Chapter 27: CH 27

Mrs. Liang unexpectedly didn’t speak to Mo Feng. He didn’t understand what was going on and was about to finish his meal and leave.

“Feng’er, I’m not going to be paying your school tuition fee next month. There’s only a few days left in this month, so you can choose whether or not you want to go.”

It turns out what Mrs. Liang said yesterday wasn’t just empty words!

Mo Ling came out of her room with Mo Yan’s empty bowl, “If you only have a few days left, there’s no use going. It just rained yesterday, so the soil is wet, perfect for gathering medicinal herbs. Mo Yan’s sick, so how about you go help me today! You just have to pick up the medicinal herbs I harvest like Mo Yan usually does. If you do well, I’ll even buy some meat for you to eat.”

Mo Feng thought, Getting to eat meat is good, but is it that easy to gather medicinal herbs? He looked at Mrs. Liang, who nodded towards him, “Go! I’m going to your uncle’s today. I’m also going to ask what price the clinic in their village is buying medicinal herbs for.”

Mo Feng was lazy but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t hide in school and beg off work like that his entire life.

“Ok, I’ll come with you.”

“Feng’er, you’re so obedient!”

Mo Ling praised her brother as she went to take the wheelbarrow and all the other equipment they needed to gather the herbs.

The two left their home and went to that patch of abandoned land.

Mrs. Liang made medicine for Mo Yan with the packet from Mr. Cao and told her she was going to her uncle’s. Therefore, Mo Yan was resting at home on her own.

As she didn’t have a fever anymore, Mo Yan felt much better. She went to the courtyard and started absent-mindedly working on the medicinal herbs.

She was still working when she heard a whistle coming from the main door. When she looked up, she saw Lu Junming peeking into the courtyard.

“What are you doing here?”

“Seeing if you’re ok! Do you still have a fever?”

“Not anymore. I’m feeling better.”

Children recover from illnesses as quickly as they get sick.

Lu Junming walked up to her and attempted to help her work on the medicinal herbs as well, but he was stopped by Mo Yan, “Don’t touch it! These herbs are high-quality, and I’m afraid of what you’ll do to them.”

He pouted and said unhappily, “I’m not going to kill them!”

“You’re not, but you don’t know how to treat the herbs properly.”

“Your mum came over and told us she was going out so couldn’t cook for us today, and I just saw your siblings leave, so I guessed you were in here alone.”

Lu Junming stopped messing around with the medicinal herbs and just sat down on the ground and watched Mo Yan work with them.

The two of them spoke on and off. Mo Yan occasionally coughed, and Lu Junming would go to the kitchen and fetch water for her to drink.

“Lu Junming, when are you going back to the Upper Valley?” Mo Yan asked.

“I don’t want to go back. What, do you want me to leave?”

“No, I just feel like you’re going to go back sooner or later.”

“I should probably go back to check on my mum, but I like living here. My life here is much better.”

“I’m not going to be telling stories tonight. Could you go tell the others?”

“No problem.”

He was here until noon and he still had no intention of leaving. Mo Yan stood up and went to the kitchen, “I need to make lunch. You should go back and have lunch too!”

Lu Junming stood up lazily, “No one’s cooking today, so there won’t be anything to eat at home. I’ll just eat at yours, you can cook for me.”

“We only have biscuits and shredded pickled vegetables. Will you eat that?”

“Yes!”

He wanted to follow her to the kitchen, but then he stopped and stood there with a grimace.

“What happened?” Mo Yan asked.

“My leg fell asleep!”

Lu Junming had bent down to massage his leg when Mo Feng rushed inside angrily and beelined towards the kitchen. He drank half the water that was inside the kitchen.

He only realised that Mo Yan was making lunch after he finished drinking. His brows creased as he shouted for Mrs. Liang, but when no one responded he turned to ask Mo Yan, “Hey, where’s mum?”

“Mum went to our uncle’s. She’s probably not coming back for lunch.”

Mo Feng circled around the kitchen before locking onto the basket filled with eggs. He grabbed three of them and cracked them into a bowl.

“Why are you cracking so many eggs? Where’s sis? Did she not come back with you?”

“Don’t talk about her. She’s a shrew, a shrew that’ll never get married! I was being torched by the sun there, so of course I have to have a good lunch now!”

He had been working for half a day and he was already complaining so much! He had probably complained when working and didn’t receive any sympathy from Mo Ling.

Then, Mo Ling came back with the wheelbarrow. When she saw Lu Junming, she wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “Junming, you’re here? How about you come sit at ours for a bit.”

“There’s no need, I’m going back home now. I just came over to check on Mo Yan.”

When he went back home, Mo Ling went to the kitchen to drink some water. When she saw that Mo Feng had cracked three eggs, she was neither surprised nor angry. She just smiled and said, “You’re really grown up, and you’re even cooking lunch now! You know what, it would be a waste to just fry these. How about I make them into egg biscuits?”

Mo Feng had only had egg biscuits a few times, but they tasted great.

Mo Ling washed her hands, lit the stove and put a wok on it. Then, she added a bowl of white flour to a bigger bowl with Mo Feng’s eggs and some chopped onions, and mixed them together.

When the wok was hot, she added oil to it, poured the dough into it and flattened it. The egg biscuit was cooked in an instant.

Mo Feng wanted to take it when she said, “It’s still hot! You can wait a bit and add sauce to it before eating. For now, help me add firewood to the stove.”

He obediently added the firewood, and three egg biscuits were made quickly. Mo Ling then slathered sauce onto them.

“If only we had some fresh vegetables or smoked meat, it’d taste even better!”

The three each got an egg biscuit, but Mo Feng wasn’t satisfied with one and wanted more. However, he couldn’t get any and could only eat a few biscuits.

Mo Yan started to understand what her sister was doing. Mrs. Liang was clearly biased towards Mo Feng, and since they couldn’t deal with him directly, she decided to deal with him indirectly. She encouraged him to leave school and to start working. If they had made fried eggs, he’d definitely have eaten all three. But now she made them into egg biscuits, they split them evenly and he couldn’t eat it all.

Mo Yan got up to get porridge and handed the first bowl to Mo Feng, “You’ve worked hard.”

Mo Feng understood how much work Mo Yan did, and he also understood that being useful would garner him respect. However, working in the fields was too exhausting.

After lunch, he went back into his room to take a nap, while Mo Ling and Mo Yan sorted and dried the medicinal herbs that were dug up in the morning.

Suddenly, Mo Yan remembered something, “Sis, mum went to a clinic to ask about how much medicinal herbs would sell for.”

Mo Ling knew that if she knew the actual prices of the herbs, and the fact they’d secretly hidden money from her, they wouldn’t just be scolded once.

But she had to put up a brave front for her sister, “It’s fine, she’ll never find out the actual price of the medicinal herbs.”

Post-edit notes: I’m tentatively hoping this is actual Mo Feng character development and not a temporary thing that’ll be reverted in the next chapter.