Chapter 35: The Chicken That Frightened Me to Death

Wen Jiajia sometimes really felt she had a bad temper. After dinner, hailstones as big as eggs began to fall.

She was shocked! She was so glad she had brought Wen Chun and Wen Xuan back early.

Logically, Wen Chun and Wen Xuan should have been back at six o’clock, but it was only half past five.

“Aunt, it’s icy!”

Wen Xuan was shocked. She held onto the living room door and looked up at the sky. She saw ice cubes as big as her fist falling to the ground. Some were intact, while others broke into several pieces.

Wen Jiajia explained, “This is called hail.”

Wen Xuan asked expectantly, “Hail? Can it be eaten?”

Wen Jiajia replied, “…No, hail is very dirty. Eating it will give you diarrhea.”

Wen Xuan was very greedy, the greediest one in the family. If you didn’t warn her, she would definitely pick up a hailstone and try to eat it.

What you can’t eat is not good!

Wen Xuan was young, but she had her own simple values. So she didn’t go to see the hail but sat back at the table to eat her fried eel.

The local area is close to the sea and has a well-developed water system, so both river and sea products are cheaper than in Wen Jiajia’s hometown.

Although her hometown is also a coastal province, Jinbu Commune is located in a mountainous area, quite far from the sea. A river is not very useful. It’s okay to catch river fish and shrimp, but catching river eels is a bit of a stretch.

You can buy dried kelp and dried shrimp in the county town, but it’s difficult to buy fresh seafood.

But here, it’s possible. The eels were bought by Wen Jiajia when she went to the city.

This time, she bought river eels.

River eels are cheaper than conger eels and are good, whether boiled or fried.

Wen Jiajia likes to eat fried rice with fermented glutinous rice, but this is the first time she has made it in the family compound.

How to do it?

After killing and cleaning the eel, remove the main bones and cut the meat into pieces about 10 cm long.

Then marinate it with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and fragrant dregs juice, coat it with wet starch, and fry it in a pan.

At this point, it is ready to eat. It’s also durable and can be stored for two days in this weather.

If you want to continue processing, you can. When the fire in the pot is high, put the fried eel in, add the boiled broth, five-spice powder, sugar, ginger, and garlic, and boil together. Finally, drizzle some sesame oil and serve.

Today, Wen Jiajia’s mind was on the hail, so she skipped the step of returning the pot to the original pot.

At this moment, Wen Jiajia was staring anxiously at the vegetable garden in the yard.

“One, two, three…”

Five of the cabbages she planted along the edge of the onion field were hit by hail, and two of them were smashed to pieces.

Wen Jiajia felt extremely distressed because no one knew how much effort she had put into growing the vegetables.

Wen Jiajia worked very hard to grow vegetables lushly without using farmyard manure. Not only did she go to the mountains to find fertile soil for the vegetable fields, but she also caught insects every now and then. Otherwise, the vegetables wouldn’t have grown so well.

Wen Xuan was concerned about whether the hail could be eaten, while Wen Chun was worried about her chickens.

It’s strange to say, Chun’er usually raises four chicks at home, but they are not killed. Instead, each chicken is in good spirits.

Wen Jiajia thinks this is a benefit for newcomers.

Children of Wen Chun’s age seem to be better at fishing and drawing prizes than adults.

Wen Chun looked eagerly at the chicken coop in the corner of the yard. She asked Wen Jiajia, “Aunt, can you bring the chickens into the room?”

Wen Jiajia said firmly, “No.”

Don’t even think about it!

The chickens are already big enough and produce large piles of chicken poop. How could they be allowed into the house?

As the chickens grew bigger, she even added a high threshold to the door.

Wen Chun wilted, “Okay.”

Wen Jiajia rubbed her head, “Don’t worry, chickens won’t die that easily.”

The chicken coop was built with wood, and there were two layers of wooden boards on top, so hailstones as big as eggs could not break it.

However, Wen Jiajia’s Crow Mouth skill was activated again. When the wind stopped, the rain ceased, and the dark clouds dispersed, revealing clear weather the next day, the three aunts, nephews, and sons of the Wen family discovered that a chicken had died.

He wasn’t killed by the hail, but by being frightened to death.

Of course, several people didn’t know about it yet.

Late at night.

It was pitch black outside. The stars that usually shone brightly were nowhere to be seen, and even the moon was obscured by layers of dark clouds.

The rain was intermittent, sometimes falling and sometimes stopping.

Fortunately, the dense thunder had ceased, and only occasional muffled rumbles could be heard.

The electricity hadn’t been restored yet. According to Bao Jie, every time it rains heavily, the electricity is cut off overnight. Even if the rain stops, the power won’t be back on until the next day.

So Wen Jiajia showed mercy tonight and allowed the two sisters to sleep with her.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan were both overjoyed.

It wasn’t just about sleeping with Wen Jiajia; they had been eyeing her big bed for a long time.

Children are fickle and always think that adult things are the best. For example, they believe their aunt’s bed is the softest, biggest, and most comfortable.

After taking a bath, Wen Chun and Wen Xuan rolled around on the bed, laughing and kicking each other.

Wen Jiajia brought their small toilet over and placed it behind the door. “You should use the toilet here at night, okay?”

“Understood!” the two sisters answered in unison.

Wen Jiajia sighed, “You’d better not pee on my bed, or you won’t have meat to eat for the next month.”

Raising a child is not an easy task. Children of Wen Chun and Wen Xuan’s age always need to use the toilet at night.

