On a winter afternoon, the sunlight was brilliant and warm, shining warmly on everything.

After taking a bath, Lin Guofeng and his family felt completely comfortable.

They had been on edge for several days, but today, finally, they felt relaxed.

So Lin Guofeng and his wife, Qian Aifen, decided to take a nap.

Hai Cai had been either sleeping or getting ready to sleep for the past few days, but now he was surprisingly lively.

Meeting three little friends, having a full belly, and getting cleaned up by his mother and putting on clean clothes, he felt full of energy.

“Mom, we’re going to play with Hai Cai,” said the three little friends happily.

When they had just left home, they often talked about Hai Cai and their friends from the old neighborhood.

Now that Hai Cai had finally arrived, they were so excited that they probably wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

Ning Shu didn’t object.

Although Hai Cai was sick, lying down all day wasn’t good for him.

But she reminded them, “No running or jumping, just walk slowly, okay? Otherwise, Hai Cai won’t feel well.

And Hai Cai, you should also be careful. Don’t run around with them. Get well soon so you can play properly.”

“Mom, we know,” Yibao and Erbao answered obediently, then happily went out.

Ning Shu could still hear the voice of the Erbao outside.

“Hai Cai, we have a piece of land here where we can earn money. Me and my brother, San Bao, have already earned two yuan. Now we’ve planted vegetables again.

When the vegetables are sold, we’ll have more money,” Erbao said incessantly.

Making money was their most active pursuit now.

“Wow, you guys are amazing,” Hai Cai said, his eyes gleaming.

He also wanted to earn money. “Do we need to go farm in a few years?”

“There’s no land now,” Erbao said. “Our land is already planted with vegetables. We have to wait for the vegetables to grow before we can farm again.”

Yi Bao nodded.

He was usually silent while Er Bao did the talking.

“We’ll take you to see our land, and then we’ll go to the nursery. The nursery is where we go to school, and there are many other kids there,” Er Bao said, then curiously asked, “Hai Cai, are you going to school?”

Hai Cai shook his head sadly. “No,” he said, sounding a little discouraged. “You’re all gone, so I have no one to play with.”

While the friends chatted, they had already arrived at the back gate of the family courtyard.

Yi Bao said to the soldier on duty, “Uncle Soldier, we’re going to see our land.”

The soldier smiled and said, “You kids are so diligent, go ahead.”

Yi Bao replied, “Thank you, Uncle Soldier.”

Then, they brought Hai Cai to their land.

The land here was divided into many plots. At a glance, they were all small pieces of land, each with a wooden sign bearing a name.

These were plots for the nursery children.

“Hai Cai, this is our land,” Yi Bao pointed to one of the plots.

The wooden sign had three names written on it by Teacher Jiang.

Hai Cai exclaimed, “You’ve planted a lot of Chinese cabbage, and they’ve all grown big.”

The children had planted low-maintenance vegetables that didn’t require much care.

“Yeah, when they grow a little more, we can sell them for money,” Yi Bao said excitedly, thinking about earning another two yuan.

“And here, this is our names,” Er Bao pointed to the names on the wooden sign. “But our names are too hard to write. I want to change my name.”

“What?” Hai Cai was surprised. “Can you really change your name?”

“Of course,” Er Bao said.

Hai Cai asked, “What name do you want to change to?” He looked at the names on the wooden sign, which seemed really difficult to write.

Er Bao grinned, “I’ll be called Lin Er. Let me tell you, ‘Er’ is easy to write. Just two horizontal lines.

Big Brother is Lin Yi, with just one horizontal line, and San Bao is Lin San, with three horizontal lines. Hai Cai, can you write your name?”

Hai Cai shook his head, “No, I haven’t been to school, so I don’t know how to write my name.”

Er Bao, clever as always, said, “Then you can change your name to Lin Si. I’ll teach you how to write it.”

“Okay, okay, how do you write Lin Si?” Hai Cai thought Lin Si sounded good, like he was really part of the Lin siblings.

Er Bao explained, “It’s our ‘Lin,’ plus four horizontal lines.” No problem.

One is one horizontal line, two is two horizontal lines, three is three horizontal lines, so four must be four horizontal lines.

Hai Cai nodded, “Then I’ll be called Lin Si.”

After spending some time at the land, the four children went to the nursery. “Hai Cai, this is our nursery, where we go to school.”

“Twins, why are you here so early?” Some children were already at the nursery, and when they saw the three brothers arrive, they ran over to play together.

“We brought Hai Cai to see. Hai Cai is our cousin and the same age as us.

When we were in our old neighborhood, we farmed together, collected firewood together, and even fought together.

“Er Bao introduced,” the assistant replied.

When the other children heard that Hai Cai was the cousin of the twins, they warmly greeted him, “Hello, I’ll also call you Hai Cai. I’m Zhang Yong.”

Hai Cai shyly replied, “Hello.”

Er Bao said, “Let’s call him Si Bao, he’s going to change his name to Lin Si later.”

Zhang Yong agreed, “Okay, okay.”

