Chapter 12

The two brothers were very diligent. When they saw their mother using a basket to gather small bok choy, they used their hands to carry them.

Small bok choy is light, similar to the later Hangzhou bok choy, where three heads make up a pound.

It’s called small bok choy because it’s not as round as big bok choy. You see, one head of big bok choy weighs about two to three pounds, with layers of leaves wrapped around it, while small bok choy leaves are not wrapped.

One head probably has only a dozen or so leaves. So, each of the brother could carry a bunch.

Ning Shu and the twins went in and out several times together to gather the hundred or so pounds of small bok choy.

Because small bok choy is light, the yield per mu is small, only about 300 pounds. However, the backyard’s foundation is only half a mu.

After subtracting the areas occupied by the few cucumber and pumpkin vines, most of the space is used to grow small bok choy.

Now that they’ve harvested over a hundred pounds, it’s estimated that those smaller ones could yield another twenty or thirty pounds when they grow bigger. But Ning Shu planned to keep those for their own consumption.

With the small bok choy gathered, Ning Shu carried the three children back to the house to sleep.

The Yi Bao , Er Bao and Lin Hai washed their hands in the yard, but Lin Hai couldn’t sit still. ” Yi Bao, Er Bao, let’s go play.”

Yi Bao and Er Bao also wanted to play. After pulling small bok choy for half an hour, they couldn’t sit still either.

But seeing Third Bao still sleeping, they couldn’t leave him with their mother. Even though their mother had given them meat and fruit today, they still didn’t trust her at all.

Yi Bao thought for a moment and said, “Er Bao, you go play. I’ll watch San Bao. You can come back after playing for a while. If San Bao wakes up, we’ll play together.”

“Okay, then I’ll go.” Er Bao was used to listening to his older brother’s arrangements.

Since his brother said so, he went to play with Lin Hai. Yi Bao watched as Er Bao and Lin Hai left, then returned to the room to watch over their little brother.

At that moment, Ning Shu was moving the small bok choy into the cellar. After finishing, she took out her phone and edited a photo: “Homegrown pesticide-free small bok choy.”

The app showed that there were 97 pounds. Ning Shu took out one pound and then divided the remaining 96 pounds into 48 portions, each priced at 12 yuan for 2 pounds.

Small bok choy in the market is usually around 8 yuan per pound, but she priced hers at 6 yuan per pound.

Once Ning Shu finished editing the price, she realized that small bok choy was more expensive than sweet potatoes.

But in this era, sweet potatoes were definitely more popular than small bok choy.

Sweet potatoes provided a stronger sense of fullness as a staple food, while small bok choy struggled to fill one’s stomach as a side dish.

So, could she exchange the one mu of sweet potatoes from her own land for small bok choy? After all, sweet potatoes cost only 4 yuan per pound, while small bok choy was priced at 6 yuan per pound.

Wouldn’t an extra two yuan per pound be better?

With this idea in mind, Ning Shu didn’t rush to take action. She needed to think about how to proceed.

Ning Shu went up from the cellar and found that there was no one in the yard. She noticed that the door to the three Baos’ room was open. As she approached, she saw Yi Bao and San Bao lying down, but Er Bao was missing.

It wasn’t because Ning Shu had particularly sharp eyesight that she recognized Yi Bao; it was because the clothes of the two brothers were different.

” Yi Bao, are you asleep?”

Yi Bao and San Bao were feeling drowsy lying together. Upon hearing their mother’s voice, Yi Bao weakly replied, “Not yet, Mom. Is there something you need?”

“No, nothing. I just noticed Er Bao wasn’t here. Do you know where he went?” Ning Shu asked.

“He went to play with Hai Cai,” Yi Bao answered.

Hearing this, Ning Shu didn’t inquire further. She hadn’t bathed for several days while traveling on the train, and today she had been busy in the backyard for half an hour, sweating profusely and feeling very uncomfortable.

So, she heated some water and took a bath first. After bathing, she felt comfortable, but washing her hair was troublesome.

The doctor had said that her wound couldn’t touch water for half a month. Whether she could wash her hair after removing the stitches depended on the situation.

It was still September, the tail end of summer, and if she didn’t wash her hair for half a month, she might get lice.

So she patiently avoided the wound and washed other parts of her body. After washing, she didn’t have a dry towel, so she used a cotton shirt that the previous owner had left because it was too small, to absorb the water.

Then she sat in the sunlight, using a fan to dry her hair.

Actually, after the whole morning, Ning Shu was already quite tired. Earlier, the drive to earn money had kept her going, but now that the products were on the shelves and she had cleaned up, she felt lazy and just wanted to sleep.

Using the fan to dry her hair, she couldn’t resist any longer and went to fetch a stool, then sat on it and leaned over to sleep on the bench.

This way, she perfectly avoided her head wound and could let her hair dry faster in the sunlight.

In the countryside, there are mountains everywhere, so children basically run around everywhere from a young age.

In the production brigade of Qinglin Bay, there were two places that everyone in the brigade liked to go to, regardless of age or gender.

One was the playground in the village committee compound, and the other was under the old tree at the village entrance.

The village committee compound consisted of three bungalows and four large warehouses.

The bungalows were the offices of the village cadres, and the warehouses were used to store grain, farm implements, and other items.

In front of the village committee compound was a large playground, where the whole village held meetings and distributed food during large events.

The ground of the playground was made of soil, but it was very flat and solid, probably because it had been trodden on by many people.

Even if it rained, there wouldn’t be any pits.

The reason why people liked the old tree at the village entrance was because there were several old trees planted there, and under the trees were many stones where people could sit and chat.

