Quick Wear: Reversing Life

Winter in the south is not too cold, but there is always a light, gloomy wind.

At the beginning of the new year, Wen Jin caught a cold.

Wenxiu cooked a pot of ginger soup and planned to feed Wenjin a bowl. Wenjin, who had never been picky about food, was disgusted by the taste of ginger soup. He clenched his teeth tightly and refused to drink it.

"Silly son! It's sweet!" Wenxiu took a sip in front of him, but Wen Jin still didn't want to drink it. Wenxiu had no choice but to wrap him in a down jacket and take him out.

There is a farmers' market some distance from my home. It is not a formal market registered by any regulatory authorities. Originally, it was a market where several farmers who brought vegetables from the countryside gathered together to sell them. Later, more and more people set up small stalls, and it has become a bustling scene on the entire street.

Wenxiu and Wenjin walked for about ten minutes and arrived. She planned to buy some fresh meat to make dumplings at home.

There were many stalls in the market, selling all kinds of things. Wenxiu bought a piece of osmanthus cake for Wenjin as breakfast.

The pastry seller smiled and rubbed his hands: "Happy New Year. You look unfamiliar. Is this your first time here?"

Wenxiu smiled and said, "I just moved here."

"I'm selling cakes here every day, and I know everyone who lives nearby."

The pastry shop owner was a middle-aged man with one blind eye, his gray eyeball bulging out, looking a bit scary. He nimbly packed the customers' pastries and even had one hand free to pick up a glutinous rice ball with a bamboo skewer for Wen Jin.

"I make it fresh every day, so come often."

Wenxiu thanked Wen Jin on his behalf, looked down at Wen Jin who was eating the cake, and thought that this child was quite likable.

Most of the people who come to the market and set up stalls are middle-aged and elderly people, and many of them still use cash for transactions.

After a walk around, I bought a pound of fresh river shrimp. The shrimp were not big, so they were suitable for dumpling filling.

"What vegetables should we eat for lunch? How about some celery?" Wenxiu said.

Glancing down at Wen Jin, she saw a light bead of sweat on his forehead. Wen Xiu asked, "Or spinach?"

"Little sister, the spinach here is fresh, just picked from the ground." The auntie who was selling things at the stall next to her heard the conversation and grabbed a handful of spinach and waved it.

"Decorate it." Wenxiu saw that the spinach was indeed fresh, with water droplets on the leaves, and it was green and lush.

"It's good for children to eat more spinach. It replenishes iron and helps them grow taller." The auntie packed the bags and weighed them skillfully, using the beam scales of the previous generation.

"Your child? She's so pretty, you can tell she has good genes." The auntie complimented casually, "It's three dollars and two cents in total, just give me three dollars." Then she grabbed a few green onions and put them into the plastic bag.

"You carry this." Wen Xiu handed the bag to Wen Jin, who took it obediently.

Turning around, I saw an old lady with a hunched back selling her own free-range eggs.

Local eggs are a precious commodity in the city, so Wenxiu bought a basket and held it in her hand.

"Let's go home."

When I got to the exit, I saw an old man carrying a shoulder pole. Hanging on the pole was a cage with a nest of rabbits in it.

So there was another white rabbit in Wen Jin's arms.

"This is what you chose, and it will be taken care of by you from now on," Wenxiu said.

Wenxiu was a little worried because the grass had just been laid in the backyard. The grass hadn't grown yet, but she was already worried that it would be eaten up by the rabbits.

...

The family had a new rabbit, and to feed the rabbit, Wenxiu would bring Wenjin with her every day when she went to the market to buy vegetables. While she was buying vegetables, Wenjin would follow behind her and pick up the fallen leaves on the ground.

"The leaves that rabbits eat can't have any water on them. Put them in the yard to dry out, or the rabbits will get diarrhea if they eat them."

Wen Jin actually insisted on picking leaves for the rabbit every day, and did so for half a month. After half a month, the rabbit suddenly fell ill and died.

