Chapter 8: The Family Discusses Buying A Boat
Yun Jiao played at home after waking up from her nap. Her older brothers had gone out and hadn’t returned yet, so she took her small stool and, eating fragrant roasted sweet potatoes, went to the village mouth with her mom and aunt.
Several women in the village gathered together, chatting about gossip from one household to another, while their hands didn’t stop working.
Yun Jiao sat obediently to the side, taking small bites of her roasted sweet potato, her ears perked up to listen to them talk.
At first, they were talking about their own family matters. The spiny lobsters and that large tiger grouper that Yun Jiao and Yun Xiao Wu and the others had collected while tide pooling today had become the talk of the entire village, perhaps even reaching the neighboring village.
Such a significant event was certainly worthy of being on the village’s hot topic list. With people gathering in small groups, and the people involved present, of course, they had to talk about it.
Everyone envied their family’s good luck.
Shen Yunlian and Wang Mei both had smiles on their faces, modestly saying their family was poor, and then changed the subject.
It’s best not to show off wealth. If their family wasn’t truly poor now, some relatives would have come to borrow money.
“That Cai Jinhua is truly something else. Da Ya is her own daughter, after all. For a betrothal gift of one hundred yuan, she married her daughter to a divorced man ten years older than Da Ya. I heard that man is also a cripple.”
“You don’t know her. That woman treats her own daughter like a servant. I’ve never seen a mother like that.”
Shen Yunlian asked, “Didn’t Yun Dana stop her?”
“Stop her for what? Half of the hundred yuan betrothal gift went to their son, and the other half he used to buy wine and have fun. He’s a good-for-nothing without any ability. What else can he do besides drink wine?
He relies entirely on his wife and daughters to support him. I think his son will probably be similar to him in character. It’s a shame Cai Jinhua brags everywhere that her son is intelligent and will have a promising future.”
Throughout the afternoon, Yun Jiao ate, played by herself, and occasionally helped her mom hand over the fishing net, and time passed by.
It wasn’t until the older brothers who attended school returned that the other older brothers, who had been playing outside, also came back.
However, the first thing they did upon returning was get a beating.
Wang Mei looked at the dirty clothes on her son’s body, his pants also torn with a hole, and her temper instantly soared.
She grabbed the stick, as thick as a finger, from behind the door, grabbed Yun Xiao Qi, and beat him soundly on his backside.
“Stinky kid, how many times a day do I have to change your clothes, old mother? Your pants have a hole in them, do you not want to wear them and just run around outside with your bare butt exposed!”
“Ah! Mom, I was wrong, I was wrong, I didn’t do it on purpose!” Yun Xiao Qi jumped around like a monkey.
“Yun Xiao Ba, you stop right there too!”
Yun Xiao Ba wasn’t that foolish; he turned and ran outside.
His aunt chased after him with a stick.
Yun Xiao Wu and the dirty Yun Xiao Jiu laughed gleefully from the side.
But soon, they couldn’t laugh anymore.
Although Shen Yunlian’s temper was gentler than her sister-in-law’s, she believed that her own mischievous sons deserved to be disciplined when necessary!
Yun Xiao Wu was caught and spanked a few times on his backside.
Yun Xiao Jiu was the same.
“Mom, I was wrong, don’t be angry, I won’t dare to do it again next time.” This was Yun Xiao Jiu pleading pitifully.
“Ahhh!! What’s wrong with boys going out to play and getting their clothes dirty? I’m a man, dirty clothes just prove I’m strong. You women, mind your own business!”
This was Yun Xiao Wu, who cared about his face and was rebellious.
Then Yun Xiao Wu had an even worse time.
Shen Yunlian was almost angered to death by her foolish son.
“Change your clothes, wash them yourself. From now on, you’ll wash all your own clothes and pants!”
Yun Xiao Wu wiped his nose: “I’ll wash them myself if I have to.”
“Sister, look what I brought you.”
Just after being beaten, Yun Xiao Wu, acting like nothing happened, trotted happily to Yun Jiao, covered in mud.
Shen Yunlian scolded, “Don’t get too close to your sister, and don’t get mud on her. When your dad comes back, he won’t beat you severely.”
“Got it, got it.”
Yun Xiao Wu rummaged in his pants pocket, and then pulled out a few loaches.
They were still wriggling on the ground.
Yun Jiao let out a sound: “Fifth Brother, you went to catch loaches.”
She squatted on the ground and poked the loaches, which looked like snakes, with a small branch.
Yun Xiao Wu stood tall and proud, wiping his muddy nose with his hand, which made his face even dirtier: “Yes, we’ll have Grandma cook soup for you.”
“Fifth Brother, you’re so good. Here, eat this.”
She handed him the small green jujube in her hand, which one of the aunts who had been chatting earlier had given her.
“And me too, your Seventh Brother also helped catch them.”
“I also helped.”
Yun Xiao Qi and Xiao Ba all crowded over.
Yun Jiao looked at them expectantly: “But I don’t have any more jujubes.”
“It’s okay, we’re going to the mountains in two days to pick guavas. The guavas will be ripe.”
Yun Jiao’s eyes lit up and she nodded.
She liked to eat guavas.
Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe, the two brothers, returned, and the three women at home had also finished preparing dinner.
When they saw the particularly conspicuous lobster meat on the dining table, Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe’s eyes nearly bulged out.
“Are we celebrating something? This is a spiny lobster, isn’t it?!”
When did their family become so extravagant that they could afford to eat spiny lobster?!
How much would one of these cost!
Granny Yun: “This is for our Jiao Jiao to specifically leave for the family to improve their meals.”
Their family’s dishes were almost all sand clams, oysters, and some cheap small mixed fish. Everyone in the family was tired of eating them.
There wasn’t much meat from the sand clams and oysters, and with one bite for each person, they were almost gone.
But the family was poor and could only afford these.
Now, with such a large spiny lobster, everyone at the table set their sights on it.
At the dining table, the talkative Yun Xiao Wu excitedly recounted his achievements of the day, of course, mainly crediting his sister.
They earned over two hundred yuan today, and everyone in the family, big and small, had smiles that wouldn’t fade.
Infected by the atmosphere, Yun Jiao also smiled with her gentle eyebrows curved, and the two cute dimples at the corners of her mouth endeared her family immensely.
“Here, Jiao Jiao, eat more.”
After they started eating, the person sitting next to Yun Jiao put a chopstickful of the chewy, snow-white lobster meat into her bowl.
“Eat quickly, eat quickly.”
Yun Xiao Wu urged her.
Yun Jiao nodded, and one bite of the meat left her extremely satisfied.
Watching her eat, the Yun family members couldn’t help but laugh.
Because Little Yun Jiao, with her mouth full, really looked like a soft, fluffy little hamster diligently stuffing its cheeks, making people want to pet her.
After dinner, Old Master Yun, smoking his pipe, took advantage of the fact that the family was all present to talk about buying a boat.
“Our family doesn’t have that much savings right now. All the money is only enough to buy a small wooden boat. But having a wooden boat and casting nets in nearshore waters is a little better than being a deckhand for others.”
The two elders placed all their family’s savings on the table.
“Buy a boat, and the remaining money will continue to be saved. When we save a bit more, we’ll build two houses. Our family has many children, and the old house is not enough to live in.”
Building two houses meant dividing the family.
