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After a while, Jiang Sanlang finally spoke again, “Chunniang, how did Yingbao know that there’s a boy in your belly?”

Chunniang paused before saying, “I’ve heard from the elders that children are rumored to be a bit supernatural. As they grow up, those supernatural elements gradually fade away. It’s not unusual.

It is also said that younger children can sense if the baby in the mother’s belly is a boy or a girl. I guess I’m carrying a boy.”

Jiang Sanlang chuckled, “True that. Last time, your mother asked Yuanbao: ‘Is it a brother or a sister you have in your belly?’ Heh, I hope it’s a boy and a girl. Yingbao will have a brother to protect her and a sister to keep her company.”

The two of them made small talk for a while and then drifted off to sleep.

Yingbao was wide awake, blinking in the dark.

The rumors started to circulate nonetheless.

That family will probably hear about it very soon.

Yingbao lowered her consciousness into the cave dwelling and looked at her wrist.

She didn’t know if it was an illusion, but the color of her birthmark seemed to have faded a bit, yet it was still clearly discernible.

The size of a copper coin, shaped like a plum blossom, it was very distinct and unforgettable at first sight.

Yingbao was troubled.

She had scrubbed it for several months, but the birthmark had not changed much, indicating that it could not be washed off with the Five Ding Chi and pool water.

In that case, she could only resort to the other two methods, either cutting it off or burning it off.

With her brother’s birth imminent, she would soon become the focus of the entire village, so she couldn’t afford to delay any longer.

But…

Both cutting and burning were so painful, she was afraid she might not be able to go through with it.

But if she was afraid of this little pain, what awaited her would only be even more agonizing pain.

Pain that hurt her to the bone.

Maybe she could wait until the weather was colder to proceed, that way, there would be less chance of infection.

The next day, Yingbao got up early, got dressed, washed up, and, as usual, bandaged up her wrists with cloth.

She first went to water the tree sapling and covered it with the wicker cover.

Then went to the chicken nest to collect a couple of eggs and put them in the egg storage basket.

After that, she took a small basket with a small shovel in it, took two mother hens, and went out for a walk.

She didn’t go far, just idled around near the house.

“Oh, it’s Yingbao.” Aunt Wang was about to go to the river to wash, and when she saw the kid wearing shorts and a short top, she smiled and asked, “Where are you off to so early?”

Yingbao blinked, looked up and responded in her baby voice, “Aunt Wang, I’m about to dig some earthworms to feed the chickens.”

“Oh, you are such a good kid.”

Aunt Wang scanned Yingbao, her gaze stopped at the baby girl’s wrist, “Eh? Why are both of your wrists wrapped in cloth? Did you get hurt?”

“No,” Yingbao, keeping a straight face, said, “It just looks nice.”

To appease Yingbao and stop her from taking off the wristbands, Chunniang had trimmed the cloth strips and embroidered plum blossom patterns on them.

In fact, Chunniang didn’t know this but even if she hadn’t made the effort to decorate the strips, Yingbao would still keep them on, not giving anyone a chance to discover her birthmark.

In her previous life at this point, Yingbao was a na?ve, ordinary kid who didn’t understand the purpose of the wristband her mother put on her, nor did she strictly abide by her mother’s instructions. As a result, that family found her.

Aunt Wang laughed slightly and lowered her voice to ask, “Yingbao, tell auntie, do your parents hit you? Do they ever not feed you?”

Rolling her eyes inwardly, Yingbao replied in her sweet innocent voice, “Daddy and Mommy love Yingbao the most. They never hit me. They always save the tastiest food for me. Daddy and Mommy say that Yingbao is their treasure. If anyone dares to bully her, they’d beat them up!”

Aunt Wang’s face darkened and her lips twitched, “Oh, this little chatterbox, she sure can talk a lot.” She turned and left.

Yingbao stuck her tongue out at Aunt Wang’s retreating figure, then took the two mother hens to the small dry canal.

Seeing no one around, she took out the jar of earthworms from the cave and dumped it out.

The earthworm smeared with Five Ding Chi was also taken out, cut into pieces with the shovel, and fed to the hens.

The two hens clucked and pounced on the food, quickly finishing the pieces of earthworm.

Then they tilted their heads from side to side and kept an eye on their owner, acting as if they wanted more.

The earthworms that were dumped out of the jar crawled around, but they were completely ignored by the two hens.

Even if the little owner cut a few more worms into pieces and put them in front of the hens, the hens merely retreated a few steps and did not pay it any attention.

Yingbao thoughtfully scooped up a handful of Five Ding Chi from the cave wall and fed it to the hens.

The hens became excited, quickly stretched their necks to peck and eat, and they even pecked and bit Yingbao’s fingertips, their force so light that it made her giggle.

Afterward, Yingbao spent the entire day observing the two hens.

Seeing that they were acting as usual, she felt relieved.

