Ugly girl only wants to farm

Meng Jiuxia was panting heavily from exhaustion. She put the basket down on the ground, looked at the endless mountains in front of her, and began to complain.

"Sigh, what were our ancestors thinking? Why did they choose such a faraway place? Couldn't they have chosen a closer one? Is the feng shui here better? But we haven't seen our family become any wealthier."

Meng Jiudong sat there and picked up a leaf to fan his sister for a while.

Seeing that his face was red and wet with sweat, Xu Chaoyan took out a handkerchief to wipe it for him. The little guy grinned at her and said, "Thank you, sister-in-law."

Meng Jiuxia: "In the past, every year when we went up the mountain to worship our ancestors, it was my father, second uncle, and eldest brother who did it. My father and the others were considerate of Jiudong and me, who couldn't walk that far, so they always told us to wait for them not far down the mountain. Who knew that after we had a falling out with my second uncle's family this year, they wouldn't even go up the mountain to worship our ancestors with us anymore? No matter how much we have a falling out, our ancestors are still our ancestors."

"To put it bluntly, my second uncle's family is all selfish and self-serving. Dad used to help them a lot, but they only do this because they see that Dad is useless now and can't make money. Grandmother is also a money-grubbing person. She actually had her eye on your dowry and even secretly took some of it to run away with my aunt and the others to the Moon House. It makes me angry just thinking about it."

Xu Chaoyan quickly comforted her: "It's okay, it's just a little thing. Money is just material possessions. We can earn more later. As long as the family is together, that's all that matters."

Meng Jiuxia suddenly seemed to remember something and beckoned Xu Chaoyan to come closer: "Hey, when we passed by the back of Second Uncle's house just now, did you see Second Uncle tidying up the firewood by himself? He was practically venting his anger on it."

Xu Chaoyan nodded, looking puzzled: "Yes, I saw it. What could he be unhappy about during the New Year?"

Meng Jiuxia revealed a gloating smile: "Hey, you don't understand, do you? Look, in this freezing weather, almost everyone is busy inside, but Second Uncle is outside tidying up firewood. What do you think he can do outside? He probably had a fight with his wicked wife, so he's tidying up firewood outside to avoid the noise."

Xu Chaoyan glanced at her, still puzzled: "How did you know?"

Meng Jiuxia took out a water bottle from her body and handed it to her: "Have some water. Let's rest for a while and then hurry upstairs so we can resolve this matter as soon as possible and go back for dinner. My stomach is growling. How could I not see through the little tricks of my second aunt's family? They've been making trouble for decades, so it's nothing new to them."

After the three of them had rested enough, they carried their baskets and went to the small mound of earth hidden in the woods to pay their respects.

Xu Chaoyan took a stick and cleared away all the fallen leaves, while instructing Meng Jiuxia: "Clear all these fallen leaves and make a small area out of them. Be careful that sparks don't fly up and start a fire, which could set the whole forest on fire. Once the forest fire starts, it will be impossible to control."

Meng Jiuxia nodded: "Yes, my father told me this several times before I left. I will remember it."

As the saying goes, going up a mountain is easy, but going down is hard. Xu Chaoyan, on the contrary, felt that going down the mountain was actually quite good for them.

Meng Jiudong ran ahead with a cheerful expression, and soon they reached the foot of the mountain.

After they finished the last offering at the foot of the mountain, they suddenly noticed thick smoke billowing from the mountaintop.

Meng Jiuxia almost dropped the sickle in her hand and hit her foot: "Morning flower, did we just plant it? Look at the direction."

Her voice started to tremble.

Xu Chaoyan was also shocked, and her voice began to tremble. She tried to calm herself down and reassure her, "The direction of the thick smoke looks a bit like where we just went. It can't be such a coincidence. Didn't we put out all the sparks before we left?"

Meng Jiuxia glanced at the mountain and said, puzzled, "Yes, I did everything you just told me to do."

Then she glared at Meng Jiudong: "Little brother, did you play with fire when we weren't looking? Be careful you don't wet the bed tonight. Tell us the truth, and I won't tell our parents."

Meng Jiudong's face turned red with anxiety, and he stood in front of her in a flash: "Sister, what did you say? I'm a man, how could I wet the bed? Besides, I listen to everything you say, how could I do such a thing? There wasn't a single spark when we left."

Just then, an aunt from the village came over from the vicinity of the mountain. Upon seeing the three of them, she quickly called out, "Young men of the Meng family, did you just come down from that mountain? Did you set the mountain on fire? What are we going to do now that there's a wildfire? The mountain is barren and covered with fallen leaves in the winter. Why didn't any of your adults come? Why don't you go up and check? If you burn down the whole forest, the village chief probably won't let you off the hook."

Xu Chaoyan felt her calves trembling. She looked at Meng Jiuxia, who was also stunned, and urged her to hurry up and leave: "Let's go quickly. If this really catches fire, our family can't afford to pay for it."

The three of them were much faster than when they came, scrambling and crawling up the mountain. By the time they reached the top, more than half an hour had passed.

Although thick smoke billowed out, the flames had already been extinguished by many people.

Meng Jiuxia saw her second uncle struggling to put out the fire with a tree branch. His face was covered in soot, and he looked disheveled, with holes in his clothes.

When her second uncle saw her arrive, he quickly urged her, "Xia, come over here and put out these fires for me. There are still many small fires nearby that haven't been extinguished. If they spread along the dry grass, the consequences will be unimaginable."

After saying that, he pointed to the tree branch next to him and told him to hurry up and help.

Xu Chaoyan only then noticed many unfamiliar faces. She nudged Meng Jiuxia and asked in a small, snake-like voice, "Do you know these people?"

Meng Jiuxia nodded and said that they were people from Hongmiao Village, which was near their village. They were wiping the sweat from their foreheads and carrying a wooden basin in their hands, bringing water from afar.

The mountain was already short of water. A plump woman saw Meng Jiuxia and handed her a basin, saying, "Meng family girl, you've finally arrived. I don't know what happened to your unscrupulous second uncle, but he set this whole mountain on fire. Now that you're here, hurry up and clean up the mess for him. We're so tired we can barely stand up straight. The water supply here is already scarce."

“You still have to bring water from all this way. Let this old woman rest and catch her breath. You hurry up and take over bringing water from me. You even killed your second uncle. I don’t know what kind of stupid thing he did. Even when he was worshipping his ancestors, he managed to set the mountain on fire. What kind of trouble did he get into? He’s so unlucky.”

Xu Chaoyan and Meng Jiuxia then realized that their second uncle had come up the mountain alone. He was probably in a hurry and left before the incense had burned out. The sparks blew onto the fallen leaves and ignited a nearby dry branch. Then, a gust of wind blew and the whole mountainside caught fire.

I heard that it was someone nearby who discovered him and brought him back; otherwise, this whole mountain would have been burned bare.

Li San Niang then chopped everything up as Xu Chaoyan had instructed, intending to finish it when Xu returned.

Suddenly she saw thick smoke billowing from the mountaintop and was so frightened that she ran into the house to call her husband. She rushed over in such a hurry that she even lost her shoes: "Husband, husband, look, it looks like the mountaintop is on fire, with thick smoke billowing out. Do you think anything might have happened to the children?"

Meng Jiuhe was sitting by the fire to warm himself when he heard his mother shouting urgently. He was also very anxious and looked nervous.

This is a true, sad, and ridiculous event that I experienced during the Lunar New Year this year. At the time, I was terrified and wondered how many years I would be sentenced to or how much I would be fined.