Chapter 37: Sour Plum Juice and Popsicles
“As long as you follow what I told you earlier, nothing will happen! Forget roads like this, I’ve driven on even worse ones before!”
Gao Ming glanced sideways toward the back, his expression suddenly becoming hard to read. Cheng Fei was affected by it too and quietly thought about her words. Something about them sounded strange.
She was an experienced driver, but not that kind of “experienced driver.”
“What are you waiting for? Drive!”
Gao Ming suddenly slammed on the gas pedal. Cheng Fei almost fell onto the ground.
Instead, she crashed into the trailer bed. The road was so terrible that the tractor shook left and right nonstop. Cheng Fei was practically rolling around like a rice ball being tossed everywhere.
“I regret this! Stop the car!”
“There’s no turning back once the arrow leaves the bow. I’m having fun driving right now. We’ll talk later.”
“Damn you!!!”
They passed through that rough road section without much trouble. The tractor was perfectly fine, but Gao Ming got splashed with muddy water all over himself. Cheng Fei, meanwhile, had been shaken into a complete mud doll, with dust covering both her hair and clothes.
Luckily, Qin Yi was a clean freak and always made Lu Shengdong carefully clean the tractor after farm work. Otherwise, she would have looked completely crazy today!
“Had your fun yet?!”
Gao Ming only smiled. Cheng Fei really wanted to punch him.
When they arrived at the fields, all they could see was endless green corn seedlings.
In another two months, the fresh corn would be boiled in a pot and served on the table. Just imagining biting into it made the sweetness come to mind.
The wheat harvest season of summer had already passed. Right now, most of the crops had just been planted, so the fields were not as grand as during harvest time, but they had their own special beauty.
Even these tiny plants worked so hard to grow upward. How could people allow themselves to become lazy?
Standing under the shade of the trees and letting the wind blow over them, there was no city noise here. The green plants brought a cool and refreshing feeling, calming the restless heart and giving people time to think about things they normally had no chance to think about.
This was exactly why Gao Ming insisted on coming here.
“Why does that one look a bit shorter?”
Cheng Fei looked in the direction Gao Ming pointed.
“That looks like sorghum (grain).”
“To me they all look the same. How can you tell from this far away?”
“Of course, I can't tell the difference either. It's just that the farmers around here always grow that stuff.”
“......”
Cheng Fei tossed another fruit into her mouth, completely ignoring Gao Ming’s expression. With both hands in her pockets, she walked toward the small tea stand by the roadside.
Gao Ming looked at the little roadside shack with confusion written all over his face.
He had seen roadside tea stalls before, but this place only had a broken dirt road nearby. Seeing one built here was a first for him.
A cloth sign fluttered in the wind, giving the place the feeling of an inn from an old historical drama.
There were two short tables, a small stove, and a black steaming teapot.
In front of an old brick-and-tile house that was almost disappearing from modern life sat an elderly person with silver hair. From this distance, it was hard to even tell whether the person was male or female. The old woman gently waved a palm fan beneath the shade of a large tree, truly showing what it meant to enjoy cool shade under a big tree.
“Grandma Xun.”
Cheng Fei walked closer and called out softly.
The old lady stopped waving her fan and opened her eyes to look at her. The wrinkles on her face immediately relaxed into a smile. Even in front of strangers she did not know, she still wore a warm smile.
“Girl, are you from this village? Why haven’t I seen you before?”
The old woman was already over ninety years old, but her memory was still better than many young people’s. She could name almost everyone from the nearby villages.
Although Cheng Fei had appeared here occasionally before, the old woman only remembered her former self. Now, hearing someone with a completely new identity greet her so familiarly naturally left her confused.
“I’m visiting relatives nearby. It’s my first time here, but my family has mentioned you before.”
“Oh!” The old lady stretched out the sound before slowly trying to stand up.
“It’s hot outside, you should rest properly instead,” Gao Ming said.
“Alright then! There’s sour plum juice and popsicles in the bucket, and tea on the table. Take whatever you want to eat or drink yourselves. We’re all neighbors around here, no need to be polite.”