A few days later, Jiang Sanlang finished harvesting the hemp from the North Mountain, and carrying it to the pond behind the house, he began soaking it in bundles.

These hemp plants needed to soak for several days before they could be peeled, so Jiang Sanlang could finally take a few days off.

“Yingbao, do you want to go to North Mountain?”

Jiang Sanlang remembered that his daughter wanted to go to the North Mountain, and today he planned to fulfill her little wish.

“Yes, Yes!” Yingbao raised her little hand, happily asking her daddy to hold her.

Jiang Sanlang laughed heartily, and brought over a carrying basket, “Yingbao can sit in the basket, it will be easier for daddy to carry.”

“Ok!” Of course, Yingbao had no objections, she happily stepped into the carrying basket.

North Mountain is about three to four miles away from Dongchen Village and has a thicker vegetation than Xiaonan Mountain.

Jiang Sanlang pointed to a piece of the forest to his daughter, “This piece of land belongs to us. Next to us is your two uncles’. Your grandpa’s place is near Xichen Village over there, it’s a bit far from here.”

Last year, while he was picking cherries in his father’s field, he heard a baby crying near a small mound of graves.

So, he went over to check and found a small swaddling baby in the bushes. The swaddle was covered with ants, biting the baby’s face.

The baby was helplessly shaking its head and crying loudly. It was pitiful.

Every time he thought of that day, Jiang Sanlang felt a heartache.

Luckily, the baby had an amazing recovery. In a few days, the swelling on her face went down, with no scars left.

“Let’s go, daddy will take you to see our mulberry trees.” Jiang Sanlang, with his daughter on his back, walked towards a piece of land with mulberry trees.

The villagers of Chuanhe Town weren’t very good at rearing silkworms, but every household grew some mulberry trees.

This was the rigid requirement of the Imperial Court, which not only mandated each family to grow a certain quantity of mulberry and elm trees but also trees that could easily be turned into wood, otherwise, they would be subjected to double taxes and levies.

Jiang Sanlang stood on his toes and pulled a bunch of mulberry branches for his daughter, each with several purple mulberries on them.

Yingbao squinted her eyes with a smile and chose the biggest and most purple mulberry to stuff into her father’s mouth, “Daddy, eat.”

Jiang Sanlang enjoyed the fruit with a smile and found a few more trees, and pulled a big handful of branches with mulberries into the basket, telling his daughter, “Don’t eat too much, we’ll take them back for your mother to taste.”

Eating a few of these could help with diarrhea, but eating too much would cause it, so Jiang Sanlang didn’t let his daughter overindulge.

“Ok, ok. Let’s take them home for mommy.”

Yingbao confirmed verbally, but still picked a few that were fully ripe and secretly kept them in her cave for seeds.

Hehe, now she had one more variety of fruit tree.

The father and daughter wandered around the forest and found many wild fruit trees, like chestnut, wild peach, and wild pear.

The fruit from these wild trees were not only small but also not pleasant to eat, so villagers weren’t interested in them. Only children would occasionally visit them once or twice.

Jiang Sanlang toured around with his daughter and only found a few fully ripe apricots, but when he broke them open, worms were already living inside.

He shook his head and asked his daughter, “Can we go home now?”

Yingbao was reluctant to leave. She wanted to see if there were any Tremella Fuciformis (a type of fungus commonly known as snow fungus) here which usually grow on mulberry trees.

This was worth a fortune. If dried, it would sell for twenty taels of silver per pound in the big pharmacies of the Prefecture City.

Suddenly, two roe deer appeared from behind a cluster of trees, looking at them with big eyes.

“Daddy, deer! Deer!”

Yingbao excitedly tugs at daddy’s collar and points to the side, whispering a reminder.

Jiang Sanlang also saw them, and was even more excited than his daughter. “Daddy sees them. Ok, let’s hurry back home and ask your uncles to help with hunting.”

Saying this, he turned around and left.

The deer were vigilant and had already fled into the trees and disappeared.

Jiang Sanlang hurried home, handed his daughter to Chunniang, and then grabbed the bow, arrows, and ropes to leave.

It had been a few years since the North Mountain had deer. He didn’t expect a herd to appear this year.

His wife was about to give birth at home, and he was worrying about not having enough money for the preparations, and here came a gift from heaven.

Jiang Sanlang went to his elder brother’s house to discuss, and the three of them carrying canteens and a few cakes, bows and arrows on their backs, quietly left the village.

During deer hunting, they would have to scare the deer into an open area before they could start hunting. The deer were extremely alert, before they could even fully draw their bows, the deer would already have darted into the trees and disappeared.

It took a lot of time to prepare for this hunt, searching, driving, and surrounding. The efforts spent on hunting deer would take at least a day or two.

Some hunters would spend half a month in the mountains just to come back with one or two big animals, like deer, or bears.