Liu handed the porridge to Chen's father, and peeled a duck egg and put it in Chen's father's bowl, three for Chen's father, two for Chen An and Chen Ping, and one for the little lady Chen Zhen, just eight duck eggs.

"Mother, mine for you." Chen Ping saw that Liu was just drinking porridge there, and even the soybean paste was only sandwiched with a few pieces to taste, so he put a peeled duck egg into Liu's bowl.

The family sat on the ridge of the field and gathered together.

"I'm still sensible." Liu picked up the duck egg, peeled off the egg white, put the egg yolk into Chen Ping's bowl again, and a duck egg was let twice, "You are just sick, you need to make up for it." ”

"Is his uncle here?" Father Chen peeled a duck egg and put it in Liu's bowl, "Serve me another bowl of porridge." ”

Liu's face was ruddy, and he smiled lightly and added a bowl of porridge to Chen's father.

"His uncle is very busy, how can he come often when he has time." Chen's father has three brothers, Chen Xiaozhong, Chen Xiaoyi, Chen Xiaojie, Chen Xiaoyi is the second, Chen's father said that his uncle Chen Xiaozhong moved to the county seat after splitting up five years ago, and often helped Chen Ping's family.

"I know where these duck eggs came from." Licking the duck eggs, Chen An said, "It must have been stolen from Widow Wang's house." ”

"You have to call Aunt Wang, don't be polite, it's not big or small." Liu reproached.

With a suck, a small half bowl of porridge entered the belly, and Chen's father picked up the wooden stick in his hand and looked at Chen Ping.

"I didn't steal it." Chen Ping choked on the porridge, and hurriedly said, the stick fell on the buttocks, and it must have been a blood stain.

And there was a faint sense of fear in his head, and it seemed that this unlucky child had been taught a lesson before.

"Where did that come from?" Chen's father put down the dishes and chopsticks.

"I picked it up in the reeds by the river." Chen Ping replied.

"I'll kill you kid." As soon as the words fell, Chen's father beat them down with a wooden stick, "How did I tell you, you can't go down to the river, how many people drowned in the river, do you know?" You're sick just on itchy skin. ”

This stick did not fall on Chen Ping's body, Liu seemed to have expected it, Chen's father just lifted the stick, he pulled Chen Ping, and the stick fell on Liu's arm.

"As long as you protect him, you don't know how Chen Datawa went." Father Chen stared at Liu's arm.

Liu Shi rubbed his arm and said in a low voice: "You haven't watched you work hard and want to get you something delicious." On such a cold day, it was difficult to go into the water, and I took more than 100 duck eggs, isn't it much stronger than you? ”

"More than a hundred?" Chen An grew his mouth.

Chen's father was obviously surprised, the hen in the family only lays seventeen or eighteen eggs a month, more than a hundred, and it will take five or six months to grow.

Are there really so many wild ducks in the reeds?

"I don't need him to get me something delicious, I just eat this rice porridge." Father Chen sat back in place, dropped the wooden stick, and put a duck egg in the bowl back into the bamboo basket, "Better than me, don't rely on me to take care of these more than ten acres of land, where can you four eat?" I have to sell it to people and work for it. ”

"That's also filial piety, what's wrong with being filial to your son?" Liu was very protective of his son on this issue, picking up the duck eggs in the bamboo basket, "Besides, he doesn't know his mistake, I have told him not to go into the water again." If you hurt him with this stick, how will you let me live? ”

"And me." Chen An muttered quietly.

"You? It's better to raise a cow than to raise you, and in the middle of the day, you will cut so much rice. Father Chen poured his anger on Chen An, "Hurry up and eat, eat and go to the ground with me." And you, don't go, work with me. ”

Chen Ping had to nod silently.

The old man's anger is too great, but fortunately, the thunder is loud and the rain is small. No wonder my mother was so anxious before, the reason was that Grandpa was here.

The duck egg that Chen's father didn't eat fell into Chen An's mouth, Liu took the little lady and carried the bamboo basket back to the village alone, and before leaving, he didn't forget to tell Chen Ping to rest and rest if he couldn't stand it, which caused Chen An to slip sourly.

After taking off his shoes, Chen Ping rolled up his trousers, rubbed a straw rope into his trouser leg in the same way as Chen's father, and went down to the field with a sickle.

