Chapter 75:
The gold texture had that softness when bitten, and the rim of the bowl bore her neat tooth marks…
Proving it was pure gold.
Luo Zhi’er held up the gold bowl and examined it in the sunshine. Wood haha! She must have gotten incredibly lucky!
“Mother, Mother!”
“Mm! What’s wrong? Miaomiao?”
She was still fantasizing about her big house, big shop, luxurious horse carriage, when Miaomiao’s shouts brought her back to her senses.
“This yellow bowl is so pretty. Is Mother going to pick it up and use it herself?”
The bowls at home were all broken and chipped… Luo Zhi’er could roughly imagine how Zhou Shi and the others would react to seeing this bowl.
Eating?
Absolutely impossible!
At home, it would surely lead to a fight with heads broken and blood flowing, a chaotic scramble!
They might even kill! For money, they wouldn’t hesitate to flay her alive…
“Uh… Miaomiao, this bowl can’t be used for eating. It’s a gold bowl!”
“Gold bowl?”
“Miaomiao, Mother needs to discuss something with you. You must not tell anyone about Mother digging up this gold bowl just now.”
“That includes everyone at home…”
“Not even Father?”
Miaomiao looked at her with puzzled, transparent eyes.
“With Father… Mother will naturally find a time to tell him herself!”
“Okay, Miaomiao understands, Mother!”
“Remember, otherwise it might cause danger to life!”
“What is danger to life?”
“It means Mother might lose her life because of this bowl. Does Miaomiao want to lose Mother?”
Miaomiao was startled and hugged her neck even tighter. “No, no, Mother don’t die. Miaomiao doesn’t want Mother to leave Miaomiao.”
Luo Zhi’er soothed her. “It won’t happen. As long as you don’t tell anyone, it won’t. Mother will definitely give you good days!”
“Got it, Mother!”
Luo Zhi’er wasn’t scaring her; this was reality. She worried Miaomiao was young and spoke without thinking, loose-tongued.
Her innocent slip could lead to disaster. There were so many people in the village, human nature was complex, so it was better to give her a preventive warning in advance!
Let her recognize reality!
She hid the gold bowl in her bosom and nervously looked around. Besides her and her daughter, there was no one else nearby…
She tried digging in the surrounding soil…
This time she didn’t dig up anything, and there was nothing suspicious visible.
She probed her hand into the soil. She had dug down several dozen centimeters, and leeches had crawled all over her body. Miaomiao too!
Her legs were sore and unsteady, so she dug out a foothold again, grabbed some branches, and climbed up…
Once up, she quickly slapped the leeches off Miaomiao. There was one on her hand that had burrowed deep sucking blood and wouldn’t come off when slapped…
Miaomiao was very strong.
She didn’t cry while being slapped, though she looked disgusted.
The leech’s mouth sucker was stubbornly embedded in the flesh. She remembered she had salt in her bamboo basket, intended for food reserves!
She quickly took it out and sprinkled it on. Sure enough, the thing felt pain, curled up, and dropped to the ground.
She took off her clothes and shook them too. A pile of wriggling leeches on the ground!
Seeing no more leeches on her body, she put the bamboo basket on her back again, picked up Miaomiao, and left this leech woods!
She was thinking about the strangeness of this place!
In this wasteland, where did the gold bowl come from?
Where did the leeches come from?
Was this gold bowl coincidentally buried in the soil of this terrifying Mahuang Gully?
If it was just one gold bowl, there was no need to surround this mountain hollow entirely with leeches…
That stranger last time called “Master,” dressed brightly, came to the mountain… just to get bear gallbladder?
All these suspicions flashed through her mind…
Soon, mother and daughter left this forest, returned the way they came, climbed up the hillside, and picked some termite mushrooms along the way.
After eating some food, they got home at sunset.
Back home, Li Sanmao and the others hadn’t returned yet, and Zhou Shi was gone too!
Xiao Zhou Shi’s room was quiet too. She figured they had all gone to the field to work!
Perfect. Luo Zhi’er didn’t rest and went straight into the room, closed the door tightly, and found a place to hide the gold bowl!
She searched left and right but found no place. This home was bare and empty; nowhere felt safe!
Finally, under the bed she saw a copper-locked wooden box, left for Luo Zhi’er by Old Man Luo, and it was locked!
