The world is broken, the cubs mend it

"Dad doesn't know how to sew. Aunt Chen taught him."

Yuanyuan thinks Aunt Chen is a nice person. Although she looks fierce, she is not a bad person at all.

"You mean the daughter-in-law of Village Chief Wang? I think she's very fierce. I don't dare to go to her house to play."

Wang Lele stood on a tree branch and hit the wax melon with a bamboo pole. He had passed by the village chief's house several times and heard two people arguing.

Everyone in the family also said that Village Chief Wang was a good man, but he was unlucky to marry such a vicious woman.

"It's a little fierce, but it's fierce because Daddy made a mistake in sewing. She also got me clothes."

Yuanyuan was a little scared at first, but after getting to know her for a long time, she felt that she was a nice person.

Sometimes they are not fierce, they just speak loudly and quickly, and it sounds like they are arguing. In fact, they are pretty nice people.

"Really? Then she's a nice person, not as she looks."

Wang Lele aimed at the vines wrapped around the branches, clamped them with a bamboo stick that he had split into a small section, and twisted it, and the wax gourd fell down.

When the wax gourd is ripe, its skin turns purple with a crack in the middle. The fruit inside is white with black seeds, which need to be spit out when eating.

Wang Yingying was responsible for watching where there were people to pick the fruits and directing him to pick them, while Yuanyuan was carrying a small basket and picking them up below.

It was almost autumn and there were many wild fruits in the mountains. Several little guys were running all over the mountains, and their small baskets were gradually filled up.

The purple wild grapes are in very small bunches, and the fruits are about the size of a little fingernail. They are very sour with only a slight sweetness in the mouth.

The wild hawthorns covered with red spots are also so sour that they make people drool.

The orange-red Pyracantha fruit is also called the life-saving fruit. It grows in clusters in the mountains. The skin has a slightly crunchy texture, and it tastes pretty good when you put a handful in your mouth and chew it.

The chicks I bought before have lost their goose yellow fluff and grown gray-brown feathers. They are no longer as cute as before.

Chen Jiahe discovered that her child was someone who paid great attention to appearance, and she used to love feeding these chicks the most.

Ever since the chicks lost their immature appearance, she no longer actively feeds them.

Sometimes in the evening, the chicks would circle around her and chirp hungrily, but she would just pretend not to see them.

The only thing she always loved was the old yellow cow in the cowshed. It had a gentle personality and looked radiant after getting fat.

Several children came back from the mountains and sat in the yard to share the wild fruits they had harvested that day.

In the past, they would not come to the Chen family to play, always feeling that Chen Jiahe was not an easy person to get along with. But after a while, they were no longer afraid.

Yuanyuan is the one who has contributed the least, so she is happy with just what she has and won’t ask for more.

Wang Yingying and Wang Lele divided them fairly evenly, one for you, one for me, and one for her.

Occasionally there would be one extra piece, and the two people would quarrel over the uneven distribution of the extra piece.

"I picked the wax gourds, so the extra one should belong to me."

"I'm always the first one to find it and ask you to pick it. If I'm not there, do you know where it is?"

"It's so dangerous to climb up such a high tree. I contributed the most, so shouldn't I be given a share?"

"Why? When I was picking wild grapes, I was the one who crawled into the thorn racks to pick them. I put in as much effort as you did."

"But we are talking about wax gourd now."

"..."

The two people quarreled more and more fiercely, and even started to argue about who contributed more to each wild fruit and who should get the fruit.

The main reason is that the wax gourd is sweet and grows very high, making it difficult to pick. They didn’t pick much, so they paid special attention to it.

While they were arguing, Yuanyuan went into the house, got a small basin and put away the things that were allocated to her.

"Who do you think should be given the money?"

Wang Yingying suddenly turned her attention to Yuanyuan and asked her to judge the matter.

"Yes, tell me, should I take one more?"

Wang Lele also felt that she was unreasonable and asked a third person to seek justice.

“You all contributed.”

Yuanyuan thinks that both of them are very good, and it doesn’t matter who takes the extra one.

"No, you can only say one, not two."

"There's only one August melon, who do you want to give it to us?"

The two of them would not accept being treated equally, and the children were very competitive with each other.

"Brother Lele is unhappy when Sister Yingying is with Brother Lele, and Sister Yingying is also unhappy when Brother Lele is with Sister Yingying."

The two of them nodded. Yuanyuan squatted down and put the small basin in her arms on the ground, then walked forward and took away the extra wax melon.

"Then give it to me, so you don't have to fight over it."

"..."

"..."

The silence from Wang Yingying and Wang Lele was deafening. What she said was right but it was not the result they wanted.

"You won't give it to me?"

Seeing that the two men looked unhappy, Yuanyuan held the wax melon and prepared to return it. She didn't know who to give it to.

"Forget it, I'll give it to you then."

Seeing that it was getting dark, Wang Yingying took her share home. It was better to give it to her than to Wang Lele.

"I'm leaving too. My mother will come to call me soon."

Wang Lele also left. It was just a wax melon and he couldn’t give it to Wang Yingying anyway.

Who told her to just say that she contributed the least?

Rather than making only one person happy, it is better to make both people unhappy. This is a very new way of balancing things.

Yuanyuan took an extra wax melon home for her father to eat. These small fruits would not last long, so they had to be eaten as soon as possible after being picked.

"Why did you take one extra?"

Chen Jiahe was sitting by the stove making a fire. He saw the three of them dividing the fruit just now.

Yuanyuan told him what had just happened and sat on a small stool to watch him make a fire.

“You know how to allocate.”

Chen Jiahe dug a little deeper into the fire and stuffed a sweet potato in to roast.

He seemed to understand what Wang Mazi meant by "When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits", but he didn't know whether it was appropriate to use it here.

After the sweet potato is baked, the skin is a little fuzzy, and when you break it open, you will find white flesh inside.

Sweet potatoes of this color are the most common in the village. They taste just as sweet, but they are too soft and will make you choke if you eat too much.

The nights are particularly cool in autumn. Yuanyuan likes to sit by the stove. The hot firelight feels very comfortable on her body.

This little episode did not affect the friendship between the children. Wang Yingying and Wang Lele, who had been quarreling the day before, reconciled the next day.

Whenever the three of them had free time, they would run around the village. When the leaves turned yellow, the last wave of corn was ripe.

Yuanyuan followed her father to the fields to pick corn. She was not strong enough and could only occasionally pick the ones at the low places.

The corn stalks were very tall, and the thick and wide leaves scratched the flesh, which was a bit painful.

Chen Jiahe asked her to stay at home. The little girl was always restless, so he had to leave some of the low-lying corn for her when he picked it.

"Dad, you didn't break it, I found it."

Yuanyuan broke off a small corn cob and showed it to him as if she had discovered a treasure.

"you are great!"

Chen Jiahe gave her an approving look and felt inexplicably happy in his heart.