christmas at cold comfort farm and other stories

By Xishui River, there lived a family with the surname Ruo, whose luck was so disastrously poor that it was as if misfortune was possessed by their very souls. When other families had bountiful harvests, the Ruo Family harvested not a single grain. Their planted vegetables were devoured by insects, their chickens got chicken plague, their pigs got swine fever… Despite the household being full of strong men, they were either mad, crippled, or blind… What would have been a family of great prospects became the poorest within ten miles. The only thing that others envied about the Ruo Family was its thriving male members! The old lady of the Ruo Family had given birth to six sons, who then gave her four grandsons. She dreamt day and night of having a granddaughter. When she finally got a grandchild, to her dismay, the child was mentally disabled: at over three years old, she still couldn’t speak or walk, couldn’t even eat or relieve herself without help. Everyone thought the Ruo Family would never turn their fortunes around in this lifetime! That was until the half-old three-year-old mentally disabled child suddenly called out, “Mom…” The heavens began to change. The world began to turn mysterious. In the Ruo Family’s courtyard, the persimmons ripened overnight. The vegetables in the fields, nearly nibbled bare by insects, turned lush and green. The old hen that had never laid eggs suddenly started laying… While others faced famine, the Ruo Family’s granary was full. The eldest son was no longer mad, the second son was no longer crippled, the third son was no longer blind… The old lady of the Ruo Family, with her hands on her hips, laughed heartily to the sky, “Who says my Xuanbao is a dimwit? She’s clearly a treasure of blessings!” (This is a farming novel with a hint of fairy charm, where the female protagonist in a previous life was a just-awakened daylily that has reincarnated as a human.)