Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Zhuang Xing then reached out to his father, as if to give him a hug.

"Husband, let's try again," Mother said. "Zhuang'er is very good."

“This… alright…” The father reached out his hand again.

This time, Zhuang Xing stopped crying and making a fuss.

The father's body was stiff as a piece of wood, and he held Zhuang Xing tightly in his arms.

Zhuang Xing felt a little uncomfortable being hugged, so he pinched his nose to try and make him move a little lighter.

Seeing this comical scene, the mother suddenly laughed.

Zhuang Xing felt something warm drip onto his face. His father was actually shedding tears, but they were tears of joy.

"I'm a father now," the father murmured, his face beaming.

Chapter 22 Growth

Two months after his father returned, Zhuang Xing was suddenly able to stand up on his own.

He stood in his crib, his little hands loosening their grip on the wooden railing, and stood steadily.

Not only that, he also learned to speak. Although he had to concentrate to control his tongue to make clear sounds, he could indeed speak.

He discovered this while he was alone, and before he knew it, he had grown to this point.

At noon that day, he mumbled "Mother".

The mother was stunned for a moment, her chopsticks, which were picking up food, stopped in mid-air.

Zhuang Xing called out to her loudly again.

"Husband, Zhuang'er can talk now!"

The mother called the father, and the two sat down, their faces very close to Zhuang Xing's.

After that, they began to try to teach Zhuang Xing to say other words.

They did nothing all afternoon but stayed by Zhuang Xing's side.

Zhuang Xing didn't show anything too unusual. He only said a few short reduplicated words and called out "Father" and "Mother" in a coquettish manner, and didn't say anything more.

But that alone made the couple incredibly happy.

If you told them that their son could not only speak, but also write and recognize characters, you don't know how they would react.

They might think their son is possessed by an evil spirit and go outside the village to invite a shaman to burn talisman water for him.

It's terrifying to think about. Let's just let it follow the normal trajectory of a baby and "grow" little by little.

Zhuang Xing controlled his desire to perform very well. A week after he "learned to speak", he "learned to walk".

That night, when his mother carried him to bed, he took her hand, stood up, took a few steps on the bed, and then performed a "flat fall" with his superb acting skills.

The couple's reaction was equally intense. Three days later, Zhuang Xing received a pair of simple cloth shoes that his mother had cut out. They were very small shoes. After that, his mother would often take him to the yard, hold his hand, and teach him to walk little by little.

His father also carved a small chair for him out of wood, the kind of chair where you can put both legs in and sit down like you're wearing pants. The chair was very stable and supported his little bottom, so it was almost impossible for him to fall over once he was sitting on it.

Then, in September of that year, during the harvest season, Zhuangxing turned one year old.

His father and mother both gave him gifts. His father gave him a specially made little wooden horse. A month ago, his father could often be seen tinkering with something with a plane and a knife. It turned out that he was carving this little wooden horse.

It must be said that the little rocking horse is quite exquisite, with a nose, eyes, a tail, and textured fur. There are handles on both sides of the horse's ears, and sitting on it feels like riding a motorcycle. Unfortunately, its bottom is flat and it cannot be rocked.

However, Zhuang Xing still really liked this toy. When he had nothing to do, he would ride the rocking horse for a while, just like he was practicing horsemanship.

He never rode a horse in his past life, and he was determined to find a chance to buy his own horse in this life, to gallop across the grasslands, and then shout "Giddy up!"

The gift his mother gave him was a new garment, a dyed, bright red robe. There were very few colored clothes in the house, and this was one of the few.

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened that year.

His father did not leave home, and no accidents occurred in the village. However, there were always some happy and sad events throughout the year, and he still went to attend a few of them.

That year, I never saw Miss Huai'an again, and I heard nothing from her.

My mother always kept the big room in the wooden house clean, but that was all she did; she and my father never moved into that big room to live.

Mother tried her best to keep the room exactly as it was when Miss Huai'an left, so that whenever Miss Huai'an returned, she could move in as if she were returning to her own home.

My father had objected to this; he felt the current room was too cramped and wanted to move to that room.

His mother scolded him loudly.

“This house was originally built with money paid by Miss Yan. All the wood and the planks on the ground were carved by Miss Yan. In fact, we are the ones who are staying at Miss Yan’s house.”

"Besides, if it weren't for Miss Yan, Zhuang'er and I would already be dead."

"If one day Miss Yan wants to come back and rest, only to find that she doesn't even have a bed to sleep in, how can I face her?"

"Miss Yan is a great benefactor to our family. You are not allowed to mention such a thing again!"

This was the first time Zhuang Xingtou had seen her mother lose her temper like this. Even though a year had passed, her respect for Yan Huai'an had not diminished in the slightest.

My mother is a person who values ​​relationships and will never do anything against her conscience. That's how she taught Zhuang Xing.

After hearing what his mother said, the father stopped mentioning the matter. He began to help his mother tidy up the room and would often ask about Yan Huai'an.

In her mother's memory, Yan Huai'an was a perfect person who was highly skilled in martial arts, kind-hearted, strong-willed, and almost omnipotent.

Of course, Zhuang Xing was aware that this was not the case.

By the winter of the following year, Zhuang Xing had finally grown to the point where he could act independently.

