TTLJDFL chapter 22

Li Jin chuckled and said, “You guys wait here.”

He only knew that the people in the village, except during festivals, generally didn’t make meat. What he didn’t know was that once meat was made, children would come to the door asking for some.

But these kids all looked timid, so if he refused, they probably wouldn’t throw a tantrum demanding to be fed. It wasn’t really annoying either.

Fortunately, Li Jin had bought a total of two jin of pork belly. After giving half a jin to Li Zhuzi earlier, this time there was a full jin of meat stewing in the pot.

He used chopsticks to pick out five pieces and put them in a bowl. Then he thought for a moment and took a few lettuce leaves, washing them clean.

When he went outside, the children saw him carrying the bowl, and each of them widened their eyes.

Li Jin said, “Reach out your hands.” He wrapped each piece of meat in a lettuce leaf to make sure it wouldn’t burn their hands, then handed them out to the children.

The children received the meat, and the eldest one, imitating the way people pay respects to their elders during the New Year, said, “Wishing Uncle Ajin great wealth!”

The youngest child at the back was still very small, naked, and also followed by saying, “Great wealth!”

Li Jin smiled, let the children go, and went back to serve meals to the young boy. Qin Muwen, inside the house, heard the children’s voices outside and at first did not realize what brought them there.

Later he thought that during festivals and holidays, when the village chief’s family cooked meat, this group of children would also find a way to get some meat to eat.

Li Jin first carried the meat in and placed it on the low cabinet by the bedside, giving the boy a pair of chopsticks.

“You eat the meat first, I’ll stir-fry two dishes later.”

The boy was still feeding the child and couldn’t move away, so he said, “Ah Jin, I’ll stir-fry the dishes…”

Li Jin rubbed his head and said seriously, “I did the math, and you’ve already spent enough time down today. Just lie in bed and rest. Cooking a couple of dishes is no problem for me.”

He paused, then added, “Eat the meat while it’s hot. I’ll be right back.”

The young boy had been wronged today, and although he had already been comforted,

Li Jin wasn’t exactly a saint. When others were openly bullying him, there was no way he could just sit back and do nothing.

While Li Jin was cooking, he thought to himself that the young man was just a bought husband, not someone from their village. So as fellow gers, they more or less wanted to see the young man make a fool of himself.

Li Jin really wanted to change everyone’s view of the young man, but he couldn’t just reason with the gers directly…

Li Jin thought that maybe this matter needed a middleman.

=

Over here, the five kids held onto the meat, nibbling just a little, unwilling to take a whole bite at once.

Someone in the village saw them and called over to the biggest kid, asking, “Did Uncle Daniu’s family stew meat again?”

The kid replied, “It was Uncle Ajin who made it.”

When he said that, his own dad, carrying a hoe and walking back from the field, happened to hear it.

This burly man immediately went over and twisted his kid’s ear.

“You actually have the nerve to go to Uncle Ajin’s for meat?”

Li Jin’s family was poor. Lately, whenever they saw Li Jin, he was always gnawing on potatoes.

Besides, Li Jin’s wife was still in confinement, so how could their own child be so careless?

Even though they hadn’t had meat at home for a long time, they couldn’t just reach out to ask Li Jin for some!

But the Zhuang man thought, their own child was being clueless going to Li Jin to ask for meat, and Li Jin actually gave it…

Li Jin really was a kind and generous person.

But he couldn’t pretend to know nothing like a child. He thought for a moment and said, “Forget it, you guys eat, I’ll go send some eggs to Li Jin.”

Li Jin has changed a lot recently; it seems that being a father really makes a difference. Li Jin had just finished eating when he received a basket of eggs.

The man said, “I’m sorry, my child doesn’t understand things. It’s not easy for you to make a living now. You finally get to eat some meat, and yet my child brought others to take a bit away…”

Li Jin declined and said, “The child is still young, and coming here has already blessed me; they should just have a little token of good fortune. I can’t accept these eggs.”

Seeing that Li Jin refused to take them, the man scratched his head.

He said, “I heard from Uncle Dahe that you’re planning to build a table soon. Will it fit in your house? After I finish harvesting the wheat in the fields, I’ll find a few people to build another room for you to place the table. What do you think?”

Li Jin’s eyes lit up; he had been planning to have someone build a room. It was just like having a pillow delivered when you want to sleep.

“Thank you very much. I’ll make sure there’s plenty of braised pork when the time comes.”

The man waved his hand quickly: “No need. We’re all from the same village, and usually when we help others build houses, we don’t expect meat in return.
There just needs to be a bit thick porridge.”

Li Jin then set up another appointment with the man, scheduling it for the afternoon of the second day in late June. By then, every household would have harvested their wheat, only needing to dry and store it, so the men wouldn’t have to worry about those things.

After returning, Li Jin told Qin Muwen about it. He said, “By then we’ll also need to patch up our roof and bury some earth dragons in the house; when we burn firewood in winter, it won’t be so cold.”

The teenager looked at Li Jin, and the dimples at the corners of his mouth never went away.

The child in his arms seemed to sense that Daddy was in a great mood and gave him a big smile.

Seeing this, Li Jin hugged the baozi tightly in his arms.

The baozi immediately wiped off his smile, his face full of confusion—Where did my sweet-smelling Daddy go?!

But he didn’t cry. After all, Li Jin was the one who fed him when he woke up at night, so he was still familiar with Li Jin’s scent.

Li Jin bounced him a few times and said, “Baozi, smile for daddy.”

Baozi showed no expression: “…” He couldn’t understand what you were saying.