Even in the summer, it was a good place to cool off, as it provided shade from the sun and the trees swayed in the wind, bringing a breeze.

Er Bao and Lin Haicai roamed around after leaving home, and eventually went to play at the village entrance.

Along the way, they saw two kids and a woman comrade talking. It was after lunchtime, so the adults were resting at home, and only the kids who didn’t have to work had the energy to play outside.

“Little Mountain Brother, Little Stone Brother!” Seeing two little buddies they had played with before, Er Bao called out loudly.

In Qinglin Bay Production Brigade, Lin is a big surname, but there are no relatives within the Five Kinship system here.

It’s estimated that further up, it might be a large family. However, there’s no family genealogy or ancestral hall here, so no one knows what happened in the past generations.

Also, there’s no rule here that people of the same surname can’t marry each other. But it’s rare to see girls from one family marrying boys from the same village.

Lin Xiaoshan and Lin Xiaoshi are a pair of brothers. They are older than Er Bao and Hai Cai.

The elder brother, Lin Xiaoshan, is eight years old this year, and the younger brother, Lin Xiaoshi, is six.

There are no men in their family. Their father passed away early, and although their family hasn’t split, because only their mother works, they are the ones who eat the least at home.

But Lin Xiaoshan is clever and often cooks up small things with his brother. When wild fruits ripen, vegetables can be picked, and there are eggs in the bird nests, you can always see the two brothers’ figures.

When they heard Er Bao’s voice, Lin Xiaoshan and Lin Xiaoshi both called out, “Er Bao, Hai Cai.”

Er Bao and Lin Hai Cai walked over and found that the woman comrade was a sent-down youth from the village.

They didn’t know her name because they usually didn’t play with the sent-down youths, so how would they know? The reason they knew she was a sent-down youth was firstly because she was from the village, and they had seen her a few times, and secondly, when the sent-down youths came to the village, they, these children, were curious, so they often went to the gate of the sent-down youth compound to look.

“What are you doing?” Er Bao asked.

Lin Xiaoshan and Lin Xiaoshi looked at the woman comrade without speaking, but the woman comrade said, “Do you two want to eat candy?”

“I want to eat,” Er Bao answered without hesitation. There’s no such thing as a child who doesn’t want to eat candy.

“I want to eat too,” seeing Er Bao’s response, Lin Hai Cai also honestly said.

“In that case, I’ll give you each a candy. Can you help me collect firewood for a day?” The female sent-down youth was called Qin Ya, and she had just arrived in the village not long ago.

In their sent-down youth compound, collecting firewood was a shared responsibility.

When it was Qin Ya’s turn before, she used to go and collect firewood herself. However, one time when she went to collect firewood, she encountered a snake. Since then, she no longer dared to go up the mountain when it was hot.

At first, she used to offer something to another female sent-down youth to help her collect firewood.

But now, she had a falling out with that girl, so she came to ask for help from the children in the village.

She happened to meet Xiaoshan and Xiaoshi. She had just been talking to these two children when Er Niu and Lin Hai Cai arrived.

“Miss Qin Ya, since you called Er Bao and Hai Cai, do you still need us to collect firewood?” Seeing this, Lin Xiaoshan quickly asked, afraid that Qin Ya wouldn’t need them anymore.

He still wanted to earn candy.

“Yes, I do. You brothers are still young, and just the two of you won’t be able to collect much. It’s just right to have these two kids join you,” Qin Ya replied. It was her first time asking the children in the village for help, and she didn’t know if these children were capable.

When she went up the mountain to collect firewood before, she saw Lin Xiaoshan and his brother collecting firewood and digging wild vegetables, so she asked them. However, she didn’t mind having more help with the firewood, as she didn’t just have one turn to collect it in the sent-down youth compound.

By collecting more firewood this time, she could save some for the next time.

Er Bao’s eyes lit up when he heard this. “Miss Qin Ya, I have a brother at home. Can I call him too?” He wanted to bring his brother along so that his brother could also have a piece of candy.

With the three of them brothers sharing, they would have more candy to eat.

“Of course you can.” Qin Ya’s family was not poor. She had no choice but to follow the policy of being sent down to the countryside, so her family had given her a considerable amount of money and sent her money every month.

The fruit candies she had bought a few days ago when she went to the cooperative store were quite a lot. She didn’t like to eat them often and occasionally used them to make candy water, so she didn’t mind having more children to help collect firewood.

“I’ll go call my brother now, sister, wait for me,” Er Bao said and hurried back home to get someone.

Ning Shu had just fallen asleep when she was awakened by Er Bao’s shouting.

As Er Bao ran into the yard, he shouted loudly, “Brother… Brother, wake up, there’s candy to eat!” He rushed in without noticing his mother sleeping under the eaves and went straight into his own room. “Brother, wake up!” he called out, shaking his brother.

Yi Bao, still drowsy, opened his eyes and rubbed them with his small hands. “Er Bao, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Brother, a sent-down youth sister wants us to help her collect firewood. She’ll give us a candy for a day’s work. I’ve come to call you to go together,” Er Bao explained.

Yi Bao, upon hearing this, immediately woke up completely. He widened his eyes and exclaimed, “Really?”

“Yes, it’s true. Xiaoshan, Xiaoshi, and Hai Cai are waiting for us at the village entrance. Hurry, if we go late, other kids might beat us to it,” Er Bao urged.

Yi Bao quickly got out of bed and quickly put on his shoes. But as he finished putting on his shoes, he remembered something. “What about San Bao? What if he wakes up while we’re out collecting firewood?”