"No, I won’t look at it today, I’ll do it tomorrow. Just leave it on the desk," Ji Ying still intended to get up early the next day to translate, but Xu Nian’an took it away. Where was she supposed to translate now?
"I’ll give it to you tomorrow."
Xu Nian’an, with the contract in hand, left without giving Ji Ying a chance to refuse. As he reached the doorway, he turned back, flashed a bright smile exposing his white teeth, and said, "Little sis, go to sleep early."
On the words "little sis," Xu Nian’an emphasized the pronunciation, still remembering how Ji Ying had just tried to act like an older sister.
Ji Ying muttered with disdain, "You go to sleep yourself."
Although her words were disdainful, the smile on her lips was very pleasing to the eye.
The room quieted down once again. She could hear her parents chatting as they went back to their room to rest, and the voices of Xu Nian’an and Xu Nianji, the brothers, talking. She extinguished the oil lamp, lay in bed, and with the corners of her mouth uncontrollably lifted high, she thought about the bright future ahead.
Even though times were tough at home at the moment, she believed that as long as the family lived in peace, they would surely have better days ahead.
The next day, Ji Ying had wanted to rise early and start translating the contract, but she had gone to bed a little late and it was particularly cold in the morning, making it very cozy to sleep. Thus, she overslept.
When she awoke, daylight had already filled the skies, and Nianji had cooked the morning porridge.
Her second brother, Xu Nian’an, was sitting in the courtyard already translating the contract.
"Big bro, you woke up so early?"
Ji Ying rubbed her eyes and saw that Xu Nian’an had already translated quite a bit.
"I got up as soon as I woke up. Why didn’t you sleep more?" Xu Nian’an glanced at her messy hair and said, "Mom made some porridge, go have some. There are a few parts here I don’t know how to translate properly."
When it came to the law, Xu Nian’an only knew the basics. To rely on this scant knowledge to translate a legal contract seemed inadequate.
"Yeah, okay, we’ll talk about it later."
Ji Ying yawned, scooped up some clear water to wash her face, and finally felt more awake.
After breakfast, the siblings began to work earnestly on translating the contract.
Once Nianji had made the porridge, she started making mung bean jelly since her siblings were busy, and she had nothing else to do.
Xu Qinghe went to work, and Xu Nianji left to chop wood up in the mountains. The family, each with their tasks, was all striving for a better future.
By eight in the morning, the siblings had translated much of the contract, and Ji Ying got up to check on her bean sprouts.
"Wow, our bean sprouts have succeeded, and they look really good."
Ji Ying looked at the bean sprouts she grew, then compared them to the ones her big and second brothers had grown; all had sprouted.
"Did they really succeed?"
As Xu Nianji carried wood into the house, he heard Ji Ying’s voice, set down the wood in excitement, and rushed over. Seeing the white bean sprouts, he asked in disbelief, "Did I really grow these bean sprouts?"
"More real than solid gold."
Ji Ying said with a cheery smile. The three siblings loaded up the mung bean jelly and bean sprouts, borrowing a flatbed cart for the task; otherwise, they couldn’t have taken the bean sprout buckets with them.
When they ran into villagers, they simply said their father had made a bathtub for someone and was now delivering it to the county.
The villagers didn’t think much of it.
No sooner had the three siblings stepped out of the house than the Zhou Family arrived at their doorstep.