Chapter 35

Only after everyone left did Xu Ran feel relieved. He hugged Liu Tong and said, “Tongtong! Now I really think bickering is much more exhausting than work.”

Being hugged at daytime, Liu Tong felt a little too embarassed, so he pushed him away and said, “Don’t be upset, Ran. I don’t know why daddy-in-law would treat us like this either.”

Xu Ran wasn’t upset in the slightest. It was the fool the previous owner of this body who should feel sad about it. However, he had already died. His family only gave him nothing but contempt.

Xu Ran cuddled Liu Tong again and went inside the house to see Tangtang and Guoguo.

Tangtang and Guoguo had been in the room all along, and Xu Ran was afraid that he might frighten them.

Tangtang and Guoguo were sitting in bed. The moment they saw Xu Ran entered the house, they leapt out of bed and grabbed onto his legs and said “Dad.”

The children called him in unison. They were afraid of Elder Daddy Xu as he had often scold them. Since they moved here, they thought they would not be scolded again. To their surprise, Elder Daddy Xu came to their home.

Looking at the two kids being low-spirited, Xu Ran held them in his arms and kissed them on their cheeks. “It’s alright, Tangtang, Guoguo, I’m here, so no one can bully you anymore.”

“No one can bully dad either.” Guoguo clenched her fists and said unhappily.

“Yeah, and daddy as well.” Tongtong followed.

Liu Tong overheard their connversation as she entered the room, and those words warmed his heart.

Liu Tong walked up to them and hugged them. It was also a comfort for them to be together.

Xu Ran never had unreasonable relatives in his previous life, so he didn’t know how to deal with them, but the only thing clear to him was that he could not be soft-hearted. Being kind got you bullied. Now that he had a spouse and children, he had to start making a decent living even if it was for their sakes.

After comforting the two kids, Xu Ran said to Liu Tong, “Tongtong, let’s put the chili sauce into the bamboo tubes today! Then you can sell it in the town. We have to buy the land as soon as possible.”

“Alright, then Tongtong and Guoguo, you two play inside the house or find the some leaves outside to write with.”

“Got it, daddy.”

After replying, Tangtang grabbed Guoguo’s hand and headed out.

When they were in the Xu Family, their daddy taught them to write, but he didn’t know too much about it and often said that if only their dad weren’t stupid.

They didn’t have the money for paper to write on, so they could only pick some leaves from trees and write on them with leftover flints which had been ground into sticks. They have already got quite proficient at it in order to practice their handwriting.

Xu Ran and Liu Tong opened the big jar with chili sauce; there was more than half jar of the chili sauce inside. “Tongtong, it’s hard to fill the bamboo rubes like this. I’ll go find some bamboo tubes, and you go fetch a spoon and a funnel. Let’s  get 20 tubes today.”

“Okay.” Liu Tong went into the kitchen and returned with the tools. Meanwhile, Xu Ran finished getting the bamboo tubes he had prepared a long time ago. He placed the plugs on the side, as all these plugs had their own matching tubes, so he couldn’t leave them in a mess.

One person would hold the funnel on top of the bamboo tube, while the other dipped chili sauce on it and let it trickle into the tube.

The funnel was specially prepared for filling the chili sauce by Xu Ran, and it turned out to be quite handy.

It took him about  an hour to fill the 20 tubes. After plugging each one of them and wiping off all the spilled sauce before putting them inside the basket, both of them were ecstatic.

“It all comes down to this now. Tongtong, you go get Xu An’s ox cart!”

“Okay,” Ling Tong left and went to borrow Wu Mei’s ox cart.

Xu Ran held the basket in his hands as he was waiting for Liu Tong’s return.