Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 20

Father Jiang usually didn’t get angry, but when he did, Mother Jiang stopped talking and muttered, “Just spoil her. Let me see how well you can spoil her. Anyway, you’re a good person, and I am like a stepmother.”

Jiang Ning quickly collected two large basins of river clams, then grabbed the bamboo basket and carried it home.

Mother Jiang was right; she really couldn’t carry it with her shoulders or lift it with her hands. She put the pole on her shoulders and walked a few steps, but it hurt like hell.

Because she had two older brothers, Father Jiang was seemingly indifferent to his three children. Her grandfather doted on her, and since she was a child, her two older brothers had done all the laborious work outside.

If she was carrying a load, seeing her thin and small frame staggering forward, her two brothers couldn’t stand it. With a stretch of their hands, they took away the heavy load for her, filled it with water, and said impatiently, “Give it to me, I’m afraid you’ll fall when carrying the load.”

Later, when cooking, she pretended to be weak. Standing in front of the stove, using the pot lid as a shield with one hand, she kept her distance, stretching her arms, cooking as if in a war. Jiang Bai would be speechless when he saw it. He took over and said, “Forget it, you can’t cook. Give it to me.”

Jiang Ning would happily hand over the spatula and lid, and praise, “My second brother cooks the best food. It’s a loss that with your culinary skills, you didn’t become a chef.”

Jiang Bai would smile reservedly and talk about how he made delicious food and who liked to eat it.

The men in the Jiang family were all good at cooking, but the women didn’t know how to cook.

Well, Jiang Ning could cook, but she pretended not to know anything.

But she wasn’t pretending anymore. First of all, it was the harvesting season. It was her job to cook, as she really didn’t want to eat the pig food made by Mother Jiang and Grandpa Jiang.

Secondly, she no longer needed to pretend; no one could force her to do something she didn’t want to do.

She stumbled along carrying two baskets of river clams. Before she reached the river embankment, Grandpa Jiang ran over from a distance and said, “Put it down, I’ll carry it.”

Grandpa Jiang, hunched over, trotted anxiously, fearing that if he ran too slowly, the load would crush his granddaughter’s thin body.

He quickly took it and said, “You are such a little person, how can you carry this? It will hurt later.”

He and Father Jiang, for two generations, had been digging out river embankments since they were teens. They had dug out dozens or even hundreds of miles of river embankments and carried loads of mud.

They had suffered so much that they didn’t want their grandchildren to suffer the same way.

The boys in the family could handle hard labor. They had to work as they were born into a farming family. They were all tall and strong, and it wasn’t impossible for them to carry a heavy load.

But his granddaughter was so young, how could she carry it?

Grandpa Jiang felt sorry for her, and she also felt sorry for him. She followed Grandpa Jiang, trying to take the load back. “Grandpa, please let me. I can do it. Oh, give it to me.”

Although Grandpa Jiang had a skinny and stooped figure, he was still a tall man over 1.8 meters. Jiang Ning grew up late and got taller late. 

Seeing her blocking the road, Grandpa Jiang waved her away, saying, “Go to the rice field and keep an eye on it. Those noisy sparrows will steal the rice without you noticing.”

When overseeing the rice in the field, they not only worried about people stealing it but also various birds. They turned the rice over from time to time to expose it to the sun. When heavy rain was expected, they had to put the rice away in time and cover it with straw to prevent it from getting wet, as this causes the rice to sprout.

Jiang Ning had no choice but to go to the rice field. Grandpa Jiang was right. He had only been away for a while, and many sparrows had already flown down to eat rice in the field.

Jiang Ning hurried over to scare the sparrows away.

When the sparrows saw someone coming to chase them, they immediately flapped their wings and flew away. They didn’t go far but stood in rows on the wires at the edge of the rice field, staring eagerly.

Grandpa Jiang came back soon. Seeing that her body was covered with mud, he urged her, “You should go back and wash yourself quickly.” He also said, “I don’t know why you picked so many river clams. They are so fishy, and you can’t even chew them. It’s hard to chew. If I didn’t have to keep an eye on the rice, I would go fishing.”

Grandpa Jiang felt very sorry that he couldn’t go fishing on the river beach.

He didn’t know how many bites of the fish that Father Jiang caught and Mother Jiang cooked would actually make it to his granddaughter’s mouth. Unfortunately, since the water had pumped out the river, there was no need to pump water anymore, and he could no longer lower the net to catch fish.

Jiang Ning didn’t go home immediately. She had to return to the river and drag the bathtub home.

The whole family shared a bathtub to shower. Jiang Ning was not used to it, so she fetched water every day and stood in the tub, scooping water to take a shower.

The current conditions were like this. There was no other way but to adapt.

When she arrived at the river, she saw so many people fishing in the muddy water. She couldn’t help but go down and fish again. She had picked enough river clams, so this time it was real fishing.

Unfortunately, her fishing skills were really limited. While others were catching big silver carp, big grass carp, and big black fish, she only managed to pick up some small miscellaneous fish that others didn’t want.

In their local dialect, they called these small miscellaneous fish “fish shit”.

For the people who couldn’t fish, “fish shit” was a treasure. But now that the river was exposed, people fished on the river and called them “fish shit” in disgust.

There were many such small miscellaneous fish, trapped in small mud puddles on the river, that she could just reach out and pick them up.

Jiang Ning quickly filled half of the bathtub and said to Father Jiang, “Dad, I’m going home to cook first.”

Father Jiang responded, “Well, if you can’t drag the bathtub, keep it there. I’ll take it back later.”

The bathtub was made of wood, and the basin itself was quite heavy, not to mention it was filled with small miscellaneous fish.

Jiang Ning walked near the river. When there was water, she pushed the big wooden basin, letting it float on the water, and dragged it home through the water. She walked until she was close to the water pump, then dragged the wooden basin to the shore and along the river embankment into the ditch.