Chapter 4 Chapter 4 I Tasted Poverty for the First Time

The brigade planned to distribute grain in the evening. The others helped and did good things, and went back to the fields to work in high spirits. Zhou Peijun was afraid that something might happen to Shen Moli, so he simply gave Shen Shaoyuan a day off and asked him to go home quickly to light a fire and cook a meal so that the father and daughter could have a good meal first.

The people from Team 8 returned to the field, and people from other teams came over to find out what happened.

They were a little further away when they realized that someone had fainted, so they called Doctor Liu over. A group of people gathered around them and said something to them before they headed back towards the village.

Even though the others didn't say anything, Aunt Chen and the others also wanted to tell the story, regardless of the livid faces of Cao Mei and Tian Fang who were following behind them. They told the whole story about how the two sisters-in-law had robbed Shen Laoqi's family of food, causing Shen Moer to faint from hunger in the field.

The members all thought it was too outrageous and looked at Cao Mei and Tian Fang with strange eyes.

These days, food is the life of a family. Isn’t robbing people of their food the same as taking their lives?

Soon the news spread to several nearby teams.

From the 12th Squad, a short, bespectacled, friendly-looking young man came back from the field of the next-door 10th Squad. Several young men who were weeding looked at him curiously. He walked a few steps to a tall, thin, handsome young man and said mysteriously, "I heard that Shen Moer from the 8th Squad fainted from hunger."

A square-faced young man came over and said, "Zheng Jiamin, please tell me what happened. Our team has enough food, right? How could he faint from hunger?"

Zheng Jiamin looked bewildered: "That's what happened. Uncle Shen Qi's daughter, Shen Moer, was said to be starving because her family had been out of food for several days. She fainted in the field after working for a while."

The square-faced man is called Zhang Zhiqiang. He frowned and thought for a while, "Shen Qishu, Shen Moer, which one?"

Zheng Jiamin thought about how the Shen family father and daughter were usually silent. Apart from him, who would chat with the villagers whenever he had the chance and had a thorough understanding of the situation in the village, other people probably didn't know who Shen Laoqi and Shen Moer were, so he explained, "They are Shen Lingling's seventh uncle and cousin."

Shen Lingling is the daughter of Shen Laoer, a high school student, with pretty looks and a gentle personality. She is one of the rare girls in the village who is both beautiful and talented.

Although the educated youth were sent to the countryside to work, they still had a sense of superiority as city dwellers in their bones. When they talked behind their backs about what would happen if they could not return to the city and had to start a family and a career in the countryside, several people secretly said that in the entire Yangliu Brigade, only Shen Lingling was a match for them.

It's not just because of Shen Lingling's own conditions, but also because her parents are reasonable, especially her mother Tian Fang, who is a particularly gentle and kind person, completely different from other rude rural aunts.

Everyone is familiar with Shen Lingling, but her seventh uncle and cousin... no one has any impression of them.

Zhang Zhiqiang frowned and said, "Since they are from the Shen family, it doesn't make sense that Comrade Shen Lingling's family is thriving while her uncle's family is out of food and clothing. It's probably because this family is too lazy and didn't earn many work points."

It is said that one should help in emergencies but not in poverty. This family must be too unbecoming, otherwise the kind-hearted Comrade Shen Lingling would definitely help them.

Zheng Jiamin opened his mouth. He had actually vaguely heard that it was Aunt Cao and Aunt Tian who had taken away Uncle Shen Qi's food, which caused the father and daughter to have nothing to eat.

However, Aunt Tian usually looked quite kind and didn't seem like someone who would do such a thing. Besides, there were several fans of Comrade Shen Lingling among the educated youth, so if she said this she would probably be attacked by them all.

Zheng Jiamin thought about it and swallowed his words. He just said something fair based on his understanding: "Uncle Shen Qi and his daughter depend on each other. They usually work very hard. Zhang Zhiqiang, you are too arbitrary."

Zhang Zhiqiang: "If that's the case, how come they ran out of food? It's not because they were lazy at work, but most likely because they were too careless and greedy, and ate all the food before it was distributed again."

Zheng Jiamin scratched his head. He felt that Shen Laoqi and his daughter were not such people, but he had not squatted on their stoves, so he could not guarantee on their behalf that they were definitely not such people.

At this time, the handsome young man who had been weeding stopped what he was doing, wiped the sweat off his forehead with an old towel around his neck, and said calmly, "The leader taught us that without investigation, we have no right to speak."

Zhang Zhiqiang's face suddenly turned ugly. What happened was that the other party was talking about the leader, so he couldn't refute it. He hesitated for a long time before he uttered: "Fu Mingze, don't make a big deal out of it. I'm just making a reasonable guess."

Fu Mingze looked at him deeply, nodded slightly, and then lowered his head to weed.

Zhang Zhiqiang just felt like he punched cotton, feeling neither up nor down.

Zheng Jiamin picked up the hoe with a smile, and gave Fu Mingze a thumbs up when Zhang Zhiqiang wasn't paying attention.

Fu Mingze curled his lips and said, "Hurry up and work."

As he said this, he couldn't help but look in the direction of Team 8.

Fainted from hunger in the field... Let's not talk about whether the food distributed by the team was enough, it was certain that this family was poor, otherwise even if they had no food, they could have used money to exchange some with others privately, or if that didn't work, they could have risked buying some on the black market.

However, none of this has anything to do with him.

