---

Chapter 29 – The Water Watchers

Back then, Zhou Yu was strolling leisurely while holding An’an when he accidentally discovered a wild hen. Inside its nest were eight eggs.

They stewed the hen that same day for everyone to share, but all the eggs were kept for An’an.

Now, only one was left.

Seeing how sweetly An’an was eating, Aunt Zhao couldn’t help but say to Qin Ying, “Once our days get better next year, we must raise a few chicks. No matter what, we can’t shortchange our little Anbao.”

“Mom, let’s raise two sheep as well,” Zhao Hu pleaded. “Sheep don’t need grain. If I gather two extra baskets of grass every day, it’ll be enough for them to eat through the winter.

“Our Anbao has to have some meat too! I heard the men say lamb is the most nourishing meat.”

Aunt Zhao gave a wry smile. “We’d have to afford it first! Do you know how much one sheep costs?”

Zhao Hu drooped his head in disappointment.

Qin Ying quickly said, “Mom, don’t worry. We’ll take things slowly. Now that we don’t have to worry about food and drink, we can think of other ways—we’ll definitely be able to make money.

“If it really comes to it, I could bring out those things…”

“Yingzi!” Aunt Zhao pressed down on her hand and frowned. “Don’t say that again! That’s the only memento your birth mother left you—it must be kept!”

“Mom,” Qin Ying gently held her hand in return and said softly, “My mother’s only wish before she passed was for me to live well.

“If she knew that what she left behind could be put to such good use, she’d definitely be happy.”

Still, Aunt Zhao didn’t agree. “No, girl, we’re not at that point yet. I asked Sister Zhong about it—she said the wealthy families in town love the little trinkets I make.

“Next time, I’ll make more and ask her to help sell them. That way we can make some money.

“Later, we can go up the mountain more often and gather wild goods to sell too.”

“Exactly!” Zhao Hu strongly agreed. “Sis, stop thinking about using those things. Just keep them safe.

“Now that we have food and water, and we’ve got our hands and feet—are we really afraid we can’t make a living?”

Qin Ying could only give up.

After the meal, she packed a small basket of dried mushrooms and asked Zhao Hu to deliver them to Granny Wang.

Then, she and Aunt Zhao began tinkering with the soil they brought back that had grown mushrooms before. Originally, they’d planned to bring back the wood where fungus grew too, but Aunt Zhao said that in years with heavy rainfall, fungus had also grown on the rotting wood behind the house. So Qin Ying gave up on that plan.

Qin Ying carefully sifted through the soil and said to Aunt Zhao, “Mom, do you think this is decayed leaves and pine needles? I did dig it up under a pine tree.”

“Hard to say,” Aunt Zhao pondered. “Look, those rotted leaves, grass, even millet stalks and bean vines—they’re all good fertilizer if thrown into the soil!”

They both figured the material they brought back wouldn’t be enough, so they collected some wood shavings, corn cobs, wheat bran, and so on—mixed everything together haphazardly. They added some ash and humus, then stirred it all thoroughly.

They also had Zhao Hu go chop some wooden troughs.

The weather was getting cold, so they couldn’t keep them outside. Zhao Hu still had room in his house, so he built a frame to hold the troughs. They evenly spread the mixed humus inside, watered it thoroughly, then carefully scattered mushroom spores, finishing with a thin layer of ash on top.

An’an sighed quietly on the side. This alone isn’t enough. Without sterilizing, it’s easy to breed bacteria and bugs…

So she planned to help out.

Just as she was about to act, she heard Aunt Zhao say to Qin Ying, “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Don’t worry about that, Mom,” Qin Ying remained calm. “We’re just trying it out.

“This sort of thing isn’t easy. We’re just ordinary folks—heaven won’t chase after us to hand out food.

“If it works, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll just figure out where we went wrong and improve bit by bit.

“Besides, now that it’s cold and we can’t go out, we’ve got nothing else to do anyway.”

Hearing this, Aunt Zhao relaxed too. “That’s right. Not to mention, we’ve got plenty of that rotted wood, corn cobs, and bran.”

Zhao Hu asked in his simple way, “Sis, should I make a few more wooden troughs? Once it gets colder, my hands might freeze, and I won’t be able to make them.”

“Sure,” Qin Ying laughed. “If you’ve got time, make a few more. We can place some in the main room and our room too. Even if we can’t grow mushrooms, we could grow scallions or garlic instead.”

Aunt Zhao chuckled. “Exactly! Back then we didn’t even dare to burn firewood in winter. But now we’ve got An’an—we have to keep the house nice and warm!

“No sense letting all that warm air go to waste, right?”

The three of them all burst into laughter.

An’an laughed along with them from the side.

After the laughter faded, Qin Ying stayed home to watch the child while Aunt Zhao and Zhao Hu went up the mountain to chop firewood again.

This time, they found that a new water pond had been dug at the village entrance, and a narrow but deep channel now wound down from the mountain.

Near the village well, the water-watching shack on the mountain had been turned into a half-mud, half-thatch house, with a fenced-in yard too.

Villagers Wang Ergou and Wang Tiezhu were drying mud bricks.

Seeing the Zhao mother and son arrive, they waved enthusiastically in greeting.

Aunt Zhao took the opportunity to ask about the water channel and pond.

“Ah!” Wang Ergou rubbed his hands and said with a smile, “Wasn’t it Ninth Uncle who said so? Now that the weather’s cold, with so many old folks and children in the village, carrying water becomes a real problem.

“Didn’t you folks dig a channel too when you went out to find water? Since we didn’t have much else to do lately, Ninth Uncle led us to dig this channel.

“Now we don’t have to run up the mountain just to fetch water.

“It’s getting colder by the day—if someone slipped and got hurt, that’d be real trouble.”

Zhao Hu quickly asked, “But if we don’t have to fetch water anymore, why are you two still living here?”

“You silly boy,” Wang Tiezhu flicked his forehead with a laugh. “This is our lifeline! If we don’t guard it, who will?

“Anyway, the two of us are both bachelors—we talked it over with Ninth Master, and we’ll be guarding the place all winter.”

Actually, they hadn’t always been bachelors. Wang Ergou’s wife and child had starved to death.

As for Wang Tiezhu, his parents, driven by hunger, secretly sold his wife to people in another village in exchange for two jin of cornmeal. Even after banging his head until it bled, he couldn’t find out where she’d been taken.

The drought continued. Those two jin of cornmeal didn’t last long. The elderly couple later secretly sold their grandson too.

From that point on, Wang Tiezhu refused to recognize his parents.

Uncle Chen Jiu made the decision to drive the couple out of Tongshu Village. No one knew what happened to them afterward.

Wang Ergou added, “The officials also come up every few days. They even gave us two broadswords.”

Wang Tiezhu ran back into the house and brought out two machetes. “We sharpen them every day! If any bastard dares to mess with our water supply, the two of us will fight them to the death!”

When the mother and son returned home, Qin Ying had already prepared the meal and was sewing new clothes for An’an.

An’an was asleep.

They left the firewood in the courtyard and dusted themselves off before entering. As they lifted the curtain, a wave of warmth hit them. Meeting each other’s eyes, both broke into a smile.

Though their home was small and simple, it was clean in every corner and filled with warmth.

---