That morning, Ye Qingyun gathered enough pig grass to cover the afternoon’s quota as well.
When she told Sister Chunhua she wouldn’t be coming that afternoon, Sister Chunhua looked at the basket overflowing with pig grass and nodded blankly.
Ye Qingyun thought this kind of flexible work schedule was wonderful.
After returning home, the mother and her four children had a simple lunch.
Then Ye Qingyun picked up her hoe and got to work in front of the house.
She first cleared out the small private plot by the entrance and loosened the soil.
This kind of repetitive manual labor didn’t require any thinking, and she found it mentally relaxing instead.
It reminded her of endlessly practicing sword strikes in the past.
She loved it.
Especially as she watched the barren ground gradually transform into neat rows of soft farmland beneath her hands.
The sense of accomplishment was immense.
She had gotten the vegetable seeds from her eldest brother.
There were eggplants, leafy greens, cucumbers, and green beans.
Ye Qingyun divided the yard into two vegetable plots, one on each side of the house, leaving a walkway down the middle.
If she could find some broken roof tiles later to pave it with, it wouldn’t become such a muddy mess whenever it rained.
She left the smaller plot on the left empty for now.
Later she planned to ask her sister-in-law for some scallion, ginger, and garlic seedlings to transplant there.
The larger plot on the right was divided into four sections.
One each for leafy greens, cucumbers, green beans, and eggplants.
Leafy greens matured quickly.
She would be harvesting them in about a month and a half.
Cucumbers would take a little over two months.
Green beans and eggplants had similar growing cycles and would begin producing fruit after about three months.
If everything went well, they would have fresh vegetables all summer long.
Of course, with five mouths to feed, she’d probably still have to buy vegetables every now and then.
Or gather wild greens while working in the fields to supplement their meals.
Overall, however, the family’s vegetable problem was essentially solved.
Once the garden was finished, Ye Qingyun immediately moved on to building a toilet the very next day.
She had already asked the brigade leader.
The bamboo grove behind the house was communal property belonging to the production team.
Since her household registration had already been transferred to the production team, she was officially a member.
According to the rules, each household could cut five bamboo stalks for building purposes.
The village also had a communal firewood forest where villagers could normally gather firewood.
Those building houses could also cut timber after obtaining approval from the brigade, though each household had a fixed quota.
The brigade leader explained that her situation was somewhat special.
The timber from the production team’s forest had already been allocated, so she would have to wait until the next distribution.
Of course, gathering firewood from the mountains wasn’t a problem.
If she needed lumber immediately, she’d have to get authorization from the brigade leader and buy it from the lumber yard.
The only issue was that building materials were in short supply.
Without offering someone a little incentive, she’d simply have to wait in line.
After thinking it over, Ye Qingyun decided the three older children could continue sleeping on the bed while she and the youngest slept on bedding laid out on the floor.
They could manage without making a new bed for now.
So she’d build the toilet with bamboo first.
About twenty meters behind the house, Ye Qingyun spent two days of her spare time digging a deep pit.
She laid bamboo planks across the top and cut a gourd-shaped opening in the middle.
Then she enclosed three sides with bamboo fencing about chest high.
The gaps were tightly woven with bamboo branches until not a single crack remained.
The fourth side was only enclosed halfway, leaving space for a doorway.
She attached a bamboo door cut to the proper size.
Just like that, a roofless toilet was complete.
After it was finished, all four children took turns trying it out.
Although they were a little afraid they might fall through the opening, it was still far better than squatting in the grass.
If they accidentally got anything on the bamboo planks, they could simply rinse it off with water.
The pit below was large enough to hold plenty of waste.
Once it accumulated, it could even be used as fertilizer for their vegetable garden.
Right after finishing his first trip to the toilet, Fu Xiangdong raised his hand again.
“Mom! I need to pee!”
Before Ye Qingyun could even respond, the little fellow had already run to the toilet door and waved excitedly.
“Mom! Hurry!”
Anyone seeing him would think he couldn’t hold it any longer.
In reality…
He just wanted another excuse to use the new toilet.
