Splendid peasant girl busy farming

Chapter 11771

Yang Ruoqing has indeed not touched any meat these past few days, not even an egg.

Every day it's just vegetables, tofu, mushrooms, and the steamed buns and mantou are all vegetarian.

Sometimes when I eat noodles, I put a spoonful of wild chili and mushroom sauce in them, stir it up, and that's it.

It wasn't intentional that I ate like this; it was because I had something on my mind, and I was trying to restrain my appetite to express my devotion.

She didn't know if this trick would work. If it were twenty years ago, when she was fourteen or fifteen, and she saw Sun do this, she would probably be so angry that she would stomp her feet and smash the pot.

But twenty years later, now that she is a mother and even a grandmother, she has discovered that many bizarre things that have happened during these twenty years of life have made her believe that there are certain natural rules in this world.

Even emperors would fast, burn incense, and bathe before major sacrificial ceremonies, which shows that these rituals did have some effect to some extent.

So when Bo Dazhi went to take the imperial examination, Yang Ruoqing also wanted to do something for the child, so she followed others and fasted.

"Auntie, Mother, don't worry about me. I know my own body."

"These past few days, because I've been eating vegetarian food, I've been eating more meat than usual. Don't let my thinner face fool you; my energy is as good as ever."

“Qing’er, sigh… you’ve really gone all out for Dazhi,” said Madam Sun.

Even when Chen'er took the imperial examination, Qing'er didn't seem to have achieved this level, did she?

On the other hand, Chen'er hasn't been back to the village for many years either. Although he's said to be busy with official duties, isn't Dazhi busy too?
Returning to Changping Village from Yangzhou took more than a month by water, and more than a month sitting on a boat. Just thinking about it makes me feel miserable.

However, Dazhi insisted on coming back every year, even if it was just for a short stay of a month, so that he could be with Qing'er and enjoy her company.

There were some things that Mrs. Sun kept to herself and couldn't say.

If Chen'er hadn't gone missing back then, and had been raised by Qing'er all along, even if she was six or seven years old... we probably wouldn't be so estranged now, right?
Look at Zhi'er, he was raised until he was seven years old before returning to Yangzhou, and even so, he still misses Changping Village.

It is clear that in this world, some things are not about blood ties being greater than everything. Sometimes, the kindness of nurturing may be more important than the closeness of blood relations.

Since they couldn't persuade Qing'er, Sun and Wang Cuilian had no choice but to give up.

Before leaving, Madam Sun stroked Yang Ruoqing's head and said, "Qing'er, you love your son, and I love my son too."

"If you can't keep going, then don't do this anymore. Your heart is sincere, and the gods will know your piety. Don't make things too hard on yourself and end up starving yourself."

Yang Ruoqing was deeply moved by Sun's words, "Your son, my son."

She grasped Madam Sun's hand, smiled, and nodded: "Mother, don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

……

Sun and Wang Cuilian left Yang Ruoqing's room and headed towards the front yard.

As they passed the artificial hill, Ms. Sun suddenly stopped and looked up at a large tree overhead.

"What are you looking at?" Wang Cuilian asked.

Sun pointed to a bird's nest on the treetop, and a magpie was squatting beside the nest, feeding a small worm to the baby bird inside.

There was only one little bird in the nest, its body completely bald and its eyes still closed. But upon closer inspection, something seemed amiss.

Wang Cuilian also noticed something amiss. She gently patted Sun Shi beside her and whispered, "Am I seeing things? Why does that little bird look like... a swallow?"

“It’s a swallow!” Mrs. Sun said with certainty.

Every year in late spring and early summer when the weather warms up, many swallows fly to the eaves of farmhouses.

These swallows are busy carrying mud to build their nests. The villagers have reached a consensus: if the swallows are willing to build their nests under your eaves, it means that your house is a place with good feng shui, and it also means that your family is thriving and has a good atmosphere.

Therefore, the families chosen by the swallows are usually very happy and will tell their children not to be naughty.

When Xiao An was a child, he was mischievous once. While Yang Huazhong and Sun Shi were working in the fields, he secretly took a bamboo pole and poked the swallow's nest at the door.

Three swallow eggs fell to the ground and shattered. Two old swallows saw this and circled in the air above the yard for a long time, letting out mournful cries.

When Yang Huazhong returned from work and learned about this, the good-natured man grabbed a broom from the corner of the wall, pinned Xiao An down, and gave him a good beating, leaving his buttocks red and swollen.

Even though Sun felt sorry for the child, she didn't dare to stop him that time. Instead, she hid in the kitchen. For as long as Yang Huazhong was tidying up Xiao An in the front yard, Sun was wiping away her tears in the kitchen in the back yard for just as long...

"Why would a magpie raise a baby swallow in its nest? What's going on? I don't quite understand," Sun continued to mutter to herself.

Wang Cuilian was also completely baffled.

Just as I was about to ask someone, Rong Gu came over.

They quickly called Ronggu over to watch together.

Rong Gu was not surprised by this, and said, "It's been two days now. This magpie used to have baby magpies, but that evening a strong wind blew, and the baby magpies fell out of the nest and died."

"After the nest was empty for a few days, I thought the old magpie was going to leave. But I didn't expect it to bring back an egg from somewhere, put it in its own nest and continue incubating it. It has only been hatched for a short time!"

As Ronggu spoke, she tiptoed to examine the bird's nest, and said with a look of surprise, "It looks like a baby swallow. This silly magpie lost its own chicks and stole a swallow's chicks to raise. It's quite pitiful!"

Ronggu sighed a couple of times and then went to attend to her other tasks in the courtyard, leaving Wang Cuilian and Sun Shi standing there, gazing up at the old magpie flying back and forth in the treetops, busily feeding the swallows' chicks...

Sun turned to look at Wang Cuilian, her gaze shifting slightly, her expression complex: "Sister-in-law Cuilian, who did you think of when you saw this magpie?"

Wang Cuilian also had a bitter smile on her face, a smile that contained both relief and helplessness, both heartache and satisfaction.

"I wonder if you and I are thinking of the same person, sigh!"

“Then I’ll go first,” said Madam Sun. “What comes to mind is Qing’er.”

Wang Cuilian sighed, "And what about me?"

The two looked at each other and smiled, but their smiles were bitter.

After a moment of silence, Madam Sun said, "Our Qing'er is like that old magpie. The incident of Chen'er being stolen back then was a huge blow to her."

"For more than a year, she searched for her child frantically, from the mountains to the outside world, from villages to towns, to the county seat, and then to neighboring towns and the county seat next door..."

“During those years, whenever there was even the slightest clue, the couple would drop everything and go out to search for their child, no matter what. But time and time again they went out with hope, only to return empty-handed. It broke my heart to see them like that…”