RL

11-15

11

After processing the grapes, it was almost noon. Lin Mo went to the vegetable garden to pick some vegetables. Lin Chen went into the kitchen and began to cook. Lin Xiaoya was sitting on a small stool, holding a pear in her hands, gnawing on it and looking up at Uncle Cheng Yan standing in front of her.

Lin Xiaoya who buried herself in the pear saw that Uncle Cheng Yan was walking towards the gate. When Lin Xiaoya saw this, she was a little worried and didn’t care about the pulp in her mouth. She turned to the kitchen and shouted.

“Fourth Uncle! Come on! Uncle Cheng is leaving!” After shouting, Lin Xiaoya looked down at the fruit on the ground, and then chewed the fruit in her hand. After chewing, she stood up and ran towards Cheng Yan.

Lin Mo heard Lin Xiaoya’s voice coming from the yard. He put down his things and went out.

“Don’t you mean to stay here for lunch?” Lin Mo asked. He said it clearly just earlier. How could he leave now?

“I’ll leave for a while and come back later.” Cheng Yan said, chuckling.

Lin Mo nodded. After Cheng Yan left, he led Xiaoya into the room. Lin Mo touched the child’s head and said, “Stay here with your brother and accompany your father while Fourth Uncle cooks.”

“Mn…” Lin Xiaoya’s mouth was bulging, and she nodded when she heard Fourth Uncle’s words.

Lin Mo looked at Lin Cheng, who had just fallen asleep after drinking his medicine, and left the room.

“Brother, when will dad wake up?” Lin Xiaoya slowly moved to Lin Xiaonan’s side and asked in a low voice. Lin Xiaoya still had some fear in her eyes. She could still remember the blood on her father a few days ago.

There had been more blood than when they killed chickens at home. Lin Xiaoya thought her father was going to die at that time, because in her impression, the chickens died after they lost that much blood.

Lin Xiaonan thought about it and said, “Um… I wake up when I am hungry.”

There were a lot of ingredients in the kitchen. The pork and bones were bought by Father Lin early in the morning. There were families in the village who had pigs and would sell them in the town every day. Some villagers who didn’t want to go that far to buy meat could order it to be set aside from the families before the pigs were killed.

If it was preparing lunch for just the Lin family, the meat and some vegetables from the garden would have been enough, but now with Cheng Yan joining them, there would obviously not be enough.

Lin Mo thought about it. He went into the storeroom and took a larger piece of bacon from the row of hanging bacon. Some of these bacon slabs were small prey that Father Lin and Eldest Brother Lin hunted in the mountain. They had bought wax from the town and then hung them. In winter, there were not many people who sold meat in town. If they wanted to eat meat, they could only store it in advance.

Sometimes the Lin family would add some to the stir fry to satisfy the children’s appetites.

Taking the bacon to the kitchen, Lin Mo put it in the basin and soaked it in warm water for an hour, removed the floating dust on its surface, and reduced the saltiness.

“I’ll go to the garden and pick some vegetables. You can watch the fire here.” Lin Mo moved the pot of preserved bacon aside, took the basket, and told Lin Chen before going out of the kitchen.

“I see, Fourth Brother.” Lin Chen nodded and continued to stare at the fire in the two stoves. It would take a long time to stew bone soup with white radish and cook rice.