Chapter 36 Chapter 36 She is so pretty, but so poor...
Seeing Fu Mingze left after he finished speaking, Shen Moer stood there holding the wicker box, frowned at his back, and muttered secretly in her heart, "How weird."
Since he didn't want it, Shen Moer naturally wouldn't force him, so she took the box and put it back into the house.
Originally, she had thought that she and her father didn't have many things, so they could just put them in one box. Now that Fu Mingze doesn't want them, then she and her father can each have one box, so they don't have to make do with each other.
After putting the box away, Shen Moer went to close the gate.
Although it was broad daylight, her house was located in a place where it was not the busy farming season and there was no one nearby during the day. If something really happened, she would not be able to call anyone even if she wanted to.
Shen Moer kicked the stone on the top of the door away, and an idea suddenly came to her mind. She couldn't help but stare at the ordinary stone for a few seconds.
I always felt that Fu Zhiqing seemed a little unhappy since she kicked the stone against the door.
Thinking about what he said, "Perhaps you will feel the need to keep an appropriate distance from other people", Shen Moer blinked and thought, could it be what she thought?
Not sure, let's see.
With nothing else to do in the afternoon, Shen Moer cut some paper and pasted it on the windows of the new house. In fact, hanging curtains would be the best option, but unfortunately the fabric is too hard to buy, so she can only make do with this for now.
Otherwise, the glass window would be transparent from the inside looking out and from the outside looking in, which would make living there uneasy. Fortunately, the windows are high, so we only need to cover the lower row, and we don't need to worry about the upper ones.
After pasting the windows, Shen Moer sorted out the things in the house and put the more valuable ones into boxes.
After everything was done, Shen Moer went into the treasury to sort it out.
The gold, silver, jewelry, calligraphy, paintings and jades in this treasure house were all accumulated and collected by her father year after year. There was an account book for these things, but she was not quite clear about it, but her father knew it clearly.
However, after the rebels besieged the city, the subordinates hurriedly packed up their belongings, and the father and daughter were actually unaware of this.
The treasury is large, with shelves stacked on shelves and boxes stacked on boxes. They have never had time to count them carefully, so sometimes when they are free, Shen Moer will go to the treasury to "hunt for treasures".
Every time before opening a box, I have no idea what is inside. Isn't this treasure hunting?
Of course, not every time you open it, you’re pleasantly surprised. Sometimes you open it with great anticipation, only to end up in a state of confusion.
For example, last time, she opened an agarwood box, thinking that there must be some precious items inside. As a result, she found that they were precious. The land deeds and house deeds of the farms around the Daliang capital and the land deeds and house deeds of the shops and houses in the capitals of the surrounding countries would have been a huge fortune if they had not been changed in time and space. Unfortunately, in this world, like the silver bills that were deposited and exchanged in all countries, they had become a pile of waste paper.
Because the things in the treasury are basically of no use to them now, Shen Moer is not very keen on "treasure hunting". She will only come in and tinker with it when she has nothing to do.
But she was lucky today. She opened a box and found it was filled with cloth neatly arranged. These were not the precious cloths that her father had collected, but relatively common cloths. It looked like the cloths bought by the mansion to make clothes for the maids.
Unfortunately, it’s made of satin and the color is a bit fancy, so it’s still quite conspicuous when you take it out.
Shen Moer thought about it, closed the box and pushed it open, then took out the two boxes that were underneath it and opened them all.
This time it was a big surprise, one box also contained silk, but in plain colors such as white, black, blue and brown, while the other box contained cotton, pure white cotton!
Shen Moer was even happier than if she had found a box of rare treasures.
Although this cotton cloth looks slightly different from the cloth sold in the supply and marketing cooperatives in this world, it is only a difference in craftsmanship and cannot be seen unless you look carefully.
The key point is that China has countless textile factories of all sizes, and each factory has slightly different production processes. When fabrics are in such short supply, no one will care about these, and she can definitely use all the fabrics.
Shen Moer was very excited. She searched near these boxes again and found several boxes filled with cloth.
This was normal, considering that her family was a royal palace and they had countless supplies prepared all year round. It was just that they were too flustered at the time and didn't have time to pack up many things, otherwise, this huge treasure house might not have been able to hold all of them.
