A plump rabbit like that, stewed with some potatoes, would make a large pot of food—enough to feed eight or ten people.
After preparing a large pot of rabbit stew, Bai Su stir-fried some tender bamboo shoots with pork cracklings. She had taken the pork cracklings from the Lu family’s kitchen cupboard while moving her belongings out.
Old Madam Lu had saved those pork cracklings for Lu Erjun, but Bai Su hadn’t left him a single piece.
He Yan had practically dragged Li Xiangyang over for dinner. Li Xiangyang brought several stalks of stem lettuce and a handful of garlic chives from his family’s vegetable garden. As it happened, Educated Youth Zhou also brought ten eggs to congratulate Bai Su on moving into her new home.
Bai Su prepared another dish of scrambled eggs with garlic chives and a large bowl of stir-fried stem lettuce.
She also steamed a pot of rice and made several garlic chive pancakes.
Li Xiangyang ate so enthusiastically that his mouth was glistening with oil.
“This is delicious! It’s an even better feast than what we have during New Year!”
“And yet you were as reluctant to come as a shy bride being carried off in her wedding sedan. I practically had to drag you here,” He Yan retorted before taking another large bite of rabbit meat.
He thought Auntie Bai’s cooking was so delicious that even the scraps of meat left on the bones tasted wonderful.
He Yan was generous with his praise.
“Auntie’s cooking is even better than the food made by chefs at state-run restaurants.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
Bai Su was growing increasingly satisfied with He Yan as her prospective son-in-law. She had asked him to accompany Lihua to fetch Guihua and Meihua, and when Lihua returned looking so shy and bashful, Bai Su knew their relationship had a good chance of developing.
Although Bai Su had invited He Yan over for dinner, she hadn’t forgotten his bedridden mother.
A sick person shouldn’t eat food that was too greasy.
Bai Su told He Yan, “I also set aside some tender rabbit meat and asked Lihua to make a bowl of meat porridge. You can take it home to your mother later.”
“In a couple of days, I’ll examine your mother and see what medicinal herbs we need to gather from the mountains to treat her illness.”
Although He Yan usually behaved in a carefree, somewhat roguish manner, hearing Bai Su’s words made his nose sting with emotion.
Educated Youth Zhou had examined his mother before, but her illness had never completely improved.
Auntie Bai had even asked Lihua to prepare porridge for her. She was keeping his mother’s illness in mind and treating him as one of her own.
He Yan was deeply moved!
For once, he didn’t make any playful remarks. Instead, he responded with unusual obedience and sincerity.
“All right. I’ll have to trouble you then, Auntie.”
While He Yan and Li Xiangyang looked as though they couldn’t get enough meat, Educated Youth Zhou ate in a refined and unhurried manner.
He was also knowledgeable and spoke thoughtfully, drawing several glances from the usually aloof Lanhua.
Bai Su had been secretly observing her second daughter over the past two days. This time, she felt that Lu Lanhua had finally shown some good judgment.
Did Lanhua think Bai Su hadn’t noticed?
The reason Lu Lanhua kept hanging around the educated youths was because of Sun Mingyuan, that tall, handsome young man.
To someone like Bai Su, who had met countless people, Sun Mingyuan was certainly strikingly handsome, but he wasn’t the sort of man suited to building a life with.
That man was like a peacock showing off its feathers.
Not only did he laugh and chat with Lanhua, but he was equally familiar and friendly with the other young women in the brigade and at the educated youths’ residence, showing little concern for keeping an appropriate distance.
Yet Lu Lanhua still believed Sun Mingyuan treated her differently.
She had even saved part of her own food ration to give to Zhou Yan, the brigade secretary’s daughter who recorded work points, just so she could be assigned to work alongside Sun Mingyuan.
He was such a tall, strong man, yet he expected a young woman to help him with his work?
What kind of behavior was that?!
Educated Youth Zhou, on the other hand, was the reserved type.
His appearance was delicate and refined rather than strikingly handsome. He was the sort of man whose looks grew more attractive the longer one observed him, and he possessed an elegant, scholarly air.
With a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, he would look just like one of those deceptively refined, morally ambiguous gentlemen from Republican-era dramas—a Western-educated intellectual who had returned from studying abroad.
Bai Su found that particular type of appearance very appealing.
