Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn-Chapter 287 - 55: In the Palm of the Buddha

Old Lady Feng’s first day at home.

Her mood was pretty bad, especially after discovering that her son had grievously slept in the living room, and when going out to buy breakfast early in the morning, Old Lady Feng started the day in the living room, hands on hips, berating Zhuo Feng like a standing compass, "Other families’ daughters-in-law get up before five in the morning, before dawn, to wash rice, cook, feed chickens and ducks. Our daughter-in-law? It’s already eight, and she is still hiding in her room, not coming out. Calls herself a college graduate, from the city, but look, she doesn’t take up a proper job, staying at home every day with a hoe, what kind of behavior is that?"

"Mom, if you could say a little less. Let’s eat breakfast first, the soy milk is hot, and there’s the crullers you praised the last time you came, saying you couldn’t have such good ones at home," Feng Xing woke up in the morning, a blanket wrapped around him, and looking at the newly added alarm clock on the coffee table, he knew his wife set it, worrying that he would not sleep well and be late the next day. Last night, for the hen his mother brought, he was banging away on the stairway for several hours, finally clearing the hen out from the living room.

"My son, other people’s daughters-in-law are brought home to tend to the family. How did you end up marrying someone who needs to be taken care of? Truly maddening," the city provided no place for Old Lady Feng to work the fields, so all her energy had nowhere to vent, and she used it all to compete with Zhuo Feng.

The room’s door was still shut tight, not that Zhuo Feng and Xiao Xian weren’t awake, even the laziest person would wake up to such hoarse shouting.

Looking inside the room, Xiao Xian was bracing herself against the door, Zhuo Feng was tossing two pillows around and then stomped on them fiercely on the ground.

"If I show her any respect, I might as well not be surnamed Zhuo," Zhuo Feng said, ready to burst out the moment he heard what was coming.

A series of gentle knocks followed, "Ah Feng, I’m off to work. If you’re bored, take Xiao Xian out for a walk. The weather forecast said there’s a cold front coming, so wear some extra clothes."

Xiao Xian relaxed her shoulders from bracing the door, glanced at Zhuo Feng - who just a moment ago was brandishing his claws like a tigress and had now simmered down.

"Still surnamed Zhuo?" Xiao Xian asked, amused.

"No longer surnamed that. Whoevershe married, she takes their name, alas," Zhuo Feng picked up the pillows, hitting them, a look of blankness on his face.

Marrying Feng Xing was like discovering a treasure. From the wedding onwards, her whims and reckless deeds, hadn’t he always accommodated her? Although Old Lady Feng might be a bit extreme, if you love the house, you love the crows on its roof too. If they ended up in a battle where both sides suffer, the one who would be unhappy would still be her own husband.

"Sister-in-law, back in Ge Village, there was an old method specifically used to deal with those splashy hens, which is to splash them with mud. Even the fiercest hens, when faced with mud that can neither stick to the wall nor be shaken off, would lose their power." Zhuo Feng, hearing this, was stunned – what did Xiao Xian mean by that?

Feng Xing went to work, Old Lady Feng sat in the living room, peeling the sunflower seeds she had brought from home, eyes slanted, staring at that tightly shut door.

The door creaked open, Zhuo Feng and Xiao Xian came out from the room, both still smiling.

"Mom, good morning," Zhuo Feng cheerfully walked to the dining table and started clearing all the pots and dishes placed there.

After eating a few bites of breakfast, Xiao Xian sweetly called out, "Grandma," while grabbing an apple that Old Lady Feng had brought over yesterday and took a crisp bite.

"Grandma, your apples are really sweet," Zhuo Feng didn’t like things from her own home, and consequently didn’t like the potatoes and apples Old Lady Feng brought either. She bagged them up in a few net sacks and tossed them aside.

"Not just that, our hometown apples are famous nationwide. Every year, trucks come from all over the country to haul apples, as many as the grasshoppers in the fields during spring," pleased by the compliments, Old Lady Feng didn’t care about whether it was a loss-making deal anymore, grinning like a split open walnut. Back in the late 90s, when fruits from Xinjiang and Hainan hadn’t yet become popular, Shandong, being the fruit and vegetable base of the country, was in an advantageous position nationwide.

"Grandma, don’t rush to tell, let me guess. My aunt studied agriculture; she taught me quite a bit about fruit trees. Let me guess the origin of this apple," Xiao Xian also grabbed a handful of farm sunflower seeds, started cracking them in line with Old Lady Feng. She was proficient with this, spending a lot of time chatting outside the house with Sister-in-law Lian before. If Old Lady Feng thought Zhuo Feng was useless, she’s here to enlighten her, to let her know that marrying a daughter-in-law isn’t for laying eggs and serving people.

"If I am not mistaken, your home should be on the western side of Shandong, called Guan County," Xiao Xian bit into the apple cooperatively. Truthfully, she thought apples should be grown in the Northern region - back in the days at Qian Ge Village, there were also wild apple trees in the mountains. They hardly bore fruit, and if they did, they were sour and shriveled – nowhere close to the apples that Old Lady Feng brought, weighing seven or eight ounces each, big, with bright colors, deliciously sweet and tangy - exactly how an apple should taste.

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