"Ming Yue"
"Ming Yue"
"Ming Yue"
"Quick, second brother, light a fire quickly, I forgot your sister can't get used to this darkness."
After a bit of chaos, Jiang Mingyue was finally helped up, and the courtyard finally had some light.
It was still the second brother who used branches to start the fire, and as the flames gradually grew, Jiang Mingyue could finally see the original family clearly.
The dark-skinned eldest brother was called Jiang Jian Country, a tall guy. The book said the villagers all called him "Big".
The second brother who started the fire was called Jiang Jianjun, resembling their mother Shen Fanghua more, tall and thin, with a smooth and straight posture. Shen Fanghua was a gentle woman, whose husband passed away ten years ago saving several drowning children in the Qian River. Since then, she single-handedly raised four children. Fortunately, although the village was poor, it remembered Mr. Jiang's heroic act back then, providing ten yuan of compensation every month until the youngest child became an adult.
She had fallen, feeling both embarrassed and in pain. Jiang Mingyue couldn't describe her current feelings.
She was suddenly aware that she was using the original body host's body, not her former one. This current body felt truly fragile.
"Did you fall hard? Let me see." Mrs. Jiang directly rolled up Jiang Mingyue's pant leg. "Second, bring the fire closer."
Once the fire was closer, both her knees were strikingly red, with the right knee scraped and bleeding.
"It must hurt a lot, doesn't it? Bear with it; let your big brother find some herbs to apply on it. It won't hurt as much by tomorrow morning."
"It's nothing serious." This kind of pain was nothing; she could endure it.
Without needing Mrs. Jiang to instruct, Big had already rushed out.
In no time, he returned with a handful of green plants that Jiang Mingyue couldn't recognize. Mrs. Jiang took the plants, pinched the leaves, and crushed them with a bowl's bottom on the table. They quickly turned into a sticky paste, which she applied to her knee and then wrapped with her handkerchief.
Jiang Mingyue originally thought being accepted would take a difficult process, but she hadn't expected the Jiang Family to open their arms and embrace her directly.
A solitary heart swelled with intense emotion. In her previous life, she only had a cousin as a relative. She had wondered what it would feel like to have a family surrounding her, and she never imagined that coming here would make it come true.
"Alright, you two stop crowding around Ming Yue. Let her eat first. Ming Yue, come have some dinner. See if you like it."
Mrs. Jiang placed food in front of Jiang Mingyue, with two golden egg pancakes and a coarse grain cake that looked to be made of pure cornmeal, along with a steaming hot vegetable soup.
"Eat up. If it's not enough, let Mom know. Don't mind us, your brothers and I have already eaten."
"It's too much!" Jiang Mingyue said with a smile, glancing at Jiang Zhenmei's bowl and seeing that her sister was already eating, but her meal was different—a bowl of the same wild vegetable soup and a dark coarse grain cake... and nothing more!
Both in quantity and quality, it couldn't compare to hers.
"Third sister, help me eat some, I can't finish it." Jiang Mingyue divided an egg pancake and half of the corn cake for her.
"No, Ming Yue, you need to eat more. You'll get hungry."
"But I can't finish it."
"Alright then." Jiang Zhenmei, whose mouth was watering, couldn't refuse as this was made with eggs, a scent the family hadn't smelled all year.
"Mom, you have some too?"
Shen Fanghua waved her hand, "You sisters eat, I'll head to the kitchen to boil some water for Ming Yue to take a bath later."
Jiang Mingyue then realized there was no hot water for a bath here.
The sisters ate and drank their fill, bathed together, and went to sleep.
Jiang Zhenmei's room wasn't large, containing only a wooden bed and nothing else. At the bedhead lay a neatly folded patched garment, likely Jiang Zhenmei's only change of clothes.
No wonder there was no wardrobe.
"Ming Yue, do you want to sleep inside or outside?"
The bed was against the wall.
"I'll sleep inside."
Perhaps too tired, despite expecting to be unable to sleep, Jiang Mingyue soon slipped into a dreamless slumber.
When she woke up the next day, there was no one beside her, and Jiang Mingyue hugged the blanket, sitting up groggily.
She glanced around the room.
The walls were mottled with no decorations, and the only window had no glass, just three bundles of firewood stacked outside to block the wind and light.
No wonder the room was dark.
Jiang Mingyue stepped out of the room and found that no one was home, likely because they had gone to work.
Jiang Mingyue returned to the room, took out the large cloth bag from the Four Treasures of the Study, opened it with some effort, and found two toothbrushes, a tube of toothpaste, a cup, a comb, a mirror, a new set of clothes, a pair of shoes, and a packet of brown sugar along with two packets of salt.
Quite a few things, all of which were needed by her.
She organized everything simply, even taking out the clothes in the net bag and placing them in the newly made basket in the corner, for there was nowhere else to put them.
She needed to get a cabinet back.
She carried the brown sugar to the kitchen, only to find something warmed in the pot. Opening the lid revealed the five meat buns brought back yesterday.
"They actually didn't eat them?" Jiang Mingyue sighed. This family was clearly the honest and forthright type. How could they covet her meat buns?
However, she was really hungry, took one out, and filled her stomach. I have to say, the state-run store's meat buns were truly substantial—big with plenty of meat, incredibly flavorful to eat.
Once full, Jiang Mingyue felt restless, mainly feeling uncomfortable all over.
Everyone else had gone to work; staying home alone didn't feel right. She rolled up her pants to check yesterday's injury, feeling it was fine.
After a thought, Jiang Mingyue found a basket. Luckily, it had a layer of straw at the bottom. Jiang Mingyue rummaged through the cupboard, found a clean piece of gauze, and wrapped the remaining four meat buns, put them in the basket, and then added the peanut candy Uncle Ma had given her. Covering it with a cloth, she carried it and headed out.
On the road, she found an old lady to ask for directions: "Madam, I am the new daughter back at the Jiang Family. Could you please tell me where my mom and sister went to work?"
The lady queried looked around sixty, with only one eye, making the remaining eye appear particularly sharp, staring at Jiang Mingyue for a while before suddenly smiling.
"You look—so much like your father."
Jiang Mingyue: "..." Wasn't she supposed to look most like Shen Fanghua?
"It's good you came back!"
She didn't want to chat.
"Oh, you're bringing them food, aren't you? Then you're going the wrong way. Go that way, see? Follow that road, cross the Baihua Forest, and go straight, and you'll see them."
"Thank you, Madam. Please take these two pieces of peanut candy to sweeten your mouth as a token."
"Oh my! It's not worth it! Not worth it! Young girl..."
The young girl had walked far.
Jiang Mingyue crossed the Baihua Forest, initially thinking she would easily spot them, but she was dumbfounded.
"So many people?"
Luckily, she stood high and had good eyesight. After scanning through the heads, she finally spotted Jiang Zhenmei in a plot of land.