Chapter 161 - 157: Melon Field_1

Translator: 549690339 n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Wow! Sister, you really found the melons! I want, I want!”

Jiang Jie was overjoyed, eagerly jumping for a piece of the melon.

Yuanbao, Wei Zhan and Huzi were simply stunned.

They didn’t expect Yingbao to find the melons she talked about, identical to those from the other day— how magical.

“Wow! There are even eggs!” Huzi exclaimed, his eyes shining.

Their house had been burned, and they lost all their chickens. His grandma even said they would not have eggs anymore. However, Yingbao returned from the bamboo forest with a basket full of eggs.

“Ha ha! I want to eat boiled eggs!” Huzi loved boiled eggs, as well as egg tea.

But now, there was no honey, so the egg tea wouldn’t taste good, making boiled eggs a much better option.

Yingbao picked out a melon to give to Yuanbao, “Try one first.”

Yuanbao took it and broke the melon open with a few taps of his fingernails, then shared it with his brothers.

All of them nibbled on a melon as they walked home, having managed to eat two whole melons by the time they reached their house.

Longing for more, Yuanbao took out a cucumber from another basket and asked, “What’s this?”

Yingbao replied, “A cucumber.”

“Can you eat it?” Yuanbao took the cucumber and sniffed it, “It’s refreshing and smells different from the melon.”

Yingbao: “Yes, it is edible. Youyou has already eaten one.”

Not only did she feed Youyou, but she also chopped up the overripe cucumbers to feed the chickens. Those chickens ate so happily.

About a dozen chickens in the cave seemed to have gained weight. Each chicken produced an egg every day without fail. These past days, they had collected several dozens of eggs, filling up two rice washing baskets.

Yuanbao took a bite of a cucumber, mumbling to himself, “Not bad, but not as sweet as the melons.”

When the children got back home with Xiaolu, Jiang Jie immediately handed a melon to their mother, calling out, “Mom! Sister found more melons!”

The sight of Xiaolu, her back laden with two baskets full of melons and vegetables, left their mother stunned.

What incredible luck does her daughter have that she continually finds these melons? It was truly unbelievable.

“And there are eggs! Sister also found a basket full of eggs in the bamboo forest!”

Jiang Jie excitedly hopped around their mother, “Boiled eggs! I want to eat boiled eggs!”

Their mother received the basket of eggs from her daughter and took it to the kitchen.

Dani and Eryong ran over, shocked: “Yingbao found the melons again? Where in the bamboo forest did she find them? I want to go too.”

Yingbao silently handed them a melon and said, “Eat first, I’ll take you there after lunch.”

Their mother took the cucumbers out one by one from the basket, asking, “What is this?”

“Cucumbers. I bought the seeds from a salesman and planted them in the bamboo forest. I forgot about them for a while but when I checked today, a good number had already fruited.”

Yingbao, without the slightest change of expression or hesitation, spun this lie easily.

Their mother didn’t seem the least bit suspicious and asked, “Is there any more?”

“There are still some left, I’ll pick them up in a couple of days.” Yingbao helped her mother unload the Chinese cabbage, placing it on the kitchen floor.

Once the bandit incident died down, she would move all her hidden items out of the house, piling them up in the bamboo forest to pin the blame on the bandits.

Just at this moment, Jiang Cheng and Jiang Quan returned with two huge bamboo tables from the forest. Those were the only two pieces of furniture their family had left.

Fortunately, the tables had been kept away; otherwise, they would have been burned like everything else.

With the vegetables and eggs, they prepared a more scrumptious meal for lunch.

Yanru plucked a handful of Spanish garlic from the ground to mix with cucumber slices for a refreshing salad. In addition, she cooked a pot of egg soup with Chinese cabbage leaves, made a cold dish from the cabbage stems, and added some Euonymus, giving it a delicious salty and spicy flavor.

They also boiled a large pot of white rice. After dishing out the rice, the rice crust at the bottom of the pot was toasted to a crispy crunch, so every child took a piece, and their chewing echoed with a satisfying crunch.

Huzi and Jiang Jie were a bit disappointed because they didn’t get the boiled eggs they craved, so they ate their meals reluctantly.

