Chapter 35: Hatching Wild Chicken Eggs
However, they did hear that they had encountered some quite regretful things.
“If I had gone into the mountains with you today, perhaps I could have caught one too.”
Regarding this, Yun Xiaowu thought to himself that they definitely did not want to go into the mountains with him.
Although he liked to show off, Yun Xiaowu and the others knew their limits; that snake was hidden very well and not brought out.
Running back home, Yun Xiaowu immediately started shouting noisily.
“Grandma, Mom…”
“They’re not home, the door is locked.”
Yun Xiaowu threw the firewood from his backpack by the doorway.
“You guys watch this, I’ll go find Grandpa to get the key.”
Old Master Yun was busy at the new house, and everyone else, including Old Madam Yun, was estimated to have gone to work.
People in the countryside rarely have free time.
Yun Xiaowu quickly ran back.
Yun Xiaoliu and the others were playing marbles by the door. Yun Jiao, holding the fifteen wild eggs, sat on a stone stool by the door, her fair and soft little hands holding an egg and pointing it towards the sky, curiously looking at something.
“I’m back, Grandpa said Grandma went to the fields to pull weeds.”
“Jiaojiao, what are you looking at?”
Yun Jiao turned her face slightly, her delicate face like a porcelain doll turned towards Yun Xiaowu, her big eyes exceptionally bright.
“Fifth Brother, this egg has a little wild chicken inside.”
Her soft voice carried a hint of excitement.
“Really?”
The other brothers stopped playing marbles, got up from the ground, and patted their pants before crowding over.
“Let me see, let me see.”
“Don’t crowd, I want to see too.”
They took the wild eggs and looked at them in the same way Yun Jiao was.
“I can’t tell.”
“Mine seems to have something.”
Yun Xiaoqi: “Let’s go get the flashlight to look. Grandma used to check the eggs at home like this.”
After the only rooster in the family was eaten, Grandma never checked the eggs again.
They opened the door and went inside, and the children immediately found the flashlight, then put their heads together and held the egg up to the light source.
“Look quickly, there really is one, there are so many blood vessels here.”
“Is this the heart? It’s still moving.”
“Let’s look at the others.”
In the end, out of fifteen eggs, only three clearly contained small lives.
For the rest, they couldn’t tell.
“Quick, let’s put these three wild eggs in the chicken coop, and let the hens help incubate them.”
“Huh? What if our hens don’t want to?”
“Let’s try first.”
Yun Jiao’s short legs followed her brothers’ behinds as she crawled, and the children ran to the shed where the chickens were kept.
There were two chicken nests inside, both made from discarded baskets filled with dry grass.
The two hens at home would run into them to lay eggs.
“There’s a hen still in the nest here.”
Suddenly being crowded, the hen became agitated and uneasy.
“Could it be laying an egg?”
Yun Xiaowu and the others curiously walked behind the hen’s buttocks and squatted down, wanting to see how the hen laid an egg.
Hen: ………
Even if it was laying an egg, it would be so scared it would hold it back.
“What are you guys doing?”
Grandma Yun returned and, seeing her precious hens being messed with by a few stinky kids, became furious. She picked up a thin stick and intended to hit them.
“Run!”
Yun Xiaowu pulled Yun Jiao and started running, but her legs were too short to keep up. In the end, Yun Xiaowu and Yun Xiaoliu each held one of her little arms, and Yun Jiao was left suspended in the air, dumbfounded, her tiptoes not reaching the ground.
“Xiaowu, Xiaoliu, put your sister down quickly!”
“Grandma, don’t hit, we just wanted the hens to help incubate the eggs.”
After being chased around the courtyard twice, they quickly explained in a rush of words.
Grandma Yun stopped, and the children clustered together, standing opposite Grandma Yun, their eyes warily fixed on the stick in her hand.
Yun Jiao’s short legs dangled and flailed: “Let me go, I want to get down.”
The two brothers then quickly put her down.
“Incubate eggs?”
Grandma Yun hugged Yun Jiao and slapped Yun Xiaowu and Yun Xiaoliu on their arms, but without force, it looked like a light pat.
“What if you hurt her running around with your sister like this?”
Yun Xiaowu shamelessly said: “No, I loved playing like this when I was little.”
“Was it fun, Jiaojiao?”
Yun Jiao mumbled: “You guys didn’t run in sync.”
If they didn’t run in sync, her arms would be pulled, and it wouldn’t be as fun.
Yun Xiaowu and Yun Xiaoliu awkwardly scratched their heads.
Yun Xiaowu: “It’s all your fault for running too slow.”
Yun Xiaoliu slowly retorted: “It was clearly you who ran too fast.”
The two brothers disliked each other.
“Brother, the wild eggs.”
Yun Jiao reminded them, and Yun Xiaoqi quickly took out the wild eggs.
“Grandma, we found several wild eggs. These three contain little wild chickens, and we were planning to have the hens help incubate them.”
Old Madam Yun took a look and indeed, after checking, the three wild eggs confirmed they all had chicks inside.
“Give them to me, I’ll take them over to try. The hens at home are nesting right now.”
However, the eggs they laid could not be hatched, but these three wild eggs could be tried.
But three was too few.
She checked the other eggs and found three more fertilized eggs that were difficult to distinguish, so she took them out as well.
The children watched helplessly as only nine wild eggs remained, not enough for the family to eat.
“I’ll go look for other eggs in the next few days and have the hens hatch them together.”
There were only two hens left at home, and she had actually been wanting to raise a few more.
The children followed Old Madam Yun, watching her skillfully rummage through the hen sitting in the nest and then take out a warm egg from under its belly.
The hen seemed a bit anxious as Old Madam Yun took the egg, clucking non-stop.
It only quieted down after Old Madam Yun put the six wild eggs back.
Out of the chicken shed, they chattered about what they had found in the mountains today.
When they mentioned the snake, Old Madam Yun quickly checked Yun Jiao, nervously asking if she had been bitten.
Yun Jiao stood there to be checked, her hands and little face examined. She was obedient and didn’t fuss, only shaking her head when asked.
“No.”
“Grandma, that was a black-striped snake. Sister is fine, she was so amazing she even smashed the snake’s head.”
Old Madam Yun soon saw the snake and wild chicken they had caught.
The younger ones clamored to eat Dragon Phoenix Soup.
Yun Jiao also looked at her with her big eyes, gazing expectantly.
Old Madam Yun, holding the wild chicken, said: “Alright, Grandma will make Dragon Phoenix Soup for you today.”
“Hooray!”
The children all cheered.
Yun Jiao and Yun Xiaojiu helped boil water. Yun Xiaojiu was in charge of the fire, while Yun Jiao held a guava and slowly nibbled on it while sitting on a small stool nearby.
It was a bit hot, so she moved her small stool a little to the side.
Yun Xiaowu and the others went to process the wild chicken and snake.
“And you picked up so many morel mushrooms! These are good things.”
Yun Jiao poked her little head out, her mouth still stained with fine pulp and juice from the guava.
“Grandma, don’t sell them, let’s eat them ourselves.”
