He really agreed to give the silver.
Li Qinghe suddenly felt that Hu Yanxi liked to save his face and pretended to be a good person. Up until now, it was Zhao Wanwan who used to beg for mercy, and he would never say a word. Now that he saw things weren’t happening in his favor, he came forward and gave the money.
Out of all the people present, including Li Fu, everyone would think that he was being reasonable. But the most unreasonable thing had already been done by Zhao Wanwan.
Seeing Li Fu put the silver away, Zhao Wanwan still wanted to persuade, but Hu Yanxi pulled her, smiled, and said, "Lets move our things in first"
Zhao Wanwan's tears wouldn’t stop streaming down, she picked up the bags, turned around, and left.
It seemed as if Li Fu was a little annoyed.
Li Fu saw her actions and lowered his eyes not knowing what he was thinking.
It was getting late and Li Qinghe did not intend to stay for long. The atmosphere at home was not good either. She put the fabric on the table and bid goodbye.
People arrived to fetch water the next morning itself. The way the village head’s son camped a chair next to the pond and ordered people to line up, was worth mentioning
.
After Yu Yan and Min Rui returned from the county, they took a night's worth of rest before coming over with snacks early in the morning, "These snacks are really delicious. I tasted them when Min Rui and I went to a restaurant and brought some back especially for you."
"By the way, I went to see my godmother this morning, I heard from her that burglars broke into your house the other day. I'm so afraid, they might break into my house too, I won't chase after them!"
When she turned her eyes, she saw someone fetching water outside the gate. It was quite a novelty. Just now she came in from the back door so she went out to watch them. The people who came to fetch water were the people who knew Li Qinghe, and when they saw her in the courtyard, they would greet and thank her.
The third aunt Lu came over with the bucket. She put the bucket outside, went directly into the house, closed the door and said , "Qinghe, something happened at your house."
Li Qinghe was dumbfounded, "What happened?"
It couldn’t probably be that urgent as third aunt Li also brought a bucket to fetch the water.
The third aunt Li lowered her tone and said, "Early in the morning, your sister moved away and said that she was going to her father's house."
Li Qinghe never expected it.
Zhao Wanwan said she hadn't seen Zhao Tianfu for a very long time, and she didn't think she could go to find him.
The person who fed her milk was her mother!
Note: The person who fed her milk was her mother - This phrase/sentence is usually regarded as a disparaging expression.
Zhao Tianfu's house was also in Wang Village, but it was not in the same row as Li's. the walk to his house from the Li’s takes around a quarter of an hour.. not to forget, the Zhao family used to be wealthy, and they had built a brick house 20 years ago, which was much better than the Li family's yard.
The daughter who he raised for many years just left him. Li Qinghe felt that her father must be in very low spirits. A little worried, she took some snacks that Zhou Chengkang brought back and went to Li's house.
It was still morning when she arrived. Mrs.Qian was cooking breakfast in the kitchen. There were a lot of clattering sounds, she seemed unhappy. Li Fu was cutting sweet potato vines next to the stone table under the shed of a big tree in the yard, and a lot of them had been cut and spread out on the ground.
Seeing her entering the door, he smiled and said, "what brought you here?" his eyes soon reached the paper bag in her hand, and shook his head in disagreement, "Keep it for yourself. You are pregnant now, and Chengkang specially brought it back for you from so far away, how can I even accept the food from my grandson?"
Seeing that he was still in the mood to laugh, he didn’t seem very sad. Li Qinghe sat over and opened the snacks bag, "Father, you haven’t had your breakfast yet, so have some of these by that time."
Li Fu washed his hands, picked up a piece and handed it to her, then picked one for himself. He took a bite and said, "You're here to check on me because of Wanwan, right? I'm fine."
"Don't be sad." Li Qinghe helped him pour tea, "I'm not going to run, and I don't have anywhere to run."
Li Fu's eyes turned red, he reached out and wiped away his tears, "You are a good child."
In two to three bites, he stuffed the snacks into his mouth. He told Li Qinghe to continue eating, and picked up the sickle and began to cut the sweet potato vines again. He looked at the busy Mrs. Qian in the kitchen, lowered his voice, and said, "In fact, I can guess that if I ask for silver they wouldn’t live here long. It's like what Wanwan said, since they don't have enough money to go to the county, hence they don't have any silver to spend on meals either."
"It's just that it was unexpected of her to go to Zhao Tianfu."
Li Fu's tone was flat when he spoke the last sentence, but she could sense that he was a little sad. He had raised Wanwa for so many years but in the end, she turned her back and went to her father's side. It would be difficult for anyone to accept this.
