The Green Lotus Peasant Girl

Since the Zhao family was busy accommodating the guests in the house, they couldn’t eat sufficiently.

Mrs. Zhou took out the meat and vegetables and cooked them for everyone. Everyone helped him. It was about to get dark when the food was finally ready to serve. Just when they were about to eat, someone knocked on the door.

Today was the first day of the new year, except for the neighbors, they were not expecting any visits. Mrs. Zhou went to open the door.

Then they heard her call from outside, "Fifth child......"

Fifth sister Zhou lifted the curtain and went out. Soon Mrs. Zhou came back, "Zhao Liyuan is here to talk with fifth child. Let us continue with our dinner."

She picked up the bowl, put a piece of meat in it, and handed it to Zhang Haiyao.

Zhang Haiyao married into the Zhou family a long time ago. Because of the dowry incident as well as her domineering temperament, Mrs. Zhou never served anyone else before. This was the first time Mrs. Zhou treated her with kindness while she smiled, "Mother, if you ever face such kind of situation in future, just look for me."

Mrs. Zhou spitted out two words, "Crow's mouth1."

It quickly dawned on her. Zhang Haiyao slapped her mouth, "Sorry, I said something terrible."

Fifth sister Zhou didn't stay outside for a long time and soon brought Zhao Liyuan in along with her.

After entering the door, Zhao Liyuan bowed to Mrs. Zhou, "Auntie, I kept silent earlier. Even later, I went back and gave it a thought and felt something wasn’t right.. So, I've come to explain it to you."

Mrs. Zhou restrained the smile on her face and put down her chopsticks, "I really want to hear your explanation."

Zhao Liyuan took a deep breath, "Rongrong and I grew up together. I really adored her. Later, when we grew older, she said that she felt the same for me too, and then we decided to get engaged and later, get married to each other..."

Hearing this, everyone in the room showed some kind of frown.

"But later, she and my third brother got married. They suddenly got engaged and got married last month." Zhao Liyuan lowered his head while his voice became thinner, "I went to my third brother, and found out that Rongrong was in love with my third brother for a long time. After knowing this, I don't care about her like before anymore. The fifth sister is so kind and good, I will also be good to her in the future. Today in front of all my brothers, sisters-in-laws and auntie, I can guarantee that in the future if you feel I did not do a good job in taking care of her, feel free to beat me."

His attitude was serious as well as sincere and so was his tone.

Mrs. Zhou's expression softened. It no longer mattered who was in his heart before as long as he lived a good married life with fifth sister Zhou..

"Come over and eat."

Zhao Liyuan's eyes sparkled as he properly sat at the table. After eating, he helped to take dishes and chopsticks to the kitchen.

When Mrs. Zhou saw how helpful he was being, she was even more satisfied. After the dishes were cleaned up, she sought him out to talk, "talking about that third sister-in-law of yours, it's true that quite a few men have their hearts set on her, isn't it?"

Zhao Liyuan was silent for a moment before speaking, "I don’t know anymore, I just thought she was naive and simple and liked to make friends. But then I learned that she has many good male friends. Besides me and the third brother, there are two other cousins ​​of mine, and there seem to be two or three in her grandfather's ancestral village."

He Hoe was also one of them, he didn't find it strange.

Li Qinghe was stunned. This girl was quite something. If she wanted so many men to be around her, first of all, she mustn’t have exposed her relationship with Zhao Liyuan, but again... Who knows if Zhao Liyuan wasn't the only one to whom she promised to marry?

After Zhao Liyuan left, everyone was happy. The fifth sister Zhou took out the red silk fabric that she threw aside for the past two days and asked Mrs. Zhou to help her cut it. She also asked her sisters-in-law for embroidery samples.

Yu Yan was the person who did the best embroidery. She had all kinds of embroidery samples, and the fifth sister's craftsmanship was good as well. So it was decided that in two days she will go to Li Qinghe's house and ask Yu Yan for an embroidery sample.

It was the first month and the weather seemed to be fine, so every family started to take care of the weeds in their fields. Li Qinghe and Zhou Changkang had to take care of their child. After finishing their household chores, they had no time to spare.

But they were not in a hurry to clean up the fields though. After burning the sweet potato saplings, they can just wait for everyone to finish up cleaning their fields and then hire them to help with their work.

Last year, when there was a drought in the village, everyone relied on sweet potatoes for survival. They could sell the sweet potatoes as well as eat them to survive. So this year, in the Wang Village, every family began to plant sweet potatoes. There were a few people who came to Li Qinghe to ask for some advice and tips.

After the first person came to see the sweet potatoes she planted, several waves of people came to ask for advice almost every day.

On Li Fu's side, Li Qinghe had instructed him not to bury the sweet potatoes and asked him to come and help them with burying the seedlings later.

It was already February when Li Qinghe's son was 100 days old. Everyone in the village finished planting in their fields. Li Qinghe asked Li Fu and Li Kui to hire someone to finish planting in the field in three days. She intentionally asked them to work together. Li fu's relationship with his father and elder brother was distant because of Mrs. Qian, but now that Mrs. Qian was gone, the distance can be eased down completely.

Sure enough, they got along pretty well after working together for three days. They went to the field together in the morning and left the field together in the evening, so how could there be no communication amongst them?

