1987 My Era

Chapter 10, Ximen Qing
As the past flashed through his mind, Li Heng deliberately shouted in a hoarse voice: "Who is stealing the trees?"

"what?"

Hearing the sudden sound, Yang Yingwen screamed in fright, his body stiffened, and it took him a long time to react.

Looking around, she saw a face that seemed to be smiling but not smiling.

She instantly breathed a sigh of relief, patted her full chest and complained, "It's you, why are you playing tricks on me? You scared me to death."

Later she asked again, "Why did a lazy guy like you come into the mountains?"

Li Heng was immediately unhappy and raised his eyebrows: "No, this is how I look in your mind? Very lazy?"

"God! Aren't you lazy? How dare you say that? Your skin is whiter than that of people in the city. People say behind your back that you look like an embroidery lady." Yang Yingwen retorted bluntly.

Li Heng leaned over and asked curiously, "What else do people say about me behind my back?"

Yang Yingwen tilted his head to look at him and said seriously, "It's best not to ask. There's nothing good to say."

Li Heng was stunned. "I seem to be sincere and friendly to others usually. Why is my reputation so bad?"

Yang Yingwen snorted and ruthlessly criticized: "Are you really stupid or just pretending to be stupid?
As for the immoral thing you did by tricking Chen Zijin into bed, go and ask around yourself, who would dare to let their daughter have contact with you nowadays?"

Li Heng was embarrassed to be exposed, and angrily retorted: "Don't talk nonsense, we are in love with each other."

"What's the point of you glaring at me? I'm not the one gossiping behind your back."

After Yang Yingwen finished speaking, he still felt unsatisfied and continued to provoke him: "Besides, you have the nerve to do such a thing, and you don't want others to say a few words."

Li Heng pointed at her, looking very depressed: "We have been friends for so many years, but you still don't trust me?"

Yang Yingwen said: "It's not like you don't have a criminal record. You were a bad boy in the first grade of junior high school."

Damn it! She kept exposing my shortcomings. There was no point in chatting for the day. Li Heng walked past her and prepared to drag the tung tree she had cut down back home.

Seeing this, Yang Yingwen got a little anxious and quickly followed up: "Hey! Li Heng, don't be like this, I finally found a dead tree and I'm going to take it home to burn..."

In my hometown dialect, "touhuo" means to ignite fire.

Before she could finish, Li Heng turned around and said, "Just tell me if this mountain belongs to our Li family, right?"

Hearing this, she opened her mouth, knowing that she was in the wrong.

Li Heng took great pains to drag the tung tree out of the mountain, but he saw that the girl was following him all the time without saying a word.

So he teased her, "Beg me! Say something nice and I'll give you the tree."

Yang Yingwen was very firm: "You are such a jerk, don't even think about it, at worst I can just find another one."

"Then you go find it. I'm going home. Thank you for helping me cut down the tree."

As he said this, he carried the tree on his shoulders and pretended to leave.

Unexpectedly, the girl remained indifferent and just stared at him.

Li Heng turned his head and looked at her face for a while, and finally couldn't help but say: "What are you standing there for? Come on, I'll take you back."

Yang Yingwen was not grateful: "Don't do that. I don't deserve it. I don't want others to gossip about us behind our backs."

Li Heng raised his eyebrows: "What do you mean? Say it again, okay? Do you think it's embarrassing to go with me?"

Victory is enough, that's enough. Yang Yingwen smiled in a cheesy way, didn't provoke him any more, turned around and walked into the mountains.

Having known each other for so many years, Li Heng knew her temper and knew that she was not really angry. He immediately put the tree in a wide place so that it would not block the road, and then followed her.

After searching two hills in a row, he finally found a dry pine tree, but this land no longer belonged to Lao Li's family.

不过管它呢。

As the old saying goes, stealing firewood is not stealing. It is called skill if you can get it.

As long as they are not caught in the act and don't go too far, everyone will tacitly turn a blind eye. After all, living in the countryside, who hasn't done such stupid things?

Who has a clean bottom?
The dry pine tree was very big, so it was cut into four sections and tied into three loads of firewood. Li Heng and Yang Yingwen ran back and forth four times before they could move them out of the mountain.

At this time, the two men were sweating profusely and had already collapsed from exhaustion, exhausted as dogs, extremely tired.

