Chapter 296: Chapter 298: Bees
After An Ning’s declaration that the strawberries were "super, super sweet," everyone filed into the greenhouse.
They scattered, each person claiming a patch or crouching by a row of plants.
People gathered wherever the fruit was red. Those who couldn’t find any ripe ones ambled through the greenhouse, searching for that heart-stirringly ’sweet’ flash of crimson.
After eating one, An Guoping nodded repeatedly and said to An Sancheng beside him, "Dad, this is so sweet!"
"Of course it is! Could my daughter possibly be wrong?"
Far from taking offense, An Guoping agreed wholeheartedly. "You’re right, Dad. Everything my sister says is right."
The doting father and the adoring younger brother were in perfect accord, prompting even An Ning, several meters away, to nod along and chime in, "Well, of course. I’m always right."
Jiang Xia, eavesdropping from the side, caught An Ning’s comment. Her proud, cute expression was, in his eyes, impossibly beautiful.
’How does An Ning manage to be so cute?’
"You’re right about everything, Sis!"
Her loyal little follower proved his allegiance once again. But just as he was about to pop another strawberry into his mouth, his own father stopped him.
"What are you doing, eating more? We have to save these to sell for money."
"If you want to eat them, wait for the ones that are about to go bad."
An Sancheng was fundamentally against waste. People of his generation could never bring themselves to eat the best of anything.
As a result, their children grew up eating things that were on the verge of spoiling, or had already started to.
Of course, if it was for a daughter, the standard was entirely different.
According to the An family’s ancestral wisdom: once a daughter marries, she no longer belongs to her family. Therefore, you must treat your girls well, starting from a young age.
"It’s alright, Dad. Let’s pick some more. We can give some to Eldest Uncle’s family, and I also plan on letting the kids from the running group try some tomorrow."
Since An Ning had spoken, An Sancheng had no objections.
"Alright, alright. Pick the good ones for your uncle’s family."
"Of course."
An Ning pulled An Guoping along to start picking, playfully popping several large, sweet strawberries into his mouth along the way.
An Guoping was all smiles as he ate. ’My sister really is the best,’ he thought.
Once they finished picking, the group emerged from the greenhouse.
Inside the greenhouse, An Ning had introduced Yu the Elder and the other three. Everyone exchanged greetings, making for a brief acquaintance.
After leaving the greenhouse, An Ning walked with An Sancheng and asked about the bees.
"It’s all arranged. The beekeeper is bringing the hives over in the next day or two."
"I made a deal with him. We’ll pay to have someone learn beekeeping from him. Once they’ve learned, they won’t go raise bees anywhere else—they’ll just tend to the hives on our own mountain. So it won’t affect his business."
"He agreed to everything."
An Ning nodded as she listened, her mouth already watering at the thought of the honey that was yet to be made.
"Dad, with so many different flowers on our mountain, won’t the honey be a bit of a mix?"
An Sancheng shook his head.
"It won’t be. Some honey is just wildflower honey, not from a specific type. We’ll place hives all over. Bees are clever critters; they form distinct colonies."
"We’ll put one batch in that grove of black locust trees we didn’t cut down. That way, we’ll get black locust honey."
"Bees are clever things, you know."
That was true. An Ning nodded again and again, finally asking, "So where did the bees in the greenhouse come from? They weren’t here when I left."
At the mention of this, An Sancheng glanced back at Jiang Xia several times, the fondness in his eyes undisguised.
"Those were all Jiang Xia’s doing. He saw the strawberries were about to flower and knew that without bees to pollinate them, the blossoms wouldn’t bear fruit."
"He went up the mountain himself to catch them and got his face all stung up. If Master Tang didn’t have a secret remedy, the welts still wouldn’t have gone down."
An Ning glanced back at Jiang Xia. He gave a goofy grin before looking away at the sky, clearly uncomfortable. He tried to strike his usual proud pose, but it looked a little forced.
The moment An Ning looked away, Jiang Xia started berating himself.
’So stupid!’
’I wanted to take credit and make a good impression, but I didn’t actually do it for the credit... I just wanted to make An Ning happy.’
’It’s too complicated.’
For a moment, Jiang Xia felt dizzy from his own tangled thoughts.
The group reached the gate, and Jiang Xia prepared to head inside.
"Wait, Jiang Xia."
Hearing An Ning call his name, Jiang Xia whipped around, a hint of anticipation in his eyes.
He wasn’t even sure what he was anticipating.
"Jiang Xia, take these strawberries back to Grandpa Jiang and Master Tang. Tell them to come pick more themselves when these are gone. They’re best fresh."
"Oh, and one more thing."
Jiang Xia took the strawberries. Not a single word had been for him, and he felt a small pang of disappointment. But when An Ning said "one more thing," his heart leaped into his throat.
His emotions were on a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, twists and turns.
An Ning met Jiang Xia’s gaze, and he could clearly see she was serious.
"We’re going hunting on the mountain tomorrow morning. In the evening, our two families will have dinner together. We’ll make something special."
"Okay!"
Jiang Xia’s mind was reeling, but his body subconsciously nodded in agreement. He didn’t even register what he’d said.
All he saw was An Ning turning to walk beside An Sancheng as the group went into the courtyard.
When Jiang Xia’s head finally cleared, he turned around and was so startled he almost cried out.
Jiang Xia clutched his chest with his left hand and took three steps back, staring at Master Tang, whose face was inches from his own.
"Hey, what do you think you’re doing?"
Master Tang held a strawberry he’d swiped from Jiang Xia’s basket. "Just checking to see if a certain someone has eaten so many strawberries he’s lost his mind," he said, appraising the fruit.
"And you know what? These strawberries are so good, I think my brain really is about to disappear."
Faced with this side of Master Tang, Jiang Xia’s inner ’Proud Little Retort-Master’ persona came online.
"You’re being a little *too* down-to-earth, aren’t you?"
Master Tang was completely unfazed. "If there’s delicious food involved, you could bury me in the dirt to be fertilizer and I’d be happy."
He snatched the basket from Jiang Xia’s hand, hurried into the courtyard, and called for Grandpa Jiang to come out and eat strawberries.
Jiang Xia shook his head, a smile playing on his lips.
’I like this life,’ he thought. ’Maybe it’s time to renovate the house. A home should be comfortable, after all.’
He ran in after him, shouting, "Save a couple for me!"
Next door, the An family was also enjoying the strawberries.
An Guoqing was popping them in his mouth one after another, too busy eating to speak. ’Delicious.’
Lin Cuihua especially loved the flavor, eating until juice stained the corners of her mouth.
After An Guoming ate a single strawberry, his eyes lit up so brightly you could have turned off the lights in the room.
"Little Sis, how many more strawberries are there?"
"With this flavor, we could sell them for two bucks a pound and people would still buy them."
An Ning cruelly shattered An Guoming’s fantasy.
"Second Brother, there aren’t any ripe ones left in the greenhouse right now. They haven’t started ripening in large quantities yet, but more should be turning red over the next few days."
An Guoming wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. In fact, he decided that starting tomorrow, he would go work in the strawberry greenhouse himself.
An Ning took a freshly washed strawberry, removed the stem, and handed it to Hei Dan’er.
Hei Dan’er had just learned to roll over and didn’t have a single tooth yet, but he clutched the strawberry and gummed it, managing to suck out the sweet juice.
"HAHAHAHA, Hei Dan’er’s got red lips now! Looks like a monkey’s butt."
Comments