"Wow, so many loaches!" Meng Shaode's eyes widened. "You caught them?"
A Jiu sucked in a cold breath and shook the mud off her hands. Her small, worried brows were knitted together. What was she going to do?
"Daddy, we only have two pots of water left, we can't wash them properly."
"I understand, Jiu'er." Meng Shaode picked up the basket and headed for the shade of the trees. "Go cool off, you're all sunburnt."
A Jiu rubbed her forehead with her arm and managed a quick rinse in the muddy water.
Water was too precious. The rest of the mud would have to be left to dry and then rubbed off.
Little Yan Yan also followed them to the shade of the trees.
A Jiu watched as Meng Shaode familiarized himself with the task of pouring the loaches onto the ground. Though they were still wriggling, he covered them with a layer of sand and began to rub them clean, one by one.
When they were placed back into the basin, they were indeed much cleaner.
However, Tuoba Yan retreated to the sun-drenched area and squatted there, looking as if he couldn't bear to approach.
A Jiu squinted and watched him. She confirmed it; he seemed afraid of these creatures.
"Lihua, get your knife," Meng Shaode called to his wife as he scrubbed.
Cai Lihua was standing in the sun, gazing into the distance, perhaps looking for Wang Shi.
She felt uneasy about the money.
"Coming." Wang Shi glanced back a couple of times before returning to the shade of the trees, only to discover the abundance of loaches.
"Oh! Who caught these?"
"Our precious daughter," Meng Shaode grinned.
"Then we'll have a feast! I'm already hungry and I haven't even started cooking."
Cai Lihua's words drew A Jiu's attention.
She seemed to have given her mother spiritual spring water, but why did she herself only feel a sense of fullness? Her father and the others didn't experience that.
As for Grandma, there was no point mentioning it. Her gluttony hadn't changed at all. While she might dislike coarse grains, she could even eat straw. It was baffling.
Cai Lihua's knife skills were already in motion.
Although the loaches hadn't been thoroughly washed, after being rubbed with sand, the slime had been removed.
With Cai Lihua's swift and precise knife work, she not only removed the loaches' tails but also their entire internal organs in one go.
"Do you want the heads too?" Cai Lihua asked, her gaze fixed on her daughter.
"Huh?" A Jiu was bewildered. Could the internal organs be eaten? Why was her mother asking such a strange question?
"Can we eat the heads?"
"Alright, we'll do as my daughter says and keep the heads."
When A Jiu looked up again, Little Yan Yan was gone.
Her eyes scanned the area, and there he was, by the puddle, throwing up.
"What's wrong with this child?" Meng Shaode muttered.
"I'll go check on him."
A Jiu ran over quickly. "What's wrong?"
"I..." Tuoba Yan looked pained and embarrassed. "To be honest, I get dizzy from blood."
"..." A Jiu was almost startled by her own reaction. She looked him up and down, a grown man who faints at the sight of blood? What a waste of his height.
"Then why didn't you faint yesterday when you saw my mother kill the rat?"
A Jiu couldn't believe it. He had charged forward to block a knife in a split second, how could he be afraid of such minor incidents?
"Sister A Jiu, actually, I did throw up. But, I had just met you and didn't want to embarrass myself in front of you, so I... I swallowed it back down."
Tuoba Yan rubbed his hands vigorously, feeling awkward.
"Ah? You swallowed it back?" A Jiu's expression was indescribable, as bitter as having eaten bitter herbs.
"Yes, I thought if I embarrassed myself, you would look down on me, so I had to hold it in. But actually..."
Tuoba Yan shifted the topic mysteriously.
"I'm most afraid of blood. That fellow surnamed Zheng, they call him Zheng Tou'er, he whipped me twice and said he was going to send me off as what? What was it called again."
"Conscription, for the army," A Jiu reminded him.
"Yes, yes, yes. They arrested two people then, and one of them was beaten to death. I fainted right then, and that Zheng fellow thought I was dead."
"Ah? So you died from fainting? You fainted because you saw someone's blood, right?"
A Jiu looked up at him, her head aching.