Professor Dong asked calmly.
"Hello, Director Dong. I'd like to borrow some rice and flour from you."
Oh, are there still families in Guanjia Village who don't have enough to eat? She remembered that the entire village had escaped poverty by the end of the previous year. Some of the more charitable villagers had even built new houses, actual brick and tile ones. "Director Dong, my husband is ill and bedridden. We're completely destitute, and the children have been starving for days. Please, please, save our family..." the woman said, and began to cry.
Professor Dong felt even more puzzled when she heard this. She quickly helped the woman up and comforted her, "Don't worry, sister-in-law. Eat something now. I'll go with you to visit the house later."
Afterwards, Professor Dong wanted to invite the woman into the house to have dinner together. In fact, she knew that the woman probably couldn't eat at the moment. She had children and a husband at home who had no food to eat. It would take a lot of courage for her to go to someone else's house to eat and drink.
Professor Dong was puzzled as to why she was in this state and no one was helping her. However, the old village chief was not the type to deceive his superiors and subordinates. He stood up and took the woman out of the house, letting her lead the way. Before Professor Dong came here, Dong Xiaomai only knew two roads in the village: the one that led to the river and the one that led to the fields. In her past life at Lao Guan's house, Dong Xiaomai only knew how to work. Even if she interacted with her next-door neighbor Chuncao, her mother-in-law would accuse her of seducing men and then go back to find fault with her and beat her.
They walked all the way, almost out of the village, but the woman didn't stop, which made Professor Dong even more puzzled. Sun Mofei took her arm and touched her. Professor Dong and her eyes met for a second, and they both understood each other. Professor Dong gave her a look to calm down and continued to follow the woman.
Soon, they arrived at the woman's home. It turned out the woman lived in a ramshackle mud-brick house she had built in a field outside the village. Professor Dong's heart ached when she saw the bedridden man and the hungry child. The woman's home was nestled between Guanjia Village and the neighboring Erliban Village. They could have been in either village, but the woman's family was registered in Erliban. Why Erliban? Because the distance between the two villages is two and a half miles. Professor Dong was finally relieved. She said, "It's impossible for there to be any impoverished households in Guanjia Village. It's unbelievable that after all the hardship they've endured, they and their husband still couldn't afford to eat."
But this woman would help to the end. She first gave the buns she brought to the people on the kang and made some porridge for the hungry children. Professor Dong decided to go to Erliban Village to see what was happening there. Why was this family driven out of the village? Why were they not allowed to work in the Erliban village team when they were clearly from the village? I had to investigate today, even if it was just a private patrol for my husband.
After walking into Erban, I found that the village was quite large and the houses were arranged in an orderly manner, but the whole village was dead.
Although there wasn't any visible poultry droppings or garbage in the village, the air was stinking the moment you entered. A few members of the UN's "Death Squad" were gathered, buzzing with crickets at someone's house, and the conversation was quite lively. When they saw the two of them arrive, they stopped talking and just stared at Professor Dong and Sun Mofei, waiting to see where they went, so they could have something to talk about.
The firewood pile on the roadside was right next to the houses, making it too dangerous. If a mischievous child played with fire and set the pile on fire, the houses would catch fire. And if the wind blew in their favor, it would be a disaster for more than just one or two families. No, no one would be able to escape. No, she had to talk to her husband about this when she got home. This was no small matter.
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