When Er Bao heard his mom cry, he forgot his own grievances and quickly turned around to explain, “I didn’t, I didn’t look down on Mom.”

He really didn’t.

He just didn’t expect Mom to be so useless.

No, he just thought that if he had known Mom was useless, he would have found someone powerful to help.

No… Er Bao didn’t know how to explain.

“I like Mom the most. I won’t look down on Mom.” Er Bao helplessly reached out and hugged Mom’s shoulders. “I like Mom the most. Mom, don’t cry.”

When Er Bao heard his mom crying, he felt even sadder.

He kept patting Mom’s back, his mind blank.

Ning Shu gave herself a mental thumbs up. Their Er Bao was such a warm-hearted boy.

But she also couldn’t cry for too long, afraid that Er Bao would worry.

At this moment, a little head appeared at the kitchen door.

Yi Bao heard Mom crying outside and quickly came out to see.

“Mom…” he called softly, his voice full of concern.

Ning Shu turned her head and blinked at Yi Bao.

Mom?

Yi Bao widened his eyes, then covered his mouth with his small hand, looking at his mom incredulously.

His mom wasn’t crying; she was tricking Er Bao.

Er Bao didn’t notice the little interaction between his mom and his brother.

He hugged his mom’s shoulders, patting them and saying, “Mom, don’t cry. I don’t look down on you. Mom, don’t cry. I like you the most.”

Ning Shu stopped pretending to cry. “Okay, okay, Mom won’t cry anymore. Mom likes Er Bao the most too. Shall we go eat breakfast now?”

“Okay.” Er Bao breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Mom say she wouldn’t cry.

Ning Shu stood up and led Er Bao back to the kitchen.

Yi Bao was already sitting in his place, and when he saw Mom leading Er Bao in, he looked at Er Bao incredulously.

Er Bao still hadn’t realized that Mom was pretending to cry.

Er Bao sat back in his seat and picked up the sweet potato in front of him.

He didn’t dare to be picky now, afraid that Mom would cry again.

Seeing this, Ning Shu said, “Er Bao, there’s your egg and porridge in the pot. Mom will get it for you.” How could she really let Er Bao eat sweet potatoes for three days?

She was just playing with Er Bao.

Er Bao weakly said, “Mom, I’m fine with sweet potatoes. I’ve eaten them before.” It’s not that he didn’t eat sweet potatoes, but seeing everyone else eating porridge and eggs while he only had sweet potatoes made him very sad.

“But I also want to eat sweet potatoes. Can we eat together?” Ning Shu pretended to be eager to eat, although her acting skills were not good, Er Bao believed her.

Er Bao split the sweet potato and gave his mom the bigger half. “Mom, you eat.”

“Okay, you keep it. We’ll eat together later.” Ning Shu took the porridge and egg prepared for Er Bao from the stove.

“Here, Er Bao, eat.” Seeing Yi Bao looking at her, Ning Shu split the sweet potato Er Bao gave her again and handed a small piece to Yi Bao. “Yi Bao, do you want some?”

“Yes, I’ll eat it. Thank you, Mom.” Yi Bao happily accepted it.

San Bao watched as everyone, including Mom and his brothers ate sweet potatoes.

He didn’t have any, so he turned to Yi Bao and said, “Brother, ah…” He opened his mouth, waiting for his brother to feed him.

Yi Bao tore off a small piece of sweet potato and fed it to San Bao.

The sweet taste of the sweet potato made San Bao smile sweetly. “Delicious.”

Er Bao watched as Mom, Brother, San Bao, and himself ate sweet potatoes together. He grinned widely.

After eating, Yibao and Erbao took San Bao out to find other kids to play the soldier game their dad taught them yesterday.

Ning Shu was also busy, carrying two baskets to the self-owned land to harvest spinach.

The village, which was lively yesterday, was a bit quiet today because the village leader had returned, and everyone had started working again.

Actually, it wasn’t too late to start work after the Chinese New Year, but because there wasn’t much to do in the fields after the New Year, several village cadres decided to rest until the village leader returned.

The spinach field was quite relaxed.

Ning Shu bent over to pick spinach. At first, she picked quickly, but after a while, she started to feel tired. It’s really tiring for a tall person to bend over.

Just then, Yi Bao’s voice came from behind, “Mom…”

Ning Shu turned around and saw the three brothers coming with Hai Cai and Yang Youfu.

Ning Shu smiled and asked, “Why are you here? It’s not fun in the fields. Go play down there.”

Er Bao said, “Mom, we’re here to work.”

Hai Cai said, “Third Auntie, we’re here to work.” At Third Auntie’s house, working means eating Third Aunt’s cooking.

Yang Youfu said, “Auntie, we’re here to work.” Yang Youfu didn’t know that working meant eating.

He had gotten used to playing with the two brothers, but when they came to work in the fields, he had no one to play with and followed along.

This year, five-year-old Yang Youfu had grown up and no longer liked to follow his sister around like a tail.

Ning Shu looked at the few little radishes, each saying they wanted to work, which was cute and funny. “Okay, thank you for coming to work. All you need to do is pick this spinach. To show my gratitude, I’ll treat you to egg fried rice for lunch.”

“Thank you, Third Auntie.” Hai Cai had already started working; he was a very experienced little laborer.

Yang Youfu was working for the first time, but pulling spinach was a simple task, so he didn’t need to learn.

Surprisingly, the speed of one plus five was quite fast.

Yi Bao, Er Bao, Hai Cai, and Yang Youfu were all working diligently.

San Bao worked for a while, rested for a while, and played with the soil, enjoying himself.

