Turning Antagonist to Protagonist: He is Both Soft and Fierce-Chapter 109 - 104: Little Uncle, What Do You Want? Sis-in-Law Will Do Her Best to Fulfill It
They went to bed very late. Lin Qiao slept inside, leaving half the bed for Song Tingfan, covering him with the blanket. She yawned as she turned around and soon fell asleep.
After a long while, the young man lying on his back gently turned sideways to face her. Even though it was pitch black, his mouth curved into a slight smile, and he gently tugged at the blanket between them.
Early the next morning, Lin Qiao turned around, facing the magnified face of the villain, and was startled wide awake.
She quickly relaxed, realizing this was the villain from his youth.
She sighed softly; if this happened a few more times, she’d probably be scared to death.
Just as she was about to get up, the sleeping young man opened his eyes, blurry and husky from just waking, and called out, "Sister-in-law."
"Mm, little uncle, you need to get up and get going back." Lin Qiao lifted the blanket and got out of bed from the foot, then skillfully twisted her hair into a bun.
Song Tingfan got out of bed too, then folded the blanket and placed it neatly at the bedhead.
When he was about to tie his hair, Lin Qiao asked him to sit down and did it for him.
She had noticed that he seemed to enjoy her tying his hair; ever since she did it once, he seldom tied his hair first in the morning.
She had no reason to refuse this one little request from her "son."
"Thank you, sister-in-law," Song Tingfan said with curved eyes.
Lin Qiao smiled, saying nothing. As she was about to lift the basket, Song Tingfan sensibly took it and carried it himself.
The Zhou family’s donkey cart was probably still not fixed, as there was no sign of it at the town entrance.
Lin Qiao and Song Tingfan rode a donkey cart from the neighboring village, got off at the junction between the two villages, and walked for another quarter of an hour before arriving home.
Song Qin and Song Rong’s worried hearts settled down, and they hurriedly went to the kitchen to bring out some food for them.
"If it weren’t for hearing from the Wang family that the Zhou family’s donkey cart was broken, we were about to go look for you two," Song Qin said.
After drinking a few sips of the hot rice soup and recovering from the cold, Lin Qiao said, "Grandma, it’s nothing, there’s little uncle with me."
Song Tingfan nodded in agreement.
"Still trying to hide it from us? The Niu family already said someone was giving you trouble."
Song Qin sounded a bit choked up and continued, "These ungrateful people, we already have it hard enough, and they still bully us."
"Qiao’er, you don’t go next time, let Grandpa and Niu Niu go sell."
Lin Qiao didn’t plan to mention the incident in town, but they found out anyway. Sigh, the village gossip is like being online.
"Grandma, it’s fine, I’ll sell my things."
If she got scared and stayed home because of this, others would only think her cowardly and bully her even more.
Seeing Song Qin about to say something, Lin Qiao picked some vegetables for her. "Grandma, eat up, it won’t taste good cold."
Song Qin glanced at her, feeling deeply pained. If it weren’t for them, how could she end up exposing herself on the streets?
"Grandma, I will protect my sister-in-law," Song Tingfan suddenly spoke out firmly.
Song Qin nodded with relief, "Niu Niu has grown up, you must protect your sister-in-law and not let others bully her."
"Mhm," Song Tingfan nodded continuously.
Song Rong sat silently on the side, feeling a bit melancholic. Aging is useless and has only caused hardship for the grandchildren and their wives.
Seeing their expressions, Lin Qiao couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. The Song family’s only flaw is that their hearts are too kind. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
With a beaming smile, she changed the topic whimsically, "Grandma, Grandma, guess how much we made from selling dried spicy fish and dried spicy pork this time?"
"How much did you make?" Song Qin naturally understood her intention and followed her words.
Lin Qiao held up three fingers, "Three hundred and twenty-one cents."
Buying fish and pork cost less than one hundred cents. Not expecting it to sell for so much money, Song Qin was incredulous, "So much?"
Lin Qiao nodded, sharing her plan, "I want to make more dried spicy fish and dried spicy pork to sell during the holiday season."
Song Tingfan and the other two nodded in agreement.
After the meal, Song Rong went to the village to find someone to buy fish. The village’s large ponds belonged to everyone; small ponds were dug by each household.
Mainly located in the fields, the purpose was to store water for irrigation and a small extra income.
Song Tingfan hurried to attend the school. Lin Qiao and Song Rong tidied up the dishes and then began preparing the spices for pickling dried spicy fish.
They busily worked for four days, then took another batch of dried spicy fish and pork to town to sell. This time there was more weight, and sales took longer, but everything sold out, bringing in more than five hundred cents.
The family of four was elated, finally having a means of livelihood.
Smoking the fish and meat consumed a lot of firewood, the stock at home wasn’t going to last. Song Tingfan would carry his basket to the mountains every noon to chop wood. The heavy snow had only stopped yesterday, making the branches wet.
During the process of smoking the fish and meat, they had to dry the wood at the stove’s mouth.
With the four of them working tirelessly, in over half a month, only from dried spicy fish and meat, they’d earned over one tael of silver.
On the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, the school had its semi-annual exam. The next day, Cheng Sheng visited every household, and judging by the children’s sobs in the village, they hadn’t done well.
While Lin Qiao was hanging the clothes, watching Song Tingfan filleting fish, she tentatively asked, "Little uncle, how do you think it went?"
"It’s okay," replied Song Tingfan sincerely, as many of the questions were ones the teacher had discussed.
Lin Qiao felt somewhat assured. Cough, this was her first time being visited by a "teacher" for a home visit, and she was a bit nervous.
After a while, Cheng Sheng arrived with the exam papers, politely knocking on the door, "Grandpa Song, Grandma Song, Madam Tingfan, Tingfan."
"Mr. Cheng, please come in and sit in the main room."
Lin Qiao quickly wiped her hands, motioning for him to enter the main room, then went to the kitchen to bring out a bowl of hot water.
Cheng Sheng reached out to accept it, "Thank you, Madam Tingfan."
"I’m here to report on Tingfan’s exam results this time."
The "motherly" side of Lin Qiao felt unexpectedly anxious, but then she heard him continue, "Tingfan did well; among the village children, he’s the best, which is commendable."
"Yet, he still needs to work harder; outside of here, he would just be average."
Seeing him hand over the exam paper, Lin Qiao reached out to take it, studied it carefully for a while, identified no spelling errors, all recitations were correct, though the issue lay with the analysis, discussing views on loyalty to the nation.
Song Tingfan’s answers were proper, nothing outstanding, but also without mistakes.
Knowing he later successfully rebelled with a treacherous minister, Lin Qiao’s brow twitched, "..."
Once again, she felt grateful that she had the villain attending school.
See, loyalty to the nation!
She earnestly said, "Alright, I’ll make sure the little uncle reads more."
"Yes, and he must diligently complete the assigned coursework. If he’s unable to, he should ask," Cheng Sheng directed these words to Song Tingfan.
Song Tingfan responded dutifully, "Understood."
Cheng Sheng stayed for a while and left. After he left, Lin Qiao praised Song Tingfan, "Little uncle, you’re amazing, the teacher even praised you."
Song Qin and Song Rong both looked pleased.
Song Tingfan shyly scratched the back of his head.
A child doing well deserves a reward. Lin Qiao thought for a moment, unsure of what he liked. "Little uncle, is there anything you want? Sister-in-law will try to satisfy you."
