After becoming a widow, I became the apple of a rough man's eye.

Chen Qinghe was dragged along by him, his steps faltering. His once proud and aloof face was now ashen, like a piece of toilet paper.

Once inside the courtyard, the stench became even stronger.

Jiang He pointed to the tools in the corner, "Please, great talent."

Chen Qinghe looked at the mud-covered shovel and felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

With trembling hands, he placed the book he was holding on the clean windowsill, as if placing a sacred offering.

Then, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt, he picked up the shovel with a look of grim determination.

Jiang He moved a bamboo recliner from inside the house and placed it upwind. Then, he pulled out a handful of melon seeds from somewhere, slumped onto the chair, and crossed his legs.

"Hurry up, the pigs are starving." Jiang He cracked open some sunflower seeds, spitting out a shell. "Scoop down that corner a bit more, yeah, right there, scrub a couple more times."

Despite feeling nauseous, Chen Qinghe shoveled the dung, and black pig manure splattered up, leaving several conspicuous stains on his white shirt.

He almost threw up on the spot.

After Lin Qingqing left, Li Dongye went back to catch up on his sleep.

The sun was high in the sky, but Li Dongye didn't sleep soundly.

His dreams were filled with Lin Qingqing's wet eyes, which made his heart burn with desire. When he woke up, he had an erection and felt extremely uncomfortable.

He cursed, went to the well, fetched a bucket of cold water, and poured it over his head to calm down his agitation.

I had just wiped my face when I heard a pig-like scream coming from the backyard.

"Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"

It was a man's voice, and it sounded quite familiar.

Li Dongye hung the towel around his neck and shuffled off into the backyard.

I was stunned as soon as I turned the corner.

The usually arrogant and domineering Chen Dacai was now huddled in a corner of the pigsty, holding a shovel as a shield, his legs trembling like a leaf.

Across from him, the little spotted pig, barely a month old, was sticking its rear end up and snorting as it nudged his trouser leg with its nose.

That piglet was also a bully who preyed on the weak. It probably sensed the stranger's timidity and, unafraid, rubbed its pink nose against his pants, leaving dark marks.

Jiang He sat on a bamboo chair upwind. "Chen Zhiqing, why are you hiding? Huahua likes you and wants to get closer to you. Your hiding will hurt the child's feelings."

Chen Qinghe's face turned green, and he didn't dare put down the shovel. "It...it bit me!"

"Nonsense." Jiang He rolled his eyes. "My Hua Hua is a vegetarian; she doesn't even have all her teeth yet. What part of your flesh would she bite?"

Li Dongye leaned against the wall, his gloom from the past few days gone, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"What kind of show are you going to perform?"

His voice caused both the person and the pig in the pigsty to stop what they were doing.

When Chen Qinghe saw Li Dongye, his face was even uglier than before. After what happened with Su Jiaojiao, he already couldn't hold his head high in front of Li Dongye, and now he had completely lost face.

Jiang He dusted off his hands. "Fourth Brother is awake? Perfect timing. Chen, the educated youth, was considerate of our family's labor shortage and offered to help feed the pigs. I saw his sincerity and couldn't refuse, so I let him give it a try."

Li Dongye raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over Chen Qinghe's now-worn white shirt. "Quite the awareness. But feeding pigs is a skill; don't let us make our pigs stupid."

"Who...who would want to feed this wretched pig!" Chen Qinghe gritted his teeth, forcing out the words, "It's all because of your brother..."

"Ahem." Jiang He cleared his throat, his gaze lightly falling on him.

Chen Qinghe froze, swallowing the rest of his words, his face turning red with embarrassment.

"What? What happened to my brother?" Li Dongye asked knowingly, took out a cigarette from his pocket, knocked one out and put it in his mouth, looking at him with a half-smile.

Chen Qinghe took a deep breath, as if resigned to his fate, and shoveled a lump of pig manure. "It's nothing! I'm doing it for fun! I'm just... experiencing life!"

"Good, that's ambitious." Li Dongye gave him a thumbs up.

The little pig named Huahua probably got impatient with Chen Qinghe's slow poop-scooping, so it grunted, kicked its hind legs, and rammed directly into Chen Qinghe's calf.

This piglet may look small, but it's surprisingly strong.

Chen Qinghe was struggling with a lump of old excrement stuck to the ground when he was suddenly bumped into, his foot slipped, and he fell forward.

"Smack!"

The world is quiet.

Chen Qinghe knelt on the pile of pig manure that he had just shoveled up but hadn't had time to throw away, his hands supporting him on the ground.

The shirt, which was a bit dirty but still recognizable as white, was now completely ruined. The cuffs were covered in a dark brown, unidentified substance, and a few drops even splashed onto his face.

"vomit--"

Chen Qinghe could no longer hold back and began to dry heave on the ground.

Li Dongye laughed so hard he dropped his cigarette. He bent down to pick it up, blew off the ash, and put it back in his mouth. "Chen Zhiqing, is this any good? We haven't even started feeding the pig yet, and you're already giving it such a big bow? Our pig can't accept this."

Jiang He moved his chair back in disgust. "Tsk, so dirty. Chen Zhiqing, you've made a mess of this everywhere. I'll have to trouble you to clean it up later."

Chen Qinghe knelt on the ground, tears welling up in his eyes.

He had never suffered like this in his life.

The dignity of scholars and the respectability of educated youth were shattered into dust at this moment and mixed into pig manure.

But he dared not leave.

Jiang He held a handle on him, and he shakily got up, ignoring the filth on his body, grabbed the pig feed bucket next to him, and just wanted to finish quickly and leave.

That bucket of pig feed was mixed by Jiang He early in the morning. It contained bran, rotten vegetable leaves, and leftover dishwater from last night. It fermented overnight, and the smell was so pungent that it could kill flies.

Chen Qinghe held his breath and poured the bucket into the feeding trough.

The other two piglets in the pen, who had been lying down and sleeping, smelled the aroma and instantly perked up.

The one with black and white markings is called "Big Pancake," and the other one, all white, is called "Steamed Bun." These names were given by Lin Qingqing, who said that humble names would make the baby easier to raise and also sounded auspicious.

Big Pancake is an impatient person. Hearing the noise, he yelled and rushed over, as fast as a cannonball.

Not to be outdone, the steamed bun, though a bit short, was agile enough to slip under the flatbread and head straight for the feeding trough.

Chen Qinghe had just picked up the bucket and hadn't even had a chance to pour it out when he was knocked off balance by a large flatbread. The bucket tipped over, and half a bucket of pig feed spilled all over his trouser leg.

The remaining half bucket was poured into the trough, but the three pigs were ruthless in their fight for the food.

The big pancake plunged headfirst into the trough, opened its big mouth, and ate with a loud smacking sound, while occasionally spitting out a puff of air from its snout, splashing the soup in the trough everywhere.

Hua Hua was too small to compete with the big pancake, so she anxiously circled the feeding trough. Finally, she seized an opportunity, put her two front hooves on the edge of the trough, and pushed off with her hind legs, actually trying to jump into the trough.

Chen Qinghe was about to chase Hua Hua down when the pig's trotter slipped and half of its body fell into the feeding trough.

"Splash—"

Another splash of soup.

Chen Qinghe was closest and got splashed all over his face. The sour, rotten vegetable leaves clung to his glasses, dripping water down his cheeks.

"Hahaha!"

Even Jiang He couldn't hold back this time, and he laughed so hard he couldn't stand up straight while clutching his stomach.

……

That's all for today.

I'm out of drafts.