The Blessed (Book 1)

31. Making Wine and Jam; Tiewa (2)

“They already made a scene a few days ago. Our parents didn’t let us tell you. They didn’t want you to feel bad about it.”

Head down, Ling Jingpeng sounded a bit sad. Who doesn’t want to divide up the family? Only by that could they live a better life. But…as long as the elders are still alive, dividing up the family is not allowed. Qing Kingdom had always advocated using filial to run the kingdom. And the most unfilial thing was to divide up the family while the elders(usually meaning the generation of grandparents are still alive). Let alone they were a scholar’s family, even those farming common families, they couldn’t divide up the family with no extreme conditions. Plus, their father was a typical filial son. However hard, he would never generate that kind of idea.

“Really? Hum!”

Ling Jingxuan gave a cold snort. He had never seen any parents who were so partial? Isn’t the second child their son? They’d better pray they wouldn’t fall into his hands, otherwise…

“Daddy, it smells good. What are you cooking?”

As the brothers went into silence, small bun excitedly rushed in, followed by the cubs and a skinny little boy who looked of his age.

“You greedy-guts!”

Throwing the stirring stick to Ling Jingpeng, motioning him to continue stirring the jam, Ling Jingxuan squatted down to pet the head of small bun, holding him to look back at the shy little boy, he should be Tiewa little bun often mentioned. It was said that he was the only friend of his two sons.

“Daddy, you always bully me.”

Holding his neck, small bun was acting like a spoiled child. Just a few days, he also slowly restored the naïve nature a five years old child should have.

“Really? Don’t you want to eat it? What to do? I meant to let you have some after it’s done.”

Picking his eyebrow, Ling Jingxuan squinted at him, pretending to look embarrassed. Small bun hurriedly said, “Who said I don’t want to eat it, I…”

“Haha…”

Look at his eager appearance, Ling Jingxuan instantly failed to hold it there, holding small bun and laughing, even Ling Jingpeng could not help but laugh out.

“Darn it. Dad’s bullying me again.”

Knowing himself being teased finally, small bun pouted and pushed him away, both hands holding before his chest, mercilessly staring at him. Isn’t that exactly the shape of a bun?

Ling Jingxuan could not help pinching his little face, calmly saying, “Is he Tiewa you often mentioned?”

“Hmm, daddy, his name is Zhao Tiesheng and he lives at the end of the village. Today, Uncle Zhao and his family went to town to deliver iron tools. He was left home alone. So I brought him here.”

Already forgetting he was still mad at daddy, small bun pushed the shy little boy before Ling Jingxuan.

“Hi, Uncle Ling.”

Zhao Tiesheng took a quick look at Ling Jingxuan, and then hid behind Ling Wu. His sound was like mosquito buzzing. One could barely hear it, but Ling Jingxuan was very happy. He liked kids, besides, that was the only friend of his little buns. Of course, love me love my dog.

“So cute, Xiaowu, you take Tiewa to play with your big brother. I will send you some when the jam is ready.

Stretching out a hand to rub both the child’s heads, Ling Jingxuan then patted small bun’s bottom. Compared with big bun who did everything seriously, small bun, of course, was much slack. But every morning he would go running, practicing boxing with them, now also started practicing his calligraphy. If possible, he hoped big bun could also be like that, after all, they were only five years old.

“Hmm.”

Nodded, small bun bent to hold the cubs that were showing their teeth toward Ling Jingxuan, dragged Tiewa to go. Ling Jingxuan watched them leave before turning back to take over the stirring job, “Zhao family are nonnative, right?”

Not everyone in Ling village was surnamed Ling. According to the memories of the original owner, there seemed to be dozens of outsiders, including Zhao family. As for the others, he did not know much about them.

“Yeah, but they are different from other outsiders, brother Zhao’s parents died early, and his wife also died when giving birth. A few years ago he played both dad and mom to raise the kid alone, life was tough, though he doesn’t have much land, he is a blacksmith, so he could still support the family. But, three years ago, he suddenly got married with Han. Everyone in the village thought it is ridiculous that a man marrying another man. It’d only lose the whole village’s face if the news spreads to other villages. The chief and our second grandma dispensed a new homestead for them. They called it by a good name of exchanging the land, but actually they just drove them out of the village. Like Xiaowen and Xiaowu, Tiewa also got bullied wherever he went these years. Poor little kid!”

Outsiders were already hard enough, plus they were man-man couple, making it even more difficult.

“Hum, it’s only in the countryside, why do they act like they are from big families? Do they really take them ask rich and upper class?”

Ling Jingxuan couldn’t help sneering in the heart. Even the emperor married a man as the empress. Do they have to be like that? Although men marrying men was really rare, commonly seen in large families, and most men were probably concubines, but it wasn’t that there wasn’t any in the countryside. In those families there were too many labors while having too little land would marry out their unfavord sons for money. And some widowers who had kids, since they were too poor to marry a wife, they would marry a man to help them look after the kids and take care of the households. This could be seen in every village.