If locked, there must be a key. Where was the key?
She recalled in her mind. Oh, her memory…
Initially it was hung around her neck, but later the rope broke accidentally, and she seemed to have put it somewhere…
Where did she put it? She patted her head. Wrapped in a piece of hemp cloth, placed… placed…
She remembered: inside the pillow.
She hurried over and picked up that pillow from the bed, the one she had used to smash Li Sanmao that day.
She reached in and rummaged…
Sure enough, she pulled out a hemp cloth bundle wrapped with threads. When opened, there was a classical copper key inside.
Luo Zhi’er dragged out the wooden box, opened it with the key. A stack of books on top, and below some inexpensive-looking jewelry for a young girl…
Just as she was about to dig deeper, a noise suddenly sounded outside.
Luo Zhi’er quickly put the gold bowl inside and relocked the lock!
Pushed it back under the bed…
“Miaomiao, are you home alone?”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Mother’s clothes are dirty; she’s changing clothes in the room!”
“Grandma Zhao, sit down. Are you looking for Mother for something?”
Miaomiao was in the yard, obediently sitting on a small stool picking mushrooms!
Miaomiao stood up, gave her the small stool, and sat.
“Hehe, Miaomiao is good. Grandma won’t sit. Grandma came to have your mother thread a needle for me…”
“Oh, then Grandma Zhao, please wait a moment!”
Miaomiao was about to turn and call her when Luo Zhi’er came out.
“Old Lady Zhao, what are you threading a needle for?”
Luo Zhi’er put on her usual dazed expression.
“Me? Sewing a shoe sole. It’s fine in daylight, but by afternoon my eyes fail. There’s just a little left, so I thought to finish it and have you thread the needle for me…”
Luo Zhi’er hurried over, took the needlework, and threaded it in a moment.
Grandma Zhao looked grateful and happy, grinning toothlessly, and dangled a small bag of things for her.
“Sanmao’s wife, these are steamed buns I made. Don’t mind the corn flour outside; they’re filled with red bean paste inside…”
Luo Zhi’er thought she was carrying the shoe sole. “Oh, Old Lady Zhao, you’re too polite. How could you bring steamed buns…”
“Hehe, an old woman like me can’t finish them at home, so I packed some for Miaomiao. Seeing her is like seeing my own granddaughter. You and Sanmao are good people too. Take them quickly; refusing looks bad!”
Her eyes glanced around furtively, as if afraid others would see, urging her to take them!
“Okay!”
Luo Zhi’er knew Old Lady Zhao was thanking her for helping carry water that day, so it wouldn’t be good not to accept. “Then I’ll take them!”
Old Lady Zhao sat a bit and left, saying she was going back to sew more shoe soles.
She dumped the remaining mushrooms from the bamboo basket onto the ground outside the yard and squatted to pick them.
She sorted the miscellaneous mushrooms and spread them to dry in the bamboo sieve.
She picked off the mud, weeds, and leaves from the termite mushrooms!
She got the scale, weighed them: twenty-three pounds, then took them to the river to wash clean and tear into strips.
While washing, she encountered women from the village coming to the river to wash clothes and vegetables. They saw her washing these but didn’t think much of it.
Miaomiao followed her, rolled up her sleeves and pant legs in the river, and played with the water for a while.
After washing herself and the termite mushrooms, they went back and saw Xiao Zhou Shi come out of the room and go to the latrine…
Seeing her return, her face was a bit gloomy, and she went back to her bedroom.
She wondered if Xiao Zhou Shi had been in the room when she was hiding the gold bowl earlier.
And she was there when Old Lady Zhao came?
Without thinking more, she went to the kitchen to check. The stove was still warm. She figured Xiao Zhou Shi had made food; otherwise, what would she have eaten?
She lifted the bowl cover. Sure enough, there was corn paste, and shredded radish pickled with salt.
She hadn’t eaten anyway, so she washed the pot and started simmering termite mushroom oil. Though the Old Li Family was stingy and frugal, they didn’t lack animal oil…
In the kitchen against the wall was an earthen step with a row of clay jars fired from mud, almost all filled with animal oil!
Zhou Shi alone hadn’t put this in her bedroom. She carried a jar over.
This termite mushroom oil needed over an hour to simmer, so she started refining it without delay!
