mesbooks Chapter 4 The Village Chief's Uncle
Chapter 4 The Village Chief's Uncle
"Mmm~ Grandma's fried rice noodles are the best!"
At the dinner table, the little girl sat on a stool, picking at the fried rice noodles in her bowl with her chopsticks, her two short legs swinging back and forth, eating with great enjoyment.
"You brat, all you do is try to make Grandma happy. If only you were a little more obedient usually!"
Zhou Yue'e was all smiles as she was coaxed, then lightly tapped her forehead with her finger, saying with exasperation.
"Mmm~ It really tastes delicious~"
The little girl giggled foolishly, then held up her bowl with her tiny hand: "Grandma, I want more..."
"Okay, okay, Grandma will go get it for you right away."
"Mom, let me do it."
Sun Ran got up, wiped his mouth, picked up his own bowl, and then took the bowl from his mother's hand.
"Give her a smaller portion, so she doesn't overeat later."
Zhou Yue'e gave a slightly worried remark, which displeased the little girl next to her.
"No, An'an wants a really big bowl!"
"It's so big! Can it fit in your tummy?"
"Yes! I can let it go!"
"Stop it, you'll start whining again after you finish eating. Grandma has to go to the fields today, she won't have time to take care of you."
"Oh... okay, then a little less will do..."
The little girl pouted, her face full of unhappiness, and raised her little hand, gesturing with her thumb and forefinger: "Just a tiny bit..."
Sun Ran and Zhou Yue'e couldn't help but laugh at his unwilling expression.
"Okay, just a little bit."
Sun Ran nodded with a smile, walked to the stove behind him, opened the pot lid, and served himself and the little girl some fried rice noodles.
This is a very common local specialty snack. You can find it everywhere, whether at home, in food stalls, or in hotels.
The rice noodles look a bit like vermicelli, but they are actually made from rice flour.
Therefore, it will be more chewy and have a better texture.
It's usually stir-fried with lard, which makes it more fragrant. The main side dishes are cabbage, eggs, and minced meat.
The rest depends on individual preferences.
For families like theirs that live close to the sea, they like to add seafood like squid and shrimp when stir-frying.
However, the little girl was right about one thing: her mother's fried rice noodles were truly exceptional.
It tastes even better than most of the stir-fries you get in restaurants.
Each strand is distinct, neither oily nor greasy, chewy yet smooth. Not to mention the little girl, even he himself found it very appetizing.
One bowl is not enough to eat.
"Here, is that enough?"
After serving the rice noodles to the little girl, Sun Ran took her own bowl back to the table, sat down, picked up her chopsticks, and took a bite.
"Mom, what chores do we need to do today?"
He asked the question vaguely while eating fried rice noodles.
"You just got back, why don't you rest for a couple of days?"
Zhou Yue'e ate her breakfast and glanced at her son with concern.
"It's nothing, your son is young, what's a little travel?" Sun Ran said nonchalantly.
"Hehe, okay then."
Zhou Yue'e looked at her son and nodded with a smile: "It just so happens that we're dividing the rice seedlings today, so why don't you help us plant them in the field?"
"Alright, just you wait and see!"
Sun Ran chuckled.
I originally intended to help my family and my mother as much as possible, so of course I had to do any work.
Besides, transplanting rice seedlings is hard on the back, and my mother is getting old, so I should do it myself.
"Oh, you've got quite the nerve. You spent four years in university, and you still remember how to plant rice seedlings?"
Zhou Yue'e looked at her son and said jokingly.
"Hey, Mom, you're underestimating me. I've done this kind of work before when I was a kid."
"Alright, then I'll wait and see you show me what you've got."
Zhou Yue'e smiled and said something, then picked up her bowl and started eating again.
After a while, the family finished their meal and prepared to go to work in the fields.
Sun Ran went back to her room to change her clothes, while Zhou Yue'e took the two little ones back to prepare.
Pulling up rice seedlings doesn't require much skill; even a child can do it.
They don't need to do a great job; just lending a hand is enough.
The most important thing is to let them experience working in the fields and know that every bite of food in their bowl is hard-earned.
After changing into a vest, shorts, and slippers, Sun Ran went to the storeroom to get a wooden basin. He waited at the door for a while, but his mother and the others hadn't come out yet, so he went out by himself.
The village is located in the mountains, and the land used to grow rice is also on the hillside, consisting entirely of terraced fields carved out along the mountainside.
Not only are they not distributed in large areas, but each household also receives very little.
With so many people in their family, they only have a little over one and a half acres of land, which is divided into four plots of varying sizes.
There's no way to use large agricultural machinery; transplanting and harvesting rice are still entirely done by hand.
The other families in the village are basically the same.
So when Sun Ran walked all the way to the edge of the field behind the village, he saw that there were already many people standing in twos and threes, busy pulling and planting rice seedlings.
"Hey, isn't this a college student? Back for summer vacation to experience life?"
"Haha, Auntie, what are you saying? Have you had breakfast yet?"
"I've eaten, I've eaten. Xiao Ran, you've lost weight in all this time..."
