The kang (heated brick bed) for left-behind women

After dinner and tidying up, the thick darkness enveloped the mountain valley.

The cave door was bolted shut, the oil lamp was blown out, and the two lay side by side on the warm earthen bed.

Li Ruoxue really seems to have a thing for sleeping in a heated brick bed.

"Are you really not going to Aunt Lin Yali's place tonight?" Li Ruoxue asked.

"She's definitely fine," Lin Dachun replied.

"Aren't you afraid the Sun family will retaliate against her? They retaliated against you during the day, and now that Lin Liang has run away, the Sun family will take their anger out on Lin Yali. She'll definitely have a hard time," Li Ruoxue replied.

Hearing this, Lin Dachun thought it made sense.

But compared to Lin Yali, Sun Taohua should be even more heartbroken.

"Alright, I'll go check it out. You close the door properly," Lin Dachun reminded him.

"Um."

Lin Dachun went to Lin Yali's house empty-handed in the dark.

For married men and women, the village doesn't really care much about affairs involving men, but for young, unmarried women who are defiled, it can cause a lot of trouble because it involves marriage.

Lin Yali's courtyard was even more dilapidated than Lin Dachun's cave dwelling, and the fact that her son Lin Liang had run away made the place even more deserted.

Lin Yali looked terribly haggard, as if her backbone had been removed.

Upon seeing Lin Dachun, she was first startled, and subconsciously felt somewhat timid and ashamed.

"Brother Dachun... I thought you weren't coming. Come in, come in and sit down." Lin Yali hurriedly ushered him into the house, not knowing what to do with her hands and feet.

"Did the Sun family come to bother you tonight?" Lin Dachun asked directly.

"Not for now. They know my son went west, so I guess it's no use looking for me," Lin Yali replied.

"Where are the others? What about the old bachelors in the village?" Lin Dachun asked again.

"Hey, Da Chun, please have a seat." Lin Yali closed the door to the cave dwelling and made a cup of tea for Lin Da Chun.

At the same time, some jujube cakes and jujube candies were brought out as sweet treats to Lin Dachun.

"To be honest, Lin Liang went too far in this matter," Lin Dachun sighed and said.

"Yes," Lin Yali agreed.

"If Sun Taohua's parents don't agree to her marriage, especially since the other party already has an engagement, then Sun Taohua becomes the biggest victim in this whole affair," Lin Dachun said truthfully.

Although Lin Liang was wrong, his crime did not warrant the death penalty.

"Yes." Lin Yali nodded as well: "I also feel that my son has wronged Sun Taohua."

"Well, come with me to the Sun family another day. Let's sit down and discuss this matter, and find the best way to make amends for the harm done to Sun Taohua." As a relative and cousin of Lin Yali's husband, Lin Dachun, as an elder of the Lin clan, couldn't ignore the fact that Lin Yali's husband had died.

This mother and child were already pitiful.

"Okay, Brother Dachun, I'll follow your arrangements." Lin Yali still has very sound values ​​and believes that if her son is wrong, then he is wrong. But she only has one son, so she is protective of him.

"Brother Da Chun, would you like to try this?"

Lin Yali picked up the jujube cake and jujube candy and handed them to Lin Dachun to eat.

"I heard... your jujube cake and jujube candy taste really good?"

"You should try it."

Lin Yali nodded, a bitter look on her face: "Yes... when my husband was alive, I learned a little skill from a stranger. After he passed away, I relied on picking wild jujubes in the autumn to make cakes and candies, and selling them at the market to earn some money for oil and salt..."

Lin Dachun picked up a piece of cake, broke off a small piece, and put it in his mouth.

The natural acidity of the jujube spreads first, followed by a rustic sweetness. The balance between sour and sweet is just right. Although the texture is not as delicate as the pastries sold in town, it has a unique, rustic flavor.

Sugar, too, melts in your mouth, sweet and sour, quenching thirst and promoting saliva production.

"Yes, it tastes really good," Lin Dachun affirmed. "It's more profitable than just selling sour dates. It's delicious."

Sour jujubes are not worth much. There are many sour jujube trees on this Loess Plateau, but like sea buckthorn, they are sour and astringent and not tasty at all.

You really can't do it without some skill.

"It's just about making a living. Wild jujubes have a short season, and they're hard to pick, so we can't make much."

"What about sea buckthorn? Can you do that too? You know I grow a lot of sea buckthorn." Lin Dachun quickly thought of whether he could connect it with his sea buckthorn.

"Sea buckthorn cake? Sea buckthorn candy?"

"Um."

"We can try it. Like with jujubes, we can ferment it with sugar to control its sourness and turn it into sweetness. It should work. But..." Lin Yali was initially confident, but then she had some concerns.

"you say."

"Actually, neither jujube cake nor jujube candy are worth much money; the profit margin is very low. The same goes for sea buckthorn," Lin Yali said, getting to the point.

"Oh, I see. That makes sense. Is there any way to do it?" Lin Dachun asked.

"I don't know either. I'm not very knowledgeable. But we country folk don't have much money, so we sell things cheaply. I wonder what it's like in the city?" Lin Yali replied.

"We don't even have enough for the travel expenses to the city. Haha."

"Mm." Lin Yali nodded.

The two chatted for a while.

"Brother Dachun, have you considered planting wild jujube trees? These wild jujubes are very easy to grow, just like sea buckthorn; they can survive no matter how you plant them," Lin Yali said.

"Sure, if you think you can make some money from making jujube cakes, I'm happy to grow them too. It's the same as growing sea buckthorn anyway," Lin Dachun replied.

At this time.

Lin Yali squeezed closer to Lin Dachun, standing right next to him.

"Brother Dachun, there's something I need to tell you." Lin Yali blushed again; the cave dwelling was quite warm.

Lin Yali actually takes pretty good care of this family.

"you say."

"You're single too, still young. I've been single for a long, long time. To be honest, all these years, I raised my son, and now that he's grown up, he's gone. I also want someone to care for me, and you need that too. Why don't we live together?" Lin Yali said, carefully reaching out and taking Lin Dachun's hand.

Lin Dachun immediately dodged his hand.

"Yali, what are you saying? Daqiu and I are good brothers. How could I marry his wife?" Lin Dachun immediately retorted.

"Da Qiu has been dead for so many years," Lin Yali replied.

"Let's not talk about this." Lin Dachun withdrew his hand again and stood up. "I'll head back now. We'll see about the Sun family's matter tomorrow."

Just as Lin Dachun stood up, Lin Yali suddenly pounced on him.

Lin Dachun leaned back and fell right onto the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Yali, please, don't, I..." Lin Dachun didn't know what to say.

"Let me warm your kang (heated brick bed)? At home, does Ruoxue warm your kang? Here, I'll warm your kang." Lin Yali said, directly sealing Lin Dachun's mouth.

"Yali, don't be like this. Waaah." Lin Dachun pushed Lin Yali's head away, turned his head to the side, and separated from Lin Yali.