Occasionally, he would also put the pulled spinach into the basket.

The sun in the winter morning was warm, shining on the ground and on the laborers, symbolizing the beginning of a prosperous year.

Lin Guodong got up early today.

The village leader was anxious, so he had to go with him early.

Going early meant coming back early. When he arrived home, no one was there. He didn’t see the three children playing at the village gate either.

When he went to the self-owned land, he saw his wife with the kids pulling spinach.

It had to be said that it was his wife. Not everyone could make kids pull spinach.

Lin Guodong didn’t know that the kids did it voluntarily.

“You’re here? Did you solve the village leader’s problem?” Seeing Lin Guodong coming, Ning Shu stood up to rest for a while and asked about the village leader’s matter.

Lin Guodong said, “Solved. But I didn’t need to help. The commune was indeed considering changing the village leader. But Uncle Hongfa’s wrote a self-criticism and proposed a better way to write the introduction letter. The commune thought he had a high level of consciousness and responsibility, so they decided to give him another chance.”

Ning Shu said, “But didn’t you help? If you hadn’t reminded him to write the self-criticism yesterday, it would have been over today.” In fact, even in modern times, bosses aren’t afraid of subordinates making mistakes.

After all, mistakes are inevitable.

What they want is attitude and what you learn from your mistakes.

She believed that after this incident, the village leader would be more strict in his management.

Lin Guodong didn’t deny it. “As long as the result is satisfactory.”

Indeed.

Ning Shu saw that it was almost time.

She said, “You continue to pull spinach with the children. I’ll go back to make lunch. When I come back later, I’ll call Hai Cai and Youfu to have lunch together.”

Lin Guodong nodded.

Ning Shu originally intended to carry the two baskets of spinach back, but when she squatted down to lift the shoulder pole, she couldn’t stand up.

Chuckling, Lin Guodong couldn’t help but laugh.

His wife was too cute like this.

Ning Shu glared at him. “I’m going back. You carry them back later.”

With two extra kids for lunch, Ning Shu cooked more than usual. Two adults plus five kids meant she had to cook twice to make enough fried rice for seven people.

There was bacon, egg and vegetable fried rice, plus a seaweed soup.

After cooking, Ning Shu was about to go call everyone when she heard the voices of the children in the courtyard.

Their timing was perfect.

Lin Guodong had calculated the time needed for her to cook, so he came back at the right time.

“Time to eat, wash your hands and come eat. Did Hai Cai and Youfu tell their families?” Ning Shu asked.

Er Bao: “When we came back, we went to Youfu’s house and Grandma’s house. We’ve already told them. Youfu’s mother didn’t let him come to eat, so we ran back.” His tone was quite pleased with himself.

Ning Shu reluctantly praised, “You’re all very smart.”

After lunch, Lin Guodong took the five children back to pull spinach.

Ning Shu stayed at home to dry the spinach.

She went to the old house, Youfu’s house, Xiaoshan’s house, and Zhang Shenzi’s house, as well as relatives’ houses in the Lin family, to borrow a lot of bamboo drying boards.

Then she washed and cut the spinach, boiled it, and dried it on the bamboo drying boards.

Ning Shu didn’t know how others made their dried vegetables, but she boiled hers.

After drying the spinach, Lin Guodong came back carrying two baskets of spinach.

Ning Shu felt like crying for help.

After working hard for several days, they originally hadn’t planned to harvest all the spinach from the one-acre plot, but unconsciously, they had.

Although it was troublesome to dry the spinach, it wasn’t that troublesome. They borrowed bamboo drying boards from the entire village.

Their yard wasn’t big enough, so they even borrowed the village committee’s playground to dry the spinach.

While drying the spinach on the village committee’s playground, Ning Shu was worried that some children and adults without boundaries would cause trouble, so she “hired” Yang Youfu, Hai Cai, Lu Guangzong, and a few other children to watch over it.

Spinach doesn’t dry as quickly in this season as it does in the scorching sun of summer.

If it were summer, the spinach would dry in two or three days in the blazing sun.

But now, even the earliest batch of spinach had been drying for five or six days, and Ning Shu still felt it wasn’t dry enough.

But there was nothing she could do.

They were leaving tomorrow, so she could only collect the earliest batch of spinach that had dried, take it to the army to eat, and let Lin’s mother help with the rest later.

As for Xiaoshan’s family, she had also told Xiaoshan’s mother that the dried bamboo shoots could continue to dry, and she would come back to collect them in a few months.

As for the rice she owed them, because Xiaoshan’s family had a lot of grain left over from last year, she exchanged the rice for money. In other words, Ning Shu bought the remaining rice at a price of two cents per jin.

In this way, out of the 500 jin of rice she had bought from the app, there were still over 300 jin left. For the past two months, it had all been thanks to Lin Guodong’s efforts.

Before, whether in the army or before getting married, Lin Guodong had never eaten his fill.

The training of soldiers was very physically demanding, so they ate a lot.

During the two months at home, he had eaten his fill.

Of course, he hadn’t expected his wife to hoard so much rice.

Lin Guodong didn’t doubt this, because this area was rich in rice, and every household received rice when the grain was distributed.

Villagers also often said that Ning Shu would buy rice from villagers, so Lin Guodong didn’t think too much about it.

“Third Uncle, Third Auntie, Yi Bao, Er Bao, San Bao… Grandma is calling you all to eat.” Hai Cai ran over from the old house.

Today was the Lantern Festival, and the old house had prepared tangyuan. At the same time, today was also the day for the old house to split up.