"I just heard someone shouting and thought I was mistaken. After all, I don't know anyone in Liu Town."

"Am I not?"

"I forgot."

"You? Forget it, I won't waste my time talking to you. Did you ask someone to mess with me?"

Zhou Xiang shook his head. "I almost forgot you were in Liu Town. How could I ask someone to mess with you? And as I said just now, I don't know anyone in Liu Town, so who could I ask to mess with you? I don't know who you offended, so don't blame me."

Zhong Ling thought about it and felt that what she said made sense. "Then where are you going?"

"I'm going to Zhangzhuang to look for someone."

"Zhangzhuang! This road is more than ten miles long! It's full of potholes. Okay, go ahead! Come and play with me when you have time!"

After saying that, he got on his bike and left.

Zhou Xiang felt that she had changed, becoming more generous and cheerful. Perhaps after leaving the environment where she was always compared to others, her heart would become more open, right?

She said someone was trying to frame her. There were two possibilities: one was that she had offended someone, and the other was that it was Ling Ran's doing.

Thinking of Ling Ran, I felt that I should go to the Ling family to take a look. If nothing happened, he wouldn't have been away for so long.

It was Uncle Ling who came to my second sister's engagement party, and I didn't have time to ask.

When riding on a bumpy dirt road, you also have to be careful of the slippery road, cold weather, and icy ground.

It took two hours of riding to reach the destination, covering more than ten miles.

There are three rows of adobe houses, housing about fifty households, with each row of houses about twenty meters apart. In front of the main house of most households, there is a pot house on the east side and a sweet potato cellar on the west side, with only the tops of three slanted rooms exposed.

There is an opening of about 50 centimeters on the higher side of the triangle, which is the door to the cellar.

It is only slightly wider than an adult's body, so children can jump down and climb up flexibly.

When I came to this village to play in my previous life, I jumped down once, but I couldn’t climb up because the cellar was dug straight up and down, with only a few pits representing the places to step on.

Uncle Zhang went down and lifted himself up.

When I reached the second row of intersections, I pushed my bicycle into the village. I remember it was in the middle of the village, but I really don’t remember the exact location.

Just as I was about to find a household to ask, I heard someone behind me ask, "Whose house are you looking for?"

Zhou Xiang turned around and saw that the person behind him was Uncle Zhang’s third son, Zhang Likang.

When he was in his twenties and still hadn't found a wife, his second sister collected some money and went to a remote mountainous area to bring home a woman.

After giving birth to two girls in succession, the couple went out to work. The woman saw the prosperity and insisted on divorcing him. She used the word "dai" to make it sound nice, but it was actually bought.

But the woman knew how to use legal weapons to threaten him, so they divorced. They each had a child, and the woman remarried and enjoyed a happy life. He raised his little girl and lived in a daze until he was in his fifties, when he broke his leg while working on a construction site.

He became a burden to his second sister and his younger daughter, and his younger daughter was not married until he was sent away.

Thoughts flashed through his mind, and Zhou wanted to speak to Zhang Likang, who was only twelve years old now, "I'm going to find Zhang Jiazhong's house."

"Zhang Jiazhong is my father. Come on, I'll take you to my house."

Zhou Xiang followed him to Zhang's house.

There are two low adobe houses with doors facing south, a pot house on the east side, and a cellar entrance on the west side stuffed with straw.

Steadying his bicycle, Zhou Xiang called out to the man coming out of the house, "Uncle Zhang."

"Are you here to think about it? Come in, it's warm inside."

Zhou Xiang entered the house. There was no partition between the two rooms, and there were four beds along the four walls.

Zhou Xiang sat down on the bed near the door and took out the letter of introduction, certificate, and Zhang Lian's graduation certificate.

"It's all settled. Let Brother Li'an report to the Liuzhen Supply and Marketing Cooperative. He'll be able to start work on January 1st. After three months, if he passes the assessment, he'll be able to become a regular employee. Study hard and you'll pass the assessment on the first try."

Zhang Jiazhong didn't expect that he would actually find a formal job. His eyes immediately turned red. "Thank you, thank you. Please convey my gratitude to your mother. I know she must have made a great effort this time. I, I feel that I owe her a lot."

As he spoke, tears rolled down his eyes.

Zhou Xiangliang felt very emotional when he saw this. Born in such an era, formal jobs and urban household registration are given too much importance, as if they are things that can change the family status and bring honor to the ancestors.

In the end it became like chicken ribs.

"Okay, I'm going home. The road is too difficult to walk on."

Zhang Jiazhong tried to persuade him, "Don't leave. This is your first time at my house, how can you leave without having a meal? Eat lunch first. Likang, call your mother and your eldest brother home and tell them we have guests."

Zhang Likang ran out quickly. Zhou Xiang had no choice but to stay. If he left forcibly, people would think that he looked down on him and didn't even want to eat a meal.

The first one to come back was Zhang Lian. When he heard that there were guests, he felt that they were from the Zhou family.

Sure enough, it was Zhou Xiang, the little girl of the Zhou family.

When Zhang Jiazhong saw his eldest son running back breathlessly, he understood what he was expecting.

"Think about it. My sister is here to deliver the certificate. Tomorrow you will report to the Liuzhen Supply and Marketing Cooperative and officially start working. However, you will be evaluated in three months."

Zhang Lian was even more excited than his father. He squatted down with his head in his hands. His trembling shoulders made Zhou Xiang not know how to comfort him.

Should I tell him not to get excited, as he will lose his job in a dozen years?

It took a long time for Zhang Lian to calm down. He stood up and bowed to Zhou Xiang. "Thank you! I really appreciate it."

Zhou Xiang had no choice but to avoid it. After being reborn, he was always bowed to by others.

"Okay, don't get too excited. You still need to work hard on the assessment."

Aunt Zhang came back and excitedly went to the kitchen to cook. The Zhou family had always helped her family a lot, so now that someone from the Zhou family was coming, no matter if they were adults or children, they had to be treated well.

At the dinner table, there were only Zhou Xiang and the Zhang family father and son. They had a bowl of bacon stewed with vermicelli, a bowl of scrambled eggs, a pot of winter melon soup, and some rice.

Seeing this, Zhou Xiang realized that this was already the best hospitality the Zhang family could offer, so he didn't bother to be polite and invite everyone in the Zhang family to have dinner together.

She tried her best to leave as much meat as possible, saying that vermicelli was delicious. As a result, when she left, there was a large bundle of vermicelli on the back of her bicycle. Zhou Xiang had no choice but to take it home.

"Sweet potato vermicelli, made by the Zhang family. It's okay. They're not popular in the countryside."

Mother Zhou said this to comfort her little girl when she heard her daughter talking about what happened at the Zhang family's dinner table.

Zhou Xiang couldn't let go of the heaviness in his heart. When he was a child in his previous life, the Zhang family's dinner table was never full of people. He was only busy playing and ran away after eating. Now seeing the Zhang family's difficulties in not having enough food, he felt bad.

In his previous life, not only did Zhang Lian roast sweet potatoes for him, but Uncle Zhang also made sesame crispy cakes with the sweet potatoes and rode his bike to deliver them to his home, just because he liked to eat sweets.

The only love I received in my childhood was from Zhang’s father and son.

Uncle Zhang died in his early fifties of advanced gastric cancer. Could it have a lot to do with his family conditions?