Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

Chapter 454: Chapter 238: Meizi is Pregnant (Part 2)

Meizi stopped, her face flushing as she said to Li Changming, "Changming, I’m fine. Why are you so nervous? I told you I’d be alright coming with Juhua, but you insisted on tagging along. Now look—we’ve wasted half the day, and we haven’t even finished digging the Shanyu."

Li Changming smiled. "I’ll get right on it when I get back. If I work quickly, I can still dig up two more loads. How could I rest easy with you coming out here alone?"

After a moment’s thought, he turned to Juhua. "Juhua, Meizi’s pregnant. From now on, you’ll have to look after her a little more. She can be reckless, and I worry about her." He had decided it was best to tell Juhua. Since Meizi and Juhua spent so much time together, Juhua could help look out for her.

It all clicked for Juhua. ’So Meizi’s pregnant! No wonder Li Changming was being so clingy today.’ She immediately turned to Meizi with a reproachful look. "Meizi, how could you be so careless—running all over the place while you’re pregnant? If I’d known, I would never have brought you out here. Changming, you’re right. We can’t let her run around anymore. These field ridges are so narrow. What if she twisted her ankle? That would be a real problem, wouldn’t it?"

Li Changming had been feeling a bit embarrassed, worried people would say he was being too fussy and spoiling his wife. After all, which pregnant woman in the countryside didn’t carry on with her work, running about as usual? No one just stayed cooped up at home to rest. But he couldn’t help worrying about Meizi. He feared that because she was young and didn’t know her own limits, she might have an accident, and the thought of that was more than he could bear. He never expected Juhua to take it even more seriously than he did, outright chiding Meizi for even coming to the fields.

Meizi hadn’t expected a young woman like Juhua to sound just like her own mother. "Listen to you," she said as they walked. "Am I really that delicate? Other women run all over the place when they’re pregnant. Some even work in the fields."

Juhua knew she was right about it being common. The lives of farmers were harder, but that also made them remarkably resilient. She had heard all the stories: someone going into labor while chopping firewood and coming home with a healthy baby boy, or another woman back to work in the fields just three days after giving birth.

She could only say to Meizi, "Fine, work if you must, but you have to be more careful. At least the paths near your house are flat, not like out here in the fields where you could easily slip into a ditch if you’re not paying attention. What other people do is their business. I think you should take better care of yourself. Nothing else matters as much as your health; you can’t work if you’re not healthy. If you ignore your body and work yourself to the bone like in those stories, aren’t you the one who will suffer in the end? Once the baby is born, won’t you have more than enough to keep you busy? Do you really have to push yourself so hard right now?"

Li Changming nodded eagerly. "That’s exactly what I think! The poorer we are, the more careful we have to be..." He trailed off, swallowing the rest of his sentence. He had been about to say something like, ’because getting sick would mean spending even more money,’ but thought it was too unlucky and decided to let them wonder.

But Juhua and Meizi weren’t confused in the slightest; of course they knew what he meant. Meizi nodded. "Changming, don’t worry. I’ll take good care of myself from now on. I won’t run around anymore. Once the baby is born safely, we can get busy again."

Li Changming beamed. "Good! You don’t have to worry. I’ll take care of everything outside, and our parents can help too."

Seeing the sweet couple, Juhua couldn’t help but smile.

When they reached the village entrance, Liu Xiaomei, who was walking behind them, called out a loud goodbye to Juhua, saying she’d come look for her in a few days. Juhua returned the basket to Little Shitou and told him to hurry home so his mother could cook the water bamboo shoots for his little sister. Only then did she head back with Meizi and Xiu.

Back home, she took the water bamboo shoots down to the river and washed them thoroughly. She set aside the tender ones and poured the few pounds of tough ones into a pot to boil. As they cooked, she peeled and ate some of the tender ones.

Her mother, Mrs. Yang, was busy tidying the courtyard and hanging ears of corn under the eaves. Seeing Juhua happily eating the water bamboo shoots, she smiled. "Our fishpond may be small, but it should still produce plenty of water bamboo shoots. In a few days, I’ll have your father go down and pick some, and dig up some lotus root for a stir-fry, too. The chestnuts in the field have grown quite a bit. We need to keep an eye on them, or else when the burrs burst open, the chestnuts will fall to the ground and get eaten by all the rabbits and mice."

Juhua’s eyes widened. "Oh my! You’re right, Mother! I completely forgot about that. This is the first year, and Dad didn’t plant that many chestnut trees. Transplanting them from the mountain stunted their growth a bit, so we won’t get much of a harvest to begin with. If the mice get to them, it’ll be a huge loss, won’t it? Besides, I need to save some for seeds. Otherwise, we’ll have to go through all the trouble of digging up and transplanting saplings from the mountain again, and they’re not easy to find."

Seeing that Juhua was taking it to heart, Mrs. Yang quickly reassured her. "Your father and I are keeping an eye on them. If we see any burrs that look ripe enough to burst, we’ll collect them. Your father said that after the autumn harvest is over, he’ll go up the mountain to look for more saplings to dig up. As long as they take root, they’ll bear fruit next year. Isn’t that much faster than growing from seed? It’s just that these chestnuts are a bit small. I’ve seen some really big Banli; I hear they grow up north. I wonder why we don’t have any around here? Maybe there are some deep within Little Qing Mountain."

Juhua nodded. Just as she was about to speak, she saw Zhang Huai arriving at their courtyard gate with his family’s ox-cart. She quickly ran over. "Huai Zi, you’re back?"

Zhang Huai’s face lit up when he saw Juhua. He smiled. "Just me for now. Your brother is still watching things at the market. I came to deliver the bricks and tiles. I combined our orders to buy them together. We got a much better price for buying in bulk. So, here I am, bringing this load back first."

Mrs. Yang was overjoyed to hear this. She dropped what she was doing and hurried over. "Oh, that’s wonderful! I can finally rest easy now that the bricks and tiles are bought. Your father has the lumber all ready, too. As soon as we have some free time, we can get that house built in no time."

With the Zhang family having moved here, Juhua and Huai Zi’s engagement wasn’t far off. Mrs. Yang felt as happy as if it were her own family building a new house.

(To be continued.)