Chapter 65

Lin Guodong didn’t hide his intentions. He believed that unless it was something that must be kept secret within the army, other matters should be discussed between husband and wife.

“Yeah, but I plan to do it after I return to the army. The medical skills at the military hospital are better.”

“Don’t do it. What if something goes wrong?” Ning Shu was worried.

She was afraid that Lin Guodong would really go and have a vasectomy after returning to the army, so she quickly stopped him.

“The condoms are not safe either. What if something happens to you…?” Lin Guodong felt her concern, and it warmed his heart.

He reassured her, “Don’t worry, the medical skills at the military hospital are among the best in the country.”

“It’s better not to do it. Just avoid the ovulation period and use condoms as well. Double protection, and everything will be fine,” Ning Shu thought for a moment and added, “Just control yourself a bit then.”

Lin Guodong sighed. He was 26 years old this year and had been married for five years.

He had only been intimate with his wife three times.

How could he control himself any further? He would rather go into the operating room standing up and be carried out lying down.

“Mom, what’s that? Is it food?” Er Bao, curious, looked at the paper bag in his mother’s hand and thought it contained something edible.

His little hand was already reaching out to take it.

Ning Shu slapped his hand away. “Always wanting to eat everything! From now on, you can’t eat anything without my permission, understand?”

Er Bao withdrew his hand and chuckled, “Mom, I understand. But what is it?”

Ning Shu said, “It’s not food. Don’t worry about it. It’s time for lunch.”

“Oh,” Er Bao sat down at his seat.

Ning Shu turned to Lin Guodong and warned him, “Don’t come up with any crazy ideas. Don’t get a vasectomy.”

Perhaps she was overthinking, but she really didn’t trust the medical skills of this era.

“Okay,” Lin Guodong replied, looking at her with an especially gentle gaze.

However, Ning Shu didn’t notice as she was busy pouring bamboo tube porridge for San Bao.

After lunch, Lin Guodong took the three children up the mountain during the lunch break to gather firewood and dig bamboo shoots.

The winter weather was damp, so it was better to gather more firewood. As the weather got colder, there would be no firewood left.

Even if they found firewood, it couldn’t be burned immediately due to its dampness, as it would produce a lot of smoke, which could be suffocating.

In the past few days, Ning Shu had been making cotton vests at home. Coupled with her menstrual period, she hadn’t gone out for several days.

She was getting a bit tired of eating vegetarian food, so when she saw sugarcane, black-boned chicken, shredded radish buns, pork ribs, and crispy meat available on the app today, Ning Shu thought it was time to “go” to town.

So, she didn’t hesitate and set out on her bicycle. However, she felt a particularly soreness in her thighs while riding.

Although she pretended that the items on the app were bought in town, she actually went there for real.

When she arrived in town, Ning Shu also bought two catties of Fuqiang flour from the supply and marketing cooperative.

Eating noodle dough in winter was a kind of enjoyment, especially when paired with warm soup.

After buying the flour, Ning Shu took out the items she bought on the app near the foot of the secluded mountain where the brigade was located.

This time, she chose a spot farther from before, because there were still wooden fences in the river.

Although the construction had been completed, she was still cautious in case someone saw her.

Ning Shu took out the sugarcane, pork ribs, and shredded radish buns, but left the rest. These were all common in the countryside. As for items like the black-boned chicken, she would take them out when Lin Guodong was gone, so as not to arouse suspicion from the three children.

Back home, there was still no one there, but firewood was drying in the yard, and there were several bamboo shoots at the door of the utility room. It seemed that Lin Guodong and the children had come back.

Ning Shu put away the things she bought and brought out the straw mat and low table.

She continued to sunbathe while working on the cotton vest for Lin Guodong.

However, after only a short while, Er Bao and Lin Haicai came back with a group of friends.

They were all playing at the door.

“Mom, you’re back?” Er Bao’s eyes lit up as he ran in with a small basket.

“I’m back,” Ning Shu put down her needle and thread and stood up. “Did you go to pick wild vegetables? Where’s San Bao?”

She saw fish mint and bamboo shoots in the basket.

In winter, there weren’t many things on the mountain, so they usually only picked wild vegetables and bamboo shoots.

“San Bao and Dad are working up there,” Yi Bao said.

Without San Bao, it was much easier and faster for them to gather firewood and pick wild vegetables.

Before, they had to take care of San Bao and watch him closely, so it was basically him and Er Bao working separately.

“Mom, look what I found,” Er Bao dragged in a withered piece of wood, followed by Hai Cai carrying a small bundle of easily flammable, dry, and soft firewood.

“Let your dad chop it later. We can make pork rib soup tonight,” Ning Shu joked.

Er Bao grinned proudly, “Mom, I’ll go pick more wood later, so we can make pork rib soup twice.”

Ning Shu knew what he meant. “You’re thinking too optimistically. We don’t have that much pork ribs at home.”

The pork ribs on the app came with meat, unlike the ones bought outside, which were just bones.

