"Mother, I'm back!"
Zhao Daishan's voice was like a lifesaver. Cheng Loanloan hurriedly called him into the backyard.
She shoved the dead rabbit into her eldest son's arms. "Old Fourth caught a rabbit. You skin it first."
Zhao Daishan went to gather some dry grass, then bundled it into a rope. He hung the rabbit up and immediately began skinning it from its mouth downwards...
Cheng Loanloan couldn't bear to watch such a bloody sight any longer. She turned away to prepare other food.
A family of six, eating just one rabbit would definitely not be enough. Rabbit stew with potatoes was delicious, but it seemed potatoes weren't yet available in this era. Cheng Loanloan wasn't very clear on what specific vegetables were in the garden.
"Sidan!" she called out.
Zhao Sidan came over, sniffling, his face covered in tears. A swipe of his small hand made his face even dirtier.
Cheng Loanloan scooped some clean water to wash his face, then said helplessly, "Zhang Dagang's group won't come to snatch the rabbit again. What are you crying about?"
Zhao Sidan sniffled, swallowed his tears, and said with a sniffle, "I'm not crying..."
Anyway, the rabbit was already dead. No matter how much he cried, it wouldn't come back to life.
"Here are five *wen* coins. Go to the main house over there and exchange them for some vegetables." Cheng Loanloan took copper coins from her purse and placed them in his hand. "It's best to bring back a radish. Rabbit stew with radish is delicious, do you want to eat it?"
Zhao Sidan imagined it for a moment, and his mouth watered. He quickly swallowed it back.
The rabbit was his good friend; he resolutely resisted rabbit meat.
He put away the five *wen* coins and went to the main house.
The Zhao family's main house was right in the center of the village. The Zhao family had three sons, so their house was built very large, with a total of five rooms, located under a large pagoda tree. There were vegetable plots both in front and behind. In this dry season, only the Zhao family, with its many members, could arrange for several people to queue up and carry water, thus keeping the vegetables in the plots from dying.
Zhao Sidan pushed open the courtyard gate and went in, shouting loudly, "Grandma!"
In broad daylight, and not mealtime, only Old Madam Zhao and Third Son Zhao's wife were in the Zhao family's main house.
Old Madam Zhao was drying wild vegetables. The harvest was bad, so taking advantage of the abundance of wild vegetables on the mountain, she needed to dry a lot to store, to prevent the dozen-plus mouths in the family from having to starve when the time came.
"Sidan, why are you here?"
Zhao Sidan opened his mouth and said, "Mother told me to come get a radish."
As soon as she heard this, Third Zhao's wife's face fell. Before, the eldest sister-in-law had taken twenty taels of silver and over ten *mu* of land to live separately, saying she would no longer have anything to do with the Zhao family, and even signed a document. Now she was openly sending her youngest son to the main house to demand food. How could there be such a shameless person under the heavens!
Old Madam Zhao's expression wasn't very pleasant either. "Your mother is just a lazy good-for-nothing. In early spring, everyone planted radishes, but she didn't. Every day she just went around gossiping. Now look. Every family has at least some food stored, but only your family has to dig up wild greens to eat. It's not like there aren't ferns on the mountain. She just likes to do things that make people mock her!"
Old Madam Zhao huffed and puffed as she went down to the field and pulled up a radish.
There wasn't enough moisture, so the radishes were very small. The old madam pulled up two more and shoved them into Zhao Sidan's hand.
Zhao San's daughter-in-law's heart was bleeding. Her elder sister-in-law was already so outrageous, yet her mother-in-law still favored her elder sister-in-law's family so much. Wasn't it simply because her elder sister-in-law could bear sons?
Thinking of this, a bitter smile touched Zhao San's daughter-in-law's lips. She had only given birth to two daughters, making her a sinner of the Zhao family. In the entire Dahe Village, she didn't even dare to raise her head. No matter how unfair her mother-in-law was, she couldn't utter a word. What could she say? She couldn't bear a son like her elder sister-in-law, after all...
Zhao Si Dan hugged the mud-covered radish to his chest, fumbled in his sleeve, and finally pulled out five coins. "Thank you, Grandma."