Chapter 2

Hearing Old Lady Xu urging them, the two of them had to end the conversation, take turns going to the bathroom, and then go back.

Entering the yard, the eldest son’s wife, Bai Jinfeng, was waving a broom to sweep the floor, while Old Mrs. Xu was supervising with a droopy face and a frown on her face.

Seeing Ning Jia and An Ye reluctantly entering the yard, his face turned darker than the bottom of a pot: “Come out? I thought you two were going to discuss settling down in the toilet!”

“She stole the toilet from me! You can scold her instead of me!” Ning Jia rolled his eyes.

“Whoever grabs it first owns it!” An Ye replied.

“That’s enough! Three fights a day! There’s no peace at all!” Old Mrs. Xu glared at him with her three-cornered eyes. “With that little strength, it’s better to do more work! One of you go fetch water, and the other go cook.”

“I’m cooking.” Ning Jia pointed at her small body, “I’m afraid the carrying pole will break me.”

“Then you go fetch some water.” Old Mrs. Xu pointed at An Ye and said.

An Ye hates the smell of cooking fumes the most. She would rather fetch water than cook.

Ning Jia was already starving, so he quickly went into the kitchen, squatted beside the stove, lit the fire, and started adding water to cook while the fire was burning vigorously.

Old Mrs. Xu took a few eggs from her cupboard and handed them to Ning Jia, and told her sternly: “Steam these eggs, and watch your mouth and don’t eat them secretly!”

As soon as the old lady left, Ning Jia started counting the eggs.

One, two, three…six.

Ning Jia couldn’t help but laugh. The sun rose from the west today, and she even had steamed eggs.

You know, the breakfast of the old Li family is always the same – yellow noodle dumplings with wild vegetables, pickled radish and millet soup that is so clear that you can see a person’s reflection in it.

Being able to eat a few eggs today, doesn’t it feel like a festival?

She didn’t have any food last night and was really hungry, so she started to make breakfast quickly.

She really couldn’t get used to the stoves in the countryside, but this didn’t bother her.

During holidays, she, her bestie and a group of fellow travelers often hike over mountains and camp in the wild. Making fire and cooking is no big deal for her.

After a busy day, breakfast is finally ready.

When the meal was served, An Ye came back carrying half a bucket of water.

“Come and have dinner!” the old lady called out, and the men in the family came out of the house one after another.

The Li family is prosperous.

When Old Mrs. Xu was young, she gave birth to ten children at once. Nine of them survived, and one of them was adopted by her eldest uncle’s family to support the family.

Among these eight children, the second one married and moved to the neighboring village a few years ago.

Last year, Old Man Li passed away, leaving only six sons and an unmarried little daughter to live with the old couple.

The autumn harvest in the village was completed yesterday, and the team leader gave the villagers a day off. The third and fourth brothers’ couples took their children to visit friends in the town, so few people were having breakfast at this time.

“Let’s eat!” Old Mrs. Xu gave an order and brought out the eggs.

As soon as the white eggs were placed on the table, everyone’s eyes were fixed on them. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, “Everyone has worked hard in the autumn harvest recently, and we saved a few eggs. Let’s share them. One for the eldest brother and his wife. Zhaodi has had stomach discomfort these days, so don’t eat eggs. The fifth brother is not at home, so I won’t save any eggs for him today. One for the sixth brother and one for Xiaotao. They will grow taller after eating them, and it’s time to talk about marrying into the in-laws’ family next year.”

These four eggs had a place to go, and needless to say, the remaining two eggs were naturally for her and An Ye.

Ning Jia knew that Grandma Xu didn’t eat boiled eggs. The original text said that two years ago, Grandma Xu secretly ate eggs in the kitchen without telling her daughters-in-law, and she accidentally choked and almost died.

From then on, the old lady would burp whenever she saw eggs. This problem was only cured in the last one or two years.

Since these are her eggs, she won’t be polite.

“Come here, eldest daughter-in-law, this is yours…”

Old Lady Xu handed the egg to Bai Jinfeng. When she saw Ning Jia reaching out his hand, she slapped him: “What are you doing? There’s no egg for you.”

“Huh?” Ning Jia’s eyes widened. “Aren’t there two left? Why isn’t mine?”

“One of those two is mine.” Old Mrs. Xu said slowly.

“What about the other one?” Ning Jia raised an eyebrow, “There’s An Ye but not me?”

“She doesn’t have one either.” Old Mrs. Xu glanced at Ning Jia and then at An Ye. “The remaining egg is from Da Huang.”

Dahuang is a dog raised in our family.

Ning Jia got angry when he heard this: “No one with a dog has mine!”

Isn’t this an insult?

“Why?” An Ye was also furious, “Am I worse than a dog?”

“Yes, Mom, what are you doing?” Li Xu felt sorry for his wife.

