Chapter 44 - Diving in the River (1/2)

Proofread by Claire.KK

After dinner, the day has been dark.

Xiao Baozhu washed the bowls and came back to Li Hongmei. “Ma, it’s sticky all over me and I stink with sweat. I want to wash up in the river. Do you want to go with me?”

There was a small river at the entrance of the village. After dark, villages would go to the river to take a bath. There were both men and women, but men and women would naturally divide themselves into two groups, and one group bathed in the upstream and the other were in the downstream.

Men could bathe with their top naked while women were wearing clothes. Women would quietly wipe themselves with towels under the water when n.o.body noticed, coming home in wet clothes and changed into another dry outfit. That was basically what a bath in the river meant to them.

Though it sounded simple, it was much better than wiping themselves in their rooms.

All households carried river water back home these days and they couldn’t use too much water so they at most fetched a basin of water to wipe their body, which was not a bath in the slightest.

Hearing that Baozhu was going to take a bath, Ye Xiaoxian said excitedly, “Baozhu, I’m going together. I want to wash up too.”

They had been busy for a whole day and they were soaked with sweat. Just thinking about the cool river water made Ye Xiaoxian thrilled. She was rather to dive into the river and washed herself from in and out, head to toe.

Li Hongmei wanted to go too so she said, “Good. Let’s go together.”

…

The whole family went to the river bank with the dim light of the dark.

Since it was still summer, there were many people coming to bathe in the river. They did not want to cause any gossip among the villagers, so Xiao Baoshan and Xiao Baofeng went to the downstream of the river and the three women went to the to upstream which was over ten metres far from the downstream.

The river was shallow and where they chose the river lay smoothly. The depth of water only reached to their chest even in the deepest spot.

Ye Xiaoxian sank her whole body into the water. After she was wrapped with the cool river water, she felt it was so refres.h.i.+ng and pleasant.