NOVPUBAt this point, he stood up and pouted at Lin Lan.
Lin Lan then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Afterwards, she imitated Xiaowang’s voice, “I am a small kitten, I love little fishies the most~”
Sanwang laughed as he swam over to ‘eat’ the small fish. With that, Xiaowang cheekily flailed towards the other direction after getting scared.
Soon, other women came running over, “Hurry up and wash your clothes, there’s no space!”
The women thought they had arrived early, so they couldn’t help but feel a bit upset upon seeing Lin Lan and her children occupying the best spot to wash the clothes.
One of them was unhappy and they muttered, “There is a river westwards to her house, so why is she here?”
The river that went around the village was where the village women mostly washed their clothes or the crops. For convenience, the team would lead them to places with stone slabs or large stones. Most people washed their clothes near their homes to save the trouble, but sometimes, upon washing larger items or encountering a lot of people, they would move to another spot.
It was okay to wash vegetables by the river embankment near Lin Lan’s house, but the stone slabs there were too small, so she brought her children here to do the laundry.
Public areas were not exclusive to any one family. Moreover, Lin Lan only occupied three seats whereas all the other spaces were pretty much empty.
It’s just that those women were used to coming together every day, so they subconsciously felt that this place belonged to them. Hence, there was a collective reluctance towards Lin Lan occupying the space that they ‘owned’.
Lin Lan didn’t know of their subtle thoughts and even greeted them. She exchanged a few words of pleasantries towards those that seemed familiar and merely smiled towards those that she didn’t really know of.
Soon, the women were lined up by the water as they started to scrub and pound their laundries together. They couldn’t really bear to buy soap, so they merely used some alkaline water to soak the clothes before pounding them with a mallet.
Lin Lan looked at them from the side and saw that the women seemed to treat washing clothes the same as doing farm work. They were banging on the soaked fabrics very hard while she didn’t even know if the clothes were able to withstand the repeated beating.
Lin Lan washed her own clothes in silence and looked at the laundry carefully when applying soap. Use less soap on the non-dirty areas and more on the dirty areas to save money.
She and Maisui did the washing on the stones whereas Sanwang and Erwang helped step on them with their feet to really get the dirt out. Dawang helped rinse the clothes with the water while Xiaowang was responsible for singing and entertaining everyone. With the help of the children, the process was easy and fast, which made the other women envious, “Look at those children; how obedient of them to help out with the chores.”
“Right? Look at the little brats from our families. They instantly start messing around whenever they have the chance as if they’re wild donkeys.”
Another woman couldn’t stand the others’ envy of Lin Lan, so she smiled and said, “This is because we’re capable enough to not require our children’s help with the house chores. On average, how many of us are willing to have the kids help out with gruesome tasks like this?”
Her words made it seem like the children from the countryside were rich and precious, but the others understood what she meant. So, in turn, they mocked Lin Lan in disguise for being lazy and refusing to do heavy work in the fields. After all, word said that the meals at home were prepared by the kids while Lin Lan slept restfully until it was past 10 a.m!
