Chapter 14 July is the month of climbing trees.

Cicadas? There are so many, at least two or three hundred. Is this what the four of them accomplished in one night?

Seeing the mosquito bites on her son's face, she felt sorry for him. Before she could ask, Grandma quickly grabbed a few mint leaves, rubbed them between her thumbs, and applied them to her son's face.

Seeing that it was inconvenient for Grandma to hold her little sister, Tao An quickly took over from her: "Grandma, I can apply it myself, you're still holding your little sister!"

Grandma was both distressed and angry: "Why did you go and join in the fun when you're so small? So the mosquitoes only bit you? How come the others are fine?"

Tao An looked aggrieved and confused. He was covered in bumps, but his brothers were fine.

At this moment, the second brother Tao Ran couldn't help but laugh and said, "It's because he's too short, but there are advantages too. He can reach the parts of the tree that we can't see. The eldest brother is at the top, the third brother and I are in the middle, and the bottom part is left to him. He really touched quite a lot. Grandma, we brought salt water with us when we went. Look, it's not black at all. Can you stir-fry it for us? If we leave it until tomorrow morning, it will smell bad."

Before Grandma could speak, Mother lifted the curtain and came out of the main room, splashing a basin of water as she did so, and said to them.

“You’ve already eaten dinner. What if you get indigestion from eating so much meat? Just hang it in the well, it won’t spoil. Tomorrow morning, I’ll fry it up for you. It’ll be fragrant and delicious, or we can roast it over the fire.”

The brothers thought it made sense, so they lowered the wooden bucket into the well, and while washing up, they excitedly talked about how many cicadas were in the woods.

“We’re going again tomorrow night. There are so many people! I thought we wouldn’t be able to see anything after dark, but someone brought a flashlight, and we could see by the shadows. Mom, you don’t need to buy meat for a month. There’s so much meat, we can eat it every day, and it’s free!”

Grandma laughed and scolded, "Don't use oil for deep-frying, Lingli! Don't deep-fry them, just stir-fry them over low heat, they'll still smell good."

The mother quickly agreed, "Okay, Mom, I also think it's a waste of oil. If we fry these for a month, our oil bottle will probably be empty."

The first few years after the founding of the People's Republic of China were particularly difficult, with inflation so high that people were practically carrying sacks of money to buy food and daily necessities.

At first, I didn't realize it and thought that my mother and the others giving the Tang family a million made me seem very valuable. But after I did the math, I realized that the money was really worthless. I figured it wouldn't even buy a hundred catties of grain. That's what happens when prices are high and things don't last long in this era!

Ever since they got hooked on cicadas, the brothers would go out every evening and not return until around 8 or 9 pm, or sometimes even until midnight. Some cicadas had already molted, but they would still bring them back. For cicadas that had just molted, they only needed to cut off their wings before they could be eaten.

That's why reading is so beneficial. The brothers would go out to catch cicadas at night and collect cicada shells in the woods during the day. They learned from reading that cicada shells were a medicinal herb that could be sold for money. In later generations, a pound of cicada shells could sell for one or two hundred yuan, which shows that this thing was indeed precious.

Since it was medicinal material, there must have been buyers. So the older brothers took it as their job, hoping to supplement the family income during the summer vacation. Their mother didn't interfere. As long as they didn't go to the river to play, she would try her best to give them enough time to play. After all, boys should play hard and sweat profusely every day.

Although Xiaojiu doesn't get to eat cicadas, because there's plenty of wild grass this season, her brothers take the sheep away every day when they go out to graze. When they get home, the sheep will produce fresh milk. Although she can't taste any difference, the milk production of the dairy sheep has increased significantly. Now, their children can drink a small bowl of milk every morning and evening. Perhaps this is why they are strong and healthy and don't get sick often?

While Tang Jia Xiao Jiu was bubbling with happiness because she was being sent away, the Tang family was in complete turmoil because of that one million.

Tang Cuihua was beaten by her cousins ​​for not handing over the money, and Zhao Di and Pan Di were also scratched on the face by their grandmother and aunts.

Enraged, the three sisters knelt down at the village official's house and wailed. Their pitiful appearance made the villagers increasingly disgusted with Tang Youtian and Cao Amei, and some even pointed their fingers at them and cursed.

"No wonder you two can't have a son. It's because you're so bad to your child. You don't care about your own daughter, but you dote on other people's sons. But that's someone else's son, not yours. No matter how much you dote on him, do you think he'll be filial to you? It's laughable!"

Even if the villagers cursed them, they could only make Cao Amei feel ashamed. Tang Youtian was stubborn and inflexible. If they said too much, he would say that people were jealous of his many nephews and that his nephews had promised him that they would take care of him in his old age. He said that if they didn't take care of him in his old age, the whole village would drown them in their spittle.

“They’re his nephew, not his son. Even if they don’t support you in your old age, isn’t that normal? Why should we spit on them? On the contrary, you have a daughter, and you’ve had nine children in a row, leaving only three of you at home. You don’t care about yourself, but you treat them like slaves and say you don’t rely on them. Now you rely on them for everything, from food and drink to toileting. Aren’t you ashamed? I’m ashamed for you two!”

Others criticized the old woman: "Your sons have long since separated their households. It's one thing that you didn't give anything to the fourth son's family because they had a daughter, but you take turns caring for them each month. You resent the fourth son's family for not having a son and refuse to go, so you make them hand over money and grain. But can you even eat a hundred catties of grain a month? And that's not even talking about the money. You two old folks have no conscience! Your favoritism is outrageous! Go ahead and do this, but wait until you've ruined them to death, then let's see who else will take care of them!"

Then she went on to berate the other three branches of the Tang family: "Your younger brother and sister-in-law are honest people. They feel inferior because they don't have a son. They are pitiful people to begin with. You don't care about them. You treat them like free servants. You make them do the work when you don't want to do it yourself. They don't do their own chores at home but come to do them for you. Their three daughters are so young, and you force them to get tanned and thin from hunger. You are even more heartless than landlords. It's a miracle that God has a son!"

But is it useful to condemn such rotten people with morality?

As it turned out, not only did it not work, but the people's words made them even more impatient. They would press Tang Cuihua to hand over the money every few days. They even followed her in various ways, going wherever she went, even checking the outhouse after she finished using it to see if there was any money hidden there. Their despicable behavior made Tang Cuihua want to vomit.