"Haha, how could that be..."
Everyone in the village knew each other, and since they were all related by some degree, Sun Ran couldn't help but greet each other warmly as he walked along.
Sun Ran walked all the way to the edge of his own field, put the wooden basin he was holding into the paddy field, and seeing that his mother hadn't come yet, he pulled up his trouser leg, threw his slippers on the ground, and prepared to start cooking by himself.
There was plenty of water in the field, and it seemed that his mother had prepared in advance, so he didn't pay any more attention and went into the field barefoot.
Bend down, reach your hands into the paddy field and try to get as close to the roots of the rice seedlings as possible, grouping three or four seedlings together, and repeating this process with alternating hands...
At first, his movements were a bit clumsy, after all, it had been a long time since he had done this kind of work.
But as time went on, his hand movements gradually became faster and faster.
"Hey, isn't this our college student? He came to help in the fields as soon as he got home. He's really enthusiastic."
Just as Sun Ran was happily pulling up the rice seedlings, he heard a sharp pain in his back.
He turned around and saw a middle-aged man in his forties standing behind him with a smile.
"Hiss~ Uncle, can't you be a little gentler?"
Sun Ran straightened up, baring his teeth and threateningly saying, "You believe I'll go tell Grandma later and she'll give you a good beating!"
"Hehe, your grandma hasn't seen you all day since last night, she's sulking at home now."
Sun Bolang looked at his nephew with a broad smile: "You're still tattling? I think you're more like walking into a trap."
"Oh no, I was so focused on helping Mom with the farming that I forgot to visit Grandpa and Grandma."
Upon hearing this, Sun Ran slapped his forehead in annoyance: "Look at my memory!"
"No, Uncle, you have to put in a good word for me later."
"Haha, dream on!"
"Hey, if this doesn't work, I'll go find my aunt. I refuse to believe no one can deal with you, Uncle!"
"You think you can teach me a lesson? I'll teach you a lesson first!"
"Hey, hey, uncle, what are you doing? Are you bullying the younger one...?"
The uncle and nephew played around in the field for a while until Zhou Yue'e came over with the two little ones, at which point they stopped, panting.
After leaving the task of pulling up the rice seedlings to his mother and the others, Sun Ran filled a basin with the seedlings he had just pulled and walked onto the ridge.
"By the way, Uncle, there's something else I need to ask you."
"What's up?"
Sun Bolang, who was about to return to his own field to plant rice seedlings, turned around and looked at his nephew with some curiosity: "What's wrong?"
"My mom said our village might be shut down in the future, is that true?"
Sun Ran walked over to him with the basin in her hand and asked.
Now that he has the golden finger and the spiritual spring at his fingertips, if you ask who in the village least wants to be removed from the list, it has to be him.
Therefore, it's essential to ask questions first to have a clear understanding of the situation.
"Oh, you mean this..."
When Sun Bolang heard him ask about this, he also let out a long sigh.
He was silent for a moment, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, picked one up, put it in his mouth, lit it with a lighter, and took a long drag...
"Phew... It's pretty close. If things go smoothly, it might only take three or four years."
"So fast?" Sun Ran asked anxiously. "Then there's no way to salvage the situation?"
He had heard about the idea of villages being relocated before.
There are essentially two possibilities: either the entire village will be relocated and resettled elsewhere, in which case they will lose all their land.
The second option is to keep the village itself, but merge it with one or more other villages in terms of administrative division.
I won't go into the first one, and he also wants to avoid the second one as much as possible.
After all, his uncle is the village chief now, and if planting crops and trees with the spiritual spring is effective, it will definitely involve contracting land.
Having connections in the government makes things easier. After merging with other villages, my uncle will definitely not be the village chief anymore, and there will surely be a lot of trouble then.
"How can I win him back?"
Upon hearing this, Sun Bolang shook his head, a bitter expression on his face, and pointed to the fields in front of him: "Look, how many of these fields in our village have been abandoned?"
"Now that no one is farming the fields, how can this village be preserved?"
Sun Ran looked up in the direction he pointed.
yes……
I remember when I was a child, the fields would be packed with people every time we planted rice seedlings here.
The adults were busy pulling and planting rice seedlings, while the children laughed and played by the edge of the field, creating a lively scene...
What now?
At first glance, the crowd was sparse, not to mention the lack of people.
Many fields were overgrown with weeds, clearly indicating they had been abandoned for who knows how long.
"Sigh, don't think too much about it. Let nature take its course. Even if the village is really relocated, there will definitely be compensation."
Sun Bolang patted his nephew on the shoulder, sighed, shook his head, and walked towards his own field.
He certainly doesn't want to withdraw from the village.
But that's just how things are, what can he do?
"Farming..."
Behind him, Sun Ran looked at the paddy fields not far away and the lush green mountains behind them, and gritted his teeth.
Merging is fine, but what if there's a relocation? Will the spiritual veins be affected?
If that's the case, then wouldn't my daily spiritual spring also be gone?
So what if no one else is farming? We can just farm it ourselves!