“It hurts, it hurts!”

"My dear, all of us women go through this. It only hurts for a short while, and then it goes away after the birth!"

"Ah!" Lin Zao Zao screamed again, as if she had used up all her strength.

Then the sound of a baby crying was heard from the other side of the cloth, soft and thin, yet full of strength.

"She's giving birth!" Lin Rui's eyes lit up and he ran to the door of the awning: "Mom, has my second sister given birth?"

Feng Zhenniang came out holding a swaddling baby, with a look of disappointment on her face: "Yes, it's born, a girl!"

Lin Rui looked at the baby in the swaddle. Her eyes were still closed and she looked a little swollen from being soaked in the amniotic fluid for so long. He used the cotton cloth he had prepared to hold her loosely. "Mom, are you cold? Find me another piece of cotton cloth!"

"I'll go look for it." Feng Zhenniang walked towards the shed where the luggage was stored.

Sanliang stood behind Lin Rui and touched the back of his head: "Master, why do I feel that the old lady doesn't seem very happy?"

"Shh, don't say that. Don't let my second sister hear it." Lin Rui warned Sanliang. In ancient times, the idea of ​​favoring boys over girls was even more serious than it is today. In his opinion, the children born by his second sister, whether boys or girls, are the same. They all have the same surname Lin as him and are children of his Lin family.

At worst, he can be both uncle and father, and that bastard Jiang Chengcai can get as far away from me as possible.

The tiny baby was stuffed in Lin Rui's arms, as small as a little mouse. He was afraid that if he held the baby in the wrong position, the little guy would feel uncomfortable and cry loudly.

The child is very obedient. He only cried a few times when he was born and is now sleeping soundly.

The baby sleeps for a long time and needs to drink milk every three or four hours. Now my aunt and sisters-in-law are using hot water to clean my second sister's body. After she is cleaned, they can put the baby in her arms to feed.

Lin Zao Zao finally recovered some of his strength and woke up from his sleep. He looked around and grabbed the nearest Lin Susu: "Sister, where is my child?"

Lin Susu placed a pillow made of cotton cloth behind her and pouted in Lin Rui's direction: "Our brother is holding the child. I see he likes this child very much."

Lin Susu felt a little jealous when she heard this. Although her younger brother was nice to Niu Niu, perhaps because Niu Niu's surname was not Lin, there was a gap between her and her uncle.

Lin Rui came over with the child in his arms and just happened to hear what his eldest sister said. He smiled and said, "Eldest sister, look at what you are saying. Niuniu and Xiaobao are both my own nieces. It's okay if I, your uncle, don't achieve anything in the future. But if I do, I will prepare all the good things for both of them. I won't show favoritism."

"I was just joking!" Lin Susu said with a smile, and the smile on her face looked much more genuine at this moment.

Lin Rui shook his head, haha, what a hypocritical woman!

He walked to his second sister's bed and carefully placed the child next to her.

Lin Zao Zao lovingly held the little guy in her arms. The little guy felt the warmth of his mother and immediately started crying with his mouth pouting.

Lin Susu is very experienced: "She must be hungry, Zao Zao, you should feed her some milk."

After saying that, he lowered the curtain to give Lin Zaozao and the child a private area.

After Feng Zhenniang and Zhang Dacui delivered Lin Zao Zao's baby, they did not continue to go into the forest. Instead, they cleaned up the mushrooms and prepared food for dinner.

Feng Zhenniang looked at the heavy rain outside and felt extremely worried. Her daughter had just given birth to a child, and there was another mouth to feed in the family. Now some of the food had been eaten before they even left the mountains. What would she do if she ran out of food after leaving the mountains?

Zhang Dacui was already cursing at the door of her rain shelter: "This damn God, it rains all day and night without stopping. The dry firewood is almost burned out. If it continues, we will really freeze to death tonight!"

The rain was heavy and lasted for a long time, and all the firewood that everyone had stored was burned out. Lin Changhe and Lin Changfa's family had to borrow from Lin Rui's family and Lin Pingmao's family these days, and everyone's firewood stock was not abundant.

Now, apart from cooking in the morning and evening and using the fire to drive away snakes, insects and wild animals in the middle of the night, the rest of the time I have to endure the cold in the woods.

Everyone returned home in the evening, naturally with a full load. With the hunter Zhao Qing around, it was like letting a tiger back into the mountains. The bow and arrow he carried, along with his exceptional archery skills, were a nightmare for every animal in the mountains.

It’s best to pray that Zhao Qing doesn’t see you, otherwise your arrows will hit their targets, and everyone who follows behind can even pick up some meat to eat.

The most unfortunate thing is that the weather has not been clearing up. Even if everyone wants to preserve the meat, it is very difficult. In order to prevent the meat from spoiling, the best way is to eat it.

In order to eat these meats, Feng Zhenniang even stopped eating eggs at home. Every day, she either had barbecued meat or meat soup. This made Lin Zao Zao, who was in confinement, have a round chin and sufficient milk supply, so that Xiaobao could eat his fill every day.

The heavy rain continued, but they could not feel anything on the high mountains. At the foot of the mountain, Zhaojiagou Linjia Village, which had been looted and massacred by mobs and bandits, had long been washed away and submerged by the abundant floods, forming rushing rivers.

Paddy fields, wastelands and rivers were all flooded. The fish in the water swam to various places along the forked river channels, and some were stranded on the broken roofs of houses.

The crops that had been marked by the mob and were ready to be harvested when they were ripe were not spared and were all destroyed in the flood.

Not only Linjia Village, but also several cities around Longting County suffered this disaster. The floods and man-made disasters forced the people who could no longer survive to pack up their bedding and flee with their children.

Compared with Lin Rui and others who fled to the mountains and could hunt and make a living from the mountains, those people were the real refugees who had to beg along the way to barely get enough food to fill their stomachs. But under the flood, everyone's life was difficult, how could they help so many people!

At first, the better-off families would give away some rice or leftovers, but the refugees kept coming in droves. They ate today and needed more tomorrow, and after one wave was over, another was coming. There was no way the government could keep up the supply. Didn't they see how the government couldn't handle it? The poor people were lucky enough to have enough to eat, so how could they care about the emperor's affairs?

No matter how many beggars there were, every household would close their doors and windows tightly, and not a single grain of rice would slip out of their hands.

The common people became refugees. When the refugees ran out of food and sold their children but still could not get enough to eat, they turned into mobs and oppressed other poor people. The rulers in troubled times seemed to have entered this vicious circle from which they could not escape.

Perhaps looking at the entire Linchao now, only the deep mountains where Lin Rui and others are hiding can barely be considered a place where life is peaceful and tranquil.

"Rui'er, please give the child a name!" Lin Zao Zao held her daughter in her arms and looked at Lin Rui expectantly, hoping that he could give his niece a name.

"Sister, are you sure you want me to choose the name?" Lin Rui pointed at himself, thinking that such a rough name like Sanliang came out of his mouth, and his second sister actually had such courage.

Lin Zao Zao nodded insistently: "Yes."

Lin Rui thought hard and finally came up with a name that he thought was feasible: "Let's call her Qingqing. I hope the rain will stop tomorrow. Lin Qingqing!"