Only this green, not disappointing the spring

At this time, Zhou Hu and his wife were sitting on a small stool, as quiet as quails.

Their eldest sister-in-law is really evil-hearted, but that girl Xiaoxi is really hateful too. She almost caused the brothers to turn against each other. She deserves to be punished!

Zhou Fu's wife cursed in her heart, "Old man, you're not going to die", and had to speak for herself.

"A family in my mother's village has a son who suddenly fell seriously ill. They are the only child in the family and are very distressed. They have tried all kinds of methods, but nothing has worked. So they want to get married quickly so that the wedding can help. Their family has announced that they are willing to pay a betrothal gift of fifty taels."

Old Man Zhou suppressed his excitement, coughed lightly, and pretended to be silent before speaking:

"How long will it take for this little girl Xiaoxi to reach marriage age? It won't look good if she's too young."

Zhou Fu's wife quickly replied:

"She is five years younger than Xia Jie'er, almost thirteen, but not young anymore. Besides, everyone in Huaihua Village knows that Xiaoxi was picked up, and only her mother has kept it a secret. We were able to raise her to this age, who wouldn't praise our Zhou family for being kind? Don't worry, father-in-law, no one will gossip about her."

"In that case, let you take care of this matter. The third daughter-in-law doesn't have the energy to discipline the child, and this little girl Xiaoxi has been spoiled beyond belief. If she gets married early, maybe she will behave herself. It's your responsibility as the eldest aunt to help worry about it."

The few people dispersed and went back to their homes. Zhou Hu's wife was already very happy in her heart. The corners of her mouth couldn't help but curl up, but she was afraid of being seen, so she had to keep her head down.

Zhou Fu's wife was originally very happy. She felt relieved that she had dealt with Xiaoxi.

But on the way home, she felt more and more depressed. No matter how high the betrothal gift was, she would never get the girl, and she still had to worry about it.

And that fox Zhou Hu obviously didn't tell the truth. He must have embezzled the ten taels of silver!

So after all the trouble, I got nothing in return and just became a bad guy!

After returning home, she became angrier and angrier the more she thought about it, and she became more and more displeased with her man, so she had a big fight with Zhou Fu.

She kept calling Zhou Fu a coward and a waste. He was just stupid, not foolish. How could he endure being humiliated by his own wife?

He went up and started punching and kicking.

In the face of absolute suppression of power, let alone resistance, it hurts so much that you can't even cry.

It was Zhou Fu's eldest son who noticed something was wrong and opened the door to stop his father's violence. If he had gone a little later, his mother would have been beaten to death by his father!

The noise made by Zhou Fuji's family was so loud that the neighbors all heard it.

Zhou Xiaoxi's home was close by, so he could hear it all clearly.

It seems that her good second uncle cleverly fooled everyone. The eldest aunt was angry and wanted to vent it on the eldest uncle, but she got beaten instead.

Even rabbits bite when they are angry, not to mention that my uncle is not a good person to begin with.

Zhou Jun and Li had long been extremely disappointed with the Zhou family. It was good enough for them not to applaud in such a situation. How could they possibly run over to mediate the fight?

Zhou Jun can now speak and can call for help at any time if there is anything. Li no longer needs to force herself to wake up repeatedly at night and can finally get a good night's sleep.

Previously, her two daughters wanted to take turns with her to watch the night, but she couldn't agree to that. It was so hard to collect herbs in the mountains during the day, so she had to rest well at night.

Accompanied by the familiar chirping of insects and the gentle night breeze, the family was finally able to fall asleep peacefully.

……

When having breakfast in the morning, Li suddenly remembered to ask what Zhou Xiaoxi was going to do with the jujube branches he brought back yesterday. It couldn't be that he was going to use them as firewood, as they would be very prickly.

Zhou Xiaoxi smiled slyly.

"Mom, it's because it can prick your hand."

After cleaning up the dishes, she asked her sister to help her deal with the jujube branches.

All the branches of the jujube tree were cut into more than one foot long, and the leaves were removed, leaving only the thorny branches. Some mud was mixed with a few handfuls of wheat bran.

After the preparations were done, Li, who was currently the tallest person in the family, was asked to stand on a high stool and insert jujube tree branches into the earthen wall one by one. Then, the prepared wall mud was smeared thickly on the roots of the branches for reinforcement.

With the coordinated efforts of the mother and her two daughters, within half an hour, the top of the courtyard wall was covered with thorny branches.

After reading it, Mrs. Li repeatedly praised her eldest daughter for her intelligence.

The incident of the wild children in the village climbing over the wall of their house that night has always bothered her. The only solution she could think of was to build a wall, but compared with this method, it seemed time-consuming and laborious.

But this can only protect the young boys in the village. For adult men, it can only be a minor fight.

Zhou Xiaoxi already had a plan in mind, but he would have to wait until next spring to implement it, so he would just use the jujube branch for the time being.

After finishing this task, the two sisters carried their backpacks and small hoes and continued to go to the mountains to collect herbs.

The open space at home is already filled with various herbs drying in the sun. I must come back early today to process the dried herbs and store them properly.

There is more rain in this season, so each time a portion of the herbs are dried, they must be handled promptly. Otherwise, once they are soaked by rain, their efficacy will be lost and all your efforts will be wasted.

Li, who had a rare good night's sleep, seemed to have extra energy to work today. She even wanted to hum a little tune.

Since the two children would be back early today, they decided to go hungry until they got home to eat.

Li was thinking of preparing some slightly better food for the children. The flour at home was almost gone, but there was still some rice left.

Looking up at the sun, it was already past noon. The children should be back in another hour.

So she quickly started to bake coarse flour pancakes, cook some white rice porridge, and mix some wild vegetables. From time to time, she would run into the house to check on Zhou Jun's situation.

Just as I took out half a pot of fragrant white rice porridge, I heard someone knocking on the door.

Li ran over to open the door with a smile on her face, but the two maids today looked like wilted crops in the sun, with their heads hanging.

Looking at the backpack again, it only contained a small half basket of herbs, most of which were mugwort. Did they run out of herbs?

Zhou Xiaonan put down the backpack and couldn't help complaining to Li.

"Mom, the villagers are so mean. They heard that we were really picking herbs for Dad's treatment, so there were a lot of people in the mountains today who came to snatch the herbs from us. They copied what my sister and I picked, but some only picked branches and leaves when we needed the roots, and some only ripped the branches and leaves when we needed the leaves."

"What's even worse is that they kept running up to us and asking my sister and me to help them check whether they picked the right fruits. My sister and I were so disturbed that we couldn't do our work at all!"

This time Zhou Xiaonan was stubborn and did not cry. Her sister always managed to hold back and think of solutions. She wanted to learn from her sister.

Li's good mood for the day was completely ruined.

The country people are poor, and the villagers on her mother's side also live a hard life, but no one is so selfish!

But the mountain behind belongs to everyone. They can neither stop others from going up the mountain nor accuse others of wasting medicinal herbs.

Mrs. Li could only calm down and comfort her daughters to have dinner first.