“What else can they do after marrying into this family except to make me angry? This Dahuang saved my life two days ago! Dahuang hasn’t been in good spirits these past two days, so I gave him an egg to nourish him. What’s wrong with that?” Old Mrs. Xu was righteous and confident. If she didn’t teach them a lesson today, she would probably lose her dignity as an old woman in the future.

“I’m telling you the truth!” Old Mrs. Xu snorted coldly, “Today, not only are you missing out on eggs, you’re also missing out on rice! When will you get up and work honestly in the morning? When will you get a meal?”

After saying that, the old lady cracked an egg and threw it to Dahuang.

Although it was painful to lose an egg, I had to fight to establish my authority.

Ning Jia watched helplessly as the egg drew a beautiful parabola before her eyes and fell into the dog bowl!

Dahuang swallowed the egg as soon as he opened his mouth. After eating it, he licked the crumbs with a satisfied look.

Ning Jia glanced at Old Lady Xu, and the corners of her mouth curved up: “Mom, you are right, we should give Da Huang some supplements.”

After saying that, she picked up the rice pot, stood up, and poured the full pot of rice soup into the dog food bowl with a splash.

“Ah – Ouch!” Everyone at the table was dumbfounded. They were all shocked and stood there stupidly.

After Dahuang finished eating the eggs, he was licking his black, dirty, broken bowl when suddenly a bowl of rice appeared.

Dahuang’s eyes lit up immediately. He wagged his tail, barked at Ning Jia twice, and licked the porridge happily.

Ning Jia smiled and said, “Da Huang, you are the old lady’s savior, you need to eat more! I can’t treat you unfairly!”

“You…you you you…” Old Mrs. Xu watched the whole pot of rice go into the dog’s stomach. She was so angry that she was shaking all over and couldn’t speak.

An Ye gave Ning Jia a thumbs up in her heart, but her face was full of sorrow. She immediately complained to Old Lady Xu: “Mom, the family is having a good meal, why did you mention the dog? Is this okay? People are still hungry, feed the dog first!”

“That’s right, mom. This person can’t even eat eggs, and you feed them to the dog…”

“It’s a good meal, but it’s all gone to waste! Mom, tell me, you…”

The whole family looked at the old lady with resentment on their faces.

Old Mrs. Xu was furious and anxious. She sat on the ground, slapped her thighs and cried, “What sin have I committed! How could I marry such a person!!”

Seeing the old lady in such a state, the others did not dare to say anything. They even forgot to eat and rushed to support her: “Mom, don’t worry. What if something bad happens to you?”

Seeing this, Ning Jia sneered, took advantage of the chaos in the yard, grabbed two eggs from the table, winked at An Ye, and slipped out.

An Ye understood, and took two steamed buns made of wild vegetables from the table and followed closely: “Ning Jia, don’t run away. You made me miss breakfast, and I will never forgive you!”

In the blink of an eye, the two of them ran to the big locust tree at the entrance of the village, one after the other, and stopped only when they saw that there was no one around.

The two looked at each other and couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“Jia Jia, you did a great job. Today we must make that old man angry to death.” An Ye smiled and took out the two steamed buns from his pocket. “One for you and one for me. Eat them while they’re hot. We have to go to work later. We can’t eat without food in our stomachs.”

Ning Jia smiled and took out two eggs from his pocket: “Here, there are eggs! Others may not take supplements, but you must! You have to work during the day and be busy at night for half the night. How can you not get enough nutrition!”

An Ye blushed, and directly broke open the steamed bread and stuffed it into her mouth: “You just know how to laugh at me, eat your meal quickly.”

After being hungry for a whole night and half a morning, Ning Jia now felt that the wild vegetable steamed buns tasted delicious.

After the two best friends had finished their meal of steamed bread and eggs, they heard the beep-beep sound of a work whistle coming from the village.

The two of them went directly to the tool storage area of ​​the village brigade, one after the other, to get shovels and hoes for work, and blended into the crowd to go to work.

After autumn, there is not much farm work to do in the fields after the crops are harvested, but we cannot sit idle in the winter. We have to reclaim land and dig canals to prepare for the beginning of next spring.

Once they arrived at the field, each production team went to work in the area designated by their team.

Ning Jia carried a shovel to the most inconspicuous piece of land and started working.

She was shoveling the ground with great effort when suddenly a dead branch fell in front of her.

She raised her head and looked around, and saw An Ye raising his chin at her not far away, motioning her to look into the distance.

Ning Jia looked in the direction indicated by An Ye and saw a tall and sturdy young man with bronze skin, strong and rugged facial lines, and a pair of wild eyes under his black eyebrows.

Isn’t this her “cheap husband” Li Yao?

At this moment, he was whispering to the old couple, and his expression looked a little gloomy.

He went to the fish pond to be on duty last night, so he shouldn’t have to go to work today. Why is he here now?

The man seemed to notice that Ning Jia was looking at her. His eyes swept through the busy crowd and accurately locked onto her position.