Ancient Eden

Mu Qing very quickly put this matter at the back of her mind. The fact that Naonao was hostile to her did make her a little helpless. But it wasn’t this matter that gave her a headache, it was the problematic matter that she had just realized this morning.

The thought that she might be pregnant because of last night’s incident made her heart feel like it was filled with lead, so heavy she could hardly breathe.

The curtain was lifted once again at this time, and when Mu Qing looked up, she saw little Youyou standing on the side of the curtain looking at her, with big eyes full of worry and nervousness.

The large field of crops planted on the settlement territory, outside the forest, began to bear fruits a few days ago, attracting a large number of various birds who came to peck at it. The women were all busy with their own affairs, so the task of chasing the birds away fell to the children. Naduo didn’t let Mu Qing go out to do manual work with her, and only charged her and Youyou to go and watch over the crops. The fact that Youyou had come to find her now, was probably to go there together with her.

Mu Qing knew that Youyou was still worried about what had happened just now, so she stood up and touched her head, took her hand and went outside with her.

In the crop field outside the forest, the little children were all naked, holding branches in their hands, and when they saw birds stopping, they would rush over to chase them while giggling. Mu Qing sat in the shade of a large tree on the side, and saw that Youyou, mixed among them, was running differently than the others, but she seemed very happy, and couldn’t stop laughing.

Affected by the sound of these unrestrained laughs, Mu Qing’s mood turned better.

After chasing after the birds for a while, the children seemed to be getting bored of it, when birds came, they would throw stones in that direction, and by the end of the afternoon, the children gradually dispersed, leaving only Youyou and a few other younger children.

The daily increasingly abundant millet crops attracted more flocks of birds than during the previous days, and they always tried to aim for the crops, one after another. But every millet seed was very precious to the people here.

Mu Qing and the rest of the children had been chasing the birds for half a day, adding to that the fact that they only ate a few wild fruits found in the vicinity at noon, when the sun finally went down and the birds returned to the forest, they were completely exhausted.

As she went to wash away the day’s sweat in the stream together with Youyou, she thought about whether or not, tomorrow, she should make a few scarecrows like the ones she had seen in the rural fields when she was a child. The birds here had probably never seen this kind of thing, and she wondered whether or not it could scare the flocks of birds, so that she, Youyou and the others could save some energy.

The men came back a little early today. When Mu Qing returned to the settlement, it was just getting dark, but Li Mang was already sitting with Youyou’s father in front of the fire, eating tonight’s dinner.

Mu Qing served herself a bowl of food and sat far away, together with Youyou and her siblings. She guessed that Naduo hadn’t told Li Mang about the incident with Naonao today. As the two men talked, Li Mang seemed to be in a good mood, bursting out in laughter from time to time.

Sometimes, his gaze fell on her on the other side of fire.

The heavy feelings that she had temporarily forgotten about during the day crept back into her heart, especially with him gazing at her like this at this moment. It inevitably made her think about what was going to happen later in the evening.

It had taken her all day to convince herself after last night that she would be lucky and that it would be fine. She wouldn’t be that unlucky. So, tonight and for the next few nights, she absolutely could not let the same thing happen again.