Chapter 721

But now that it was cold, Grandpa Jiang had moved indoors by the fireplace, leaving only the calico cat outside.

Someone, perhaps worried about the cats getting cold, had placed an old patchwork cotton quilt underneath the swing—a quilt made from many pieces of cloth sewn together.

Jiang Ning was looking at the cat when her aunt-in-law smiled and said, “There are a lot of wild rats in the barren mountains. At first, we didn’t pay attention, but later several table legs got gnawed through. Your uncle brought back two kittens to catch the mice — one’s called Xiaohua, and the other is a black cat named Dahei, lying inside there now.”

Father Jiang also saw the cat.

Father Jiang said, “They say cats bring poverty, dogs bring wealth. Why keep cats?”

The entire Jiang family, including Jiang Ning, were all dog supporters. Mainly because Uncle Jiang’s wife had kept a dog that lived for fifteen years before it was poisoned and stolen by dog thieves.

She and Jiang Ning were heartbroken for quite a while, and after that, they never kept dogs again.”

These dog thieves were not just professional ones, but also mischievous boys returning home for the New Year from various villages. These guys, being greedy, didn’t care if the dogs were someone else’s — they’d bash them to death with a stick and drag them away. A dog that was fine at home could be gone the next day, and only from others would they learn their dog was beaten to death and eaten by those returning troublemakers.

There was nothing they could do.

Actually, Jiang Ning was also afraid of cats. Rural cats weren’t neutered or spayed. When they went into heat, the nights would be filled with cat cries that sounded like a child’s wails, which scared her.

When she was little and heard cats crying, she thought someone had abandoned a baby at her door. At midnight, she’d go out opening the door looking for the child. In Father Jiang and Mother Jiang’s eyes, this was very ominous, naturally resulting in a beating. After that, she was always afraid of cats.

Well, maybe not exactly afraid — more like keeping a respectful distance.

After Jiang Ning and the others entered the house, a wave of warm air hit their faces.

It turned out that the architect, knowing their place was riverside and perpetually humid, especially in winter, designed a fire wall for Jiang Ning’s house. People like Grandpa Jiang, who often patrolled the mountain in winter with dew-soaked pants, were prone to rheumatism. Many people living by the water also suffered the same, like the elders digging wild lotus roots on the riverbank in winter.

Young people were fine, but as they got older, various ailments appeared.

Considering the local damp climate, the architect designed a fireplace in Jiang Ning’s house. In summer, they could use another stove, but in winter, especially for Uncle Jiang’s wife who ran a small restaurant using the large kitchen, the kitchen fire was enough to warm the entire house.

Even Father Jiang, who was visiting for the first time, couldn’t help but touch the fireplace, sighing, “This house is really well built. The big villas I’ve seen in Deep City can’t compare to Ning Ning’s house — it’s built well!”

He then said to Uncle Jiang, “Big brother, can you build this kind of house?”

Father Jiang sometimes was pretty naive — he never thought about the fact that his two sons might have conflicts if their houses were built differently.

Uncle Jiang, aching with a toothache, sucked on his teeth and said, “Ning Ning’s house was built by Guotai. Baizi’s house will be built the same.”

Father Jiang was stunned. He hadn’t seen Jiang Song in years, and his excited expression suddenly wilted when he mentioned Jiang Song.

Uncle Jiang clicked his tongue, “What?” Then added, “Enough, your son again… like…” He wanted to say “like national security”, but didn’t finish. Father Jiang immediately understood what was left unsaid.

Because of the fireplace, the winter gathering place for the elders was no longer the old store at the village entrance, but Jiang Ning’s house.”

More people coming to the wilderness brought more vitality, and the gloomy chill the barren mountains once gave off faded away.

At that moment, Grandpa Jiang stretched his two legs under the table, the old man was surrounded by a square table playing Trump Cards, with two other old men. On the other side, a table of old ladies quietly played leaf cards.”

Jiang Ning led Song Peifeng around to greet everyone, then sat down beside Grandpa Jiang, immediately spotting the black cat sitting on Grandpa Jiang’s lap, front paws gripping the table, eyes wide and focused on the card game.

Grandpa Jiang always said he hated cats and dogs, but in his previous life, Jiang Ning helped him raise a dog, and he, too lazy to cook, fed the dog noodles every day.

Though he said he didn’t like cats, the cat was right on his lap watching him play cards, showing that as a child, it must have often slept on Grandpa Jiang’s lap.”

The other old men thought he was asking Jiang Ning and were displeased.”

Their card games cost two cents per round, and winnings or losses never exceeded five yuan. It was all luck, no counting cards, just playing for fun.

Grandpa Jiang then glanced at Jiang Ning and smiled, playing a card.

While they were chatting, Mother Jiang and two aunts also came in.

The two aunts kept praising, “Look, look!”

“See, this is how you bear kids?”

Mother Jiang was also admiring the house. On the left, facing the Jiang ditch, was a full glass wall. Sitting by it, one could see the Jiang ditch below the barren mountain, with the creek babbling.

Wild goji berries liked the humidity, thriving on both sides of dikes, ditches, and streams. At this moment, the paths on both sides of Jiang ditch were covered in bending, hanging goji berry vines.

Mother Jiang had to wash large amounts of duck heads and vegetables every day. She was a meticulous person. Others would buy duck heads and just put them straight into the pot without washing, but she cleaned every duck head and wing thoroughly, soaking them for a long time. Her hands had become a bit sore, and on cloudy days, her bones ached.

The winters where she worked were warm enough, but after returning to Linhe Brigade, the damp air made her wrists ache. Coming into Jiang Ning’s house, she immediately noticed how warm it was inside compared to outside.

But the house’s occupants weren’t her and Father Jiang — it was Uncle Jiang and his wife, who felt more like her real parents. Yet Uncle Jiang wasn’t always kind to her; when she was little, she’d go over for meals and he’d mock her family, asking if they had no food and why they kept begging his wife for food.

Those many youthful memories she never cared about before were now crystal clear.

She didn’t know that Jiang Ning rented the house to Uncle Jiang and shared the guesthouse’s earnings with them. She only thought that the daughter she gave birth to was so good to them but cold and indifferent to her, without a single smile given alone, which made her deeply hurt.

Now more people in the village were building houses. Uncle Jiang was soon off building again. His wife had already cleaned Jiang Ning’s room thoroughly — sheets and quilts were all washed and sun-dried, fluffed and soft.

She hadn’t expected Song Peifeng to come, but Uncle Jiang’s wife had asked the eldest daughter-in-law to wash all the bedding again and sun-dry it, so everything was ready.”

Song Peifeng took the sheets and, with practiced moves, helped make the bed. He and Jiang Ning worked so smoothly together that in no time, the bed was made and the quilt covered.

Uncle Jiang’s wife watched Song Peifeng doing housework skillfully, smiling with satisfaction, her motherly warmth impossible to hide. She looked at Song Peifeng and kept saying, “Good, good!”

This scene looked to Mother Jiang like she was the distant aunt while her sister-in-law was the ‘mother-in-law checking out the son-in-law, liking him more’ kind of mom.

Because Jiang Ning and her boyfriend came back that day, and that night they had to send off the Kitchen God, every household was very busy. The elderly folks who usually liked gathering at Jiang Ning’s house all dispersed early that day; by three in the afternoon, everyone had left. Only the tourists still staying at Jiang Ning’s place remained.