“Okay~”
On the other small table sat a round dark-colored metal bucket covered with a quilt. After opening it, they found glass bottles inside, slightly larger than the old cola bottles that used to be common decades ago. Back in the last century, these could often be seen in small city stores. But because glass breaks easily, most had already been replaced by plastic. Only people like Cheng Fei, born in the 1990s, had probably seen them before. Anyone younger might mistake them for antiques.
Crushed ice surrounded the bottles, along with paper-wrapped popsicles. Thin white mist drifted out, and just looking at it made people feel refreshed.
Cheng Fei picked up a bottle, used a bottle opener to pry the cap off, and drank deeply. The cold sweet-and-sour drink slid smoothly down her throat. It was sweet without being too rich, and the sourness was just right. In the blink of an eye, she had already finished more than half the bottle.
She let out a satisfied sigh.
“It’s been a long time since I felt this good.”
Gao Ming also grabbed a bottle. At first, he felt a bit bothered by the quilt covering everything and worried about cleanliness. But after seeing that everything inside was spotless, he relaxed and started drinking too.
Half the bottle disappeared in moments. As soon as he put it down, he saw Cheng Fei pick up an old-style popsicle.
“Girl, women’s bodies are delicate. Even if summer is hot, don’t eat too many cold things,” the old lady kindly warned before Gao Ming could speak.
Cheng Fei waved her hand carelessly. “It’s fine!”
“It’s good to listen when others give advice. Drinking too many cold things really isn’t good. Even if you’re healthy and strong, your body still gets weaker during your period, right?”
Gao Ming was honestly enjoying the drink. This sour plum juice tasted far better than the ones sold in Yunzhou. He gulped down the rest of the bottle, then leaned close to Cheng Fei and quietly whispered a few words into her ear.
At first, Cheng Fei looked at him with disdain and kept biting into her popsicle. But then Gao Ming’s words slowly crawled into her mind like insects, breaking apart her careless attitude.
What he said actually made sense.
According to the normal timing, her period was only a few days away. She honestly did not know how much eating cold food now would affect her upcoming period. After all, she had spent more than twenty years as a man before suddenly becoming a woman. But she did know one thing, women eating too many cold foods really could cause health problems.
For example, fertility issues and things like that.
She had never seriously thought about having children, but she still could not ignore the causes of those illnesses.
Originally, she had planned to eat three or four popsicles like before!
Thinking about that instantly ruined her mood. Unwillingly, she stopped taking huge bites and instead started slowly nibbling on it.
No matter what she felt inside, physically she was now a real woman. Cheng Fei could not help but care about her own health.
“Cities are bigger now. There are more asphalt roads and concrete buildings. Society has improved, but the temperature has also ‘improved’ a lot compared to when we were young,” the old lady said seriously while waving her fan. “Life only lasts a few decades. Some young people only care about temporary pleasure. Then when they get old, their whole body hurts, and they suffer terribly.”
The old lady slowly stood up from the rocking chair. Unlike many elderly people who looked thin and bent over, she stood tall and straight, almost like the towering poplar tree behind her.
‘Full of energy’ was the perfect way to describe her.
“Thank you, Grandma Xun.”
“You’re welcome, hehe! You look kind, young lady. And also very familiar, like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
She was not imagining it. She really had seen Cheng Fei before, just not in this body. This old lady truly was amazing. Her experienced eyes could judge people very accurately.
Boom!
Under the clear sky, dark clouds suddenly rushed in like charging cavalry. In only moments, they completely covered the bright sun without giving anyone time to react. A loud thunderclap exploded overhead.
Cheng Fei immediately realized something was wrong and quickly helped the old lady back into the house.
Crash! Bang bang bang!
This storm was completely different from normal thunderstorms. Heavy rain poured down together with chunks of ice. Countless hailstones the size of lychee fruits fell from the sky.
“Sigh… the weather keeps getting stranger every day,” the old lady sighed deeply while fanning herself.
Gao Ming, however, stayed much calmer.
Living in this era, people had already seen all kinds of extreme weather. What was one hailstorm? In recent years, Yunzhou hardly felt like Yunzhou unless there were terrible floods, extreme heat, powerful winds strong enough to blow people away, or snow heavy enough to bury cars.
Hailstones?!
This place wasn’t Yunzhou! The last recorded hailstorm here had been thirty years ago!
Cheng Fei froze in shock. After this hailstorm, wouldn’t all the corn her family planted be completely ruined?!