Chapter 28: Silly Xi Xi

  The sunlight shines down from the horizon, shining on the lake, shining in the bamboo forest, shining in the small courtyard, bringing a warm breath to the clear and cold mountains.

  Song Wen returned home and found his father had gone out.

  There was an elderly person who passed away in the village today, so he went to help out.

  In the countryside, whenever someone has a happy event, relatives and friends will all go to help out; while when someone is holding a funeral, the whole village will go to help. In the simple thinking of rural people, it's not easy for people to live, so after they die, they should be sent off with a big fanfare.

  Hearing the sound of conversation coming from behind, it seemed that his mother was still there. Song Wen put down the mouse cage outside and headed towards the backyard.

  A few days ago, it rained a little in the evening, and the grass in the ground grew wildly for some reason. Song Wen saw that they were still small and didn't bother to pull them out, thinking of waiting until they grew bigger to pull some out. Coincidentally, Chen Xiu Hui went to the backyard to feed the cattle in the morning and found that the grass in the vegetable field was growing better than the vegetables themselves. She didn't blame her son, but instead scolded her old husband.

  Then, after finishing dinner, she didn't go back and came to the courtyard to pull out weeds. Lin Qinglan saw it and also came over to help.

  It turns out that Song Wenda's wife is really not bad. Not only is she beautiful, but also gentle and virtuous, with a good temper. Originally, her husband was doing business outside and wanted to take her with him, but she saw that their son was too young and feared he would be noisy, so she stayed at home to take care of him. She thought that when the son grew up a bit and was no longer so clingy, his grandmother could bring him over, and then she would follow.

  His elder brother said on the phone last time that he would take her over this time when he comes back.

  A man doing business outside is always lonely. If there was a woman by his side, chatting with him, sewing and mending for him, cooking meals, warming up the bed, then making money would be meaningful! I think nine out of ten men think this way.

  When he arrived at the backyard, his mother was weeding and muttering to herself, saying "I don't even know if it's grass or vegetables, it's better to plant grass, it grows so well." His sister-in-law was smiling softly on the side, occasionally responding with a "yes" before continuing to weed. In the distance, Xi Xi was leaning against the cowshed, stroking the head of the little calf that had poked its head out of the shed, and laughing excitedly.

  The little calf stupidly and innocently felt his kindness, stretched out its tongue to lick his small hand. However, after a while, it seemed to be attracted by something else and turned around.

  Xī xī looked and curiously raised her head to look around, but saw the little cow lowering its head to suckle at the cow's belly, while swishing its small tail back and forth with relish. As she watched, Xī xī couldn't help but follow the little cow's lead and smack her lips too, wondering what flavor the milk was that the little cow was drinking. Thinking about it, she crawled into the cowshed, came to the cow's belly, squatted on the ground, raised her head and sucked at the udder.

  The little calf looked at him curiously, called out, seemingly asking, are you hungry too? The big water buffalo also turned its head, looked at Xi Xi for a moment, mooed, seemingly wondering why this little guy was also coming to suckle its milk.

  Xi Xi took a sip of milk and scrunched up her little face, feeling that the taste wasn't very good either.

  Song Wen arrived at the backyard and greeted his mother and sister-in-law, then looked up to see Xi Xi squatting under the cow's belly drinking milk, and suddenly burst out laughing.

  His mother and elder sister-in-law saw him laughing strangely, looked up and saw Xi squatting under the cow's belly sucking milk in a silly manner.

  "Xi Xi, don't drink milk like that."

  Lin Qinglan threw down the grass in her hand and ran over, pulling out Xiao Xi who was still trying to take a sniff to see what it smelled like.

  The little guy's face was also somehow covered with milk stains all over the place.

  Song Wen walked over and saw his appearance, and burst out laughing again.

  Chen Xiuhui slapped him and said to XiXi: "XiXi, you can't drink milk like that, do you know?"

  "Why doesn't the little calf drink like that too?" Xi Xi said, pointing at the little calf burying its head to suckle.

  "Little cow is a cow, so it's okay for him to drink milk like that, but XiXi is a big boy now and can't drink milk in that way anymore."

  Song Wen, who was standing beside them, looked strange and thought to himself, "What does drinking milk have to do with being a man?" He couldn't help but chuckle out loud, and Chen Xiuhui turned around and glared at him. Song Wen immediately stopped laughing and walked away dejectedly.

  Coming forward, Song Wen remembered that he still had to plant trees and hurriedly contacted a small excavator to dig holes.

  Those trees are too big, each hole needs to be dug at least one and a half meters deep, there are more than a dozen holes, relying on him alone doesn't know when they will finish digging, it's better to call an excavator to dig for a while, save time and effort, and the cost of hiring an excavator is not much.

  After a while, the excavator arrived. The person operating the excavator was the same one who came over to dig the mountain road last time, and the two of them were acquaintances. They exchanged a few pleasantries before starting to dig the hole. Machines are really labor-saving, and several tree holes were dug in just a few scoops.

  The excavator saw that the pit was dug well and jumped down from the excavator to talk to Song Wen, but he didn't know what happened and kept coughing.

  "How come you've been coughing all the time? Are you sick?" Song Wen asked with concern while handing him some money.

  "A few days ago, I was asked by a friend to drink and accidentally caught a cold. It felt like I was going to die. Yesterday, I hung IV drips for a whole day, and today I'm much better, but still coughing constantly."

  "Be careful, don't blow it."

  After he finished speaking, he seemed to have thought of something and his eyes lit up.

  He took the money and left. Song Wen remembered what he had thought of just now, and hurriedly rode his motorcycle down the mountain.

  It just occurred to him that since the old Osmanthus tree couldn't absorb nutrients from its roots and transport them to its top, why not use a drip irrigation method to send nutrients from the top down, connecting it with the already recovered lower part of the tree? Song Wen thought about this, and couldn't help but feel excited, thinking he was really too brilliant, even coming up with such an idea.

  Arriving at Ah Xi's clinic, Ah Fen was still there. Song Wen bought some infusion sets from her and also asked for some useless glass bottles.

  Afen took out what he wanted and asked uneasily: "What are you going to do?"

  "Give the tree an IV."

  Afen felt relieved after hearing it, as long as it wasn't for someone else's use, that was fine.

  After buying things, Song Wen came to Song Hu's braised noodle shop again.

  The braised noodle shop was still doing poorly, Song Hu was idle in the store, holding his daughter and watching TV leisurely. Song Wen saw that he was too idle, so he let him drive to his house to load pig manure for tree planting.

  Song Hu's family has a pig farm on the mountain, where his parents live and raise pigs and grow vegetables. The pig farm raises dozens of pigs, and the pig manure is swept out every day, dried, and bagged. When it's time, people come to buy it as fertilizer, with each bag costing around 10 yuan, which is cheap and practical. It's better than chemical fertilizers and more eco-friendly, so many people buy it, and it's often in short supply.

  Song Wen took a dozen or so bags of dried pig dung, intending to give money to his second uncle, but almost got beaten up by him and had to slink away in embarrassment. Song Hu, on the other hand, was laughing loudly with schadenfreude on the side. Moreover, this matter wasn't over yet, as his second uncle ran to their home that night to tattle, saying something about how children don't understand things and adults aren't paying attention, making Song Wen feel extremely depressed. In the end, they had no choice but to make a table of good dishes to apologize, but unexpectedly, he and his father started drinking again, with the two of them not knowing whether it was because they were old friends or what, getting drunk until they fell over. Song Wen didn't even know if his second uncle came to tattle or just took advantage of the situation to drink for free.