Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

He saw that Juhua doted on Huai Zi and that the young couple was very affectionate, which made her very happy. She said with a beaming smile, "Your father is right. You just need to take care of Huai Zi. We’re old, so it doesn’t matter if we live a little more carelessly. Huai Zi, come back early tonight. Go to Li the carpenter’s place and bring back the wooden basins and buckets we asked him to make. Also, check if your bed is finished."

Her son’s wedding had been too rushed. They could only add these household items one by one.

Zhang Huai nodded. He helped Juhua draw a few buckets of water from the well and waited for her to quickly wash their changed clothes and hang them up to dry before he went to eat.

In the afternoon, out by the fields, He was hoeing weeds for the recently planted August-bursting Huangdou soybeans. She quietly asked Huai Zi, "Huai Zi, are you and Juhua doing alright?"

Zhang Huai was busy hoeing and pulling weeds with his hands and his tool. Hearing her, he asked strangely, "We’re fine. What’s wrong?"

He shot him a look. "Yunlan is about to give birth. Juhua... is she alright?"

Only then did Zhang Huai understand his mother’s meaning. He blushed and said, "Mom, what are you talking about? Of course Juhua’s fine." After a moment’s thought, afraid she would ask again, he added, "We need to let her mature a bit more. Juhua is still young." With that, he turned and moved farther away from her, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation.

He was stunned. ’Let her mature a bit more? Those two are so affectionate, how have they been... managing?’

If Juhua knew her mother-in-law had asked Huai Zi about this, she would probably die of embarrassment. After lunch, she fed the pigs, took a short nap, and when she woke up, she saw the dough for the steamed buns had risen and put them in the steamer. As she was busy, she heard her sister-in-law Liu Yunlan’s voice call from the courtyard gate, "Juhua! Juhua! It’s me."

Juhua added a handful of dry twigs to the stove’s firebox and then hurried to open the gate.

When she pulled open the courtyard gate, she saw Liu Yunlan standing there with her large, pregnant belly. In her left hand, she held a wicker sieve containing two plucked young roosters. In her right hand, she carried a Lanzi, inside which were bright red honey peaches, still on their leafy branches.

She smiled at Juhua and said, "The peaches are ripe. I picked a lot today, so I brought some over. When you finish these, you can go pick more. They won’t last long if we pick them all at once. As for these chickens..."

Juhua didn’t wait for her to finish, frowning as she asked, "Are the chickens sick again? I told Mom a long time ago she should butcher and eat them regularly. Otherwise, with so many chickens, they get sick easily. She’s always too reluctant." As she spoke, she took the Lanzi and ushered Liu Yunlan into the courtyard.

Liu Yunlan laughed. "The chickens aren’t sick. It’s precisely because Mom was afraid they’d get sick that she butchered four of them in one go today. Didn’t she send me to bring two to you!"

It turned out that after raising chickens for a long time, everyone had figured out some simple tricks of the trade.

One year, the Yang Family hatched too many chicks. A hundred-some chickens grew up in a flurry, but they couldn’t bear to eat many, thinking they’d raise them a bit bigger to sell at the market. But then one day, a chicken lay listlessly by the bamboo grove, lethargic and not eating much.

Juhua was terrified and told the Yang Family, "Could it be the chicken plague?"

The Yang Family had never seen chicken plague—after all, when had she ever raised so many chickens? Thus, she was skeptical.

Juhua hurriedly told her that if it was the chicken plague, the disease would spread. Furthermore, the sick chicken couldn’t be eaten; it had to be buried in a pit, otherwise people who ate it would also get sick.

When the Yang Family heard this, her heart ached. ’So many chickens! If they all got sick and had to be buried in a pit, they might as well bury me first!’ So, regardless of whether it was the plague or not, she quickly killed and buried that one chicken. Then, she kept only a few dozen egg-laying hens and culled more than half of the rest—selling some, curing some, and eating some. That way, nothing went to waste.

After that, they became more diligent in caring for the chickens. As soon as the chicks they raised were grown, they would start butchering them to eat or taking them to be sold, especially around the fifth and sixth lunar months—a season when chickens were prone to disease. It was a mystery why the Yang Family had kept so many again this year.

Juhua had Liu Yunlan sit down in the shade of the plum tree. She grabbed two peaches and washed them by the well, then walked back while munching on one. She said with a laugh, "These peaches are tasting better and better. We really have to thank Cousin Laixi. If he hadn’t brought over some peaches that year, we wouldn’t be able to eat such good ones now. This variety is much better than the one Liu Xiaomei’s family has."

Liu Yunlan nodded with a smile, her expression filled with joy.

Now that she was pregnant, she always felt like chewing on something. And her family was quite well-off; they didn’t need to spend any money at all. There were fruits available every month, lasting all the way until autumn, and there would be water bamboo shoots and chestnuts, too.

Juhua looked at the chickens again and said, "So that’s why Mom came around—she was afraid the chickens would get sick. But it’s the middle of summer now, so they’re not as likely to fall ill. Sister Yunlan, let me teach you a way to prepare these chickens. Don’t just braise them all the time."