Wenxiu thought, it seems that the peddler brought a basket of sick rabbits to sell, no wonder they are so cheap.

A dead rabbit looked completely different from a living one. Even its fur was disheveled, and its body was limp, like a pile of soft-boiled rice cakes when held in your hand.

There were still a few cabbages on the bare grass that the rabbits had not eaten.

This was the first time Wen Jin faced death.

He was a little at a loss, holding the rabbit in his hands, but he couldn't hold the soft body.

"Don't be sad, maybe it went to the Rabbit Planet." Wenxiu was not good at comforting people, so she could only touch the child's head and take him to dig a hole under the short tree in the backyard and bury the rabbit in it.

Seeing that Wen Jin seemed a little sad, Wen Xiu took Wen Jin to the market to pick out another rabbit the next day, but this time Wen Jin refused to take it.

As winter turns to spring, the grass in the backyard begins to sprout and the leaves of the short trees are renewed.

That day, the neighbor next door brought over a gray puppy.

"It's just been born and weaned a few days ago. All the ones that should be given away have been given away, except this one. Would you like to keep it?" There is a couple living next door, and their son and daughter-in-law live in the city.

Wen Jin was playing with Legos in the room upstairs. Seeing that he was in a bad mood, Wen Xiu bought a few boxes of Legos online to distract him.

Wenxiu looked at the puppy held by her neighbor's older sister. The puppy was furry, had a moist nose, and had round eyes.

It feels like a breed that never grows up.

"Give it to my family." Although Wenxiu didn't like dogs, she thought that her family just needed a guard dog.

It would be inappropriate to have someone standing at the door all the time, so Wenxiu invited her neighbor in for a cup of tea.

"Oh, this house must have been renovated. Tsk tsk, it doesn't look like the original one at all."

My neighbor, surnamed Guo, is from the north and married to someone from the south. Like Liu Meihua, she has a warm and generous personality. "I know the person who lived here before. When he was young, he drove for a very wealthy boss. He later built this house for his parents to live in when they were old. After his parents died, they all moved to the big city, and this house has been left vacant."

"Really?" Wenxiu said, "The agent told me that the family had gone abroad."

"Oh, how can you trust everything the agent says?"

Wenxiu led her neighbor in through the front door, and as soon as they entered, the neighbor was once again shocked by the interior decoration.

The upper and lower floors of the living room were hollowed out, and the wall facing the backyard was replaced with a floor-to-ceiling glass door, so that the open space of the backyard can be seen at a glance.

"We just moved in not long ago, and there are many things we haven't bought or sorted out yet. Just make do with it." Wenxiu smiled, took the puppy, and casually placed it on the wooden floor of the balcony.

Sister Guo looked around. Compared with the putty-covered walls of ordinary people's houses, most of Wenxiu's house was hollow except for a few load-bearing pillars. You could even see bookshelves covering the walls of the corridor on the second floor.

"Oh my goodness, how much does it cost to hire a designer for this?" Sister Guo took the teacup handed to her by Wenxiu and sighed.

"There's even grass at the back. It's really beautiful."

"I drew the blueprints myself and coordinated them with the renovation company," Wenxiu said. "Raising a child requires a larger space."

"Oh, my husband and I are planning to open a B&B." Sister Guo said, "I'll ask you for your advice later."

"Open a B&B?"

"Yes." Sister Guo took a sip of tea and admired its fragrance. "My son's college classmate works in our city's planning bureau. I heard that the government is planning to develop our area into a 5A scenic spot. Many developers came to inspect it before the New Year."

"My son persuaded me to open a B&B here to make some money. Young people like B&Bs these days," said Ms. Guo. "Our yard is big enough to accommodate two or three families at a time."

"The bidding will start soon, and we don't know which developer will win in the end, so just don't make things too chaotic."

"All the young people here have left, and those who remain are all elderly people."