Chapter 676: The '50s Motherhood System (33)

The Town Mayor's heart surged with emotion, his voice trembling slightly as he said "good" three times: "Then we shall trouble everyone to prepare a Warm Pot Banquet together! We don't have enough pots, bowls, basins..."

"We'll go home and get them!"

The villagers of Shili Village volunteered.

"I'll go move the tables and chairs."

"My family has a large stove; I'll go fetch it. Just two burners won't be enough to cook with, right?"

"Town Mayor! These grains are plump and full, not a single one is shriveled; it would be a waste to mill them for food! How about we swap them with the ones from our homes? Can we keep these as seed grain?"

"Look at these wheat kernels, jade-white and pure, even better than the seeds I saved! It really is a pity to grind them into flour! Once eaten, they're gone! Why not keep them for seeds?"

Although they were very eager to taste the food sent by the immortal and see how it differed from ordinary grain, they preferred for the crops in the fields to yield a bumper harvest over satisfying their own appetites.

"Can the two hundred and forty catties of grain for the children be swapped with our own? Why don't we take them out and test it? If the immortal doesn't take them back, it means the immortal himself supports our idea."

"Town Mayor, what do you think?"

Town Mayor: "..."

How would he know what the immortal was thinking?

But it was worth a try.

Thus, several Cadres carefully carried the one hundred and twenty catties of rice and one hundred and twenty catties of wheat that had already been brought into the kitchen back out to the courtyard, swapping them for the husked Rice and milled flour that the Zhishu Xifu had her son bring from home.

Then, they loaded the rice and wheat sent by the "immortal" for the six children into grain bags and onto a flatbed cart, looking as if they were about to haul them away.

"Did they disappear?"

"Not yet!"

"Push it a bit further and try again."

A few minutes later, the Zhishu Xifu asked her son, who was pushing the cart a distance away, in a loud voice: "Did they disappear?"

"They're all still here!"

Xie Yang: "..."

The others were so excited their voices trembled: "Does this mean the immortal allows us to exchange them?"

"The immortal must have heard us and knows we want a good harvest for the coming year. If our harvest is good, won't the children's rations also increase?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's the logic!"

"Then let's divide up the high-quality seeds sent by the immortal."

"How should we divide them?"

Who wouldn't want such plump, high-quality rice and wheat seeds?

There were two hundred and twenty catties of rice and two hundred and twenty catties of wheat in total. With the branch secretaries of five villages present, the Town Mayor made the decision to give each village forty-four catties of rice and forty-four catties of wheat.

The Town Mayor had originally worried that this number was inauspicious and that the village secretaries might be unhappy. He was just considering dividing them into smaller portions.

"This number is fine, no need to change it!"

"Yes, yes, yes! This number even sounds like 'prosper' when singing! It's very auspicious! How could it be inauspicious?"

"Eighty-eight catties of rice and wheat combined, how auspicious!"

"Hahaha..."

Just like that, each village received a total of eighty-eight catties of seed grain.

This year, the village secretaries would trial-plant them at their homes first. If the yields of this rice and wheat were indeed high, they would save the seeds and distribute them to every villager present today.

Everyone present had no objections.

Afterward, everyone got busy with the Warm Pot Banquet.

The women gathered around the stoves to wash rice and steam it, knead dough and make flatbreads, wash and chop vegetables, arrange fruit platters... busy and happy.

The kitchen had no place for the men for the time being, so they took their wood-chopping axes and went to the mountains together to gather Wood.

"Xiao Xie has to take care of six children alone from now on; she won't have time to gather firewood. While there are still a few days before spring plowing, let's gather more for her."

"I'll go too!"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go, let's go!"

Under the arrangement of the Cadres and enthusiastic villagers, they soon enjoyed a sumptuous Warm Pot Banquet.

After the Warm Pot Banquet, the six children moved into their new home.

On the main gate, Xie Yang used Wood to make a plaque, carved the four characters "Nuan Shu Zhi Jia" on it, and hung it above the courtyard gate.

"Nuan Shu" means a small sapling bathed in sunlight, from now on fearless of wind and rain, growing sturdily, and one day growing into a useful talent.

Xie Yang paid for a village carpenter to make two swings, two rocking horses, and a set of seesaws, installing them in the courtyard so that when the weather was nice, the older children could play with the two younger ones in the yard.

She herself still had to do the spring plowing.

Fortunately, the children were all very well-behaved, especially the four older ones; the seven-year-old twin sisters Chunni and Qiuni were more efficient at taking care of the two little ones than she, their foster mother, was.

Eight-year-old Cao Xiaojun and seven-year-old Chen Xingguo, though not talkative, were observant and proactive. Without Xie Yang having to say a word, they would get up early to gather firewood, chop Wood, and sweep the yard, and even vied to go to the fields to help her transplant rice seedlings.

Xie Yang wouldn't let them go into the fields, so they took on the responsibility of starting the fire and cooking, taking turns going to the edge of the fields to bring water and food to Xie Yang.

Seeing this, the villagers felt somewhat regretful: if they had known these children were so sensible and capable, they would have come forward to adopt them back then.

These children had come with their own rations and household items, and the Town had even helped solve the housing problem they needed—

Look at where these children were living; although the walls were made of wood and stone and the roof of sorghum stalks, they were all newly built, and the beams and rafters were thick and sturdy, more spacious than where most of them lived.

If they had adopted them, could their own children have moved in here to live too?

That wasn't the most critical part; the most critical part was—those who had gone to help that day said the immortal sent the children grain, vegetables, melons, and fruits... not to mention anything else, just the eggs alone numbered one hundred and twenty, and there were six ten-catty Grass Carp!

Goodness!

These weren't orphans at all; they were clearly lucky stars that could generate wealth.

The more they thought about it, the more they felt they had miscalculated! The more they thought about it, the more they envied Xie Yang.

At first, they had whispered behind her back that she was a fool, not keeping her money to buy meat for herself, but instead going to adopt six orphans who didn't share her surname. They hadn't expected that in the end, the fools were them!

However, they had also heard that the food those immortals gave to the orphans of martyrs could not be taken advantage of; doing so would bring bad luck.

Most villagers were at most envious, but they did not dare to truly harbor crooked ideas about Nuan Shu Zhi Jia.

Except for a few individuals, among whom was Qiu Caohua.

Whenever Qiu Caohua thought about how the money Xie Yang used to adopt other people's children was paid by her own son, her heart ached so much she felt like she was going to have a heart attack.

Her life now was much harder than it had been a few years ago.

Not only did she have to work in the fields and do housework at home, but she also had to look after her grandson.

If her grandson were physically healthy, it would be one thing, but he happened to be disabled; he still couldn't sit steadily at ten months old.

Other people's children of this age could be placed in a stroller if no one was watching them, letting them sit by the edge of the field to watch the adults transplant rice seedlings, occasionally teasing and coaxing them, which was quite worry-free. But her family's child had to be held or carried on her back, and after half a day, her old waist, which was already prone to soreness, felt like it was about to break.

The more Qiu Caohua thought about it, the more unwilling she felt. That day, after finishing work, she let the old man go home first, and she carried her grandson, full of resentment, to Nuan Shu Zhi Jia.