Afterward, he laboriously scooped up a dipper of water from the bucket outside and rinsed everything clean.
Not long afterward, he announced that he needed to poop.
Ye Qingyun took him to the toilet again.
The little boy was so excited that it was as if he were going to an amusement park.
As he strained, he happily hummed a little tune.
Fu Min, Xinyu, and Xinyang crowded outside the toilet door.
Even though they could smell the stink, they still wanted to peek inside.
At only two and a half years old, Fu Xiangdong had absolutely no sense of embarrassment.
When he spotted his sisters through the crack in the door, he grinned mischievously.
Ye Qingyun, holding her breath: “…”
The new toilet received unanimous praise from the whole family.
That evening, Wang Tiezhu came over for dinner as usual.
Looking up at the dazzling star-filled sky, he sighed.
“It’d be even better if it had a roof.”
Ye Qingyun was watering the vegetable garden with the children’s foot-washing water.
When her master returned from the backyard, she asked,
“Did you get the flashlight?”
She hadn’t gone to Ghost Creek for several days and deeply missed those adorable little stone frogs.
With a mysterious grin, Wang Tiezhu pulled a silver flashlight from his pocket.
“Take a look! Your master went through a lot to get this. It cost a full eight yuan!”
Setting down the now-empty washbasin, Ye Qingyun shook the water from her hands and accepted the flashlight.
It was brand new.
Heavy in her hand.
Solidly built.
When she switched it on, the beam was nice and bright.
The children curiously gathered around, eager to play with it too.
Wang Tiezhu hurriedly stopped them.
“Go on, go on! You little rascals will break it! Grandpa here worked hard to buy this thing.”
The four children let out disappointed “ohs,” but none of them moved away.
They simply stood there staring.
If they had been throwing a tantrum, Ye Qingyun wouldn’t have minded much.
But seeing them behave so sensibly instead…
She couldn’t bear to refuse them.
“Oh, come on. If playing with a flashlight breaks it, then it wasn’t made very well to begin with.”
She handed it to Fu Min.
“Take your brother and sisters inside to play. Just be careful not to drop it.”
The four children immediately cried out in delight.
“Wow!”
Then they hurried into the house and climbed onto the bed to play.
The corner of Wang Tiezhu’s mouth twitched violently.
“You really spoil them.”
Ye Qingyun simply held out her hand.
Knowing what she meant, Wang Tiezhu obediently handed over the remaining two yuan.
As for whether the flashlight had actually cost eight yuan…
Ye Qingyun didn’t care.
Judging from the market price, at most the old man had skimmed off fifty cents or a yuan.
She considered it pocket money for him.
There weren’t many stone frogs left in Ghost Creek.
Neither master nor disciple intended to drive them to extinction.
They decided to make one final trip and never return afterward.
They agreed to go the following night before heading back to their own homes.
The dried fish was almost completely cured.
There were about three pounds in total.
Ye Qingyun packed it all into a cloth sack and hung it in a basket suspended from the roof beam, saving it for the family to eat little by little.
The following evening.
After eating dinner early, Ye Qingyun once again took the four children out for their evening “training march.”
By the time they returned, they were so exhausted that they collapsed into bed and fell asleep immediately.
Ye Qingyun packed up her tools and was just about to head out.
Unexpectedly, Wu Younian suddenly arrived.
“Second Sister, have you eaten yet?”
His voice reached the hillside before he did.
Ye Qingyun immediately withdrew the foot she’d already stepped outside with and quietly stored the burlap sack and flashlight in her storage space.
“We ate a while ago. Big Brother, what brings you here?”
She opened the door and walked out to greet him.
Seeing that the four children inside were already asleep, Wu Younian lowered his voice in surprise.
“They’ve gone to bed this early?”
Ye Qingyun nodded.
“They played all day. They’re tired.”
Wu Younian didn’t think much of it.
Afraid of waking the children, he sat down on the little stool outside the door.
From the look of it…
He clearly had no intention of leaving anytime soon.
Though anxious inside, Ye Qingyun had no choice but to suppress her impatience and sit down with him.