Chapter 24

“Time will tell if it’s a dragon or a worm.” Song Shishi really didn’t want to hear about An Jinsheng, so she changed the subject, “Your Brother Meng is coming to help me build the plastic sheet shed tomorrow, and he might bring a few people with him. Can you kill a chicken? I want to make a chicken soup pot for them since they’re helping me.”

“I can, leave it to me.” Xu Li patted her chest and assured her.

The next day, Meng Xunzhou arrived earlier than Song Shishi expected.

And he brought a lot of people.

Counting him, there were five people in total.

Two of them were wearing coarse cloth clothes, so they weren’t from his army.

Meng Xunzhou introduced them to her, “Let me introduce you, these two are masters I invited from town, they have more experience building these sheds.”

“Also, I saw that your plastic sheeting here wasn’t enough yesterday, so I asked these two masters, and I bought some more.”

“These two are my comrades, Tiejun and Weiguo. Originally, Qiangzi was supposed to come, but he received a temporary mission from his leader, so he couldn’t come.”

Song Shishi nodded and greeted everyone one by one.

Five big men were busy in the field, and Song Shishi was much more relaxed. Mainly, she couldn’t help much and couldn’t get her hands on anything.

She simply went back and prepared lunch with Xu Li for them.

They put in the effort, so she had to make something good to reward them.

Xu Li was quick and cleaned the chicken very well.

Song Shishi cut the chicken into pieces, washed away the remaining blood with warm water, and then marinated it with yellow wine and salt.

She mainly wanted the chicken pieces to be more flavorful.

Anyway, it was still early, and the chicken pieces needed to be marinated for two hours, so there was enough time.

With so many people today, she couldn’t possibly cook rice again, that would be too extravagant.

She steamed corn and sweet potatoes, and then went to the yard to pick some cabbage, radishes, and potatoes.

Xu Li went to the river to catch fish, calculating that there should be enough vegetables.

While the chicken pieces were marinating, Song Shishi prepared all the side dishes.

After cleaning up, the chicken pieces were almost marinated.

She put them in a pot with cold water, added ginger, scallions, yellow wine, and salt.

When the water boiled, she used a ladle to skim off the top layer of foam.

Then she added shiitake mushrooms and bay leaves.

After the soup boiled again, Song Shishi reduced the firewood a little, making the fire smaller.

Shiitake mushroom chicken soup needs to be simmered for an hour or two, so Song Shishi simply took a book to read.

When Xu Li came back carrying two fish, she just stepped into the courtyard and smelled the aroma of chicken soup.

She took a deep breath and exclaimed, “Sister, it smells so good, I’m about to drool.”

Song Shishi looked up and teased her, “Look at you, you’re so greedy. If you like, I’ll make it for you again later.”

Xu Li smiled, put the fish in the basin at the kitchen door, and then shook her head, “I’m just hungry, we only have one chicken left, we can’t waste it, I’m still counting on it to lay eggs.”

“If it’s gone, I’ll buy another one when I go to town next time.”

Song Shishi shrugged indifferently.

But Xu Li resolutely shook her head and refused, “No, sister, you should save your money, we can’t eat like this every day, it will make people jealous.”

“I know, you little smart aleck. Go ahead and deal with the fish, when the shiitake mushroom chicken soup is ready, we’ll cook the fish.”

“Okay… I’ll go now.”

Song Shishi read, Xu Li squatted beside her to deal with the fish, but her mouth didn’t stop, and she started talking about village gossip again.

“Sister, let me tell you, there was a good show yesterday.

That Jiang Zhiqing from the young intellectual’s dormitory, yesterday the brigade assigned her the task of weeding, but she accidentally pulled out the brigade’s seedlings.

She pulled out a large area, when Jiang Shan’s mother found out, she was furious.

That Jiang Zhiqing is also someone who doesn’t listen.

She heard Jiang Shan’s mother scolding her fiercely, and Jiang Zhiqing was so angry that she cried and said that Jiang Shan’s mother was bullying her.”

“Jiang Zhiqing? Is that Jiang Cuihua who was in the same room with me before?”

“Yes, it’s her.” Xu Li nodded, “Didn’t she keep cutting grass during the busy farming season? The captain said he would arrange a lighter task for her, but who knew she would do that.”

“What happened next?”

“Later, the captain came and said that the vegetable field would be counted as work points, and they would be deducted from Jiang Zhiqing’s work points.

She cried so miserably at the time.

But I noticed that the young intellectuals in the young intellectual’s dormitory seem to be a little bit alienated from her.”

Xu Li was excited, and her hands didn’t stop.

While she was talking, she had already finished processing one fish.

Song Shishi wasn’t surprised at all that Jiang Cuihua would end up like this.

“She was indeed wrong, the captain handled it fairly.”

“Yes, but I also heard that Ermazi, the drunkard in our village, his son has been getting close to Jiang Zhiqing recently.”

Song Shishi asked in shock, “You mean Zhou Yuan?”

“Yes, yes, it’s him.” Xu Li nodded repeatedly, turning to look at Song Shishi, “Sister, how come you know everyone?”

“It’s not like I know them, he’s Zhou Datuan’s relative, so I just know a little bit.”

“Oh…” Xu Li didn’t think much of it, and cleaned the fish she had processed.

When all the dishes were cooked, Meng Xunzhou and the others hadn’t come back yet, so Song Shishi asked Xu Li to watch the fire, and she went to her own plot of land to take a look.

She had to go through a dense grove to get to her own plot of land, and as she was about to go, she suddenly heard a man and a woman talking in the woods.

Because the woman’s voice sounded familiar, she slowed down and quietly approached.

“Yuan Ge, you promised me before that you would help me and not let me suffer, but look now…” The woman started crying.

Because she was closer, Song Shishi could now hear that the woman speaking was Jiang Cuihua.

She wasn’t staying in the young intellectual’s dormitory, she was sneaking off to the woods to meet a man?

“I did promise, but you won’t even let me touch you, what can I do?” The man’s tone was strange.

Remembering what Xu Li told her today, Song Shishi guessed who the man meeting Jiang Cuihua was.

“What do you want?”

“Let your brother kiss you, and your brother will help you.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Song Shishi heard Jiang Cuihua’s low gasp and Zhou Yuan’s increasingly heavy breathing.

It was really… immoral and shameless!

Song Shishi blushed and quickly left.

But she was so ashamed and angry that she didn’t pay attention to her feet and stepped on a branch, making a crisp sound.

The sound in the woods stopped abruptly.

Then she heard Zhou Yuan’s angry shout, “Who! Come out!”

Song Shishi quickened her pace, not daring to look back, and ran towards her own plot of land.

“Ouch!”

She wasn’t paying attention and bumped into someone, and the other person helped her steady herself.

Song Shishi could now see clearly that it was Meng Xunzhou.

“What’s wrong? Why are you in such a hurry?”

Meng Xunzhou glanced behind Song Shishi, but didn’t see anyone, so he asked.

She wanted to explain, but she didn’t know how to describe what she had just heard, so after hesitating for a long time, she just said, “The food is already cooked at home, why don’t you go back and eat first, then come back to work?”

Meng Xunzhou looked carefully at her expression, and after a long time, he nodded, “I was just about to go back, next time be careful, the roads in the village are not good, be careful not to twist your ankle.”

“Yeah.” Song Shishi lowered her head, not daring to look at Meng Xunzhou.