Chapter 30 Settlement 3 (Two chapters in one)

◎Jinjiang exclusive◎

After Zhou Ruiquan sent the soldier away with a smile and many thanks, everyone turned around and looked at the vast wasteland behind them with worry.

This place is big enough, but it is just a big place. There are only weeds and thorns on it, and there is not even a usable vine. If you want to build a house, it will take a lot of effort just to clear the grass!

The families had thought that once they reached Liaodong, everything would be fine! They also thought that no matter how difficult it was, they would be given a place to stay. But when they arrived, they found that there was not even a thatched hut for them to stay.

"Are your families newly assigned military households? May I ask your surnames?" Everyone was looking at the wasteland with worry when they heard someone ask from behind.

When they looked back, they saw a skinny old man who looked to be in his seventies staring at them.

"That's right, that's right. My surname is Zhou, Zhou Ruiquan. May I ask what your last name is? Are you also from Taohua Village?" Zhou Ruiquan hurriedly stepped forward and greeted the visitor with a smile.

"Oh, old brother, please don't call me that. I'm fifty-seven years old this year. I just look old, but I should be younger than you..." The old man hurriedly explained when he saw Zhou Ruiquan, an old man with white hair and beard, calling him brother.

Zhou Ruiquan...

He does look old. The old man in front of him has more wrinkles on his face than him. He doesn't look like he's 57, but more like 75!

Alas! It seems that the cold weather in Liaodong is really unbearable. Look how hard it is on people!

"Oh, then I should really call you brother. Haha, I'm a few years older than you. I'm sixty-six this year!" Zhou Rui continued with a smile, "We're new here, so please take care of me in the future!"

"Haha, it's not about looking after me. We are all neighbors in the same village now, so we should help each other. My name is Li Gui, and my courtesy name is Xianrong. If Brother Zhou needs any help in the future, just ask."

The old man hurriedly followed and introduced himself.

"Li? May I ask if you are from the Li family of Luzhou?" Zhou Ruiquan was stunned when he heard this. Although the old man in front of him looked haggard, he spoke with logic and had a courtesy name. He suddenly remembered the Li family who was exiled to Liaodong more than ten years ago.

The Li family of Luzhou was once one of the largest families in the previous dynasty. However, when Dayan was first established more than ten years ago, the current emperor found an excuse to exile the entire family because they disobeyed the emperor's orders.

Hearing the surname Li at this time, and in Liaodong, Zhou Ruiquan couldn't help but think of the Li family who were exiled more than ten years ago.

"Alas! There is no Luzhou Li family left in this world. Only one in ten of the family's descendants are left, and they are just barely surviving!"

When Li Gui heard Zhou Ruiquan call out the long-lost Li family of Luzhou, his eyes suddenly turned red. He didn't expect that Zhou Ruiquan guessed his family's origin at once.

Thinking back to my youth, when people mentioned the Luzhou Li family, who wouldn't look up to them, who wouldn't envy them? But now... Alas!

I couldn't help but shake my head and sigh.

He is really a descendant of the Li family?!

Zhou Ruiquan hadn't expected his guess to be so accurate. He'd met a few members of the Li clan in his youth. How high-spirited and high-spirited were they then? And now, look at Li Gui, now hunched and emaciated, with calloused hands and feet...

It's inevitable that there's a sense of sympathy and a sense of shared destiny...

Now, isn't their Zhou family just like the once glorious Li family, destroyed in an instant? Thinking of the Li family's former glory and looking at Li Gui's miserable state now, isn't it a microcosm of their family's future in a few years?

I couldn't hold back my grief for a moment and tears streamed down my face.

When Li Gui saw him crying, the emotions he had been suppressing came out and he also covered his face with his hands, crying uncontrollably.

When everyone saw this, they were reminded of the hardships of their exile and the relatives who had passed away one after another, and they all started sobbing.

Only Zhou Jin and his sister were left. It was not right to cry or not to cry. They didn't know what to do...

After a while, everyone recovered under the anxious consolation of Zhou Jin and his sister...

As a result, the two old brothers who met for the first time held hands and cried because of their common fate. They felt like they were more familiar with each other and became more and more like brothers.

"Alas, the past is all old news, so don't mention it, brother. Now it's time and fate, so let's just take care of the present!" Li Gui sighed.

"Alas! That's right. Now that it has come to this, I can only take care of my own life first!"

Zhou Ruiquan also sighed and asked:

"Excuse me, brother, how did you settle down when you first came here? Tell me about it, and we can learn from you. You can see that the map only points out this piece of wasteland, and there is nothing else. We really don't know where to start!"

Li Gui did have experience in this matter, and after listening to them, he gave them some advice.

"You must first report to Baili Town, which is over 60 miles away from here, and register your household registration documents. Only then can you be considered to have settled down here completely. Then you can claim wasteland and start building houses.

Secondly, you have to build the house before the cold weather comes. If you haven’t experienced the winter here, it’s really freezing!

When we first arrived, our situation was even worse than yours. This place was just a wilderness, without even a single house. We didn't know much at the time, so to save trouble, we just built a few thatched huts to live in, and planned to wait until next spring to think of a way to build a house.