In fact, the palace also prepared a lot of food such as rice, flour, grain, oil, meat and eggs, but when her father dismissed the people, he distributed everything to everyone. After all, the rebels besieged the city for a long time, and food was the most important thing, if nothing else.
The father and daughter did not hide the food in the treasury. After all, you can't make a fire in the treasury, so it would be useless to hide the food. Besides, although the father and daughter hid in the treasury, they were actually prepared to die for their country.
They only hid some dry food and snacks in the treasure house, which they ate up one after another.
If she had known that she would be transported to this world of food and clothing shortage, she would have hidden hundreds or even thousands of loads of grain in the treasury.
Unfortunately, knowing it earlier is priceless!
Shen Moer sighed secretly, but soon became happy again. Finding so much cloth was almost like finding food. After all, in this world, cloth is simply the so-called "hard currency".
Shen Moer was very happy. She took out a batch of cotton cloth, covered the boxes and tidied them up. She didn't continue "treasure hunting" and prepared to go out with the batch of cotton cloth.
At this moment, there was a sudden bang sound behind her. Shen Moer turned her head and saw a leather box rolling down from a high place.
Maybe she bumped into the box over there when she was looking for the cloth, and the box happened to be placed high, so it might have fallen down before it was placed firmly.
The box was quite sturdy and didn't break or fall apart when it fell. Shen Moer was curious and simply opened it to take a look. Then she found that it was a box of precious ingredients, including bird's nest, sea cucumber, isinglass... Shen Moer's eyes lit up.
After looking at the place where the box fell, she immediately went over and moved another box down. When she opened it, she saw that it was a box of medicinal herbs.
Then another wooden box was brought down, and wow, it was filled with neatly stacked hams!
After rummaging through several boxes, Shen Moer suddenly found several boxes of food and medicinal materials.
Shen Moer stared blankly at the boxes in front of her, thinking of the time when the rebels besieged the city and the chaos in the city. Her father dismissed the servants in the mansion and asked them to go back to be with their families. However, the old steward Fu Bo led a group of people to pack up several carts of things and sent them to the treasury. Then he left, wiping his tears.
Now that I think about it, this loyal old steward really packed up everything he could think of and everything he felt he could pack up.
But he didn't know that these things he had collected with such loyalty, which he himself perhaps never thought would be of any use at the beginning, were now extremely useful things to them father and daughter.
Shen Moli spent a lot of time sorting out all these things before she left the treasure house carrying a batch of cotton cloth and a ham.
When she came out, she saw that it was almost time for dinner. She put the cotton cloth into the wicker box, carried the ham into the kitchen, and cut the meat into pieces with a kitchen knife.
She happened to buy two wicker boxes, so Shen Moer put the things in the old wooden box into the wicker boxes. She wiped the old wooden box and used it to store rice, flour, and bacon.
It was probably because the original owner and his daughter were too poor and didn't have much food stored at home. Since Shen Moer traveled through time, she had never seen a mouse at home. But there was no guarantee that there wouldn't be mice in the future, so it was safer to put the food in a box.
Of course, it would be better to build a cabinet in the kitchen so that the dishes and chopsticks would not have to be placed directly in an enamel pot like they are now.
Every time this happened, Shen Moer couldn't help but sigh, this family was really poor and had nothing!
I don't know how the original owner's father and daughter, two decent working people, ended up living like this?
Chen Moer always felt that there was a lot of work to be done. For example, in furniture, in addition to the cabinets, she actually needed a proper dining table, as well as higher stools, a writing desk, shelves for placing boxes and cages... Of course, it would be best to have a chest of drawers to store things.
But they can't pay all at once. Not to mention that they can't come up with so much money at once, even if they can, it wouldn't be appropriate. Building a new house for her family is enough to attract attention.
Chen Moer was thinking about setting up an octagonal table and a writing desk first, for eating and writing, which were the two most urgent things at the moment.
While she was thinking, she prepared dinner.
I cooked a pot of mixed grain rice and fried two dishes, one was fried cowpea with bacon, and the other was fried eggs with chives. Although it was just two simple dishes, the food quality was probably one of the best in the entire Yangliu Brigade.
Shen Shaoyuan came back just as the meal was ready. He had been walking for half a day and was already starving. He fetched some water to wash up, then sat down, picked up his chopsticks and started eating.