Yingbao whispered, “Eat quickly, we’ll go gather more eggs this afternoon.”

The family’s situation was not good, there were only so few eggs, the mother and aunties definitely wouldn’t be willing to boil one for each person, so they made an egg vegetable soup instead.

She could go and collect a basket of them, so at that time, she could boil an egg for each of them, Huzi, Yuanbao, and her brothers.

“Great!” exclaimed Huzi and his two brothers in unison, quickly devouring their food.

Just then, a sudden burst of noise came from outside the courtyard, as if many people were coming.

Old man Jiang startled, immediately picked up a sickle and rushed to the entrance of the courtyard.

The courtyard door was pushed open with a squeak, and Jiang Sanlang was the first to step in.

“Sanlang!”

Old man Jiang, caught up in the excitement, grabbed his son, “Thank goodness you’re home!”

He looked him up and down: “What happened to you? Are you injured? What about Dalang and Erlang?”

Yingbao and her two brothers jumped up with excitement, rushing to their father and hugging his legs: “Dad! Dad, you’re back!”

“Dad, are you injured?”

Jiang Sanlang looked disheveled at the moment, with dark red blood stains on his clothes, his hair was messy, he looked no different from refugees who had been fleeing for a long time.

Bending over, he gently patted his children on the head, smiled lovingly and said, “Dad’s not hurt. You guys go play somewhere else, dad’s clothes are dirty with blood.”

Then he said to Chunniang, “There are quite a lot of people coming to eat later, do we still have rice left? Cook more rice for them.”

Seeing her husband in such a state, Chunniang’s heart ached uncontrollably. She quickly pulled the kids aside, “There is some rice left. I will go and cook now, you sit and rest first.”

She got a bowl and filled it with rice for her husband, urging him to sit down and eat.

Jiang Sanlang, with clean hands and a washed face, sat down, started to eat from his bowl.

Haven’t had a proper meal in days, he ate hungrily.

Upon knowing that Dalang and Erlang had returned, the Zhou family and Yanru scrambled out of the yard to look for them.

They saw a large group of people coming over, some carrying wounded on their backs.

Both Dalang and Erlang were also supporting two injured men, they looked okay.

These people quickly entered the yard of Jiang Sanlang’s house, Yingbao counted there were more than thirty people.

Each and everyone of them looked weary, not only were their clothes tattered, but some were even without shoes.

Chunniang, along with the first and second sisters-in-law, were busy with washing rice and cooking—two big pots in total.

As for the vegetables, it just so happened that Yingbao had brought back some Chinese cabbage. They blanched it in boiling water, added a little salt, and made a cold salad. Sliced cucumbers were also served as a cold dish.

When the rice was done, they served it for the thirty-plus people. There weren’t enough bowls, so Dani went to the ruins to collect some broken bowls. They were washed clean to serve the rice, and when there weren’t enough chopsticks, they broke off some tree branches as a substitute.

No one minded; they lifted their bowls and took their tree branches, quietly digging in. In one go, they finished all the rice in the two big pots.

Not only did they finish all the rice, they didn’t even leave the crispy rice at the bottom of the pot.

After the meal, most of the villagers went back down the mountain to the village. Those with injuries drank the medicine which Yingbao prepared and with the help of others, made their way back to the village.

Only Chen Yin, Wang Ke, Li Dayong, and Li Eryong stayed.

Having learnt that their wives and children are at the South Slope, they went directly to find them.

“Sanlang, why did you take so long to return?” Old man Jiang questioned his son. “What have you been eating these past few days?”

“We were chased out by the bandits for dozens of miles, then hid in the forest, set up an ambush, and killed quite a few bandits.”

Taking a bite from the melon which his wife handed to him, Jiang Sanlang said with a smile of triumph, “Those bandits saw the situation was unfavorable and wanted to escape, but we turned the tables and pursued them instead, hence the delay.”

Pointing to the weapons in the yard, he said, “Those were left by the bandits, they seemed useful so I picked them up.”

Old man Jiang’s face twitched, as he eyed his son, “How many bandits did you kill?”

Having lived for so many years, he had never even killed a pig, but his son dared to kill people—moreover quite a few. Those were deeds done by evil men in the past.

Well, this is truly a sin.