Because of the number of people hired, the field work was completed in just two and a half days . After eating lunch, Li Qinghe asked everyone to go to work in Li Fu's field. Since their work was completed in only half a day, they also completed the work in Li fu's field.

The next day, Zhou Chengkang went to help his mother with the fieldwork. This year Mrs. Zhou was very busy as she had to take care of the field as well as start preparing for fifth sister Zhou's dowry. She also had to prepare meat and vegetables at home in advance.

Recently, everyone in the family seemed very busy. Fifth sister Zhou found time to go over to Yu Yan's house to embroider the wedding dress together, while in the meantime, she could also get a few pointers from her on sweet potato farming. Sometimes when Li Qinghe went to the kitchen to cook, she would also help in watching the children for a while.

Today , while Li Qinghe was in the kitchen, she heard someone knocking on the door. Since they lived on the outskirts of the village, there weren't many guests who would usually visit them. Recently, because of the spring plowing, people had invited their relatives to help them with their fieldwork, so they had to provide meals for them, which resulted in them coming to her house to catch fish.

She thought that it was a customer who had come to buy fish. But when she opened the door, she found out that the person was an acquaintance.

Turns out it was Yang Rongrong whom she had only met once. Seeing that it was her, Li Qinghe remembered what Zhao Liyuan had talked about the things she did and her seemingly unabashed attitude towards him that day, she was displeased. She turned her eyes and asked her, "Girl, are you here to buy fish?"

Yang Rongrong was stunned, then turned to look at the fish pond, "Help me catch one."

Li Qinghe walked out of the house and closed the door. She then helped her catch a fish weighing more than four pounds. After receiving the silver from her, Li Qinghe turned around and entered the house.

Yang Rongrong carried the fish in her hand and called for her, "Hey, fourth sister-in-law."

What? Fourth sister-in-law?

Except for a few younger brothers and sisters-in-law of the Zhou family who could address Li Qinghe as fourth sister-in-law, there was not a single girl surnamed Yang.

So, she pretended not to hear and went straight into the house.

"Brother Chengkang's wife!" Yang Rongrong chased after her again, in two steps, "I heard that fifth sister Zhou is here, I want to meet her."

"Why are you looking for her?" Li Qinghe turned around and stood at the door to block her from entering, "its not just about her. My son is asleep as well, I'm afraid you will wake him up if you go in, your presence is really uncalled for, here."

Hearing the commotion, the fifth sister Zhou had already come out of the house and stood in the courtyard. Seeing this, Yang Rongrong, who was already pestering her, said, "I just wanted to clear something... she seemed to have misunderstood about the relationship between brother Li Yuan and me. I want to explain it to her that I have always regarded brother Li Yuan as a brother since childhood, and there was nothing between us. "

Li Qinghe nodded, "I know. Also allow me to remind you, now he is no longer your brother, but your cousin-in-law. You have already married someone else, how can you even address him this inappropriately?"

While grumbling, she closed the door with a bang.

Which almost smashed Yang Rongrong's nose.

When the fifth sister Zhou saw this, she couldn't help but smile.

"Fourth sister-in-law, there's no need to be like this." Fifth sister Zhou said with a smile.

Li Qinghe waved her hands, "I originally thought that Zhao Liyuan might be lying, but now it seems that he didn't talk nonsense at all." Then she commanded, "Don't believe in anything that she says. If she approaches you in the future to say something, you should directly go to Zhao Liyuan and ask him for help. You can't trust outsiders over your own people, okay?"

"In fact, many misunderstandings happen between couples because they are not honest enough with each other." Li Qinghe entered the kitchen and saw the fifth sister Zhou following her, so she continued, "If you have something that's bothering you, you should talk to him directly. Just say it clearly. For example, you should not let people like her......", she pointed her finger at the main door, "take advantage of you."

Fifth sister Zhou nodded with a smile, "I understand."

When it was time to plant the sweet potato seedlings, Li Qinghe hired another round of people. After the sweet potato seedlings were planted, there was actually not much to do at home. In this village, other than her who generously hired people, was the Yang family next door.

Though the Yang family had moved to the village, neither the adult nor the children had ever worked in the fields.

It was worth mentioning that Yang Lanrou had already been married into the Xu family. During the spring plowing this year, she ran back to live with her parents and had not returned yet.

And, Hu Yanxi had set off for the county again, and this time he went alone. Perhaps, the arrangement was not working for them. During the year of living with Zhao Tianfu, a lot of fights broke out between them. The woman that Zhao Tainfu brought had given birth to a boy. In the past two days, she heard that the fights between them were more often and fierce.

Because of their child, even after the spring plowing was over, she couldn't go to the mountains with Zhou Chengkang to chop firewood this year. So it was only her and the child at home. Since there was nothing to do, and the weather was good, she took the child back to the Li family. She also brought some steamed buns along to give to her father.

As soon as she entered the house, she saw an unfamiliar woman in the yard. She was dressed in fine clothes, cleaning the yard, and in the corner, there were Li Fu's clothes hanging under the sun.

Seeing her enter the door, the woman rubbed her hands uncomfortably and took a small step behind.

Li Qinghe was a little stunned to see a stranger in her yard, after a few moments she came back to her senses, "Is...... my father at home?"

The woman said while nodding her head, "In, in the backyard planting vegetables."

1. In Chinese, if someone has a crow's mouth it means when they open their mouth, what they say will come true (usually unlucky events).