By the time they sent Lin Jiaxiao off, it was already approaching evening. Several men who had previously worked with Lin Jiaxin as carpenters worked together to carry him back onto the kang bed. Seeing how destitute the Lin family's home had become, they couldn't help but shake their heads in pity.
The three Lin Yuan sisters also helped Lady Liu onto the kang. Lady Liu had always been frail, and the repeated shocks of the day had taken their toll on her body, which couldn't hold up much longer, her face even whiter than usual. Lin Yuan looked at their mother's belly, which, though nearly seven months along, only appeared as big as that of other women at five months. Recalling Lin Shuang's words about not having eaten meat in half a year, she felt an even deeper bitterness.
"Big Sister, Mum, Mum's okay, isn't she?" Seeing their mother mutter a few words before slipping into a deep sleep, Big Sister Lin Wei's tear-streaked face crumpled as she began to cry again.
"Second Sister, don't cry. Mum's going to be fine," Little Linshuang knelt beside her mother, clenching her own sleeve to wipe Lady Liu's face. Her clothes were hand-me-downs from her sisters. As Lady Liu's pregnancy progressed, her discomfort increased, and she no longer had the energy to alter clothes. Thus, Lin Shuang's clothes were modified by Big Sister Lin Wei. However, being quite young, her sewing skills were lacking, which meant Lin Shuang's clothing was ill-fitting and too big, hanging off her slender frame.
Lin Yuan patted her younger sister's head, then looked at her crying elder sister and sighed. Despite being the youngest, Lin Shuang was clever and had a feistier temperament. Big Sister Lin Wei, on the other hand, was practically a carbon copy of their mother, Lady Liu, with a temperament too meek. Although already eight years old, she didn't have the composure of her five-year-old younger sister in stressful situations.
"Weiwei, don't cry. Now that Big Sister's back, naturally, I won't let anything happen to Mum." While chasing Lin Jiaxiao earlier, Lin Yuan had spotted a broken chicken nest in a corner. She remembered that they had an old hen that hadn't laid eggs for a long time.
"I'll slaughter that old hen and make some chicken soup for Mum and Dad."
"But Big Sister, Mum said we can't kill that old hen; we need to keep it for laying eggs," Lin Wei said, wiping away her tears, only to hear Little Linshuang crisply retort, "Second Sister, that old hen should have been killed long ago. It does nothing but eat and doesn't lay eggs. It's just squatting in the henhouse, not doing its business!"
"Little Sister! Don't talk nonsense!" Lin Wei quickly covered Little Linshuang's mouth, glancing worriedly at Lady Liu. Only after confirming that their mother had not heard while asleep did she let go and reminded Little Linshuang not to speak like that again, especially not in front of their mother.
All three Lin Yuan sisters knew that the phrase "squatting in the henhouse, not doing its business" was what their grandmother, Lady Yang, often used to scold their mother. When Lady Liu gave birth to the third daughter, Lin Shuang, and it turned out to be another girl, Grandma Yang even encouraged Lin Jiaxin to divorce his wife and remarry, saying that taking the widow from the east end of the village would be better than keeping Lady Liu. Unexpectedly, the usually filial second son refused categorically this time and moved out of the ancestral home with his wife and three daughters to live in their current yard. From then on, Grandma Yang grew even more disdainful of Lady Liu and even looked askance at her own son. When Lin Jiaxin bought the yard, Grandma Yang refused to contribute a penny, saying things like the family elder wasn't dead yet, and they were thinking about living alone, as if cursing her own demise!
Out of options, Lady Liu had no choice but to borrow two taels of silver from her parents' house to buy the small courtyard. The place had previously belonged to a widower, a childless old man who was taken care of by the villagers until his death, so you can imagine the state of disrepair the courtyard was in. Fortunately, Lin Jiaxin was a skilled carpenter whose craftsmanship was well-known in the area; he was the go-to person for furniture whenever someone in the surrounding villages got married. Sometimes he even received orders from the town, and as a result, the money he handed over to Lady Yang each month was quite substantial. However, Lady Yang was too stingy, leaving only a few coins for her second son's family to live on each month. So, over the years, the little courtyard didn't see much improvement, and things went from bad to worse when Lin Jiaxin injured his leg in the past six months.
As Lin Yuan was pondering this, Lin Jiaxin's voice rang out from the next room, "Da Ya, kill that chicken and leave it for your mother and you three. I won't eat it."
The Lin family had only three rooms: the central hall and two bedrooms on either side. The Lin Jiaxin couple lived in the east room, and the three sisters lived in the west room. Today, to facilitate taking care of Lady Liu, the sisters had helped her into the west room.
Lin Yuan went to the east room, pulled a thin quilt over Lin Jiaxin's legs, and comforted him, "Dad, don't worry. We're not lacking food. In the future, your daughters will make sure you and Mom have a good life."
"Daughters, I have let you and your mother down," Lin Jiaxin, a man over six feet tall, said lovingly as he patted his daughter's head and his eyes reddened.
Just as Lin Yuan was about to offer more words of comfort, she heard voices outside. Stepping out to look, she saw that people had brought food for them. These aunts were the wives of the men who had helped carry Lin Jiaxin into the house earlier. They had earned a fair amount of money working with him before and had been supporting the Lin family sporadically. Without their help, times would have definitely been tougher for Lin Yuan's household.
Knowing her family was short on food, Lin Yuan didn't put on airs and thanked each of them sincerely as she accepted their offerings. These aunts were all genuine and kind-hearted, with their own elders and children to look after at home. They couldn't afford to give anything extravagant, mostly just sweet potatoes and cornmeal, but their gifts were heavy with sentiment. These people, unrelated by blood, showed more kindness than those from the larger Lin family compound. Lin Yuan kept them in her heart, resolved to repay their generosity when she had more money.
After seeing off the aunts, Lin Yuan began to prepare to kill the chicken. She needed to sharpen the knife first, and since their kitchen knife was exceptionally blunt, she drew half a bucket of water from the well and sat down to sharpen the blade. Inside the house, Lin Wei had already heeded her older sister's instruction to boil a large pot of hot water and had made dough from the cornmeal.
Lin Yuan had decided that one old hen wouldn't be enough for the family, so she thought of the iron pot fish stew she had eaten in her previous life. She could add more water to stew the chicken and throw in a few sweet potatoes, then mold some large cornmeal cakes along the edge of the pot. The cornmeal that the aunts had just brought, coupled with what they already had at home, should be enough to last them several days.
While sharpening the knife, Lin Yuan looked up at the mountain behind the village. The village was named Lin Family Hollow because it was surrounded by mountains on three sides. Now, in the summertime, there was bound to be plenty in the mountains. Though she didn't have the skills to hunt, and it was impossible to catch wild animals with her bare hands, she thankfully had wisdom on her side. With a diligent mind, nothing was out of reach. The mountain wasn't high, but it wasn't small either, and there should be something to forage. With a bit of luck, she might even find something worth selling.