There was nothing wrong with people doing the same kind of business. If they wished to raise and sell fishes as well, no one had the right to ask them to stop.
Yu Yan also understood this fact. But this also made the people more aggrieved.
"Don't be angry." Li Qinghe said with a smile when she saw her angry face, "I don't live off from the fish pond business solely."
Yu Yan glared at her, "I'm not angry, I just feel bad for you."
The two looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh out loud.
No matter what the villagers thought about this, the Yang family's fish pond was already dug nonetheless. It was about the same size as that of Li Qinghe's. However there was one problem- even though the pond was dug, there was no water source for the pond to fill up with. They will be needing to divert the water from the small river in the village, to their pond.
The small river in the village had never been dry since the village was established. During the drought for the past two years while the neighboring towns and counties suffered from it, the villagers could survive because they were able to use the water for their harvests. The water can as well be used for raising the fishes.
In April, the Yang family went to the county and bought around 500 fishes and put them in the pond. If everything went well they could start selling their fish within a year.
The villagers were eager to know what the Zhou family thought about this situation. Normally, people would get angry if they encountered such a situation. But Li Qinghe and Zhou Chengkang were very indifferent to this matter. Not only them, even Mrs. Zhou and Li Fu didn't react to it at all! Not only did they not look for trouble with the Yang family, but they also didn't badmouth them.
After a long time, the villagers gradually stopped paying attention and had finally accepted the fact that the Yang family also had a fish pond now. However, there were many people who still did not interact with the Yang family.
The Zhou couple stayed in the woods for almost two months. The weather gradually turned hotter and they didn't want to go there anymore. These days they not only collected herbs but also hunted along the way. Li Qinghe even got some fresh bamboo shoots to pickle. During this period, Xiyu stayed with the Li family, and he would occasionally come back to stay for one night.
Now that they decided not to go to the woods, they had to go and bring the child back. When Li Qinghe arrived, she happened to see Xiyu covering his eyes in the courtyard and saying, "Grandpa, did you hide?"
(TN: The term grandpa refers to the maternal grandfather and the term grandfather refers to the paternal grandfather.)
Calling Li Fu grandfather instead of grandpa was because of Li Fu's selfishness, but one cared about it. Standing outside the courtyard, she saw Li Fu sneak out of the main hall nimbly and say, "Yes." He then peeked from the window, quickly retracted, and then took another look…
Xiyu removed his hands from his eyes. He went straight inside and happened to meet Mrs. Liu coming out with food, "Grandma, I found you!"
Mrs. Liu smiled, and reached out to pat his head, "Yes, my Xiyu is so good at finding people."
Li Qinghe smiled and opened the courtyard door to step inside. Xiyu didn't see her and went inside directly to continue looking for Li Fu. On the other hand, Mrs. Liu saw her immediately, and said with a smile, "Qinghe, you are here. Xiyu has been asking about you for the past two days. I said that I would send him back to you tonight."
"Seems like I've troubled Aunt Liu."
Mrs. Liu didn't mind and said, "No, it's lively to have a child in the house. If not for him, then it's just me and your father. There's no one else to talk to. Come in and sit down, and I'll brew you some tea."
Mrs. Liu was quite fond of Xiyu. Li Qinghe heard that Liu Lanhua was pregnant. Since she was now taking care of Xiyu, she might have expected Li Fu to help her take care of Lanhua's child in the near future. She was not only unhappy, but she was also helping take care of the child.
Originally, Zhao Dashan didn't even have any close relatives on his side. He had only himself to take care of the child and there would always be times when he would need help.
Zhou Dashan treated Li Fu just like how Zhou Chengkang treated him. Whenever Li Fu needed help with something, Zhao Dashan never refused. This was a perfect example of how sometimes, even if people don't have a blood relationship, they can still get along like a family.
Seeing Li Qinghe, Xiyu was overjoyed, and ran out of the house screaming, "Mom!"
