Chapter 60: CH 60

Zhong Cheng’s words resonated with Mo Feng, “If I could eat this every day, I would too!”

Mo Ling muttered “glutton” under her breath and sat down to eat. Zhong Cheng said with a content face, “Who can work without eating, and who doesn’t know the fragrance of meat?”

Mo Feng felt like someone finally understood him, so he echoed, “That’s right.”

Mo Ling was wrapping the meat with the flatbread and handed it over to Zhong Cheng, gritted her teeth and said “eat”, Zhong Cheng accepted it and shut up obediently.

After dinner, Zhong Cheng urged Mrs. Liang to pack the wheat, and carried it to his carriage. Mrs. Liang looked at his horse who was eating hay in a basket with its head down and said, “Your horse is not full! You should let it eat for a while longer.”

“It didn’t do much today, so it’ll be fine.”

Mo Feng came over to touch the mane of the horse and asked, “How old is it?”

“Four years old, it’s currently in its prime.”

“How much did it cost to buy it?”

“Right now? At least twenty silver taels! When I bought it, it was a pony, so twelve silver taels.”

Mo Feng turned around and said to his mother pleadingly, “Mum, let’s buy a horse too!”

Mrs. Liang sighed, “Maybe next year! We haven’t saved up a lot of money this year!”

Zhong Cheng said, “I’ll help you buy it next year. I have a cousin who is a livestock broker, so I can make sure you don’t pay an unfair price.”

Mo Ling cleaned up the kitchen and returned to her room. When she passed by Zhong Cheng, she said, “Why haven’t you gone home yet?”

“I’m not in a hurry, we’ll leave when the moonlight comes out! Then, I can admire the moon while returning home.”

Before leaving, Zhong Cheng said that he’d come to plough the land in two days, so that Mo Ling wouldn’t have to painstakingly remove the sorghum roots.

When Zhong Cheng left, Mrs. Liang couldn’t even focus on her needlework. She lit a lantern in the yard and the entire family removed mung beans from their pods. The pods would be dried and used as kindling.

In previous years, Mrs. Liang and Mo Ling would have to work several days to harvest those two acres of land, and they’d carry the sorghum ears home in baskets. She could only dream of doing it like this in the past, and whenever she was tired, she couldn’t help but seethe about her deadbeat husband who never came back home.

While working, Mrs Liang thought, Actually, Mo Ling marrying further away isn’t too bad, we mostly need people for the harvest anyways. Zhong Cheng seems like an honest and kind person. His family has two work animals, and their family conditions are pretty good.

The next day, Mo Yan went out for a run, and brought a food box to Lu Junming, remembering the little beggar who lived behind the road, “Lu Junming, when you go to the market, please give the little beggar something to eat too.”

Lu Junming took the food box and said, “He has a name, you know. He’s called Chuzi, and he’s even a year older than you are!”

“You’ve collected that much information on him?”

“Chuzi is my second friend here, don’t worry! You won’t need to give him food every day in the future. I found him a job to do.”

“What kind of job?”

“Just doing odd jobs. He gets board and lodging, but no wages. At least he won’t be cold or starve to death this winter.”

“Thank you, Lu Junming!”

“Why are you thanking me? Chuzi already has.”

“You’re saying that as if you’re closer to him than me!”

Mo Yan pretended to be angry and ran away, and Lu Junming followed, “Don’t worry, in my heart, you’ll always be number one.” [1]

Two days later, Zhong Cheng came to plough the fields as promised. This time, he brought an ox. There was also a plough on his carriage, and a full set of farm implements!

In the past, they hand-ploughed their fields, and they had only seen others use these.

When Zhong Cheng went to plough the land, someone had to follow him to pick up the sorghum roots, but Mo Yan definitely wouldn’t be able to do so. Mrs. Liang recently started coughing, and would cough when she walked too fast. Only Mo Ling and Mo Feng could go.

Mo Feng got onto the carriage, but Mo Ling refused to and insisted on walking alongside it.

Mo Feng asked, “Brother Cheng, is this ox also yours?”

“Yes, our horse pulls our carriage and our ox ploughs the fields. My family is large and we have a lot of land, so we kept these two work animals.”

“How much land does your family have?”

“Almost twenty acres! In winter, I drive our horse-drawn carriage to go out and deliver goods, so keeping them isn’t a net loss to us.”

“That’s almost as much as the Cao family, the richest family in our village.”

“My family has a lot of mouths to feed. In our village, we’re considered middle-of-the-road/”

Ploughing the land was a tiring job, and it was much harder than harvesting the sorghum crops. It was dark when the two acres of land were tilled. He pulled up all the weeds in the ground and threw them into a pile with the collected sorghum roots. He let the wind slowly dry them so the Mo family could take it home to use as firewood.

Finally, he re-fertilised the land. Seeing Zhong Cheng commanding his ox on the carriage, Mo Feng thought he looked cool and wanted to try. However, he was too timid to ask.

When Zhong Cheng was done, Mo Feng climbed onto the carriage, looking for a space without farm tools to sit down. Mo Ling still refused to go on, but Zhong Cheng pushed her into the car, complaining softly, “Just sit on the carriage, why are you being so stubborn!”

The carriage entered the village and passed outside the school when Mr. Tian happened to see Mo Ling and Mo Feng sitting on the carriage. [2]

Mo Feng called out “Sir” from a distance. Mo Ling was sitting with her back facing the school. When she turned around, she saw Mr. Tian, who had stopped and looked at them.

The carriage quickly sped past the entrance of the school. Mo Ling couldn’t see Mr. Tian anymore and panicked, worried that he might have misunderstood something.

She wanted to get out of the carriage when it hit a bump in the road, and Mo Ling subconsciously stretched out her hand so she wouldn’t fall. Her hand just rubbed against the blade of the plough, which was as sharp as a knife. A large wound appeared on Mo Ling’s hand, and blood immediately poured out.

Mo Ling yelled in pain, and Mo Feng was so frightened that he shouted, “Why are you bleeding so much! Quick, go find Mr. Cao!”

Zhong Cheng immediately stopped the carriage and turned to look at Mo Ling. Her left hand was covering her right hand, and both hands were stained red with blood. He immediately tore off a piece of his shirt and wrapped her hand in it. Then, he asked Mo Feng, “Where does Mr. Cao live?”

Mo Feng pointed to the alley next to the school, “Just follow that path.”

Zhong Cheng helped Mo Ling to get out of the carriage, who looked up and saw Mr. Tian standing at the entrance of the alley watching them. She wanted to break free from Zhong Cheng’s grasp, but not only did he not let go, but he also held onto her tighter, “You’ve suffered such a large wound, why are you still being so stubborn!”

Turning around, he asked Mo Feng to tie up the carriage, and helped Mo Ling walk past Mr. Tian. Mo Ling wanted to look back, but was stopped by Zhong Cheng, “Come on!”

At this time, Mo Ling didn’t care about how much she was bleeding, and whether it hurt or not, she was only worried about what Mr. Tian would think and if he would misunderstand.

Post-edit notes: Is this what they mean when love makes people stupid? Mo Ling’s infatuation with Mr. Tian is obviously incredibly unhealthy.

And yes, I’m posting this immediately after Chapter 58 because I forgot to post that…It’s my bad, sorry…

[1] You know, Lu Junming’s infatuation with Mo Yan is also slightly worrying…

[2] Why do they go through the village? My best guess is that the fields aren’t actually right next to their home, but that doesn’t make much sense in my opinion…