Qin Muwen said, “He only smiles when he’s full. Wait until you come back and I’ll feed him again, and he’ll definitely smile.”

Li Jin: “…”

Li Jin planned to wait for Baozi to smile, so he cut a piece of bamboo leaf paper, ground some ink, and wrote something.

If the young man came to see it, he would surely find that Lijin was writing a ‘petition’ at this moment. The content inside was mostly about the various things the young man did after marrying in. The remaining part concerned the villagers’ disdain and exclusion toward the young man. — The young man’s efforts had not brought any corresponding rewards.

Until the end, when Li Jin went out carrying a hoe and vegetable seeds, he still did not win a single smile from Baozi.

It seems that Qin Muwen’s observation skills are truly extraordinary; baozi only smiles when he’s full.

Now it was around six in the afternoon, and there was still some time before darkness. The sun had set, and it wasn’t as hot as at noon—just the right time to plant vegetable seeds.

Li Jin first measured his own field with his steps, then planted the vegetable seeds at regular intervals. Finally, he carried water to irrigate them.

By the time the sun had completely set, he had managed to plant one-third of the field.

Li Jin felt that growing vegetables wasn’t particularly difficult, but fetching water was really exhausting. Especially since his shoulders hadn’t recovered at all since pulling the cart. Carrying a bamboo basket back and forth for two hours a day was still tolerable, but carrying two buckets of water at once was really a bit too much for him.

However, thinking that the vegetable plot would be planted in about three days, and afterwards he would only need to water it at regular times, it wouldn’t be so tiring.

Li Jin thought that by then, he would probably be used to doing farm work.

Right now, his body was still a bit too delicate.

He put the bucket in the house and took the dried ‘petition’ to the village chief’s house.

The village chief was sitting at the doorway, tidying his tobacco pipe. When he saw Li Jin coming, a smile appeared on his face: “Li Jin, are you here to see me?”

Li Jin said, “Yes, Li Jin has something to ask for your help, village chief.”

The village chief invited him into the house and said, “Let’s see, you’ll have completed your mourning this September, so it’s for the Tongsheng Exam next February?”

When Tongsheng Exam candidates go on to take the county exam, they need four villagers and one scholar to recommend them in order to be allowed to take the test.

This recommendation means that the person is vouching for the candidate’s honesty and that they won’t cheat.

If the candidate messes up and gets caught, the person who recommended them has to face consequences too.

If this had happened before, who knows if anyone in the village would have been willing to recommend Li Jin.

But things are different now. As long as Li Jin asks, there are plenty of people who want to recommend him.

The village chief thought, since Li Jin came to him first, he definitely had to recommend him.

This kid turning over a new leaf is worth its weight in gold!

Li Jin shook his head: “The exam registration is in January next year, so I’ll definitely have to trouble the village chief then.

But what I want to talk about now is something about my husband.”

The village chief thought that Li Jin’s pampering of his husband was truly something else—he did his own laundry by the river, cultivated hid own fields, and it was said that he even cooked for his husband… he just didn’t know what he wanted to say to him.

Li Jin said, “I have done many despicable things to my husband in the past, and now I want to make amends to him properly.

But when I came back from town today, I found that three gers had bullied my husband until he cried. I feel that I can’t be the only one to recognize my husband’s goodness; I hope the people in the village can accept him.”

The village chief had also held his position for many years and had dealt with numerous trivial and petty issues among neighbors. Even if two women were fighting, it was never the case that a man’s backing would be involved.

He knew that, on the one hand, the man felt embarrassed, and on the other hand, he thought these two women couldn’t cause much trouble, so he was too lazy to deal with it.

He just didn’t expect that, when it came to Li Jin, he would actually take the initiative to bring this matter up with him.

The village was small and indeed somewhat exclusive. Li Jin’s thought was genuinely considerate of his husband.

Li Jin said: “Village chief, I’m not trying to make things difficult for you. I brought the letter of petition myself.

But I don’t have authority when I speak in the village, so I want to discuss this matter with you…”

No matter how well Li Jin has been doing recently, he’s still just a young guy not yet twenty. To get rid of everyone’s deep-rooted prejudice against youths, he’ll still have to rely on the village chief.

Besides, the words in this petition are written so clearly that even the village chief can’t bear to read them. It’s really hard to understand how these gers, who are clearly pitiful themselves, could say such vicious words that hit right at one’s heart.

He pondered for a moment and said, “Then I will accept this letter of petition. When you become a top scholar in high school, I will appear with you, so that everyone will be fully convinced.”

Becoming a top scholar is not that easy. In the entire town and the surrounding eight villages, there are only three top scholars in total.

The village chief said this to put some pressure on Li Jin, but he also had high hopes for him.

He also hoped that a golden phoenix could soar from his own village!

Li Jin stood up and bowed deeply to the village chief. “Thank you, village chief.”

To be honest, Li Jin just wanted to help the boy get some justice.

Life was still long ahead, and the boy wasn’t his golden caged bird, destined to never leave his room. To prevent the boy from being bullied again in the future, he could only make an example out of it.

By the time Li Jin returned home, the lights in the house were already on.

The young man only slightly curved his always-tense back when he saw him enter.

Li Jin packed up the change of clothes, took them to shower, and when he came back, Baozi was laughing happily in the young man’s arms.

The young man specifically timed it to feed Baozi, thinking, “Now he will smile at Daddy.”

But as soon as Li Jin picked up Baozi, the little one’s face instantly became expressionless.

Li Jin: “…”

Qin Muwen: “???”​