief, bent down to pick up the turtle, and weighed it in his hand. It was roughly about three pounds.
He then looked Chu Yue up and down.
“Are you okay?”
Chu Yue gazed at the turtle in Lu Xinghe’s hands, a hint of excitement on her face.
“I’m fine.”
Worried that the turtle would escape, Lu Xinghe poured out the water from the bucket, leaving only a little at the bottom. He then placed the turtle inside the bucket and joined Chu Yue in pulling weeds.
As for the water bamboo leaves, Lu Xinghe put them into another bucket.
With Lu Xinghe’s help, they quickly cleared the remaining half of the field of weeds.
As Chu Yue finished pulling the weeds and waded cautiously back towards the dike, the familiar sensation under her foot excited her once again.
To avoid getting bitten by the turtle, she firmly pressed it down into the mud and then looked up, shouting, “Husband, come quickly! There’s another turtle here!”