Neither brother nor sister mentioned what happened in the school again, and naturally they didn't tell Ms. Cao either.
"Because I had a lot of homework to do, I ended up late from school..." Gu Hai explained to Cao the reason for returning home late.
"It's okay, listen to your teacher and study hard." Ms. Cao was busy with needlework and looked at her son with a loving smile.
"Mom, look, that's the firewood that my sister chopped..." Gu Hai patted his head and grinned, "It's just a little short. When I catch up with my homework, we can hit more..."
Mr. Cao smiled and said yes.
"I still have homework, mother..." Gu Hai looked at the bowls and chopsticks in front of him and said with some embarrassment.
Just as Mrs. Cao was about to stand up, Gu Shiba Niang walked out of the kitchen and took a few steps to clean up.
"Brother, go quickly." She smiled.
After cleaning up, she sat under the pomegranate tree in the yard. Shrouded in the dark night, Gu Shiba Niang looked at the dim lights coming from the two rooms and felt that this was the most beautiful thing in the world.
"Eighteenth Mother?" Mrs. Cao came out worriedly after not seeing her daughter come in for a long time.
Gu Shiba Niang stood up quickly, walked out of the thick night, and called her mother.
Mrs. Cao was relieved to see her and waved her over, "It's a heavy night, so don't sit in the yard."
Gu Shiba Niang nodded and smiled at her mother.
Looking at her slightly red eyes, Mrs. Cao sighed inwardly. The child was crying again. Did she miss her father? However, it has been so long, why suddenly...
"Eighteenth Mother..." Mrs. Cao stroked her soft hair and put her on his shoulder lovingly, "My mother is still here, don't be sad."
Gu Shiba Niang held back her tears, put her arms around her mother's waist, and expressed her gratitude.
The mother and daughter hugged each other quietly for a while. Gu Shiba Niang calmed down and her eyes fell on the two large piles of firewood in the corner of the room. She remembered that they were struck by Gu Hai yesterday.
"Mom, the firewood was not sold?" She stood up and asked in a low voice.
Ms. Cao sighed, "...there are many people selling firewood..." After saying that, he patted her daughter's head again and comforted her, "...I'll go there tomorrow. How can the business go so smoothly? Do you want to sell?" There are just some people who can’t buy it, it’s okay, it’s the same for everyone…”
It turns out it’s not easy to sell, so Gu Shiba Niang remained silent. She doesn’t know how expensive firewood and rice are if she doesn’t become a householder, and doesn’t know how difficult it is to make a living if she doesn’t make a living.
In order to save lamp oil, the mother and daughter went to bed early, while the lights in the next room stayed on until dawn. The next morning, everyone's eyes were swollen, and they couldn't help but laugh when they looked at each other.
"Brother, no matter how much homework you have to do, don't be in such a hurry. It will not be good if you break your body." Gu Shiba Niang said with a smile.
Gu Hai reached out and scratched her nose, "Look at your eyes, sister, don't be afraid. Mom and brother are both here. Even if you have nightmares, don't be afraid!"
He patted his not-so-strong chest, "If you don't succeed, brother, I will run into your dream and beat them away!"
Gu Shiba Niang showed her face and smiled, saying that Brother Lao would be the one to take care of.
"Mom, don't worry too much. It's not that the sky is the limit. Our family will definitely be able to get through it."
Looking at the confident faces of her son and daughter, Ms. Cao nodded and smiled.
The decision was made, but how to make money as quickly as possible was a big problem.
After chopping firewood for a while, Gu Shiba Niang, who was out of breath, wiped her sweat on the rocks. She looked down at her skinned hands, then looked at the small pile of firewood scattered at her feet, and couldn't help but smile to herself.
Her body was too weak, and it seemed that she couldn't do it after a half-day of training. She turned her gaze down the mountain, where the schoolhouse surrounded by green books appeared and disappeared.
"Eh..." Gu Shiba Niang's gaze stopped at the foot of a rock, where a patch of green grass was swaying in the wind.