"Did you miss me?" Li Qinghe bent down and picked him up, rubbing her face against his face.
Xiyu wiped the drool off his face and then said in a serious tone, "I missed you a lot!"
Li Fu came out from the house and scanned her from up to down, and sighed, "You have gotten tanned. Don't go to the forest anymore. You are a girl, so you still have to be careful."
Did he mean that if she doesn't look good if she gets tanned, was he afraid that Zhou Chengkang would not love her the same anymore?
She stayed at their house for half a day. Mrs. Liu invited her to lunch, which was hard to refuse.
When she went back in the afternoon, she found that Mrs. Zhou was already there. When she saw Xiyu with her, she became happy and reached out to hold him. "My lovely grandson is back home."
Some time ago, when Mrs. Zhou came and said that she either wanted to bring Xiyu back from the Li house to her house or that she could stay with them. But Li Fu didn't let her take Xiyu with her even after Mrs. Zhou went to his house two times. If her in-laws didn't want to send her grandson, then what else could she have done?
At this time, Li Qinghe discovered that there was another person in the house with whom she was unfamiliar with. She seemed to be the daughter of Mrs. He. She can be considered Zhou Chengkang's cousin.
She looked a little haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and a sad face. It seemed like she didn't sleep well.
"Cousin is here?" Li Qinghe stepped forward to greet her.
He Yu forced a smile.
Li Qinghe was suspicious of the people who would go over to another's house to cry. But she was Zhou Chengkang's cousin and Mrs. Zhou brought her here so she still gave her face. She asked her with a smile, "Have you eaten yet?"
He Yu didn't reply. Instead, Mrs. Zhou smiled and replied, "Not yet. I took her out to relax. I'll take her back to eat."
Mrs. Zhou was a sincere person and did not see her as an outsider, but since she had asked them if they hadn't eaten, she can't really just send them away without feeding them, right?
Li Qinghe went into the kitchen with a smile. Mrs. Chen got up in the middle of the night and prepared some buns and dry food for them to take to the mountains in the morning. She warmed some buns and then fired some vegetables for side dishes. She then brought them out and set the table for them.
Li Qinghe also ate some food along with Mrs. Zhou and He Yu. As for Zhou Chengkang, he went to clean the cellar and didn't come out at all.
While they were eating, someone knocked on their door.
When Li Qinghe opened the door she was surprised to find the person was Zhang Haiyao.
Li Qinghe was about to ask her about her visit, when Zhang Haiyao suddenly dragged her out and closed the door.
Zhang Haiyao pulled her to the other side and then whispered to her, "Is that cousin inside your house?"
Seeing her act all suspicious, Li Qinghe also subconsciously lowered her voice and asked, "Yes, why?"
Zhang Haiyao's expression expressed that it was hard to say it, "You both run to the mountains every day so you don't know about some things that have happened recently. The cousin sitting right there has been living with me in my house for the past two to three days. She was…divorced and has been sent back home. Mother said that she was here to relax. Aunt He has never liked me, but she has no bad intentions for the Zhou family, so I treated her as a guest. But how could I have known this cousin would actually have forbidden thoughts about your third brother." Her eyes were full of anger as she said, " I have seen her following your third brother more than once asking him about this and that. Whenever he would go to the backyard to plant the vegetables, she would always go to accompany him and talk. Yesterday, when I went to give him water, I heard her say something about the third sister-in-law being lazy and asking your third brother if he was working hard because of her lousiness ......"
"I'm indeed lazy and I don't know how to do a lot of tasks, but he knew about it before the wedding." The more Zhang Haiyao said, the angrier she became, "These words must have been recited to her by her mother. I would have accepted it if Aunt He had said it because she is an elder. But she is just considered a cousin, so why should she say that?"
Li Qinghe had a subtle expression on her face. Her words didn't seem that she was just worried about third brother Zhou doing all the hard work. Normally, women don't speak such words to other men.
Seeing her expression, Zhang Haiyao's eyebrows went up, "See? I'm not the only one who feels that way, right? When she said these words, it implied that she wants to take my place!"