At one year and two months old, his hands and legs are quite strong, and he speaks quite fluently. He has successfully passed through his most vulnerable infancy period and has never been sick.

He has never had any problems, big or small.

He thought it might be related to the wild game the old hunter had brought him last year; upon closer inspection, the meat really was exceptionally delicious.

That year, he did eat fish again, but none of them tasted as good as the fish the old hunter brought him.

Is it a difference in taste, or is it that the fish lacks a certain something? He remembered that last year, his mother made fish soup from the fish that the old hunter had brought him. The fish soup warmed him up from head to toe as soon as he drank it. But the small river fish that his father brought back didn't give him that feeling at all.

He thought that it was probably because of the nourishment he received that winter that his body was so healthy, and that he was even developing faster than other children.

At one year and two months old, he already had all his baby teeth, making him almost like a two-year-old.

After all, it was the "tuition fee" that the old hunter used to learn from his master. Those wild animals must have been carefully selected by the old hunter. Perhaps they were spiritual creatures, and eating them would have many benefits for the body.

Indeed, there are still many things in this world that he doesn't understand.

He held the amulet left to him by Miss Huai'an, filled with emotion.

It was late at night, and by the light of a sliver of cold moonlight streaming in through the window, he lay in the crib and secretly carved words on a bamboo strip with a knife.

The sound of snow falling could be heard outside; it had started snowing again. The moonlight was obscured by dark clouds. He hid the knife and bamboo strips under the bed and turned over.

Before we knew it, a year had passed since we parted.

Chapter 23 This field has to be planted.

In the spring, my father went to work in the fields again.

Since returning home last year, my father has resumed his old profession as a farmer.

Originally, he had been away from home for six months to earn some money to supplement his family's income.

Zhuang Xing had a pretty good grasp of his father's past experiences.

My father went out to work as a laborer after being introduced by the old hunter and the village chief. He worked as a laborer for a passing caravan for about half a year, doing all sorts of things, but they were all manual labor, such as carrying things, cleaning stables, and leading horses and donkeys.

He received free room and board there, so he sent all the money he earned back home.

However, it wasn't through postmen or couriers—there were no postmen or couriers in this era—but through the old hunter's team that he contacted the village.

The old hunter had his own hunting team. Every now and then, he would sell his catch in the city. At these times, he would help the villagers carry messages. His father and mother's correspondence was maintained through this connection with the village.

My father sent back a total of one and a half strings of cash. The beads and paper-cuts were obtained by him from a temple in the city, while the sachets and blankets were bought by him from a shop in the city.

The father originally planned to rush home before winter to take care of his wife and children, but the caravan suddenly got a business deal, so he was taken along to the neighboring town.

It started snowing heavily on the way back. The road back to the village was difficult to travel in winter. The old hunter came to see him for the last time and told him that he would take good care of his family. Although he was worried, he could only wait for spring in the city.

According to my father, he never rested, not even in winter.

"The shopkeeper saw how hard I worked, so when I paid, he gave me an extra two hundred coins."

Zhuang Xing can still recall that time when his father happily took a heavy string of cash from the package and placed it in his mother's hand.

But the mother didn't laugh. She put the money aside and took the father's hand and placed it in her palm.

The mother was looking at the back of the father's right hand. Although the father tried to dodge, the mother still caught him. The nail of his right index finger was missing. It was probably because he was injured while working and the nail was torn off.

By then, the wound had healed, and the new wound had become an old one. My mother was a sentimental person, and just looking at my father's hand, she burst into tears.

Zhuang Xing understood then that while his family was indeed very poor, they were rich in other ways.

As a child, he was well taken care of by his parents. Although the family's material conditions may not be very rich, what he possessed was more precious than gold. Therefore, even though he was not yet two years old, he wanted to do his best to do something for the family, at least to make his father and mother less tired.

He had a pretty good idea of ​​the family's sources of income. After his father stopped going out to work, the family only had two ways to make money: farming and weaving.

The father farmed the land, and the mother wove cloth; it was literally a case of men tilling the fields and women weaving.

They all did solid, down-to-earth work, but their income was actually quite limited.

On the one hand, grain and silk were not very valuable to begin with. On the other hand, the family had to pay autumn tax every year. The year before last, because of a poor harvest, the family had no grain or money after paying the autumn tax, so my father had to go out to work when my mother was about to give birth.

Their family also paid the autumn tax last year, but the harvest was good, and the father still had a lot of money left over from his work, so they didn't have any financial difficulties.

However, with only expenses and no income during the winter, and another whole year passed, after doing the math, it seemed that there was hardly any money left in the household.

In fact, there was a person in Zhuangxing who secretly kept accounts. He started carving words on bamboo strips to keep accounts as early as winter when he could still hold things.

It was a spring afternoon. Father had gone to work in the fields, while Mother was drying coarse hemp threads made from ramie in the yard.

She's drying the fabric; after that, she'll use the coarse linen threads to weave cloth.

Zhuang Xing had already witnessed his mother's entire weaving process, which was extremely complicated, involving more than a dozen steps, including planting hemp, beating hemp, extracting hemp, and spinning yarn.

Although weaving is not as physically demanding as farming, it is far more refined than farming.

When he used to sleep in a small bamboo basket, his mother would often weave cloth in the yard. She could hardly find time to take care of him all day long, which shows how hard the work was.