Mrs. Qian came out of the kitchen with the breakfast and looked at the father and daughter in the yard, "What are you two talking about? It's not about Wanwan, is it?"
"I came to share snacks with my father." Li Qinghe motioned towards the paper bag, "Only those with a guilty conscience will fear of being talked about by the others. From now on, no one must mention her in this family. It's like my father fed his food to a dog."
Even if they had a dog, it would have become loyal after so many years. As for Zhao Wanwan, she always relied on anything but herself?
Mrs. Qian still wanted to say more, but Li Fu looked at her with a deep look, and she stopped talking immediately. After turning around and entering the kitchen, the more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She threw the steamed bun from her hand to the ground, "all my good intentions and love were also fed to the dog for so many years!. I shouldn't have come back in the first place..."
After a long time, he bent down to pick the bun, and wiped the dust off of it lovingly, "Since you regret it, you can leave!"
Mrs. Qian who was crying until now, suddenly stopped and was stunned from the words she heard. With tears still hanging on her eyelashes, she asked "What are you talking about? This year's grain production has been so low, no family is rich anymore. You want to drive me away now?"
Li Fu looked at his daughter, "The sun will be high in a while, so you should go back first."
He said this to avoid suspicion from the watchful eyes of the neighbors. If Li Qinghe went back and Mrs. Qian left at the same time, they would assume that it was Li Qinghe who drove her out of the house.
Li Qinghe obediently went out on her own. In fact, she didn't like Mrs. Qian, and many-a-times had the idea of separating them, but Mrs. Qian was someone Li Fu wanted to be with ever since he was a child. It could also be seen that she compromised a lot for her. Besides, after she was married, she didn’t want to leave her father alone at home. It was a good idea to have someone around him, even if they quarreled, he wouldn't be lonely.
Shortly after returning home, she heard the person who came to fetch the water say that Mrs. Qian had packed her bags and returned back to the Qian family's house.
The house was maintained by Mrs. You after father Qian passed away, and now Qian Laixing was living there;, who had passed his exams.
In the blink of an eye, other half of the month had already passed. Because of the drought this year, the seedlings in the ground died quickly. Li Qinghe's belly was getting bigger and bigger, and just when Zhou Chengkang intended to dig the sweet potato vines, Magistrate Lin arrived with people of the village again.
Because of the drought, even if it was a village, the harvest in each family's field was not the same. He brought these people to see the situation in Li Qingmiao's land. He brought quite a lot of people, around twenty or thirty, and they all bought their sickles. After a long time, they dug out all the sweet potatoes and put them in the cellar.
Compared to last year, they planted more this year, but the harvest this year was only worth half of what was harvested last year, even then, it was enough for the two of them to eat. Looking at the sweet potatoes, Magistrate Lin could not stop his grin. They came again the next day and cut the barley. Not only did they cut the stalks completely in one day, but they also threshed and dried them.
The barley harvest was only half of that of last year’s. At this time, the news came out that the imperial court had ordered that all the towns that suffered from drought this year would have their taxes reduced or waved off, and the commercial tax would only be 20%, and the grain tax would be exempted.
Throughout August, there could be no better news than this.
They didn't know about the other villages' harvest, but as for the people of Wang Village, if they didn't pay the grain tax then the grains from their fields were barely enough for them to eat.
Not to mention that there were more sweet potatoes this year. Though they didn't harvest as many sweet potatoes as Li Qinghe, the quantity was still a lot.
Because the harvest of sweet potatoes was a lot, the price of food was quite high. Many people secretly dried the grains and went to town to sell them. It wasn't a big deal since they had quite a few sweet potatoes at home and could fill their stomachs with them. If they waited until next year, the food prices would go down and it would be all normal again.
Even if all the grains were collected from his field, Zhou Chengkang was not idle. The grains from Mrs. Zhou's field had yet to be collected. Moreover, he also had to help Li Fu, who used to only grow wheat grains in his field but this year planted sweet potatoes as well. He was also quite busy.
Although he was busy, he was very happy. When Li Qinghe brought him lunch in the fields, he looked at her with gratitude in his eyes, "Good thing you helped me plant the seeds, or else this year......"
"When the time comes, I'll share half of the harvest with you." Li Fu said proudly, "I'll keep my word."
He did not just move half of them over, but moved all of them to Li Qinghe's yard, as her courtyard was large, which made it good for drying grains. And also it was closer to his land than the house in the village.
When the people saw him taking grains to Li Qinghe's house, no one gossiped about it. Anyway, Li Fu was nearly forty this year, and he only had one daughter. In the future, he will probably have to rely on her to move the grains there. As long as he was willing, no one could tell 'no'.