Chapter 34 Too Idle

Ye Shiqi felt that if she liked something, she shouldn't do it just because someone else wanted her to. She had her own dreams and ambitions.

To do what she liked, regardless of what others said or laughed at, one shouldn't care too much. Life would be more peaceful and comfortable that way.

After graduating from college, she didn't immediately go on to study for a master's or doctorate; instead, she chose to return to her hometown, which made her classmates ridicule her for giving up a promising future.

But what of it? Everyone has people and things they care about in life.

It was because she heard that her stepmother's biological daughter had entered her father's company to manage it, with what seemed like designs on taking over the family property. She couldn't let her ambition-filled sister take everything that belonged to her.

Ye Shiqi returned to China once more and asked her father for a Ferrari and to intern at the company.

Then she arranged to hang out with her close friend from high school for a week, having the time of their lives.

Of course, that included clubbing, spending time in internet cafes, and watching shows and reading novels with her friend in her room.

Her father agreed to her terms and bought her a red car.

But during her test drive, Ye Shiqi, confused and disoriented, found herself in the world of a novel she had read.

As she drank water every day in this world within the book, she couldn't help but think whether her cunning sister had succeeded in her absence from her own world.

Taking over the family property that belonged to her and probably gloating about it with satisfaction.

Sigh... These old memories could now only be reflected upon during idle moments. She must have had too much idle time as a kid to entertain such wild thoughts.

Hongji and his father returned with another load of rice an hour later.

When they stepped into the yard and saw the already sun-drying rice in the winnowing basket and that the rice seedlings they had caught earlier had been threshed, father and son, both tired and sweaty, felt a sense of relief and placed the basket in the yard.

"Where's your mother?" Hongji's father wiped his sweat, drank some water again and, not seeing his wife, felt a hint of annoyance brewing.

Hongji didn't bother to ask. He was already used to his mother favoring his elder sister, yet he wondered in his heart whether she would return to cook or not.

"Mom hasn't come back yet," Ye Shuzhi said, sitting under the eaves to catch a breeze, her expression unhappy as she had just realized her phone had gotten blisters and was painfully hot to the touch, some parts even peeling. She had applied some medicinal oil to relieve the pain.

"Really, it's almost time to cook and Mom still isn't back," Ye Shuzhen complained, sitting next to her sister. Her hands, like her sister's, had blisters in the palms and on all five fingers, and it hurt where the skin had peeled off.

Hongji's father sighed inwardly and called his son back to work.

Mrs. Lai came into the yard not long after Hongji and his father had left, spotting her two daughters working and the rice already spread out on the winnowing baskets.

Her plump face broke into a smile as she praised the two sisters,

"Er Niu, San Niu, you two have worked hard today. Your mother will make you something delicious to eat right away."

"Mother, you're back? Look at our hands from working, they're all covered in blisters, and it hurts so much," Ye Shuzhen said with a complainant and coquettish tone, putting down the stick she held.

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"Mom, we're so tired from working, our hands are raw, and our bodies itch. Let the remaining work be yours! Don't go to elder sister's place this afternoon." Ye Shuzhi complained and wanted to shirk the current task.

"Er Niu, San Niu, be good! Continue working this afternoon. Your elder sister's family is also harvesting rice, and Mom needs to take her little nephew." Mrs. Lai said as she left to help her daughter and babysit her grandson, she was actually shirking the heavy labor; even at her eldest daughter's, she was just there to babysit.

Seeing her mother-in-law pounding rice in the courtyard and asking her to help, she declined, using childcare as an excuse.

She internally ridiculed her mother-in-law, who usually loaded her daughter with so much work, but now also had to work for the sake of food, didn't she?

Mrs. Lai ignored the resentful looks from her daughters, making them finish their tasks, even though they were usually reluctant to cook; at this moment, they obediently went into the kitchen to prepare the meal.

Daya, leading her two younger sisters, carried baskets of rice they had picked from the fields on their backs.

During the busy farming season, all the children from every household did the same, not a single grain could be wasted in the fields.

Hongji let the children go home first while he and his father took advantage of the time before lunch to do more work.

Looking at an acre of land, they had already managed to work on more than a third of it since the morning, which was quite an accomplishment.

Their family's fields were scattered, a few parts here, a few there. The land, inherited from their ancestors, wasn't the best quality. The richest and most fertile farmland was in the hands of the rich man.

Many villagers had no other livelihoods, no land of their own, just barren upland to be reclaimed, so they had no choice but to rent the rich farmland from the rich family.

A season's strenuous work, after paying the rent, left them with little to spare, and that was if the weather was good.

If they faced natural disasters or cataclysms that resulted in a total crop failure, they couldn't pay the rent, and that would be a disaster.

Fortunately, in this area, with its clear mountains and waters, the weather had been favorable for years, with no floods or locust plagues. The villagers lived in poverty but managed to scrape by day to day.

Hongji and his father stopped their work only when the sun reached its zenith, bringing back the rice that they had harvested.

The remaining work could only be done in the afternoon. He envied the rich family who had a threshing machine, allowing those who had rented their fields to cut the rice and leave it in the field, taking turns to use the machine.

It would save them the trouble unlike him and his father, who had to carry even the rice seedlings back, while in other families the straw could be left in the field to dry before being brought back home, which was much less tiring.

Hongji knew there were pros and cons to every situation. His family couldn't afford a threshing machine, and even if they could, they wouldn't buy one for just two acres of land. He knew his mother wouldn't be willing to spend the money.

Daya and her younger sisters returned to the courtyard, putting down the bamboo baskets full of rice they had carried. She took a bamboo sieve and poured the rice they had gathered into it.

Using her small hands, she continually poked it, trying to get the chaff through the small gaps in the sieve to the ground, leaving behind clean rice on top.

Er Ya and San Ya didn't stand by the whole time; they went to wash their hands and took a towel to wipe their faces, feeling itchy all over, a sensation they had become accustomed to.

For months, all the farm work in the fields had been done by the three sisters; if there were insects on the rice seedlings, they had to catch them; if the seedlings needed fertilizing, they had to do it.

When weeds grew in the rice fields, they had to pull them out.

Now that the rice had grown into clusters and it was time to harvest, it didn't mean they would have nothing to do afterward.

The next few months would be spent growing vegetables until plowing began again in March of the following year.

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