Soon, the seasons changed, and the spring breeze slowly overturned the cruel winter. The snow melted, leaving a flourishing ground of green. As spring finally knocked on their doors, the villagers who stayed inside their houses for the entire winter picked their tools and went marching to their fields.
And just like the villagers, Lin Jing and Lin Chen too went to their rice paddies. The rice that has been sowed was harvested and sold. After the harvest and winter, paddies filled with weeds were left. The paddies couldn't be left behind even if they were earning a stable income, and Lin Jing alone couldn't finish up so much work. In the end, it was decided that each day the brothers would change their shifts and weed the rice paddies before sowing the seeds again.
In the rice paddy, Lin Jing and Lin Chen were busy weeding. The weather was slowly getting hot and dry. After working from morning to noon, sweat was literally dripping off their bodies like someone had left open a tap. Behind them, many young girls had their eyes locked on their figures. Their gazes so burning that Lin Chen thought that most of the sweat rolling down his body was because of them rather than the sun.
"Really, can't they look somewhere else? I feel like I'm a juicy piece of steak that they are salivating over. If this keeps on going, their gazes are going to leave a bloody hole on my back," Lin Chen softly reprimanded. He wanted to warn the girls off, but they were with their parents. If they were alone, he could have snapped at them, but he was useless in front of their parents.
"They are just interested in money," said Lin Jing softly. These girls were the same ones who jeered at them when they were looking for a bride. Contemptuously looking down at them while taunting them to look in the mirror first before eyeing them. Their families conditions were good, while Lin Jing and his brothers were poor. Now that they were interested in them, it was only because their lives were slowly becoming better than others.
"Like I don't know! They all just care about the shiny silver we have in our house!" sneered Lin Chen ripping out a bunch of weeds like he was ripping someone's head off. "I'm just mad that if they continue to stare at us, Wan Wan will misunderstand us! It's been hours, and they are still starting. Don't they get bored or something?"
Feng Dai, who was working next to them, couldn't help but tease. His voice was full of gloating. "If your wife catches you attracting bees and butterflies like this, I'm afraid you and brother Jing have to sleep in the courtyard tonight. But then again, you are being a little too cruel to your admirers, Chen, it's true that they are attracted to your shiny silver, but I must say that they are more attracted to your faces."
Fang Dai wasn't joking when he said that the Lin brothers have been eating really well. Their clothes were no longer patched or frayed. They were getting better and better with their good fortune, though they still had to work in fields because they weren't exactly wealthy land Lords yet. However, they were approaching that status really fast. Under such good conditions, it was given that the Lin brothers would fair well, their once sunken cheeks have filled, and their complexion turned whiter and paler. Even the most beautiful girl in the village couldn't amount to half their beauty. With such a change, even Lin Jing and Lin Yu, often looked on with contempt, were eyed like eye candies.
Lin Yu, who was often stopped by village girls to give this or that, got so annoyed that he locked himself in the house. His image outside was that of a charming little bunny. So even if he refused the girls, they didn't get discouraged because he was so gentle in refusing them that they started to make pastries for the sake of getting rejected.
One time, Lin Yu wanted to scare them off but was stopped by Su Wan, who enjoyed the show. The gifts were all handed by Su Wan, who thought it was pretty funny to watch her husbands get worked up when another woman confessed to them.
Of course, she had already warned them that if they dared to have an affair, she would chop their thing off and make them a eunuch while they slept at night. So none of the brothers dared to accept the 'good feelings' the village girls had for them. They couldn't show their true sides because that would scare half the village off, and thus, they could only think of new ideas to reject the proposals one by one. But what was more annoying was that even when they refused, the girls would still thrust their gifts at them.
Sometimes the brothers returned their gifts by placing them in front of their house, and the rest of the time, Su Wan would handle them.
"Are you looking for a fight?" snarled Lin Chen waving his fist at Fang Dai. He was living with Su Wan for so long. How could he not know what kind of personality Su Wan had? She looked like a somewhat understanding woman who would always listen to her husband. Still, he and his brothers knew that Su Wan was a smiling tiger. If they dared to even so much as step in the east when she said west, she would chew them up whole. Bones and flesh alike.
Fang Dai didn't take him seriously. He knew that Lin Chen could take him on anytime he wanted, but he wouldn't do it. He chuckled at Lin Chen's gloomy expression. "Are you really that scared of your wife? I mean, it's not a big deal; as long as you don't respond, what's the point of being scared like this? It's not like you are the one who is eyeing those girls?"
Lin Jing and Lin Chen looked down, and inwardly they thought of what Su Wan once said when Lin Chen once tried to ask what she might do if they tried to return the girls look -
He was just trying to tease her, but he asked the wrong question at the wrong time. Because Lin Yan wasn't at home, Su Wan was responsible for handling the chicken. So when Lin Chen asked this question, she chopped the chicken in half, splattering blood everywhere as she gently smiled and answered, "I will gauge your eyes out."