Chapter 61: Chapter 58: The Little Hound
These two little hounds, one male and one female, were born in the same litter. One had a brownish-yellow coat and the other had black and white spots. Both were round and chubby, obviously well-fed. The two little guys didn’t act shy when they arrived at the Di family’s home, sniffing around everywhere with their stout little legs, even marking their territory by urinating on both sides of the main entrance of the Di residence.
Xuan’er and Ying’er were ecstatic chasing the two little dogs around all day, obviously in love with them.
Little did the happy family realize that they had dodged a hidden scheme by not going to the market out of necessity, instead inadvertently enjoying good fortune.
After working diligently day and night, Di Yelei finally completed the fence after several days.
This fence expansion was only widened on the side near the newly purchased land plot. Bamboo and wood structures were used to encircle the area, and a row of iron spikes was planted along the fence’s outer edge.
With this arrangement in place, the thick outer layer of iron spikes acts as the first barrier; if anyone still manages to get past it, they would face the fence, backed by a row of yellow daylilies grown along the perimeter.
On top of that, they now have two small hunting dogs. If any thieves try to climb over the wall, it won’t be so easy anymore!
During this time, Ms. Zhao and Ms. Wang both came by several times one after the other, looking displeased as they saw the two working on the fence.
Without Di Yelei going hunting in the mountains, the two of them have no opportunity to take advantage.
Recently, they have been having plain rice porridge with wild vegetables for many days in a row, desperately in need of game to fill their stomachs. But Di Yelei, who used to go up the mountains every two to three days, had changed his habits; how could they not be outraged?
Moreover, the two little hounds seemed particularly sensible. They would bark nonstop whenever they saw Ms. Zhao and Ms. Wang.
Although the little hounds couldn’t bite people, their sharp teeth constantly shook the two’s pant legs, causing the two to hate them immensely.
While Ms. Wang didn’t dare to enter the courtyard because of the written proof, Ms. Zhao frequently came uninvited, inevitably encountering the two little hounds.
“I say, Third Son’s family, how much grain will these dogs eat once they grow up? Even if you have a lot of money, that’s not how you waste it. I think you should give them away sooner rather than later to save yourself the trouble of taking care of these two little troublemakers,” Ms. Zhao said sarcastically.
“There’s no helping it. These little guys need to be well taken care of. Isn’t that right, mom?”
Liu Sisi pretended not to understand, chiming in along with her words, pulling the two little hounds away from Ms. Zhao’s pant legs, one in each hand.
“Moreover, these two little hounds don’t bark at passers-by but only start barking when mom and Second Sister-in-Law appear. Isn’t that strange?”
Seeing the pant legs covered in bite marks from the little hounds’ teeth, Liu Sisi couldn’t help but chuckle to herself.
Turns out that even small hounds know who their friends are and who the bad guys are!
“You…you…hmph! This is outrageous!”
Amidst Ms. Zhao’s clattering scolding, Liu Sisi continued her work undisturbed, treating the other’s verbal abuse as nothing more than a passing breeze.
The cool breeze was so soothing on this summer afternoon!
“Ah-Huang, Ah-Hua! Come and eat your meal!”
Ying’er’s soft, glutinous voice echoed through the courtyard as she served food into the two little hounds’ bowls and called for them.
This task was originally done by Sisi, but YingEr swooped in and took it over. As soon as the family put down their bowls and chopsticks, she would collect the bones from the table, mix them with the leftover cooked dishes, and soup water to make a bowl of food for the two little hounds.
These two recently weaned little hounds are not picky at all, and both their little heads squeeze together, never giving in, and happily eating everything.
Fearing that the two small wolf-dogs would not eat well, Di Yelei made a special large tray by weaving it together, adding three bamboo poles and a hemp rope to make a fish moving tool.
This fish-moving tool is an emergency measure when there is no fishing gear available. It is to tie ropes on the edges of the large tray, fix the intersection of the three bamboo poles, put a little bit of inner organ in the tray, and sink it into the river. After a while, when the rope is pulled up, there are much more lively little fish and shrimp in the large tray.
Taking advantage of the scorching sun at noon, Di Yelei went to the river-bank under the drooping willow with two large water buckets. By the time Liu Sisi woke up from her nap, he had already carried back a load of little fish, river shrimp, and crabs, leaving Liu Sisi stunned.
Thinking back to when she had just arrived, she had struggled for a long time to catch only a bowl or two of fish and shrimp. As a result, he directly carried back a load of them.
Di Yelei wiped the sweat from his forehead with a grin and took off the shoulder pole from the water bucket: “We have a lot here, let’s pick out the big ones to eat, and dry the small ones for the two little dogs, so they can grow faster.”
“Yeah, I’m used to doing these things, you’re hot, hurry up and drink some cold water to rest for a while.” Liu Sisi said with a smile, handing over the chilled boiled well water.
Di Yelei didn’t hesitate, took the bowl, and drank it dry in one gulp, then got up and walked outside: “The fish-moving tool is still by the riverbank, I’ll go get it first. By the way, where are Xuan’er and YingEr?”
Liu Sisi also picked up the dustpan and began to sort the fish and shrimp in the buckets.
“It seems like Xuan’er is practicing calligraphy, and YingEr is playing with the two little dogs outside with Zhang Yun – hey, here they come!”
While Liu Sisi was speaking, YingEr and Zhang Yun walked into the kitchen, one in front of the other.
Leading the way, however, were the two little wolf-dogs.
The two little wolf-dogs were barking and wagging their tails around the water bucket non-stop. Those ever-swinging tails, combined with the cheerful barking, made people wonder if the tails would fall off from all the wagging excitement.
“Yo! Can they already smell it? Ha ha! These two greedy dogs.” Di Yelei couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Ah-Huang, Ah-Hua, stop barking or I’ll hit you.” YingEr scolded the two little hounds with great seriousness, making everyone laugh even harder.
Liu Sisi finally sorted the fish and shrimp from the two messy buckets.
The little crabs were placed separately in a bowl, and the not-so-many loaches and eels were also placed separately in water. Of the fish in the two buckets, river shrimp were the most abundant, and there were a lot of fish called sow shell and sand fat fish in the local name. Liu Sisi focused on processing these two kinds of small fish, spreading them all out in a fine sieve to dry, while the rest, such as crucian carp, carp, lamprey, and sawbelly, were fed with water separately, planning to carefully remove their inner organs, dry them into fish, and eat them slowly.
In the evening, of course, they had fresh fish soup and fried river crabs.
The potato seedlings and water spinach from the fields had already begun to be harvested, so they also stir-fried potato seedlings and water spinach for dinner.
After putting down the bowl and chopsticks, Di Yelei sighed, “Sisi, the potato seedlings and water spinach are tender. In the future, when these vegetables are growing more and more lush, you won’t have to go out and dig up wild vegetables. I really never thought that I, Di Yelei, would be so lucky as to have found a woman like you who knows how to live. It seems that Heaven is not ill-treating me.”
He still remembers grumbling all the time when Sisi had just arrived, and he didn’t expect that his views would change completely in just over a month. Indeed, one should not judge a book by its cover.
Liu Sisi felt embarrassed to be praised.
“I planted vegetables because I didn’t want to go out and dig wild vegetables every day. When autumn comes, we can change to planting waterweed and turnips, so we can have vegetables in winter too.”