"Since she is his cousin, I held back and didn't say anything at that time.
I thought I'd take time to talk to my mother and ask her to go back and forget about it. But today I got up late and they were already gone. I asked people around and got to know that you didn't go out today, so I thought they'd come to your house."
"So, what now? Do you want to come in?" Li Qinghe asked in a low voice.
Zhang Haiyao shook her head, "No. I came here to tell you this, so you can pay close attention to her. You have to be more careful."
Well, Zhou Chengkang didn't come out yet and he was still cleaning the cellar at the moment, so there was not much to worry about for now.
After hearing these words, Li Qinghe didn't go back to the living room after entering the house. Mrs. Zhou was with the cousin anyway, so it wasn't rude to not accompany them. She then went to the cellar to help Zhou Chengkang.
The cellar was used to store sweet potatoes and they will use it to store them for two months, so it was better to clean it earlier.
The two were working when He Yu came and squatted at the cellar door, "Chengkang is so diligent. He got up early in the morning to work and hasn't eaten yet. Don't you want to eat first before you work? Qinghe also just cares about work and hasn't asked you to eat."
The tone of the last sentence was kind of half-truth and half-joke.
Li Qinghe immediately became unhappy, "Do I need you to worry for my husband?"
She directly exposed her ambiguous words.
As soon as these words came out, the atmosphere became a little awkward. Mrs. Zhou looked at her in surprise. She was wondering why the daughter-in-law who was smiling and cooking for them just now suddenly became so sharp.
She hurriedly laughed to smooth things over and said, "Qinghe, don't talk like that. Your cousin has been in a bad mood recently…"
Li Qinghe said seriously, "Mother, if you have nothing to do, why don’t you go to the field and pull out the weeds. It's best to stop meddling with other people's affairs."
"You child, how can you talk to me like that?" Mrs. Zhou was a bit annoyed, "Your aunt helped our family a lot in the past, I just brought your cousin to give her a break, what's wrong with that?"
She was unhappy about Li Qinghe's clear statement that implied that the He family was an outsider. But to her, He family was her natal family, and He Yu was her niece. Her daughter-in-law clearly disliked her niece, does that mean she also disliked her?
"It's fine to relax," Li Qinghe nodded, "Mother, then don't make me uncomfortable, and take her away!" and she waved her hand.
Mrs. Zhou's tears streamed down her face immediately, "I'll go."
Mrs. Zhou had a stubborn personality, and she turned around and was about to leave after she said that. At this moment, He Yu stretched out her hand to hold her, and smiled reluctantly, "We're all a family, why bother to make a fuss like this? If there is a misunderstanding, it's good if it is cleared as soon as possible..."
Li Qinghe threw the broom in her hand in front of her, "My mother-in-law and I are family, who are you? Who is your family? Can't you see that this argument started all because of you? Don't you know what you're doing? You are trying to provoke misunderstandings between a husband and wife."
He Yu's face turned red.
Mrs. Zhou frowned and she carefully recalled what He Yu had said just now. If it was said between close cousins, those words were indeed considered a joke. But…
What Li Qinghe was annoyed about was that people generally refer to their cousin's wife as cousin-in-law. But she referred to Zhou Chengkang as a cousin and yet called him by his name. Was she not her cousin-in-law?
Mrs. Zhou finally came to her senses, stretched out her hand, and pulled He Yu away, "You go back to your home today. I was thinking that you were sad but it's not the case. Instead, you are thinking too much."
He Yu was dragged away by her. She looked pale as she asked, "Auntie, didn't you say you like me the most?"
"I like you because you are my niece, and I kept you here because your mother helped me a lot. I didn't ask you to provoke the feelings of my son's daughter-in-law." Mrs. Zhou was so angry that she quickly dragged her out of the backyard. They could hear her reprimand He Yu, "No matter how much I like you, I will never replace you with my daughter-in-law..."