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Chapter 90: Whistle Croton (Thanks to Alliance Leader A Liang for the extra update)
Because of her outstanding performance at the construction site, she got a place in the sanatorium for recuperation. However, Yang Liming felt that her physical condition was as bad as that of an animal and she would definitely not be able to use the place. After she came back, he considerately arranged for her to have the place given to her grandmother. Taozi accompanied her grandmother to the sanatorium for a month, and was exhausted from running around with her grandmother.

This was the information Xie Hushan got out of Daxiu's mouth. Daxiu went to school every day, so she only knew the general idea and her story was disjointed, but Xie Hushan pieced together the information she said and came up with this answer.

Xie Hushan sat in front of the table on the kang, holding the bottle of western medicine and observing it. The name of this thing was ursodeoxycholic acid tablets. From the brief introduction, it seemed that it was used to promote bile secretion and enhance gallbladder function. It was not a special medicine for treating any serious illness.

Moreover, grandma had just gone downstairs swiftly, and was now cooking noodles for herself with Taozi in the main room.

When the aunt came in with the dishes, she saw Xie Hushan's look of investigating an enemy spy, and unhappily took out a few photos from the kang cabinet that the comrades in the sanatorium had taken when Grandma and Taozi were recuperating in the sanatorium, and showed them to Xie Hushan:
"If I don't tell you, then you might worry about me. Your grandma has been in the hospital for a month, and you can still sit there? What's wrong? Looking at your behavior, do you think I'm an enemy spy?"

Xie Hushan took the photos that the aunt brought out and took a look at them. In addition to the photos of grandma wearing convalescent clothes and Taozi while recuperating in the sanatorium, there were even photos of grandma, aunt, uncle and Daxiu when they visited them.

This person must have really gone to a nursing home, otherwise rural people would not understand what Photoshop means.

After Xie Hushan finished looking at the photos, he smiled and said to the aunt:

"It's just a small matter, is it worth it for Taozi to cover for you? You thought you had nothing to say when she coughed a few times in the main hall and I didn't hear it, right?"

"I'm a militia platoon leader, so my alertness is extremely high. If you want to hide these little actions of trying to convey information, such as coughing, touching eyebrows, and blowing nose, from me, just tell me directly. I'm not a fool. I know that living in a hospital is different from living in a nursing home."

"I coughed because I heard Auntie say the medicine was hers. I was afraid you would think too much, so I wanted Auntie to tell you the truth and say that Grandma went to the sanatorium..." Taozi then turned her back and pushed open the door curtain, and walked in with a bowl of steaming noodles in her hand, with an egg in it. She said with her face slightly red from the smoke from the stove:

"Third brother, let's eat noodles first."

"Hey, thank you!"

Just as Xie Hushan was about to take the noodles from Taozi's hand, grandma came in with another bowl of noodles. Wow, there were two eggs on top.

After all, she is my grandmother, and she cares about me more than Taozi does.

"Grandma, don't burn your hands~" Xie Hushan reached out to take the noodles from his grandma's hand.

"Taozi, eat this bowl of noodles." Grandma put the noodles held by Taozi in front of Xie Hushan with her left hand, and put the noodles she was holding in Taozi's hand with her right hand. The noodle exchange was completed in the blink of an eye.

Xie Hushan became more and more suspicious that Taozi's family might have migrated to Zhili from southern Yunnan Province, and they must have been poisoned.

The lyrics of "Red Lantern" are ringing in my ears:

Grandma is no longer your real grandma...

Taozi was also startled by her grandmother's actions.

"Don't worry about it. He works there and gets food. He can eat his fill every day. Besides, no matter how much noodles a guy eats, he won't feel hungry. He still needs to eat steamed bread to make up for it. You eat yours. If he wants to eat, I'll make it for him." Seeing that Taozi was a little embarrassed, grandma patted her on the back and whispered softly:

"Don't be embarrassed. You have to let him know that as your grandmother, I will spoil you just as much as I spoil him. I even have to side with you. Don't think that just because he's back, your grandmother will treat you badly. If I tell you to eat, just eat generously and don't think about him. Otherwise, he will always think that you are not as favored by the elders as him, and if the elders don't side with you, then you will be angry with him. Don't let this bad habit get to you. People always bully those who don't have power when they have it."

Aunt Chen Chunxiang laughed when she heard her mother-in-law say this. When she first came into the family, the old lady said something similar to her. She was embarrassed, but she finally listened to her. Then, she was the one who made the decisions on all matters in the family, but she had no way to deal with her mother-in-law. When she was really angry, she even punished her father-in-law Xie Laoliu.

