The Beautiful Brother of the Orion’s Family (Wearing Book) - 332

 

| TBBOTOF | 332

Wei Dong kneaded the clay.

He was completely absorbed in it.

There was mud everywhere, making things a bit messy. But seeing his son so focused, he felt that a little dirt didn’t really matter.

Thinking about it, he realized that washing off the mud-stained clothes would be difficult. Scrubbing too hard might tear the fabric, so he had to wash them by hand.

In the freezing weather, even if he wasn’t worried about wasting firewood to heat water, just scrubbing the clothes was already a tiring task.

So Wei Dong simply took out some leather he had saved up a while ago, picked through the pieces, and made a small apron for his son.

With several kids in the house, it wasn’t a big deal for some of them. But Er Bao and Xiao Bao became envious after seeing their older brother wearing a small apron without worrying about getting dirty and wanted one too.

In the end, Wei Dong made aprons for the two of them as well. Then, looking at the other two younger ones and the half-grown one, he decided to just use up the entire sheet of wild oxhide.

Tang Xu, however, thought his husband wasn’t wrong. With so many children in the house, it wouldn’t be fair for some to have an apron while others didn’t. Besides, it wasn’t anything valuable—just some simple aprons to keep their clothes clean and save the hassle of washing them.

That was how he saw it, but in the eyes of others, it was a different story.

Wei Zhonghong had been feeling that their household had been rather busy lately, and she hadn’t visited the main house in a while. 

She missed them. Since it happened to be a bright sunny day, she took five freshly washed white goose eggs from the jar, scooped out a small jar of pickled radish strips, placed them in a small bamboo basket, and headed over.

As she approached the courtyard wall, she heard the cheerful laughter of the children coming from inside. Her lips curled into a smile. Turning a corner, she saw the wide-open gate, looked inside, and froze.

In the courtyard, several children were bundled up in their cotton-padded jackets, and over those, they each wore a black, grimy-looking apron. The aprons were smeared with dirt and streaked with yellow and black stains—who knew what they had rubbed against? 

The source of their laughter was clear: each of them held a lump of clay, shaping and molding it with their little hands.

With just one glance, Wei Zhonghong felt a buzzing in her head. She hurried into the courtyard and, upon seeing the children covered in mud, couldn't help but raise her voice, exclaiming, "What are you all doing? Why are you covered in mud?!"

Her loud voice startled the children, and they all froze mid-play. Their bright smiles stiffened, and they looked at Wei Zhonghong with puzzled expressions.

It was the chubby boy who reacted first. He lifted his mud-streaked hands and, grinning brightly, called out, "Great-aunt~~ we're making little bowls! Daddy said he can fire them and, as long as they don’t leak, we can use them to eat and drink!"

If they were just shaping mud for fun, the excitement might only last for a little while. But when they learned that their clay creations could be fired and hardened, their enthusiasm grew even stronger.

Over the past two days, Tang Xu had already fired many odd-looking clay pieces—all made by the children.

To adults, these creations might seem ugly or useless.

But for the children, it was more than just play—it was an exercise in dexterity. They would arrange their strange little clay figures together and start making up stories about them.

Xiao Bao, in particular, had been speaking more fluently lately, and he especially loved showing off their clay creations to others.

As soon as he saw Wei Zhonghong, he eagerly grabbed a batch of freshly fired clay pieces, holding them up like a prized treasure. "Auntie~~ look~~"

Wei Zhonghong looked down. The small bamboo tray was filled with dark, indistinguishable objects. She couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. 

But when she saw Xiao Bao’s big, expectant eyes shining up at her, she couldn’t bear to say anything discouraging.

So, with an awkward smile, she patted Xiao Bao’s head and forced out a compliment. "They look great! Did you make all of these, Bao’er? You have such skillful hands."

Xiao Bao nodded, then shook his head. 

His dirty little finger pointed as he began introducing each piece one by one: "This one chubby figure was made by Brother Yue. This flower was made by my second brother. This one is the bunny I made! This one is a little bunny, and these are flowers and grass made by my big brother. They're all playing together~"

He rattled off his explanations in one breath, then looked up at Wei Zhonghong with a face full of anticipation, clearly waiting for praise.

Wei Zhonghong looked at him, then at the messy little clay figures he pointed at. She took a deep breath and once again forced a compliment. "Very impressive! You all made such nice things." 

Then, quickly changing the subject, she asked, "Where's your dad? I need to talk to him."

"Daddy's in the bathhouse," the chubby boy said, casually flicking his hand backward to point. A chunk of mud flew off his fingers and landed on the ground with a splat. "Dad said he's scrubbing the bath bucket."

"Only your father would be so obsessed with cleanliness, taking a bath in this freezing weather," Wei Zhonghong muttered. 

She glanced around at the muddy spots all over the ground and then at the children's aprons, covered in dirt. She couldn't help but grumble, "I don’t see what’s so fun about playing with mud. It’s filthy and gets everywhere, it is a pain to clean."

The chubby boy had heard this complaint several times already and wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Instead, he confidently retorted, "Dad says playing with mud helps us train… um, train what again?"

He turned to Sun Yang for help.

Sun Yang, being a bit older and more articulate, promptly answered, "Hand-eye coordination skills."

Wei Zhonghong looked bewildered—what was that supposed to mean?

But it didn’t matter. She had no desire to keep watching a bunch of muddy little kids running around. If she stayed any longer, she wouldn’t be able to hold back her nagging.

She hurriedly walked away, dropping her basket off in the kitchen as she passed by, then turned toward the backyard bathhouse.

Tang Xu had mentioned last night that he wanted to scrub the bath bucket, but Wei Dong had stopped him, saying it was too late at night for such a chore. He suggested waiting until morning—if the weather was clear, they’d scrub it; if it was cloudy, they’d skip it.

Sure enough, after breakfast, Tang Xu looked up at the sky—clear and cloudless, perfect weather for cleaning the bath bucket!

"I said two days ago that we needed to scrub this, but you insisted that since we use it every day, it wasn’t necessary. Now look—those kids have been playing with mud, and no matter how careful they are, there’s still sand building up at the bottom of the tub. It’s rough on the feet," Tang Xu grumbled, half of his body bent into the large wooden tub as he scrubbed the walls with a brush.

Wei Dong, silently working on a few smaller wooden buckets beside him, didn’t say a word.

Tang Xu: "The drainage hole at the bottom isn’t working properly. We need to drill a hole directly at the base instead of on the side. The side drain never gets completely clean. Later, you drill a hole at the bottom and fit a wooden plug there."

Wei Dong: "…"

Tang Xu: "And from now on, we can't just scrub this tub once a month. We need to clean it every few days. With so many people in our house, just look at the gunk stuck in the crevices! How can we even call this a bath? The water isn’t clean enough for a proper soak."

Wei Dong: "…"

By the time Wei Zhonghong arrived, she was met with the sight of one man silently working while the other chattered non-stop.

She blinked. Originally, she had planned to bring up the idea of making Tang Xu rein in the kids and stop them from playing with mud so much.

But now, standing there watching this scene, she swallowed her words.

It just didn’t feel like the right moment.

Somehow, bringing it up now would seem like she was just stirring up trouble.

She came at the wrong time.

Previous TOC Next