Not long after the water was released from the field, the mud was still soft, Chen Ping's toes moved, a few bits of soil emerged from the cracks between his toes, the sickle was raised, the smell of rice was in his nose, and a familiar feeling came up.

Bending down, Chen Ping grabbed a handful of rice, and the sickle was immediately sent out, cut back, and then lightly placed at his side.

At this time, the rice varieties were not very resistant to lodging, and an autumn rain caused patches of rice to fall in the field.

The lodging rice stalk did not stop Chen Ping, and quickly grabbed the upper end of the root of the lodging rice stalk, and then the sickle looked at the gap and sent it away, clean and neat.

This skillful action caused Chen An, who was watching from behind, to open his mouth and not believe it.

"How can my brother be so powerful, he was still the same as me last year." In fact, it was not just Chen An, but even Chen's father in front looked back, and he was so shocked that he almost cut his hand.

Chen Ping doesn't care about the surprise of his younger brother Chen An and his father, the more the rice is cut, the more comfortable it is. In that body more than a thousand years later, Chen Ping lived in the countryside, and his family conditions were not good since he was a child, planting rice and harvesting rice, including threshing, and he had been working since elementary school, until he went home from college less often, and he never used the sickle.

With a new force, and the kind that can catch up with Chengding, the harvest speed of rice is much faster.

At this time, one acre of land was only a small acre, which was equivalent to less than one-third of the city acres in later generations.

The two of them, plus Chen An picked up the yards in the back, and when the sun was in the west, Chen's father picked up the wooden stick and went back with bundles of rice.

"If you're tired, take a break, it won't rain on this day, and you're not in a hurry for a while." Chen's father walked back and forth a few times, and when he came to the field again, he saw that Chen Ping was still harvesting, and he put the wooden stick on the ground and said it, and his whole body was soaked with sweat.

The sunset in the west is very beautiful, the golden light sprinkled on Chen Ping's arched back, Chen Ping is indeed tired, put down the rice stalk in his hand, stand up straight, twist his waist, and look back at the rice stubble that is only more than ten centimeters left, full of a sense of achievement.

"Okay, Grandpa."

On the last trip, Chen's father carried the rice, and the brothers Chen Ping and Chen An carried a small half-bundle on their backs and returned home.

"Mother, is the meal good?" When Chen An entered the courtyard, he threw off the rice and rushed to the hall.

The harvested rice is piled up in the yard and spread out, and it will be threshed tomorrow after another day of drying.

The rice in the courtyard is all spread out by the Liu family, and with such a courtyard, harvesting and threshing of rice becomes much more convenient.

"Okay, when the rice is cooked, let's come and eat." Liu had already finished the meal, and when he saw that the men in the family had returned, the dishes and chopsticks were immediately put on the table, "You eat first, I'll go boil some water." ”

"What are you boiling water for?" Father Chen rolled up his sleeves and sat down.

"On such a cold day, bathing in cold water will catch the cold." Liu poured the water that had been beaten long ago into the pot and added some firewood to the stove.

"Bathing, bathing every day, just that money is not enough for your mother to buy firewood." Father Chen chewed the radish and said angrily, "I want to wash you, but I won't wash it." ”

"If you don't wash it, you'll get bacteria." Dinner has not changed much from yesterday, it is still boiled radish, boiled sunflower, fish replaced with duck eggs, Chen An peeled the eggshell, and a few words popped out of his mouth.

"Bacteria? What is that? Father Chen asked.

"A tiny bug." Chen An explained, "Grandpa, you just didn't wash your hands, and your hands were stained with a lot of bacteria, and if you eat it in your mouth, you will get sick." ”

Caught off guard, Chen's father knocked on Chen An's head with a pair of chopsticks.

Chen An touched his head, looked at the black-faced father with an innocent face, and didn't dare to show off anymore, so he told the culprit: "These are all what my brother told me." ”

"Is that so?" Father Chen put down his chopsticks and felt the need to say to his eldest son, "Are you blinded by cold and sick, wasting firewood, and actually cursing me." ”

Chen Ping picked up a piece of rice in the bowl and put it on the table, this action caused Chen's father's eyes to widen, if it weren't for Chen Ping's performance in the field in the afternoon, Chen's father would have slapped him a long time ago.

