Chapter 108: A Giant ‘turtle’
After listening for a while, everyone was speechless about the old woman next door.
It was because her eldest daughter-in-law had eaten chicken soup yesterday, and had a conflict with Grandmother Shen and Yun Jiao, so she took her anger out on her daughter-in-law who had just given birth.
She scolded people, calling them ungrateful, spoke sarcastically, and didn’t give them food.
She said that since she ate her fill at other people’s houses, why was she still eating their grain.
She directly scolded the eldest daughter-in-law, who had just given birth, until she cried.
Last night, Shen Jiang couldn’t stand it anymore and had an argument with his mother. This morning, the old woman gave the younger daughter-in-law two eggs, and didn’t prepare any food for the eldest daughter-in-law.
So this led to the scene Shen Jiang was creating now.
“I just want to ask, am I your son or am I adopted? I can tolerate your favoritism, and I thought you disliked my wife before because you preferred sons over daughters.
But now my wife has given me a son, and you are still like this, even more displeased with her. She has been working hard for this family even while pregnant, serving you and your sister-in-law, what did she ever do to make you dislike her so much!”
Shen Youcai twitched his lips: “Brother, what you’re saying is wrong. When has our mother ever been biased? My wife isn’t…”
“Shut up!”
When an honest person truly gets angry, it can be quite terrifying.
Shen Youcai was so startled by his elder brother’s roar that he didn’t dare to speak.
His wife stood beside him and pinched him several times without him reacting.
“Good-for-nothing!”
She muttered softly, but she didn’t dare to step forward and say anything herself.
Old Woman Li wanted to make a scene again, but the head of the family, Old Man Shen, who was always silent, spoke up.
“Have you decided?”
Shen Kuan nodded, embracing his two daughters beside him.
“Father, I’ve decided, we’re dividing the family.”
Old Woman Li shrieked: “I don’t agree!”
“You shut up.” Old Man Shen was usually quiet, but when he became tough, even Old Woman Li was startled.
“If you keep causing trouble like this, Eldest and Second will eventually become estranged from us.”
Old Man Li sighed: “Go call the village chief. Since we’re dividing the family, let’s divide everything.”
Only the third son’s family and Old Woman Li were unhappy, everyone else was happy.
Old Woman Li was unwilling: “Eldest and Second, think carefully. Your third brother is about to go to work in the city. If you really divide the family, don’t expect Third Brother to help you later.”
Shen Jiang: “We don’t need his help. Our family will honestly work hard, and we can have a good life.”
Counting on Third Brother, ha… maybe in the next life.
Even if Third Brother’s family becomes wealthy in the future, it will have nothing to do with him.
Yun Jiao and her family watched from beginning to end, finishing their meal and still watching with their bowls for a while.
“Let’s go, let’s go, there’s nothing more to see. We still have to go pick corn.”
The work that needed to be done was more important.
Old Woman Li glared at them fiercely, feeling extremely embarrassed and angry that they were watching a joke.
But who paid any attention to her.
With the things they had prepared long ago, Yun Jiao’s whole family went up the mountain again.
Yun Jiao was thinking about the hawthorn tree, and also the bamboo fungus eggs left at the place where she picked bamboo fungus in the bamboo forest before. She wondered if she could pick some more bamboo fungus now.
Today, Yun Jiao and Yun Jiujiu were going into the forest to find things themselves. Yun Xiaowu and the others also really wanted to come, but they were kept busy by the adults working.
“There’s bamboo fungus!”
It’s just not as much as yesterday, only about ten or so.
The two of them were also very satisfied.
“Ninth Brother, hawthorns.”
“Those are sour, not delicious.”
Yun Jiao: “Take them home, we’ll make candied hawthorns.”
Yun Jiujiu: “Okay, let’s go pick hawthorns now.”
Yun Jiao is a bit of a useless climber, but Yun Jiujiu isn’t.
Although he’s not as good at climbing trees as Yun Xiaowu and Yun Xiaoqi, he can still climb up.
Of course, the most skilled one is Cat Leader.
While Yun Jiujiu was struggling to climb less than half a meter, Cat Leader zipped up the tree in a few swooshes.
“Wow… amazing, amazing.”
Yun Jiao showed an envious gaze and applauded like a baby seal.
Cat Leader’s tail wagged even more happily.
Although Cat Leader climbed the tree, its paws couldn’t pick hawthorns.
So it just perched on a branch, watching Yun Jiujiu pick.
Yun Jiao picked up what fell below.
After picking a basket of hawthorns, it was too hot, so Yun Jiao wanted to go play by the river.
Shen Family Village has a river, and every year when planting crops, the surrounding villages rely on the water from this river to irrigate their fields.
The river water was quite deep and wide, but the current was not fast.
Taking off her shoes and rolling up her pants, Yun Jiao stepped into the water and felt completely comfortable.
Cat Leader watched from afar, not wanting to get wet at all.
“Ninth Brother, there’s a fish.”
It’s a big fish.
It’s at least as long as her arm, a big black fish.
Yun Jiao didn’t even think about it, she directly dove into the water and swam towards the river fish.
Yun Jiujiu wasn’t worried. If they weren’t afraid of seawater, why would they be afraid of river water.
When Yun Jiao surfaced again, she was holding a struggling fish with both hands.
It weighed about three to four catties.
“Basket, Ninth Brother, quickly bring the basket over.”
Putting the fish in: “I see something below, I’m going to catch it.”
Saying that, she dove back into the river.
Yun Jiujiu craned his neck to look: “Jiaojiao, did you catch it? What is it?”
The area where Yun Jiao dove into was already the deepest part of the river.
People here usually didn’t dare to swim there, nor were children in the family allowed to go near.
This time, Yun Jiao only came up after nearly ten minutes. Yun Jiujiu had already swum over to look for a while, but his diving skills weren’t as good as his sister’s.
Just as he was about to cry from anxiety, Yun Jiao finally surfaced.
She was holding a big one in her hands.
The reason she was delayed for so long was to pry this big fellow out.
“Brother, Ninth Brother, look quickly, I caught a huge turtle!”
This thing is called a turtle, right?
Yun Jiao thought uncertainly.
Turtles in the sea are called sea turtles, and turtles in rivers are called tortoises, and also sometimes called soft-shelled turtles.
When Yun Jiao dragged the ‘turtle’ ashore, Yun Jiujiu gasped.
“This is even bigger than the turtle we have at home.”
That’s right, and its shell was a pale golden color.
“How did you find it?”
Yun Jiujiu excitedly circled the ‘turtle’ a few times.
Yun Jiao proudly said: “I saw it move.”
Cat Leader, from not far away, was also attracted. It jumped directly onto the shell of the big creature and curiously pawed at it.
“Should we take this big thing back?”
Yun Jiao shook her head: “No.”
Yun Jiao could sense some of the emotions of this big creature; its will to survive was strong.
This indicated that the creature had developed some intelligence.
She was just curious, she brought this creature up to look at it, and to let her brother see such a large freshwater turtle.
“How many years have you lived?”
“Are you called a turtle?”
Yun Jiao squatted in front of the big creature and mumbled questions.
‘Do… not. Know.’
‘No… no… it’s not.’
‘￥#@……#@’
The answers were slow and intermittent, like a child learning to speak.
Yun Jiao couldn’t understand some of it.
Yun Jiao stroked her chin and wondered, could this be a local dialect of the river?
“Alas, it’s a pity that Father and Mother aren’t here, otherwise we could let them see you too.”
“Let’s go back, let’s go back. I’m going to catch other things.”
Receiving permission, the golden soft-shelled turtle dragged its heavy body and struggled to crawl back into the river.