Seeing the dish of fried cowpea with bacon, Shen Shaoyuan paused with his chopsticks and asked in surprise: "Did you buy it at the Sparrow Market today?"
Shen Moer was happy: “No, Dad, you definitely can’t guess it.”
Shen Shaoyuan glanced at her, picked up a thinly cut piece of bacon, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and immediately raised his eyebrows high: "This is the tribute ham from Wuzhou!"
Shen Moer nodded with a smile: "I found it in the treasure house."
Her father might not be good at other things, but he was really good at eating, drinking and having fun. That was why, every time the imperial uncle received some good things as tribute, he would give some to the palace, as if he was afraid that his younger brother would go hungry.
Shen Shaoyuan thought about it and sighed: “Uncle Fu is thoughtful.”
Both father and daughter fell silent for a moment.
Although they were lucky enough to escape the disaster due to the change of time and space, they also left the time and space they were familiar with forever and would never be able to see their former relatives and friends again.
They don’t know whether the capital has fallen, and whether the people they know are still safe.
Shen Shaoyuan quickly adjusted his mood and changed the subject: "You met Zhang Junliang today, right? What's that guy like?"
Shen Moer told him about the encounter between them in Sparrow City and their later meeting. Shen Shaoyuan frowned slightly, not very satisfied: "Even if he doesn't live with his mother-in-law, his mother is so difficult and unreasonable, conflicts are bound to arise in the future. Zhang Junliang is not a good match."
Shen Moer is confident that she will not suffer any loss even if she encounters an unreasonable mother-in-law. However, Shen Shaoyuan, as an old father, does not want his daughter to suffer any grievance.
Shen Moer thought for a moment and said, “Zhang Junliang himself is quite humble and polite.”
Shen Shaoyuan raised his eyebrows and asked, "Looks good?"
Shen Moer shook her head: "I can only say that her appearance is decent."
Shen Shaoyuan: “That’s even more inappropriate.”
His daughter Moer likes good-looking guys. If Zhang Junliang has an outstanding appearance, she might consider him. But if he has an average appearance, there is really no need to consider him.
Shen Shaoyuan frowned. He knew that in their current situation, it was impossible for them to carefully select a son-in-law from among the handsome young men as they did in Daliang, but he really didn't want his daughter to just settle for marrying someone.
"If it doesn't work, then I won't recruit a son-in-law. At worst, I can find a way to live near your in-laws in the future." Shen Shaoyuan said.
Shen Moer didn't think so far ahead. She just felt that Zhang Junliang seemed to be a decent person. She never thought that two people could discuss marriage after just meeting once, so she had thought about meeting him again to give him another chance. In addition, she was indeed interested in watching movies, so she didn't directly reject his invitation to the movies.
Of course, this was a different time. She had suddenly made a sudden realization and had already decided not to meet Zhang Junliang again. Seeing her father was also very dissatisfied, she said, "Then you can go back and tell Section Chief Xu to cancel the meeting."
Shen Shaoyuan nodded, and the father and daughter reached a consensus, and the matter was over.
Shen Moer remembered something and asked Shen Shaoyuan if any teacher from the commune primary school had come to see him today. When Shen Shaoyuan heard her ask this, he couldn't help but frowned and said, "There is no one in the propaganda department of the commune, and the higher-ups are busy with this activity and that campaign, and there are so many things to do. I had already rejected those two people, but they went to find Xu Weiguo and persuaded me to help teach a few students. They said that I don't need to go to school to teach them. I can just take them with me during work and act as an apprentice."
Xu Weiguo has always treated him well, and has been helping him get a permanent job, so Shen Shaoyuan wants to give him this face.
Shen Moer's eyes lit up and she smiled, "Then you can ask them for a few places for their competition. The higher-ups didn't ask the higher-ups to participate, probably because they think the higher-ups don't have the strength. If we take the initiative to sign up, they will definitely allow it."
Shen Shaoyuan thought about it, nodded and smiled: “This is good.”
Some villagers still don't understand why art classes are offered in the brigade's primary school. If the children could participate in the competition organized by the province, there would probably be less gossip.