"Grandpa, did you have a bad stomach last night? I went to the latrine several times. Chen Ping didn't answer directly, but asked in a low voice.

Chen's father coughed twice, and the matter of going to the toilet was brought to people, and it was also in front of his children, which made Chen's father feel a little uncomfortable, and said vaguely: "It's a person who has to go to the toilet, what's so strange about it?" ”

"Grandpa, you drank cold water during the day yesterday, and you drank a lot." Chen Ping slept late last night, and the toilet was next to the west side of the brothers' room, and Chen Ping's father's movements were very loud in the night, and Chen Ping knew it.

"It's normal for me to have a stomach upset every once in a while." Father Chen didn't think it had anything to do with the cold water he drank, "What are you...... Fine......"

"Bacteria."

"yes, what's going on with this thing?"

"A bacterium is a microorganism...... Well, just like this bug. Chen Ping grabbed an ant from the ground and put it on the table, which he had already told his younger brother Chen An before, and he didn't expect them to understand, he only needed a little agreement from them, "But the bacteria should be smaller, so small that our eyes can't see." ”

"How can you not see?"

"It's like the scenery in the distance, like the insects on a certain tree on the ** mountain, here, grandpa, can you see it?"

"It's dark, so naturally I can't see it, and besides, the insect is blocked by the leaves, so how do I see it?" Father Chen said as a matter of course.

"Uh, okay." Chen Ping was speechless for a while, and when he saw his mother adding firewood to the stove, he walked over, pulled out a finger-thick, still burning branch, and blew out the flames, "Grandpa, can you see it?" ”

Father Chen rolled his eyelids and said angrily: "I'm not blind, how can I not see?" ”

Chen Ping walked to the entrance of the hall with a branch: "What now?" ”

"I can see it."

"And now?" Chen Ping ran to the middle of the yard, "Can you see it?" ”

"Yes, but it's smaller." Chen An replied for his father.

"Then we'll see now." Chen Ping opened the courtyard door, stood outside the courtyard, and raised the branch in his hand.

"Invisible."

"You should understand why you can't see germs by now, right?" Chen Ping returned to the table.

Father Chen pondered for a moment and said, "You mean that the bacteria are too far away from us, just like this Mars, if it is far away, it will get smaller and smaller." ”

Chen Ping opened his mouth and nodded: "Well, it can be understood in this way." That's what it means, it's not that it doesn't exist, it's just that for some reason we can't see it. ”

"Is it like a ghost?" Chen An can always throw out a maddening sentence.

"Don't talk nonsense, little ones." Father Chen blushed his face, whispered a few strange words, and bowed to the ancestral tablet on the east side of the hall.

Chen Ping went to the big clay jar by the stove and scooped a spoonful of water and brought it to Chen's father.

"Grandpa, look at whether there is anything in this water." This is a spoonful of cold water, if you look closely, you can see that there are small insects inside, Chen Ping continued, "The bacteria are smaller than the insects in this, and these insects and bacteria enter the body through our mouth and abdomen, which may make us sick." ”

"And using hot water, because after the fire, can kill the insects and some bacteria in it, we will have a much less chance of getting sick, and washing hands is also to reduce the bacteria in our hands."

Chen Ping put the water spoon in front of Chen's father, who had not yet recovered from such words. Obviously, even children understood these common sense of hygiene in Chen Ping's time, but now it seems that it is very obscure.

"Nonsense, where did you hear all this?" Chen's father thought about it and found that every time he had a brain, it seemed that he was really like his son, because he had drunk cold water before, or he hadn't washed his hands, could it really be like that...... Bacteria?

"These are all things that Dr. Hu told me." Dr. Hu was invited from the county seat to be a doctor in the county seat by Chen's father, who served in the Taiyi Department in his early years, and returned to his hometown in his later years and opened a medical center, which is also a statement that Chen Ping had already thought of.

Father Chen still didn't wash his hands in the end, and I don't know if it was because of the waste of firewood, or Chen Ping's statement at the dinner table, the meal behind him was very quiet.

After eating, after mixing the bath water, Chen Ping took a wooden bucket to find a no-man's corner, took a bath, half a day's work, there were a lot of scratches on the rice on his body, and he washed it with warm water, which was really pleasant and comfortable.

"It would be nice to have another bar of soap." Chen Ping thought.