As a result, in one winter, not only did more than 20 people freeze to death, but several children were also snatched away by hungry wolves that came down the mountain!? Oh! When I think of that scene, I just…"

Li Gui's youngest son was one of the children who were taken away by wild wolves. He couldn't help sobbing when talking about the past. Everyone else sighed and didn't know how to persuade him. Li Gui recovered first, wiped his tears, and said to Zhou Ruiquan embarrassedly:

"Look at me, I said I wouldn't mention these things, but now I'm bringing them up again. I'm making you laugh."

"No way, no way, brother, you have suffered a lot over the years..." Zhou Ruiquan hurriedly comforted him.

"Oh, that's right," Li Gui sighed again. "It was really hard back then! We didn't know anything. It was only after we learned from the locals how to build adobe houses, set up fire walls and kangs that we finally managed to get through. That's why I'm reminding you that the most urgent thing right now is to build the house first!"

"Thank you for the reminder, brother." Zhou Ruiquan said gratefully again.

He thought: It is already the end of September and October is coming soon. He heard that it will snow in Liaodong in October. If we don’t cover the soil now, it will freeze. If we delay any longer, we won’t be able to cover it even if we want to.

But they didn't know how to make adobe bricks, let alone build a house, so they asked Li Gui again,

"Do you know a construction team leader? If so, please introduce him to me. We want to hire someone to build the house as soon as possible."

Unexpectedly, Li Gui shook his head.

"There are construction teams in town, but they only take on big jobs. They won't come to our poor village to build adobe houses. And in our countryside, no one is willing to spend money to hire a construction team. Everyone takes time out to dry the adobe bricks, and everyone helps build them. There's no such thing as a construction team!"

Zhou Ruiquan...this shabby place doesn't even have a construction team? What should I do?

"Excuse me, Grandpa Li, are there any young and strong people in our village who can help us build a house? If so, could you please invite more of them to help us build the house?" Zhou Jin, who was standing aside, saw that Zhou Ruiquan had no idea and asked hurriedly.

Since there is no construction team, they have to do it themselves. There are more than a dozen people in their group who can work. If they hire a few more people, it should be enough to build the house.

"There aren't many young and strong people here. Most of the young and strong people in the village are now in the military camp. They are only sent down during the busy farming season. But if you are in a hurry, our village can spare a dozen or twenty laborers like me to help you build the house..."

As soon as Li Gui heard Zhou Ruiquan's words, he knew that they must have hidden money. If they didn't make money, they would be foolish. Anyway, the autumn harvest was over, and they were a group of middle-aged men with nothing to do. It would be good to earn some money to supplement their family expenses. So he recommended himself and his fellow villagers to Zhou Ruiquan...

Afraid that Zhou Ruiquan would think they were old, he added:

"Don't worry, bro. We old bones are used to doing the work. We will definitely do a good job in building the house for you. We will definitely not cheat or do anything sloppy!"

Zhou Ruiquan was very happy to find someone to help build the house, so he would not complain about anything. Therefore, he immediately agreed with Li Gui to pay each person 30 cents a day and asked him to help find people. The more people the better. After they returned from the town to register their household registration tomorrow, they wanted to start work the day after tomorrow.

He also asked him if there were any vacant houses for rent in the village so that they could settle down first.

Li Gui originally thought that the Zhou family could only afford 20 wen a day to hire someone, but he did not expect Zhou Ruiquan to offer 30 wen right out of the blue. He was so happy that he agreed without hesitation. When he heard Zhou Ruiquan asking who had a house to rent, he said:

"There is a vacant house right behind ours. It belongs to my brother. My nephew is the only one left in his family after all his family members died in the past few years. He is in the barracks now. Since there is no one at home, he only comes back for a few days during the New Year or vacation, so the house is empty.

There are three main rooms and two auxiliary rooms. All three main rooms have kangs, so they are barely habitable. However, the two auxiliary rooms were half collapsed by snow last year, so I'm afraid they are no longer habitable...

My nephew is a poor man. He has been living alone for many years and has no one to take care of him. If you want to rent it to him, I can make the decision for him. You don’t have to pay any rent. If possible, just buy some coarse cloth and cotton to make him some cotton clothes.

A coarse cotton jacket and cotton trousers would only cost a few hundred coins at most, so the rent was indeed not high. Zhou Ruiquan agreed immediately, thinking of going to take a look later. However, there were more than 20 people in several families now, and three rooms might not be enough to accommodate them. So he asked Li Gui again, besides this place, were there any other places?

Zhou Gui shook his head and said, "You all saw it when you came here. Our village only has twelve households at most, and we don't have many houses. Even if there are spare rooms, they can only be vacated in one and a half rooms. If you don't mind squeezing in with them, I can go and ask them."

Upon hearing this, everyone felt that instead of sharing a roof with strangers, it would be better for several families to squeeze together. After all, they were used to living in the wild during their exile and didn't care about this. Besides, they would move out after the house was built and would not live there for long.

So Zhou Ruiquan thanked Li Gui for his kindness and said that they would go to his nephew's house first. If they could squeeze in a few families, they would not look for another place.

