The Beautiful Brother of the Orion’s Family (Wearing Book) - 195

 

| TBBOTOF | 195

After turning thirty-five, in just half a month, Tang Erhu had gained weight.

If there was nothing much to do, he would eat well.

A year later, the chubby kid was three years old.

Not only had the chubby kid become more articulate with his words and better at expressing himself, but even the two younger siblings, who could previously only manage one or two words, had grown a lot. 

Though their pronunciation still wasn’t clear, their ability to communicate was quite good.

At the very least, Tang Xu no longer had to act as their translator most of the time.

However, this also meant that the three children would chatter non-stop. The weather was already cold, and when they talked endlessly, their mouths would dry out, so they would drink water. 

But then, after drinking too much water, they would need to pee. They were wearing padded pants, and even though there was a button in the front that could be undone, the children always asked for help when they needed to pee, which, for Tang Xu, was quite inconvenient when he had things to do.

“Let them wear split pants,” Wang Cuicui suggested, as she was shredding radishes using a tool Tang Xu had made for her. She saw him coming back after washing his hands and offered the idea. “Now that it's getting warmer, we can put them in split pants. When they need to pee or poop, they’ll know to squat on their own.”

Tang Xu shook his head.

If they were indoors, it might be convenient to have them in split pants when the adults were too busy. But his three kids were always running around, especially on the mountain with water nearby.

 If their little butts were exposed and they rubbed against dirt or rocks, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. But if they got bitten by some unknown bugs, that would be trouble.

Wang Cuicui thought about it and realized he had a point. Her three precious grandchildren had delicate skin, and in the summer, bugs were always biting them.

"Well, running back and forth like this really delays your work," said Wang Cuicui. 

"Delays are delays," Tang Xu said. "Da Bao can at least learn to unbutton by himself, but Er Bao and Xiao Bao’s fingers aren't nimble enough. There's no way they can undo the buttons themselves." Tang Xu missed the design of zippers, but unfortunately, even though he knew how they worked, there was no way he could make one.

Wei Dong had barely been home in the past two years. Even when he did come back, it was always in a hurry—staying for one night and leaving early the next morning.

Tang Xu sometimes wondered if, had it not been for how much Wei Dong missed his kids, the man wouldn’t even bother coming back.

After the second day of the second lunar month, Tang Xu began collecting the dried marinated ducks. Wei Zhonghong and Luo Pingping had both delivered three hundred, not a single one more or less, and the quality was excellent.

Tang Xu tasted them and told the women that this level of quality was expected in the future.

"Did Dongzi say when he's leaving?" Wei Zhonghong asked as she handed the bulging money pouch to Wu Hong, indicating he should head home first while she stayed a little longer.

Luo Pingping wasn’t alone either; her second child had come along. 

"Ah Dong said yesterday that once these last few things are sorted, they start getting the goods ready over there too," Tang Xu said, as he had Liu Yao help move the dried marinated ducks into the storeroom, ready to be loaded onto the cart once it returned.

Luo Pingping, curious, asked, "Besides ducks, what else are you selling?"

“Ah Dong said to take a few jars of the sorghum liquor I brewed and see if anyone’s interested in drinking it,” Tang Xu said, confident in the high-proof liquor he had distilled. 

Over the past few years, he had stored quite a bit, all kept in a pit he had dug next to the cellar.

The earliest batch of liquor had an especially rich and fragrant aroma. If the seal of the jar was opened, the scent of the alcohol could drift a long way.

Wei Dong planned to take a few of those earliest jars out this time. Tang Xu had no objections; the liquor was just sitting in the cellar anyway. If it could be sold, it might fetch a good price.

Xiao Bao came running from the backyard, with Er Bao chasing after him, howling as he ran, and they were both moving fast.

Xiao Bao ran toward Tang Xu and leaped into his arms as he screamed, clinging to his leg. “Dad! Big brother is chasing me!”

Scary!

Tang Xu looked up at Er Bao, who was charging over like a little monster.

