Honey: For Me?
Su Xiaoman noticed that the gazes around her suddenly changed, and she also saw Educated Youth Jiang walking towards this direction.
Although she remembered his appearance from the books, this was the first time she was meeting him in person. Su Xiaoman felt that Educated Youth Jiang’s appearance was just average, slightly better looking than the people around him. Moreover, due to her preconceived impression, Su Xiaoman felt that Educated Youth Jiang resembled the Xie family members, especially Old man Xie.
After glancing at Educated Youth Jiang a few times, Su Xiaoman withdrew her gaze. She didn’t really care about Educated Youth Jiang and Zhang Lili, the male and female leads. Besides, now that she was married, she shouldn’t have any contact with Educated Youth Jiang.
“Why isn’t Su Xiaoman showing any reaction?”
“This is not logical!”
“She’s even sitting next to Old man Xie. Wasn’t she talking about divorce before?”
When Su Xiaoman’s gaze swept over, Educated Youth Jiang’s eyes also couldn’t help but pause on her. He had always known that Su Xiaoman was a very beautiful woman, but she was too entangled and foolish, with low education and a distasteful way of speaking.
Educated Youth Jiang shifted his gaze away, feeling that he shouldn’t be attracted by her appearance.
Zhang Lili watched Educated Youth Jiang nervously, worried that he would be entangled by Su Xiaoman again.
Su Xiaoman had Xie Mingtu bring over the bowl for her, preparing to leave. Xie Mingtu helped her tidy up and went to wash the bowl by the stream at the foot of the mountain.
Su Xiaoman washed her face with the icy mountain spring water. It felt refreshing, as if it could wash away all the heat and irritability. Thinking back to the surprised gazes of those people, she couldn’t help but smile.
She couldn’t watch the drama unfold anymore. “Su Xiaoman” wouldn’t pester Educated Youth Jiang anymore.
Recalling Old man Xie’s meaningful smile when she left, Su Xiaoman’s smile grew deeper.
Now, Su Xiaoman gradually wanted to change her reputation in the village and make everyone reconsider her. Of course, this process had to be taken step by step.
Firstly, she would stop being infatuated with Educated Youth Jiang.
“Xie Mingtu, thank you for washing the bowl for me.”
Xie Mingtu looked up and saw Su Xiaoman smiling by the water’s edge. He nervously held onto the porcelain bowl in his hand, and his face turned red again.
These were all uncontrollable natural reactions. He wasn’t sure what happened to Su Xiaoman. She had been smiling at Educated Youth Jiang before, but now she was smiling in front of him.
Without saying a word, Xie Mingtu pushed the clean bowl towards Su Xiaoman.
Su Xiaoman looked at his silent and introverted appearance, knowing that he was just insecure and shy, but kind-hearted. She didn’t like people who bragged, but instead, she had a good impression of people like Xie Mingtu, who were silent and kind-hearted.
If Xie Mingtu could be recognized by the Jiang family in the future, Su Xiaoman hoped that he would receive a good education and have a bright future, just like his name suggested.
Instead of becoming a tragic villain as described in the books.
After all the tools were moved, most of the young workers left, feeling incredulous that Su Xiaoman hadn’t come to bother them today, as if she hadn’t even noticed Educated Youth Jiang.
Even Educated Youth Jiang himself felt somewhat surprised and couldn’t help but glance back at Su Xiaoman.
Xie Mingtu caught his gaze.
He discreetly took a step forward, blocking Educated Youth Jiang’s line of sight. Su Xiaoman didn’t notice anything and prepared to return to the Xie family with her basket.
“I’m going back.”
After the young workers left with their tools, Su Xiaoman walked back towards the Xie family along the path. Xie Mingtu watched her leave, overhearing malicious speculations from the villagers:
“I didn’t see her talking to Educated Youth Jiang just now. Look at her now, isn’t she sneaking over to bother him again?”
“You’ll see. When they’re in the small grove, she’ll pester Educated Youth Jiang again.”
“Really? Isn’t she married? Shouldn’t she be more careful about her reputation?”
“What reputation should she care about? Look at her husband. Does he dare to control Su Xiaoman? If Su Xiaoman pesters Educated Youth Jiang, he won’t even dare to make a sound.”
“He’s not a real man.” Mo Laosan spat, still mocking Xie Mingtu. In reality, he was jealous. He envied Xie Mingtu for being able to marry Su Xiaoman, such a beautiful woman. Otherwise, why would he bother to come over and talk nonsense to Xie Mingtu?
Even if he ended up wearing a green hat, he really wanted to experience her beauty and her mouth.
Mo Laosan always found excuses to slack off at work. After a while, he found an excuse to go to the toilet, finding a shady spot to squat. To prevent others from noticing his laziness, he even pretended to take off his pants.
Mo Laosan hummed a few times but didn’t notice the subtle movement in the bushes.
“Oh! Ahh!”
“There’s a snake! A snake! Help!”
Not long after, there came Mo Laosan’s loud screams. Xie Mingtu, not far away, slowly squatted down and swung his sickle forward.
“Mo Laosan got bitten by a venomous snake.”
“How is he? Did they take him to the hospital?”
“It’s not a deadly snake, but his butt is swollen.”
“What? What does that have to do with his butt?”
“He got bitten by the snake while pooping.”
“He said he needed to go poop earlier. Hasn’t it been a long time since then? And now he got bitten by a snake?”
“I don’t know. When I went to see him just now, I didn’t see the snake or poop.”
…
“Work’s done, let’s go back.”
“Who’s cooking today?”
“Probably Old Zhang. There’s always food when we get back.”
Two young male workers walked back together, chatting as they went. “Oh, today was really unusual.”
“That Su Xiaoman actually didn’t come to bother Educated Youth Jiang.”