Moreover, when he had rushed forward to protect her earlier that day, he hadn’t been afraid of offending the brigade members. He had even insisted on dragging Lihua’s eldest uncle to the commune authorities.
That showed he had a strong sense of right and wrong.
After Bai Su had forced the eldest son of the Lu family to write a confession and successfully divided the household, Educated Youth Zhou’s expression had noticeably changed.
Clearly, he had begun to piece together what had happened in the mountain hollow. Although the eldest son’s vile behavior was the cause of everything, Zhou had evidently realized there was more to the situation than met the eye.
He was also clearheaded, intelligent, and good at judging circumstances.
In the original novel, the educated youth who worked as the brigade’s medical worker had received very little attention.
Bai Su only remembered that among the educated youths who were admitted to university and returned to the city, there had been one with the surname Zhou.
In the final chapters of the novel, there’d been a scene where the main villain He Yan fell ill and was hospitalized — and his attending physician had been none other than this very Zhou Changqing.
By that point he’d studied abroad, and had become one of the country’s top medical professors, a towering figure in the field of medicine.
Except right now, Zhou Changqing was about to go off to a worker-peasant-soldier university. Bai Su couldn’t be sure if, once the college entrance exams were restored, the “Educated Youth Zhou” destined for the capital’s medical university would be the very Zhou Changqing standing before her.
If a man like that could be matched up with Lanhua, then on top of He Yan the main villain as a son-in-law, she’d also have a future titan of the medical world for a son-in-law.
What a shame!
Zhou Changqing would soon be leaving for university, yet her daughter Lu Lanhua still couldn’t recognize a good man when she saw one. She was still fixated on that Sun Mingyuan over at the educated youths’ residence…
Hehua’s stomach was full to bursting, and it all felt like a dream.
Just like that, they’d split off from their eldest uncle’s household, and moved into the empty rooms at their grandfather’s place?
Now that they were no longer living under the same roof as her grandmother and uncle’s family, did that mean they were finally safe from being bullied?
No, that wasn’t right.
There’d still be people who bullied them.
Hehua thought of all the gossip in the production brigade about her mother being unable to bear a son, and her small face scrunched up like a bitter melon as she helped Bai Su wash the dishes.
After these past few days together, Bai Su already knew this third daughter of hers was timid and faint-hearted.
Seeing her frown, Bai Su asked, “Hehua, what’s wrong?”
“Mom, I’m just worried — now that we’ve moved to Grandpa’s place, with no man in the house, will people in the brigade bully us?”
What a silly girl!
They’d escaped the bitter sea[1]“bitter sea” (苦海) is a figurative expression for suffering or a miserable situation. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3694794_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3694794_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, and she was still fretting over nothing?
Timid and faint-hearted was bad enough, but she was also the type to overthink everything.
Bai Su set the stack of washed bowls into the cupboard, and couldn’t help knocking her lightly on the head. “Then I’ll find your sister a husband. With your brother-in-law looking out for us, no one will dare bully a widow and her daughters anymore.”
Hehua, who could only ever think of one thing at a time, finally caught on!
“Brother He Yan came and protected my sister that day, and today he brought over a rabbit.”
Hehua’s eyes lit up. “Mom, does he have feelings for my sister?”
Bai Su nodded helplessly.
What a slow one.
She was only just figuring this out now?
Hehua started worrying again. “But Brother He Yan’s family background is bad. If my sister really gets together with him, people in the brigade will have even more to gossip about.”
As mother and daughter talked, Lihua — who had just finished making up the bedding and gone out to fetch a bucket of water to heat for bathing — stood outside the door and heard every word.
Hearing her little sister bring up He Yan’s bad family background, Lihua’s hand tightened around the bucket handle, her knuckles going pale.
A moment later, Bai Su’s voice came from inside the room, heavy with meaning: “From now on, that kind of talk — whether it’s in front of your sister or in front of your brother He Yan — I don’t want to hear it again, understand?”
“Is it his fault, having a background like that?”
“Can a person choose where they’re born?”
“Besides, other people’s mouths belong to them. Whatever they want to say, we can’t stop it.”
“Let people gossip all they want, does it earn us a single extra cent? We’ll just shut our door and live our own little life, earn more money, earn more work points, eat well, and dress well. Isn’t that worth more than anything they have to say?”
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