Page 17

Lin Jin was fretting and went to knock on the door for the third time. "There's no telling when Jinian will be back. Be good, Ninglang, and eat first."

"Dad, I'll wait and eat it cold."

He and Zhou Sanfeng had already finished eating, and there wasn't a trace of warmth left in the food. He was worried Xie Ning would go hungry and damage his health.

Before Xie Ning could answer, he heard Zhou Rong, his fourth younger brother's young ger from across the way, call, "Second Brother!"

Among the Zhou family's grandchildren, Zhou Jinian was the second oldest.

"Ninglang, Jinian's back. Come out and eat."

"Coming!" Xie Ning emerged from the water and happily put on his clothes.

Zhou Jinian went into the little courtyard to wash his face and hands. Lin Jin took the things out of the bamboo basket one by one. "You've worked hard all day. Eat and get some rest early. I've already prepared the gifts for tomorrow's return visit to your family."

"Dad, I'm not tired. Where's Father?" Zhou Jinian picked up a cloth to dry his hands.

"Your eldest uncle needed him for something. He's gone to help."

At that, Zhou Jinian paused in drying his hands, his pupils contracting slightly as he calculated the dates. In his previous life, his father had injured his leg because of Sixth Uncle, then taken the blame for Eldest Uncle. It seemed he would have to make his plans early. In this life, whoever caused the trouble would bear the responsibility. He, Zhou Jinian, would protect his father to the very end.

Xie Ning happily tied his clothes shut, ran out behind Zhou Jinian, and reached out to pat his shoulder. "Look, I put some eggplants out to dry. Tomorrow I can make steamed dried eggplant for you!"

Then Zhou Jinian's stern, even somewhat fierce expression frightened him, and his smile froze awkwardly on his face.

Zhou Jinian wiped his face with the cloth. When he lowered it, his expression had softened, and he asked quietly, "Is it much trouble to make?"

Xie Ning blinked and studied Zhou Jinian closely. He must have been seeing things just now. He smiled again. "Not at all. They just need to dry for a day beforehand."

Lin Jin finished unpacking the basket. "Hurry up and eat. Ninglang spent all afternoon grinding corn grits with me and still hasn't eaten. He insisted on waiting for you."

Zhou Jinian fetched the pastries and opened a packet. Inside were six palm-sized pieces of osmanthus cake, neatly arranged. He set aside three for his family and handed the remaining three to his dad. "Dad, these are for Rong-ge'er."

"All right, I'll take them over." Lin Jin was pleased. His fourth sister-in-law had helped him while cooking dinner; giving her son some pastries would return the favor.

Only Xie Ning and Zhou Jinian remained in the courtyard. Only then did Zhou Jinian hand him an entire packet of dragon's beard candy. "Dragon's beard candy. It's all yours. Don't eat too much before bed. It'll give you a toothache."

"What about Father and Dad?" Xie Ning asked.

"I bought something else. Father and Dad prefer savory food."

Xie Ning gave a delighted, guileless smile, carried the oil-paper packet into their room, and hid it in the cupboard.

When he came back out, he obediently sat opposite Zhou Jinian and began eating. Dinner was rice steamed with corn grits, and the dish was boiled eggplant. Since eggplant soaked up oil, farming families generally boiled it in water.

The boiled eggplant was bland and tasteless, but the rice with corn grits was fragrant, sweet, and delicious.

Xie Ning chattered about the work he had done that day. Zhou Jinian said little, simply listening attentively and occasionally nodding or murmuring a response to show he was listening.

At that moment, Zhou Jinian felt that being married was rather nice, this kind of

warmth,

having family beside him at mealtimes, chatting with him about everyday things without thinking, while he had no need to weigh his words either.

After dinner, Xie Ning gathered up the bowls and chopsticks to wash, leaving the room to Zhou Jinian so he could bathe.

When he came out of the kitchen, everything was dim. In the still night, even the smallest sounds reached Xie Ning's ears. He heard rice stalks being pressed down in the grain storeroom, rustling...

In the silence, those sounds were chilling. Frightened, he broke into a run toward their room, but when he heard the splashing of Zhou Jinian bathing inside, he had to go find Dad Lin Jin instead. As soon as he entered the inner courtyard, he saw Father, Zhou Dafeng, and Zhou Sifeng.

He hurried over and tugged at his father. "Father, there are rats in the grain storeroom!"

Grain was the foundation of a farming family's livelihood. Naturally, Zhou Sanfeng had to deal with it immediately, so he told Zhou Dafeng, "Eldest Brother, let's catch the rats in the grain storeroom first."

His eldest brother had originally called him over to catch a wild boar. Wild boars often appeared in the vegetable plots, generally coming out to forage at dawn and dusk, and traces of them had recently been found there.

Wild boar meat was red like horse meat and tasted better than domestic pork. Zhou Dafeng was craving meat, so he had called his third and fourth younger brothers and two brothers from the same village to lie in wait together.

Zhou Dafeng smiled. "All right, go on, then. Hurry back once you've chased the rats away. If you're late, Fourth Brother and I will be dividing up the boar meat."

"..." Zhou Sanfeng was rather speechless. As though his eldest brother's family didn't eat the grain too.

Zhou Sanfeng fetched an oil lamp, and Xie Ning followed him. After approaching the grain storeroom quietly, Zhou Sanfeng listened to the sounds inside and felt something was wrong. "No, that isn't the sound of rats."

"Huh?" Xie Ning blinked. Surely that was the sound of rats crawling over rice straw.

"Rats move quickly. They wouldn't make such a continuous sound..." Zhou Sanfeng muttered, quietly unlocking the grain storeroom.

The door creaked, and the movement inside stopped. When the door was wide open, the lamplight let them see the feral cat lying on the dried rice stalks. In the darkness, its eyes were like two swords of light...

Xie Ning went utterly rigid!

"Meow!" The feral cat was giving birth, its coarse cry revealing its pain.

"Ah!!!" All the blood in Xie Ning's body surged downward. His scalp tingled, every hair stood on end, and his strength drained away. He couldn't move at all.

It made no sense. Although the Xie family had never kept cats, he wasn't afraid of them. How could this be happening?

Zhou Jinian had just dried himself and started putting on his clothes when he heard Ninglang's piercing, anguished scream. What happened? Why was Ninglang so frightened?

Zhou Jinian threw on his clothes and ran toward Xie Ning's screams. When he reached the inner courtyard, the rest of the family had also been startled by the screaming and hurried to the grain storeroom with him.

At the grain storeroom, he heard Zhou Sanfeng saying, "What's wrong, Ninglang? Tell Father what's wrong..."

But Xie Ning kept screaming. Though his voice was no longer so piercing, it trembled, giving everyone who heard it goosebumps.