She couldn't help but have a smile on her face, "This is Yuanzhi..."
The smile slowly turned sour. The Shen family had several shops, including a medicine shop, which was given to them by their mother-in-law to run. The business was very poor at first, but it improved because of a master craftsman. The business grew bigger and bigger, and finally The name of Shunhe Hall resounds throughout Jiankang...
Gu Shiba Niang bit her lower lip, without them, without them... He is him, I am me.
Shen Anlin was away from home all year round, and the entire family's expenses were borne by her. All her money depended on Hope and that pharmacy. She had no other ability but to be gentle and kind, treat the clerks in the pharmacy leniently, and In addition, she often stayed in the medicine shop, and she gradually learned a lot about medicinal materials. In that life, the only thing she got from the Shen family besides humiliation was probably this.
Medicinal materials... Gu Shiba Niang's eyes couldn't help but light up. She stood up from the rock and walked slowly to the polygala.
"This Polygala plant looks really good..." Gu Shiba Niang said to herself, stretched out her hand and pulled it out hard.
The sun was getting darker, Gu Hai put his hands together in the forest and called out to the Eighteenth Mother a few times, and heard his sister's crisp response.
"I told you to wait, don't go up the mountain first, but you just didn't listen... Huh? Why are you pulling out so much grass?" Gu Hai's eyes fell on the grass next to the firewood pile.
Gu Shiba Niang was shaking off the soil from the roots of Polygala root. When she heard this, she smiled and said, "Sell it."
"Sell?" Gu Hai asked in confusion, "These grasses?"
"Brother, this is not grass, it is medicinal material, Polygala." Gu Shiba Niang stood up, walked slowly along the mountain road, and looked around.
"Hey, don't wander around..." Gu Hai hurriedly called her.
Gu Shiba Niang waved her hand without looking back, "Brother, you go ahead and chop wood. I'll pick some more."
After finishing his work in the evening, Gu Hai, who was carrying two large bundles of firewood, looked back at his sister from time to time. His eyes fell on the basket she was carrying. The basket used for lunch was already filled with herbs.
"Is this really a medicinal ingredient?" Gu Hai couldn't help but ask again.
"Yes, Polygala, the stems and leaves are like big green but small," Gu Shiba Niang said with a smile, "It is recorded in Shen Nong's Materia Medica, go back and show it to your brother."
Gu Hai knew that his younger sister had read a lot, and she didn’t need to read for fame, so she had a wide range of interests. Without doubting that she had it, he waved his hand and said, "I don’t have time to read that... I’m afraid you’ll admit your mistake."
Gu Shiba Niang smiled and would not admit her mistake. She had been dealing with these medicinal materials for four years, until her mother-in-law took the medicine store back... She bit her lower lip, although that medicine store had put a lot of effort into it. , but when her mother-in-law asked for it, she didn’t hesitate at all. Parents are the first, and filial piety comes first, right? But why, after Shen Anlin found out, he looked at himself even more... That is to say, from that day he turned around and left, until he returned with a letter of divorce after becoming famous...
What did she do wrong? What did she do wrong? .
"Eighteenth Mother? Eighteenth Mother, what's wrong with you?" Gu Hai's anxious voice sounded.
Gu Shiba Niang came back to her senses and said, "It's okay, it's okay."
Gu Hai still thought that she was tired, or that the mountain wind was blowing. Anyway, he was worried. After eating and cleaning up, Gu Shiniang took advantage of the dawn to sit in the yard and wash the herbs she had collected.
Mrs. Cao was sewing on the side, watching her busy with a smile, and asking questions from time to time. Three or four returning birds fell from the trees, chirping and jumping around to pick up food in the yard.
Mrs. Cao couldn't help but stop what she was doing as she looked at it, with a bit of surprise on her face.
Gu Shiba Niang was holding a mallet and hitting the washed Polygala roots gently or not hard.
"Eighteen Mother, are you going to beat this to pieces?" Ms. Cao couldn't help but ask.