*

After returning home, Shen Moer clumsily made a fire and cooked a small pot of porridge based on the memory in her mind.

In fact, they had just eaten snacks before coming to this world, but after coming here, probably because of the magical power of the Heavenly Dao, Shen Moer found that her body had become very weak, her stomach was empty, and she was so hungry that her chest was sticking to her back——

Although fainting in the field was an act, Shen Moer inexplicably felt that if she didn't eat something, not only would she faint, she might die like the original owner.

While Shen Moer was cooking porridge, Shen Shaoyuan went into the house and moved the bedding and mats to the door to dry them, and then cleaned the house inside and out. He also moved two broken chairs and an old wooden box that were also caught in the rain outside.

This family is truly penniless.

Both beds were stiff, obviously not because they were wet, but because they had been used for so many years that the cotton wool had hardened. I guess even if they hadn't been wet, they wouldn't have been very warm.

The father and daughter shared an old wooden box, which contained a few pieces of clothes and some worthless items.

However, Shen Shaoyuan found several well-preserved small pieces of paper inside. There were several people "drawn" on the small pieces of paper, one was a couple with two children, one was two young men and women, and one was a couple holding a girl.

Shen Shaoyuan knew that these small pieces of paper were not paintings, but something called photographs.

The first photo is a family photo of his wife when she was young. The couple is his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and the boy is his brother-in-law. The second photo is a photo of his wife and brother-in-law when they are older. The third photo is a photo of him, his wife, and the young "Chen Moer".

What surprised Shen Shaoyuan was that "his" wife looked exactly like his princess who died young in Daliang.

It is obvious that my father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, second sister-in-law and third sister-in-law are completely different from when they were in Daliang.

Shen Shaoyuan sighed and showed the photo to Shen Moer: "Not only do they look the same, their expressions and movements are also similar. However, your mother has never suffered any hardship in her life except for her weak body. She looks a bit more beautiful than this lady."

Shen Moer lost her mother at a young age, and her impression of her mother comes from the portrait drawn by Shen Shaoyuan himself. However, no matter how well the portrait is drawn, it cannot be as real as a photo. The photo is like a fleeting moment in time intercepted by heaven.

Shen Moer gently touched the person in the photo with her finger. Even though she knew that this person was not actually her mother, she couldn't help but look at her a few more times.

"Let's go to the county town and take some photos of this some other day." Shen Shaoyuan didn't want his daughter to be sad, so he quickly put the photos away and said cheerfully, "This place is also strange. The people don't look rich, but they can enjoy many things that the princes and nobles of Daliang can't enjoy."

Shen Moer looked at him indifferently: “Well, the prerequisite is that you have money.”

Shen Shaoyuan choked and said with a lack of confidence: "Soon, we will have money soon."

There were indeed a lot of wealth in the treasury. Unfortunately, these things were either useless here, like the banknotes that Daliang and the surrounding countries deposited and exchanged, which were just a pile of waste paper here. Or they dared not use them, like the gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings. First, there was no way to explain the origin of these things, and second, according to the laws of this world, these things would be confiscated if they were taken out, and the father and daughter might even suffer imprisonment or death.

Not to mention the treasure house, their only visible property now is the fifty cents left by the original owner and his daughter.

Yes, fifty cents.

Just enough to buy a few eggs.

For the first time in their lives, the father and daughter experienced poverty.

Fortunately, the food was brought back, and with some snacks and dry food stored in the treasury, they didn't have to worry about starving for the time being.

The porridge was thin, just right for eating with snacks. Even though they knew that the original owner's father was not very popular with women and that no one would come to his house on a regular basis, they did not dare to be careless and ate with the door locked. After the meal, both of them were sweating profusely.

Shen Moer found a towel and a washbasin to wash her face.

The wash basin had probably been used for a long time, and a few pieces of paint had fallen off, so it was patched up with paint of other colors, and the patching was also very rough, with potholes and bumps. But compared to the towel, although the wash basin was broken, at least it was still clean, while the towel was old, yellow, and had two big holes in it, and it was also hard.

In the end, Shen Moer just filled a basin with clean water and washed her face with the water in her hands.

There were some cloths stored in the treasury, but according to the original owner's memory, cloth was also extremely scarce in this country. In addition to money, one also needed tickets to buy cloth in the store. Rural people did not have tickets, so they mostly weaved coarse cloth themselves.

So even if it was just a piece of cloth, Shen Moer didn't dare to take it out.

This is probably like begging for food while guarding a mountain of treasure, Shen Moer thought with a smile. But she was not depressed, after all, it was good to be alive. Moreover, although this place was a little poor, it was peaceful and the people lived and worked in peace. Compared with Daliang, which had been in war for years, this paradise was just like this.

In the afternoon, the father and daughter repaired the house.

Shen Shaoyuan was a weak scholar with little fighting ability. Shen Moer, on the other hand, had learned some martial arts from several princes since she was a child. She was not capable of killing enemies in battle, but it was easy for her to climb up to the roof with a ladder and pick up the tiles.

A lot of tiles were broken, and they didn't know where to buy new ones. Of course, they had no money, so they simply took down some tiles from the corners and moved them to the middle, and covered the empty spaces with thatch, so that at least the main areas would not leak.

So for the first time in their lives, the father and daughter truly understood what it meant to be stretched to the limit.

"It seems that the money for renovating the house will have to go to my good nephews!" Shen Shaoyuan sighed.