If it were decades later, they would still have to wear diapers. Wen Jiajia remembered very clearly that her niece was still wearing diapers at night when she was five years old.

Without diapers, Wen Chun and Wen Xuan would need to be woken up in the middle of the night to use the toilet.

When they were at home, the three of them slept together. Whenever Wen Jiajia woke up in a daze in the middle of the night, she would wake Wen Chun, and after Wen Chun had a bowel movement, she would wake Wen Xuan.

Here, sometimes Wen Jiajia got up in the middle of the night to call the two girls to use the toilet, and sometimes it was Wei Dai.

This kind of task can only be stopped after they are five years old and their bladder control is fully developed.

Wen Jiajia thought about the ages of the two girls and felt they would have to endure this for another year or two.

The candlelight flickered.

Wen Jiajia didn’t close the doors and windows tightly but left a small gap to prevent rain from blowing in and to allow ventilation.

The smell after the rain was very pleasing to Wen Jiajia’s olfactory senses. In her previous life, she even bought perfume specially formulated for after the rain. She felt that no matter how expensive the perfume was, it wasn’t as good as the natural scent she had now.

It smelled like earth and grass.

Wen Jiajia stood by the window, tilted her head towards the seam, took a deep breath, and felt comfortable!

“Auntie, come to bed!”

“Tell us a story, tell us a story.”

The two sisters started to urge her, as if they wouldn’t tolerate not being told a story every night.

“Alright, lie down obediently.”

She carried the candle from the desk to the bedside, her figure swaying on the white wall.

The candle was placed on the bedside table near her side. After taking off her clothes and getting into bed, she blew out the candle with a whoosh, hugged Wen Chun and Wen Xuan, and began telling them the story of Sima Guang smashing the jar…

—

It was the rainy season recently. After a night of rain, the water level of the lake near the troops had risen significantly, attracting the attention of the logistics team.

Beishan is actually a low-lying area, but Wen Jiajia didn’t know that, so she slept soundly last night.

What she didn’t know was that while she was sleeping peacefully, several families next door were already very worried.

They were afraid of water accumulation and landslides in Beishan.

There is a poem that says: Empty mountains after the rain.

Everything was fresh after the rain, from the high white clouds to the low grass on the ground. Even the gate of the Wen family was washed clean of dust by the rain.

Wen Jiajia woke up early to cook, and the two girls needed to be sent to the Yuhong class at 7:30.

Breakfast was simple. There were still a lot of noodles left from last night. Wen Jiajia took them out from the cupboard and prepared to eat them directly.

The weather was getting warmer, and Wen Jiajia felt like eating mixed noodles.

She had bought half a pound of peanut butter a while ago, and today she wanted to make peanut butter noodles.

Breakfast was ready in less than ten minutes.

During these ten minutes, she not only made three servings of mixed noodles but also cooked a bowl of seaweed egg drop soup.

Wen Jiajia squatted down, opened the cabinet, and took out a jar. She opened it and reached in with a dry spoon to scoop out two spoonfuls of chopped pepper sauce.

“It smells so good!” she exclaimed after sniffing it. This was actually the chopped pepper she had made.

What is the chopped pepper for? For mixing with noodles.

Logically speaking, it is more suitable for mixed noodles. Wen Jiajia always loved to go to Nanchang in her previous life just for the noodles. The noodles mixed with peppers and radishes were really delicious. She wondered when she would be able to eat them in this life.

After scooping, she carefully sealed the jar, then got up and went to the room to call the two children to eat.

“Aunt, we’re up and brushing our teeth!” Wen Chun shouted from the room.

She saw them squatting at the roots of the jujube tree with their buttocks sticking up, their mouths full of white foam.

“…”

“Do we have to scrub by the tree?” Wen Jiajia was speechless. Can’t they scrub in the large laundry pool?

Wen Chun said, “This way I can water the trees while brushing my teeth.”

She also added confidently, “This is called cherishing water resources!”

Wen Jiajia was so upset. What a mess. It rained so hard last night, why would you water the trees? Besides, how much water can be used to water the trees?

She didn’t argue. Children of this age start to become stubborn. Anyway, it was just a small matter.

“Okay, let’s eat.” If you don’t eat the noodles, they will become a lump.

Wen Jiajia’s noodles were naturally a large portion. She scooped half a spoonful of chopped pepper sauce onto the noodles, mixed it evenly with chopsticks, then tasted it and nodded with satisfaction.

Upon seeing this, Wen Xuan quickly said, “Auntie, I want some too.” She pushed her bowl to the side of the chopped pepper.

“Very spicy.”

“I want spicy food too.”

So Wen Jiajia picked up a piece of food for her with chopsticks and said, “Try it first. If you like it, I’ll give you some more.”

Wen Xuan had a good tolerance for spicy food. After trying it, she immediately asked for more.

Wen Jiajia had no choice but to give her more.

Since Wen Xuan wanted it, Wen Chun naturally did too.

Wen Jiajia was speechless. It was always the same.

It was not yet seven o’clock when they finished eating, and Wen Jiajia was leisurely cleaning up the dishes.

Wen Chun finally remembered her chicks and hurried to open the door of the chicken coop.

The chicks were already making noise; you could hear the fluttering of their wings before you even opened the door.

“Be good, don’t worry, I’ll open the door for you,” Wen Chun said as she opened the door.

As soon as the door was opened, the chickens rushed out like water from a flood.