"Well, I'll go call Daxiu to eat." Taozi wiped her hands and prepared to go to Xie Hushan's room to call Daxiu to eat lunch. Xie Hushan looked up at Taozi and rejected her suggestion: "Don't call, sit down and eat. Daxiu is eating half a bowl of dry cake powder with a spoon. She doesn't rinse it with water and eats it dry. I feel for her that she is choking. After dinner, just leave her a bucket of water for washing the pot to quench her thirst."

But in the end, Taozi still gave out half of the noodles and an egg and called Daxiu over. Daxiu was really determined and ate the noodles in the face of the aunt who turned green with anger and had murderous eyes.

After the group finished lunch, the aunt used the excuse of delivering Xiaobao's old work clothes that Xie Hushan had given to him to his second uncle's house, and dragged Daxiu away, probably to go home and commit domestic violence.

Grandma said to Xie Hushan, who picked up the photo of her and Taozi in the sanatorium and looked through it again:
"It's the Little New Year in a few days. I've prepared some things for you. Go and deliver the peaches in person on the day of the Little New Year. Also, send the New Year gifts and wish your uncle and aunt a happy New Year in advance. Before you get married, you visit relatives before the New Year."

Xie Hushan nodded and handed the photos he had read to his grandmother to put away:

"Got it, grandma. Well, I'll go to the team headquarters to find Uncle Wu first and ask him if there's anything to do in the sideline group in the next three months. I'll rest when I come back."

On a winter afternoon, the restless girl Taozi was busy in the yard. She puffed her lips and made a cute "hush" sound, while helping Xie Hushan take out the bedding that he had lived in the shack for three months, removing the mattress covers and quilt covers to dry them in the sun.

Xie Hushan walked out of the main room with a red scarf in his hand. He saw Taozi unpacking the quilt with her back to him and sighing. He watched for two minutes and finally couldn't help his curiosity and asked:
"Miss Peach, what are you blowing there?"

This girl must have been exhausted during this period of time. You can tell from the photos. When she accompanied her grandmother to take a private photo, her grandmother didn't look very well and Taozi's face was rounder than it is now.

When grandpa and aunt went to visit again and took a photo together, grandma was full of energy, but Taozi girl looked tired and thin.

"Ah~" Taozi turned around quickly when she heard the voice. She thought that Xie Hushan should have finished his meal with his grandmother and the two of them had a chat, but she didn't expect him to be standing at the door of the main room, looking at her with curiosity.

Taozi couldn't help but laugh first, turned away shyly, and continued to work on the bedding with her back to Xie Hushan to hide her embarrassment:

"Nothing. I want to learn to whistle like Daxiu, but I just can't do it no matter how hard I try. You don't know, Daxiu is so impressive. When she comes home from school, she whistles and all the cats and dogs in Team 3 go home obediently. I want to whistle too, otherwise some dogs in Team 3 won't like me and will bark all the time."

"Turn around." Xie Hushan walked over with the scarf in his hand and asked Taozi to turn around.

Taozi turned around slowly. She felt a little embarrassed. She had lived in the man's house for three months and had a good relationship with his grandmother, aunt and Daxiu. But she and Xie Hushan had only met a few times and had not spoken to each other much.

Seeing Xie Hushan concentrating on putting on the scarf for her and even tying it for her, Taozi blushed and said with her head down, "Thank you, Third Brother."

"I should thank you for helping me take care of grandma. Okay, it looks good." Xie Hushan put the scarf on Taozi, took a half step back, looked at her for a while, nodded with satisfaction, walked past Taozi and walked out of the house, saying as he walked:
"It's okay. I'll go to the team headquarters. You keep practicing. If you practice the hissing sound well, it will be better than Daxiu. Daxiu can only whistle to scare away all the cats and dogs on the street. If you practice the hissing sound more, you can make all the people and dogs on the street jump up and down to find the toilet. Then you can get a powerful nickname, Whistling Croton."

Taozi covered her face in embarrassment. When she heard Xie Hushan's footsteps stop, she put her hands down and walked towards the gate. After making sure that the other party was far away, she puffed her cheeks childishly and blew hard at Xie Hushan's receding back:

"Shhh~~Shhhh~~You still say I'm a croton...I'll kill you~~Shhh~!"

She seemed to want to treat Xie Hushan as a cat or a dog, and imagine herself as a big show. Once the whistle sounded, Xie Hushan, who made her embarrassed, would "swish" away and no longer dare to show up, thus relieving the embarrassment in his heart.

Grandma was standing by the window inside the house, looking quietly through the glass, her face illuminated by the warm sun and full of smiles.

(End of this chapter)