“Don't run after your brother so fast. What if he trips, falls, and starts bleeding?” Tang Xu scolded.

Er Bao pouted and edged closer. “I was just playing with him.”

“Run slowly if you want to play. Don't you see he's scared?” Tang Xu gave him a stern look. 

Er Bao, feeling wronged, reached out to grab Xiao Bao’s hand.

Xiao Bao turned his face, snorted, and said, “Bad!”

“You can’t say your second brother is bad. He just didn’t control his strength well. If you say that about him, he’ll feel hurt,” Tang Xu said, poking his youngest son’s cheek. “If you don’t like him chasing you like that, just tell him directly, okay?”

Xiao Bao nodded, half understanding, then looked at Er Bao and said, “Don’t chase me. Play with me.”

Er Bao nodded and held his little brother’s hand, grinning widely.

Luo Pingping watched the two of them from the side, smiling warmly with a look full of affection.

“You know, we’ve all got kids ourselves, but for some reason, I find these three especially adorable.”

Wei Zhonghong nodded in agreement. “Exactly! By the way, where’s your oldest?”

Tang Xu hadn’t seen his eldest son in a while, so he looked down and asked the two brothers, “Where’s your big brother?”

Er Bao, holding a sticky rice bar, was trying to gnaw on it, but since his teeth were still small, he couldn’t bite through it all at once, so he was slowly grinding it with his teeth.

Hearing his father’s question, he looked up and said, “Moving the ducks.”

Tang Xu raised his eyebrows, impressed that his oldest was actually helping out with the chores. Not bad at all.

When Luo Pingping and Wei Zhonghong heard that the chubby kid was working, their curiosity piqued, and they headed toward the backyard.

In the backyard storeroom, Liu Yao was there with Wei Xi and Tang Yang, organizing the dried ducks. 

There were a total of 1,200 ducks. Tang Xu had told Wei Dong earlier that they could take out a hundred or so to give away as free samples for tasting, as you couldn’t rely solely on just advertising.

Wei Dong understood all this well, and to be honest, he was even better at doing business than Tang Xu, with more attention to detail.

Despite being small, the chubby kid was quite strong. He pulled the ducks tied with rope out of the basket, ran to the storeroom door to hand them to Wei Xi, and then turned back to continue fetching more.

It wasn’t a long distance, just a short path in front of the storeroom that had been cleared to allow carts to pass through.

“Did Dongzi renovate the backyard?” The two women rarely came this way when they visited, so they were surprised by the new layout.

Tang Xu nodded. “He said it makes it easier for carts to pass through. This storeroom is for goods to be taken out for sale, separate from the one used for household supplies.”

Wang Cuicui was also helping out. Seeing the two women arrive, she quickly greeted them with a smile. “It’s a mess over here. Let’s go sit up front.”

“What mess? Xu Ge’er keeps things so tidy,” Wei Zhonghong said as she linked arms with Wang Cuicui, glancing at her face. “You’ve recovered quite well.”

At the end of last year, Wang Cuicui’s pregnancy wasn’t something openly discussed, but for a couple of days, she hadn’t been out and about. 

Wei Zhonghong thought she had quarreled with Tang Erhu, so she went over to check in, only to find out that Wang Cuicui had been pregnant.

Shortly after, word spread that she had taken medicine to terminate the pregnancy, which Wei Zhonghong found quite unfortunate.

However, Wang Cuicui had comforted her and explained the concerns she and Tang Erhu had.

Now, seeing Wang Cuicui’s rosy complexion and vibrant energy, Wei Zhonghong felt much more reassured.

"Xu Ge’er made me nourishing soups, and I didn’t have to do any work for over half a month. How could I not recover well? If I hadn’t been moving around a bit these past two months, I might have gained quite a bit of weight," Wang Cuicui said with a cheerful sigh. "And don’t underestimate Erhu. He may not talk much, but he’s incredibly capable and did all sorts of chores."

Wei Zhonghong looked at her curiously. "What chores?"