“Surprising, not a word from her.”
“Could it be that Su Xiaoman plans to live honestly with Xie Mingtu from now on?”
“Who knows, after all, they’re already married.”
Standing behind the tree, Xie Mingtu unexpectedly heard the conversation between the two young workers. His mouth involuntarily curved upwards.
Suddenly realizing his smiling expression, Xie Mingtu raised a hand to rub his face, reverting to his usual habit of keeping his head down.
He rubbed his earlobes. Xie Mingtu’s senses were naturally sharper than those of ordinary people, especially his hearing, which was a bit more acute. Since childhood, he had heard many things he shouldn’t have, which troubled him. There were too many noises and things he knew, causing him to have trouble sleeping at night… He had to learn to make himself dull and numb, filtering out the chaotic sounds.
Filtering out the things he didn’t want to hear.
He had once hoped to become deaf, unable to hear anything at all, but now he suddenly felt that being able to hear some sounds wasn’t bad either.
Now, some sounds made him happy when he heard them.
Having dinner at the Xie family’s house at night, the food was still as unappetizing as ever.
After Xie second came home, he harshly scolded 2nd sister Xie, saying he had been busy all day on the mountain and hadn’t seen anything good.
Su Xiaoman really did go to deliver food honestly.
At this moment, 2nd sister Xie harboured both new and old grudges against Su Xiaoman, making several sarcastic remarks at the dinner table. “Little sister, you should eat more. It’s so hard to deliver food on the mountain. When you come back, you’re tired and sleep all afternoon. Yaozu, why don’t you give your little sister-in-law a piece of boiled egg.”
Soy sauce eggs were practically Xie Yaozu ‘s favourite. He grunted a few times, not wanting to listen to his mother.
Sun Mei frowned disapprovingly at Su Xiaoman. “Hard work? You were tired and slept all afternoon?”
“Yaozu, you eat yours.”
Su Xiaoman didn’t even lift her eyelids. “After 2nd Sister-in-law came back from delivering food yesterday, she also took a nap. Afterwards, she got up and started cracking melon seeds. Compared to 2nd Sister-in-law, I just slept too much and didn’t go to crack melon seeds.”
The eldest and third sisters-in-law couldn’t help but chuckle.
Previously, when there was only one lazy person in the family and the mother-in-law favoured her, they felt uncomfortable. But now, with two lazy people teasing each other, and the mother-in-law unable to do anything about it, they actually found it amusing.
They even felt a bit triumphant.
Sun Mei slammed the table in anger. “Bang!!”
“Which daughter-in-law is as lazy as you? I don’t think you two should deliver food in the future. Let 2nd Sister-in-law do it.”
Hearing this, 2nd sister Xie was instantly delighted. She had to reclaim the duty of delivering food.
When Sun Mei made that remark, before anyone else objected, Old Man Xie dissented, “Let the daughters-in-law take turns, don’t make the house unhappy.”
Old Man Xie had finally managed to eat a bit more rice and meat; he wasn’t willing to go back to how things were before.
With Old Man Xie’s approval, Sun Mei had no choice.
Having not eaten well that night, Su Xiaoman planned to use her private savings to buy some food in the county when the opportunity arose, cook secretly, and find ways to make money.
Her parents and a few brothers still doted on her. The previous Su Xiaoman had saved more than thirty yuan in private savings and some food stamps, intending to use them to cook for Educated Youth Jiang.
In order to please the young workers around Educated Youth Jiang, Su Xiaoman had also given out a lot of delicious food and even borrowed money and food stamps for two young workers, hoping they would speak well of her in front of Educated Youth Jiang.
Of course, those people definitely didn’t say a few good words about Su Xiaoman, but she was eager to please them.
In a few days, she would retrieve the money and food stamps, and spend them more sparingly.
Tomorrow, she planned to visit her parents’ home, get the keys to the old house from there, and return. The Su family had two abandoned old houses on the mountain. They had been renovated a few years ago and were now used to store things. There was a small kitchen there with a few broken pots. Su Xiaoman had previously cooked for Educated Youth Jiang there.
The old houses were separated by a water ditch, which belonged to the Su family’s self-retained land, usually used by people from the Su family.
As Su Xiaoman was making plans in her mind, Xie Mingtu suddenly approached her with a handful of things.
He pushed what he was holding toward her.
“What’s this?”
Su Xiaoman was stunned for a moment, then opened the bundle to find several wild pomegranates and pears, as well as a bottle of honey. Her stomach, which hadn’t been satisfied, immediately craved them. She peeled a pomegranate and found that although it was small, the flesh inside was very red and sweet.
The wild pears were also very delicious.
“You found these on the mountain? For me?”
“You eat.” Xie Mingtu kept his head down and said only two words sullenly.
“And you’re giving me the honey too?”
“Yeah.”
Su Xiaoman wasn’t too keen on accepting his things at first, but then she thought about how she was going back to her family’s home tomorrow. It wouldn’t be good to go back empty-handed, so she decided to accept the honey and would get her mother to sew a cloth bag for her to carry it in.
“I’ll buy you something else in a few days to repay you.”
Xie Mingtu sat on the stool with his head down, carving wood with a knife, without much other reaction.
Su Xiaoman tasted the bottle of honey and found that the wild honey at this time was too delicious. She dipped some with chopsticks and ate it directly, feeling completely at ease, just sweet and enticing.
What good honey!
“Tomorrow I’m going home for a bit. It’s not good to go back empty-handed, so I want to give this honey to my parents.”
“You’re going home?”
“Yeah.” Su Xiaoman replied. She originally thought the silent Xie Mingtu wouldn’t talk to her, but she didn’t expect him to actually speak to her. “What’s wrong?”
Xie Mingtu kept his head down and didn’t say anything again.
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