When they passed by a mountain spring, they happily lay on the ground and gulped down the water, then washed their hands and faces before they had time to sit down and rest.

She asked: "Grandma Chun passed away, and Zijin didn't come back. Are you still in touch?"

Li Heng shook his head: "No, but her sister gave me a bag of study materials yesterday afternoon."

Yang Yingwen was surprised: "Chen Zitong gave it to you? You are kidding me, you treated her sister like that, doesn't she hate you to death?" Li Heng said unhappily: "Alright, alright, is this matter over? Can we put an end to it?"

Yang Yingwen took care of his feelings and didn't bring it up again. After chatting for a while, the two went back home and looked for their mothers.

The tung tree was the best kindling material, so Li Heng left it to her and then just wanted to carry a piece of dry pine tree.

But she refused and insisted on splitting it equally, saying that she had already gotten a great deal.

Li Heng pushed her several times but couldn't get rid of her, so he finally had to give in to her.

Before they parted, he asked again: "You really don't want me to help you get home?"

Yang Yingwen refused straightforwardly, "Please forgive me. From now on, just pretend you don't know me in the village. I will get married in the future."

Grandma’s legs!

Li Heng secretly spat at the ungrateful person who changed his attitude faster than turning the pages of a book. He carried the wood on his right shoulder, held the rabbit in his left hand, and rushed to the crossroads.

...

In the evening, the eldest sister came to eat again with a big belly.

Li Yan never knew what politeness meant when she returned to her parents' home. Before she even entered the house, she shouted in a hurry:

"Brother, I heard that you were lucky enough to catch a wild rabbit. Is that true?"

Li Heng had just killed a rabbit and was about to skin it. Seeing her running so fast, he immediately reminded her nervously:
"Big sister, please walk slowly, be careful not to fall."

"It's a hazard, I noticed."

Li Yan was very happy to see such a big rabbit. She touched it with shining eyes and said:

"So much meat, probably more than four pounds. This is a great dish. Brother, please cook more rice. I'll eat here tonight."

"..."

This was completely within Li Heng's expectations, and he nodded in agreement.

Next, the two siblings squatted at the back door to pluck the rabbit's hair, one on each side, and they quickly plucked it all out.

Later, the second sister came back from cutting grass for pigs. She brought back four large baskets in one go, two baskets of grass for feeding cows, and two baskets of grass for chopped up grass to be cooked into pig feed.

In the middle, Li Lan asked him, "Did you cut down the dry pine tree in the yard outside?"

Li Heng took a kitchen knife and cut the rabbit's internal organs without raising his head, and said yes.

Li Lan asked again: "It's only half, where is the other half? Why don't you bring it back together?"

At this time, the eldest sister suddenly interrupted: "I know, I know, it was at Yang Yingwen's house, I passed by their door and saw it."

At this point, Li Yan asked him naively: "Brother, that's not right, how come Yang Yingwen has one more tung tree than you?

You've suffered a great loss, how about I go find her and give her half of the tung tree back."

Li Heng: "..."

Li Lan: “…”

Ouch! What on earth is in this lady's head?
It can’t be all tofu dregs, right?

It's really tactless of you to bring up something that is not relevant.

Li Heng quickly said, "Sister, no need, I went to catch the rabbit by myself and wasted my time."

Li Lan was not so easily fooled. When she heard the word tung tree, she suddenly remembered something. She stopped chopping the pig grass and got up to go to the back mountain.

Before long, she found the tung tree based on her memory, but the tree was gone, leaving only a root as thick as a vegetable bowl.

Li Lan bent down to identify the knife edge. It was quite strange and she immediately knew what was going on.

When she was picking pig grass yesterday, she saw the dead tree from a distance, but she was busy at the time and couldn't get away. She didn't expect that the prodigal son would give it to a woman the next day.

When she got home, Li Lan said nothing about the tung tree. She only said this when her elder sister was not around:
"I can understand Chen Zijin, after all, she is quite pretty, but how could you have the heart to do that to Yang Yingwen?"

It’s not that she thinks Yang Yingwen is ugly, but his appearance and temperament are not from the same level as Chen Zijin, so there is no comparison.

In several neighboring villages, as a beauty, she only recognized Chen Zijin as her kind.

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(End of this chapter)