The Country Maiden: Fields and Leisure
Chapter 759 - 758: Yang Zaizhao

Chapter 759: Chapter 758: Yang Zaizhao

"I’m sorry—I know there’s a spring ahead. Once we get there, I’ll fill a tube and give it back to you!" the young girl whispered, biting her lip.

"It’s okay, we have plenty of water stocked up! Are you still thirsty?" Wang Yongzhu waved her hand, softening her expression, afraid to frighten the young girl.

"No need! No need! I’ve had enough! Thank you, miss!" the girl said hurriedly, waving her hands.

Then she hugged the bamboo tube to her chest and huddled in a corner, wishing she could curl up into a ball.

Seeing the girl’s withered hair and skinny frame, Wang Yongzhu couldn’t help asking, "Are you hungry?"

With that, she instructed Jinhoo to take out the food to share with the girl.

The girl, in panic, suddenly stood up, "No! I’m not hungry! You eat!"

No sooner had she spoken than her stomach began to rumble loudly.

The girl’s face immediately turned red with embarrassment, wishing she could burrow into the ground.

Jinhoo, seeing the girl like this, couldn’t help but feel a pang of compassion, and in a flurry, opened all the food she had brought and laid it out in front of the girl: "We have plenty to spare, don’t feel shy, just eat!"

As she spoke, she took out a pancake that Liu Xiaoqiao had given her that morning and tried to press it into the girl’s hands.

The girl was so hungry that as soon as the package was opened, the aroma of the food immediately filled the carriage, making her mouth water uncontrollably.

But she still tried hard to look away, afraid she would lose control and pounce on the food.

Wang Yongzhu, seeing the girl so hungry that her face was turning pale yet resisting the food in front of her, felt she was even stronger than adults. Beyond sympathy, she felt a new sense of admiration.

She also urged, "Yeah, go ahead and eat! Look at all this, just the three of us, we definitely can’t finish it. With the weather getting hot, if we don’t eat it, it’ll go bad and that would be wasteful—"

Finally, the girl hesitated before turning to look, and indeed, there was plenty: fragrant egg pancakes, boiled eggs, white flour pancakes—delicacies that only her father, mother, and younger brother could enjoy during the New Year at her home.

Only beside that pile of delicious food there were two grayish, rough millet pancakes, made from coarse grains, and probably due to poor skill by the cook, some parts were burnt while others were undercooked.

After thinking it over, the girl, indeed starving and having not eaten for days, had managed to get some deep-fried snacks from the collecting brother across the street yesterday. She had thought of saving them to share with her youngest sister back home, but her brother had smelled them and snatched them away, not to mention.

He had tattled to their parents, and her mother had whipped her with a broom a few times, even punishing her by forbidding her to eat.

Desperate with hunger, she secretly gulped down a ladle of cold water to suppress her hunger, and this morning she had been sent by her birth mother to ask for mountain goods from her third sister to sell at home.

Having walked all this way, she was truly at the end of her endurance.

Swallowing her embarrassment, she reached out and took those two millet pancakes: "I’ll just eat these, thank you very much!" Having said that, she hugged the millet pancakes and turned away to wolf them down.

The pure millet pancakes were coarse, but if one mixed the millet flour with wheat flour, making dual flour pancakes or bread could be quite good.

But to the girl, they were an unparalleled delicacy.

At home, she could only eat some vegetable paste; it was rare to have such solid food.

After just a few bites, without chewing much, she tried to swallow and immediately choked, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Wang Yongzhu quickly passed her some water and helped pat her back a couple of times.

Only then did the girl tilt her head back and swallow the food down with the help of the water.

Her tears welled up from choking, but she refused to let go of the food.

After catching her breath, the girl slowed down and, like a mouse, nibbled the two pancakes until they were in her stomach.

Wang Yongzhu could see the little girl’s normally flat stomach had become distended.

Seeing Jinhoo was about to give the little girl more food, Wang Yongzhu hurriedly stopped her, "You mustn’t eat anymore!"

Jinhoo looked at Wang Yongzhu, not understanding, and when the little girl heard this, she also quickly waved her hands, "I’m full, I don’t want any more!"

Wang Yongzhu then explained, "You’ve been hungry for so long, you can’t eat too much! You should have started by drinking porridge for a few days, to nourish yourself before eating these kinds of wheat foods. Now that you’ve eaten, don’t be jumping around or running about!"

Seeing Wang Yongzhu’s serious expression, the little girl nodded her head diligently and obediently sat down on the stool.

It was then that Jinhoo suddenly realized, "Old maiden, I understand now. I heard that people who have starved a lot can’t eat too much or drink excessively, or else they might burst their stomachs, right?"

As soon as these words were said, the little girl’s face turned pale, and she looked at Wang Yongzhu, terrified, clutching her stomach.

Wang Yongzhu glared at Jinhoo, and consoled her, "It’s okay, you haven’t eaten a lot! Don’t move around too much, I’ll find you some hawthorn slices to help you digest in a moment."

As she spoke, she searched through the pouch she carried and took out a few slices of dried hawthorn, handing them to the little girl, "Chew them slowly before swallowing."

Meanwhile, she instructed Wang Yongping to steady the carriage’s drive and not to jostle too much.

The little girl’s eyes brimmed with gratitude and she didn’t know what to say, worried about her own stomach, her face was a mix of emotions.

Seeing the little girl so anxious, Wang Yongzhu simply started chatting with her to relax.

Discovering that Wang Yongzhu was the well-known girl from the neighboring Qilidun whose dyed fabrics were so loved even by the empress in the palace, the little girl’s eyes immediately brightened.

The deeds of this young lady from the Wang Family were known to everyone in all the nearby villages and towns.

Though when other girls mentioned her, they would scoff in disdain, calling Wang Yongzhu nothing but a lucky girl blessed by her ancestors’ tomb smoking with prosperity.

But deep down, which of the young ladies didn’t both admire and envy her?

Some even secretly saw Wang Yongzhu as a role model to follow.

Not to mention anything else, but as a woman, to have pulled the Wang Family back from the brink of destruction and despair and to have made their days so prosperous was something not many men could achieve.

Every family would want a daughter-in-law like her!

Everyone wants to be a woman like her!

Having money in hand means having confidence. Look at her now, even the several elder brothers and sisters-in-law in her home respect and attend to her needs, who would dare to slight her?

Only at that moment did the little girl’s defensive heart completely let go.

She and Wang Yongzhu started talking back and forth.

It wasn’t long before Wang Yongzhu understood, the little girl’s name was Yang Zaizhao.

Why such a name? Because her family had five daughters before her, with the eldest being Yang Pandi, the second Yang Dengdi, the third Yang Zhaodi, herself, the fourth Yang Zaizhao, and the fifth Yang Youzhao.

Just from their names, one could tell how much her parents longed for a son.

In the year Yang Zaizhao turned three, her parents finally got their wish.

They had a son, named Yang Zubao, the treasure of the ancestors!

Yang Zaizhao thought that with the birth of her brother, better days were coming for her and her sisters since the Yang Family had finally an heir.

But she didn’t expect that was the beginning of tough times.