Then everyone followed Li Gui to the village. Li Gui first went home to get the key to his nephew's house, and then led everyone to the rooms behind their house.

When they arrived, they saw that although the yard was not big, it was quite neat, with a brick bed, doors and windows. However, the three rooms that could accommodate people were too low and narrow.

But at this point, who would still need a bicycle? After sleeping on the ground in the open air for several months, they suddenly saw a house and a brick bed. They were so happy that they didn't have time to complain!

There are now twenty-two people in their families, namely:

Mr. Zhou Ruiquan and his family:

Including: Mr. Zhou Ruiquan,

His two sons: Zhou Zemao and Zhou Zesheng

Daughters-in-law: Wang and Liu.

Four grandsons: Zhou Dai, Zhou Gong, Zhou Dian, and Zhou Zhuo. Among them, Zhou Gong and Zhou Dian were born to Zhou Zemao, Wang family, while Zhou Dai and Zhou Zhuo were born to Zhou Zesheng, Liu family.

Two granddaughters: Zhou Han and Zhou Xuan. (Both were born to Zhou Zemao.)

Zhou Zelin and his family:

Including: Zhou Zelin and his two sons Zhou Po and Zhou Luo.

The Bai family:

Including: Bai's mother-in-law Wei, Bai and her son Zhou Li.

Zhou Jin's family:

Including: Zheng Shi, Zhou Jin, Zhou Yu, Zhou Li, and Zhou Ying.

Zhou Ruifeng and his family:

Including: Zhou Ruifeng.

There were many people in the small house and no way to distinguish who was whose family, so Wei's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, along with Zheng, Zhou Yu, Zhou Ying, and the wives and daughters of Zhou Zesheng's brothers, a total of nine female relatives, lived in the largest of the three rooms, the east room.

The two elders, Zhou Ruiquan and Zhou Ruifeng, took Zhou Zemao, Zhou Zesheng, and Zhou Zelin to live in the smallest west-facing room.

The remaining boys, Zhou Jin, Zhou Li, Zhou Luo, Zhou Po, Zhou Dai, Zhou Gong, Zhou Dian, Zhou Li, and Zhou Zhuo, lived in the middle room.

By the time the rooms were allocated, it was already dark and everyone was exhausted. They went to the river to fetch some water, cooked some brown rice porridge, gave each person a bowl, and then fell asleep.

Not far east of Taohua Village was another river, where the villagers fetched water for drinking and washing clothes. However, several families were building their houses at the westernmost part of the village, a bit far from the river, so they decided to dig a well before building their houses.

The next morning, just as the sky was getting light, although there were no more officials knocking gongs to wake them up, after so many days of exile, their biological clocks had already rung, and except for a few young ones, everyone got up.

Zheng and the others were busy making a fire and cooking, while Zhou Ruiquan took the men to wash up and change into more formal clothes. They planned to go to the town after breakfast to complete the household registration of their families.

Zhou Jin was naturally the representative of Zhou Jin's family. Seeing that Zhou Ruiquan and the others had finished breakfast and were ready, Zhou Jin put a small palm-sized mirror that Zhou Yu had taken out of the RV in advance into his arms and followed everyone away.

Yesterday, the brother and sister had already agreed that they would take advantage of Zhou Jin's trip to town today to pawn the small mirror they had picked out from the space in advance.

Since the glassware of the Great Yan Dynasty is so rare, and a perfume bottle can be regarded as a treasure by Song Ya, the yamen runner, then this small stainless steel mirror can probably be worth a lot of silver. Then, their family will have more money in hand whether they want to build a house or buy supplies.

"Brother, when you get there, don't forget to find a secluded place to put the toothpicks you took out of the RV. It will be convenient for us to go to town later." Zhou Yu whispered to his brother.

A few days ago, when the brother and sister were studying the RV space, they found that as long as there were items in the space, even if they were the same items, as long as they were marked, the RV space could identify them separately.

For example, Zhou Jin took the same bag of dental floss out of the space and threw it into the grass, the woods, and even the cracks in the bricks. As long as he remembered the place where he threw the toothpick, such as the dental floss in the grass somewhere, or the dental floss in the woods somewhere, when he started the car, stepped on the accelerator and shouted the location, the RV space would take them there.

Because of this discovery, during their future exile, the brother and sister would carry a box of dental floss taken from the space with them, and whenever they arrived at a place, they would leave a toothpick there.

In order to prevent themselves from forgetting which one is which with so much dental floss, they also put a notebook in the RV. Every time they threw away the toothpick, they would record the time and place of throwing the toothpick so that they could find it easily later.

With this convenience, the brother and sister no longer have to waste time and energy walking to the town. As long as Zhou Jin goes there once and finds a secluded place to throw away the dental floss, they can go there through space at any time in the future.

The author has something to say:

The story of Liaodong has begun! ! Still asking for support, collection, and flowers! !

Also: Because readers said toothpicks break easily, I’ve now changed them to dental floss. There may be omissions in the following chapters, so please forgive me. Please help point them out, or just treat them as: dental floss, toothpicks, I can’t tell the difference.