The three Bao brothers showed Hai Cai around their nursery, took him to see the Little Red Flowers, explained their significance, and then took him to the small park.

When it was time for class, they took Hai Cai to class with them.

Other children were curious about the unfamiliar newcomer.

When they heard he was from the twins’ family, they were all very enthusiastic.

As soon as Teacher Jiang entered the classroom, she saw Hai Cai and knew he was brought by the twins’ family members.

She welcomed him warmly.

Although Hai Cai wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t play at the nursery, he was still infected by the atmosphere seeing so many children playing together.

In the family courtyard, Lin Guofeng and Qian Aifen slept heavily during their nap, and when they woke up, it was almost dinner time.

These past few days, the couple hadn’t had a proper rest.

Firstly, they were burdened with worries, and secondly, they were afraid their son would suddenly develop a fever in the middle of the night.

Now that they were in the military compound and knew there was a clinic in the family courtyard, their minds were at ease.

They had slept quite deeply.

After they woke up and saw the unfamiliar room, they were puzzled for a moment.

“Did Third sister-in-law pay for today’s medical expenses?” Qian Aifen asked Lin Guofeng softly.

Lin Guofeng nodded, “I carried Hai Cai, so it’s all paid by sister-in-law. I’ll give the money to sister-in-law later.”

Qian Aifen nodded, “Hmm.”

Although she had some thoughts of currying favor with Ning Shu, hoping their children would have a better future, she never intended not to repay borrowed money or not to repay medical expenses.

“We brought over 100 yuan from our hometown and borrowed another 200 yuan. When we go back, we should first repay the money to our fellow villagers and give Sister-in-law some time to wait.”

Ordinary people were poor and couldn’t afford to get sick.

They had no choice.

“Yeah,” Lin Guofeng felt somewhat ashamed, “It’s my fault for not being able to make money. I have to borrow money even for our child’s medical expenses.”

“What are you saying? Whose family isn’t like this?” Qian Aifen didn’t think her husband was bad in any way. “After we go back, this money has to be repaid by the Zhuang family. The medical expenses for Hai Cai, the nutritional expenses, all have to be covered. We can’t just leave it like this.”

“What do you plan to do? Sister-in-law and Dad mentioned before that we could report it to the police. But… at Zhuang Xiaopang’s age…” Lin Guofeng’s voice trailed off.

“There’s also some hesitation,” she said. “What if we report this to the police?”

“Just report it to the police. It still needs to report it to the police, so be it. He brought this upon himself.”

Qian Aifen had no sympathy at all for such a crooked person.

Why sympathize with someone who can’t even walk the straight and narrow? If she sympathized with him, what would happen if he came back to harm their children next time?

The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. “We must report this to the police and preferably have him deal with the consequences even if his a child, For the sake of our children, don’t just act kindly.”

“I know, I know. ” Although Lin Guofeng may not have much of an opinion, he’s not a saint either.

If someone harms their own son like this, how could he sympathize? He’s just a villager, so he’s a bit embarrassed.

After talking for a while in the room, they went out.

After going out, they didn’t see Hai Cai, only Ning Shu was burning a stove in the yard, with something squatting in the pot on the stove.

Qian Aifen felt a little embarrassed, thinking that she had slept all afternoon. “Third sister, I’ve been too tired these past few days and overslept.”

Ning Shu understood them, “It’s okay, you also need to take care of yourselves. If Hai Cai isn’t well yet, what will you do if your own health deteriorates?”

Qian Aifen sat down beside her, “Third Sister-in-law Where did Hai Cai go? ” Usually, she wouldn’t pay so much attention to the child.

Now that the child is sick, she’s worried sick if she doesn’t see her.

“Yi Bao and Er Bao are taking care of Hai Cai at the nursery school.”

When they hadn’t woken up yet, Ning Shu didn’t see Hai Cai come back, so she went to the nursery to check on her, and the child seemed to be in good spirits.

Hearing her say this, Qian Aifen felt relieved.

She then chatted with Ning Shu, “Third sister, how is life with the army? Do you have to buy everything in this unit?”

Ning Shu replied, “Yes, but every household has a piece of land behind the mountain, not very big, just about three acres, where they can grow some vegetables.”

“That’s not bad, being able to grow some vegetables. It can save some money on weekdays.” Qian Aifen didn’t know what else to talk about, so she chatted casually for a few more sentences.

Lin Guofeng listened to their conversation, and since he had nothing to do, he saw that the water in the bucket was running low, so he went to the well to fetch water for Ning Shu.

This was a great help to Ning Shu.

Lin Guodong wasn’t there, so Ning Shu couldn’t fetch water by herself.

It was all about carrying one bucket at a time.

In addition to washing their bodies and feet every day, just carrying water was exhausting for her every day.

If she wasn’t afraid of having a bad influence, she would have gladly paid someone to fetch water.

Seeing Lin Guofeng go to fetch water, Qian Aifen picked up the clothes she had changed out of at noon and followed him to wash clothes.