"Oh, he even washes my small clothes for me," Wang Cuicui’s face flushed with embarrassment, but she proudly shared with her close friend.

Wei Zhonghong’s eyes widened, and she nudged Wang Cuicui with her shoulder. "You better thank me properly! I found you such a good man."

Wang Cuicui laughed and nudged her back a couple of times.

Meanwhile, Luo Pingping, holding one child’s hand in each of hers, walked slowly while Er Bao and Xiao Bao each clutched sticky rice bars, stuffing them into their mouths as they strolled.

"Auntie, eat," Xiao Bao said, tilting his face up. Seeing Luo Pingping smiling down at him, he quickly pulled out the sticky rice bar, now soaked with saliva, and raised it up for her to eat.

Luo Pingping didn’t mind. She bent down, took a playful bite of the sticky rice bar, and affectionately nuzzled his cheek. "Xiao Bao, why don’t you come stay at Grandma’s house for a few days? Grandma’s house has a little brother and a little sister."

Her eldest daughter-in-law had given birth to a son, about the same age as Wei Zhonghong’s eldest granddaughter, and her second daughter-in-law had given birth to a daughter, who was three months younger than Xiao Bao.

Xiao Bao nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!" 

He was still so young that he called everyone "brother" and didn’t yet understand what a "sister" was.

So when he heard there was a sister, his curiosity was piqued.

Tang Xu glanced into the storeroom. The air-dried salted ducks were stacked one on top of another inside large bamboo boxes. 

These boxes were specially woven by Tang Xu, and the insides had been lined with two layers of waterproof oil paper. 

Once the ducks were sent out, another two layers would be added. Otherwise, if they encountered rain or snow, the ducks would spoil.

Wei Dong had visited several places to find suitable oil paper. Some were too thin, and others couldn't be used to wrap food. The ones they settled on had a good thickness and could wrap the ducks for a long time without affecting their flavor.

The two of them had tested the waterproofing many times before finally selecting this type of paper.

“If we put more in between, we can fit more in,” Tang Xu suggested while helping to pack the ducks into the boxes.

Tang Li nodded. "Brother, you’d better take Da Bao away. Don’t let him meddle here.”

She stopped short of saying he was more of a hindrance than a help.

Without her saying it, Tang Xu already understood. If it weren't for the few ducks left in a basket for his eldest son to carry back and forth to keep him entertained, Liu Yao and Tang Yang would have finished moving everything long ago.

Smiling, Tang Xu turned to look at the chubby boy. His eldest son was holding a duck in each hand and running over with little steps.

“Dad!” The chubby boy held up the ducks in his hands, his face smeared with a streak of black from who knows where. His rosy little mouth called out to his dad, “I want to eat one!”

The aroma was just too tempting!

"The smell is making me dizzy!" 

"Sure, I'll cut one for you to eat later." Tang Xu pinched his son's cheek. "Thank you for helping with the work. Now, go wash your hands."

The chubby boy was thrilled by the praise and handed the duck he was holding to Tang Li. "Auntie, I'm going to wash my hands!"

"Go on, go on, take your younger brothers with you to wash their hands too," Tang Li said as she took the duck and placed it in the box. Only after seeing him run off did she let out a sigh of relief.

Finally, she thought, he's not causing trouble here anymore.

But you can't say that out loud. After all, he was here to help. If you told him he was just getting in the way, he might not want to help out in the future, and that would discourage him.

When your own kids offer to help, even if you think it'd be easier if they weren't there, you shouldn't say it outright.

That’s what her brother had taught her.

Tang Xu directly took three ducks, one for each family, planning to have them for dinner and compare the flavors made by three different households using the same recipe.

“Make sure not to mix them up when packing,” he reminded.

Tang Li nodded. “Don’t worry, brother. I’m keeping an eye on it. This box is for Auntie’s side, and the other one is for our Auntie.”

“Alright then, you guys carry on. I’m heading back to prepare the ducks,” Tang Xu said, waving to her as he grabbed the ducks and walked back.

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