So, the children loved to gnaw on these ribs. However, she hadn’t bought pork ribs in a long time, and since they weren’t available on the app, there was nothing she could do.

“Mom, didn’t Dad give you money? Didn’t he promise to give you a lot of money to buy meat?” Er Bao remembered something.

Ning Shu thought of the crumpled money and notes Lin Guodong had given her before, which amounted to about a little over a hundred yuan.

She hadn’t counted it carefully. She said, “He did, but the money he gave me isn’t enough to buy pork ribs for two meals.”

“What?” Er Bao probably hadn’t expected that his dad was also poor.

Ning Shu smiled gently. “So, you need to grow up quickly, work with your dad, and then buy pork ribs.”

“Okay,” Er Bao agreed reluctantly. He would eventually have to shoulder the burden of the family.

“Mom, how do kids make money?” Yi Bao pondered.

He also wanted to earn money like his dad, so he could buy more meat for his mom.

Upon hearing Yi Bao’s question, Er Bao and Hai Cai’s eyes lit up. It seemed that they also wanted to earn money.

Ning Shu thought for a moment but didn’t know how kids could make money.

“I know!” Hai Cai spoke up.

His words not only aroused curiosity in the two brothers but also attracted Ning Shu’s attention.

“Hai Cai, how do kids make money?” She asked, worried that his method might be dangerous.

Lin Hai Cai said, “By making grass ropes. Grandpa, grandma, dad, and mom make grass ropes to sell.”

Ning Shu understood what he meant by making grass ropes. Indeed, this could be sold or taken to the supply and marketing cooperative, which bought grass ropes. Since Qinglin Bay Production Brigade was a rice-producing area, there was a lot of rice straw left after each year’s harvest. Every household could exchange work points for rice straw to take home and then make ropes with it.

Of course, the ropes had to be tightly woven.

However, because the ropes were woven by hand, if your hands weren’t calloused, it would be very painful.

But if you could endure the pain and had enough raw materials, during the one-month idle period around the Chinese New Year, an adult could earn five yuan a month.

In addition to rice straw, hay can also be used to make grass ropes.

However, Ning Shu hadn’t done this in the past five years.

In her previous life, she had done it with her grandmother, who had a rice field. However, the ropes they made were used for tying things and were not as refined.

Speaking of which, she had also used grass ropes for jumping rope. However, using grass ropes for jumping rope was not suitable for young children. Firstly, shaking the rope constantly would make their hands sore. Secondly, children have less strength, so if they couldn’t hold the rope steady, it would hurt other children if the rope hit them.

“Mom, let’s go make ropes to earn money,” Er Bao said confidently.

Yi Bao said, “We don’t have any grass at home.”

The little bit of rice straw that Ning Shu had brought for feeding chickens during the autumn harvest was long gone.

“I’ll go to the old house to get some.” Hai Cai knew there was rice straw at the old house and decided to go get it.

He didn’t know that the rice straw at the old house was exchanged for work points by Lin’s mother to make ropes to earn money.

If Lin’s mother found out, his little butt would probably be beaten to a pulp.

“Don’t go, don’t go,” Ning Shu quickly reminded him. “In addition to rice straw, you can also use hay.”

“Mom, what’s hay?” Yi Bao asked.

Ning Shu’s eyes lit up, and she saw hay in the bundle of easily flammable, dry, and soft firewood that Hai Cai had picked up. She went over and pulled out the hay. “Look, this is hay,” she said, pulling out the hay. “This is how you make grass ropes.” She demonstrated to the children with two pieces of hay.

Yi Bao, Er Bao, and Hai Cai saw this and also pulled out two pieces of hay each and started to make ropes.

Watching their soft and clumsy little hands making grass ropes, Ning Shu found it interesting. “Take your time to learn, don’t be in a hurry.”

It was commendable that the children had the idea of earning money.

Seeing them making ropes seriously, although their little hands did not twist the two pieces of hay together, they kept twisting them one after another.

Ning Shu went into the kitchen and brought out four sections of sugarcane. “Yi Bao, Er Bao, Hai Cai, eat some sugarcane and then continue making ropes.”

The sugarcane taken out from the app was not cut into small sections like in the future, but into large sections, each about 20 centimeters long.

“Sugarcane?” Er Bao looked, “Is this corn cob?”

There was no sugarcane grown here because there was not enough land. So Er Bao and the others had never eaten sugarcane.

They had only eaten corn cobs during the corn harvest, which was a little sweet and very delicious to them.

At first glance, they thought it was a corn cob, which looked very similar to them.

Although there was no sugarcane in Qinglin Bay Production Brigade, there were other brigades nearby that grew sugarcane.

The county town has a sugar factory, which uses sugarcane to make sugar, so there is a production brigade specializing in growing sugarcane.

Similarly, if a brigade grows sugarcane, it will grow less grain, so the brigade still needs to use sugarcane to exchange for grain.

However, in brigades that grow sugarcane, the children in the brigade never lack sweet things to eat.

“This is sugarcane,” Ning Shu said. “Go wash your hands before eating. Sugarcane is sweeter than corn cobs.”