The father and daughter didn't say anything else. After they finished their meal quietly, Shen Shaoyuan took the initiative to wash the dishes, and Shen Moer went to fetch some water and boiled some hot water. It was already autumn, and cold water could no longer be used for bathing.
After Shen Shaoyuan washed the dishes, he went to get some mugwort, lit it and put it in the house to smoke out mosquitoes.
After the hot water was ready, the father and daughter washed and brushed their teeth in the newly built bathroom. The mugwort in the room was almost done, so they took the broken enamel basin used for burning mugwort outside and checked the doors and windows everywhere. Then, the father and daughter went back to their rooms and lay down to rest.
There was nothing to do at night, and lighting the lamp consumed oil. Most importantly, Chen Shaoyuan went out early and came back late every day, and he had to walk back and forth, which made him very tired. Naturally, he would go to bed as early as possible at night.
Shen Moer lay in bed for a long time without falling asleep. She called out "Dad" and heard Shen Shaoyuan respond from outside, so she said, "Let's find a way to get a bicycle ticket. It's too hard for you to walk every day."
Shen Shaoyuan's voice rang out from outside: "Buying a bicycle will attract too much attention."
Shen Moer naturally knew that buying a bicycle would attract attention, but she felt a little distressed because her father had probably never suffered such hardship since he was born. She thought that if she couldn't buy it, she would have to think of other ways.
Who dares them to not show even a little bit of their wealth?
Unlike Zheng Jiamin, who carries a lot of bags all day long and is not afraid of being envied by others.
Thinking of pretending to be poor, Shen Moer couldn't help but think of the truly poor man, who obviously couldn't even afford a box. Most of the soap he left outside had been taken away by others. She bought him a box specially, but he didn't want it.
"Dad, after thinking about it, I still like good-looking girls. Also, it doesn't matter whether the family conditions are good or not, or whether the girl is a worker. We are afraid of showing off our wealth anyway, so it's better to find a poor girl and live in peace."
Shen Shaoyuan was probably confused, his voice was a little weak, and he said casually: "So you just want to find someone who is both good-looking and poor? There are so many poor people, and it's not easy to find a good-looking one..."
As he spoke, his voice gradually became lower, probably because he fell asleep.
Shen Moer opened her eyes and looked at the dark void, muttering: "It's hard to find it anywhere, isn't there one ready-made?"
She is so beautiful, yet so poor.
The next day, Shen Moer went to school and assigned a "pop test" to the students. She learned this method from Cheng Tao and it was quite effective. Taking the students' drawings on various papers, she quickly selected a few with better talents.
After selecting the people, she said nothing. When Cheng Tao asked her about it, she just said that she just wanted to test how everyone was doing in their studies.
Then Shen Lingling laughed at him: "You really think you are teaching an extremely important subject, and you even have an in-class test. It's really hilarious. I've heard of in-class tests on Chinese and arithmetic, but this is the first time I've heard of an in-class test on painting."
Shen Moer was not polite to her at all, and asked back: "There was no art class before, you haven't heard of the art class quiz, isn't it normal? Oh, by the way, I was busy recently, but I forgot to greet my second aunt, I wonder if she has come out of the police station?"
The main thing is to hit someone in the face.
Shen Lingling was so angry that she immediately pushed the chair away and left.
In fact, her mother had been detained in the police station for half a month, which had become a laughing stock in the whole village. Moreover, on the day her mother was released from the police station, she quarreled with her aunt again and even fought with her, tearing her clothes.
This is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that her cousin Wang Jinbao was also released on that day, and he was beaten into a pig's head in the alley of the commune. Her aunt Tian Cui was almost mad with anger, and insisted that it was malicious revenge from their family, and had come to their house to make trouble several times recently.
There was a huge mess at home, and Shen Lingling's reputation was also affected. Previously, a teacher at the commune primary school said she wanted to introduce her to a guy, but I don't know if he heard about her family affairs, but there has been no news so far.
Now whenever someone brings up this matter, Shen Lingling doesn't want to say a word.
Shen Moer raised her eyebrows and put away the various drawings in her hands.
Cheng Tao, who had been watching the show, couldn't help but laugh and said, "Many people in the village say that your personality has changed a lot. Now it seems to be true. But it's good this way. A submissive personality is easy to be bullied."
No matter what other people think of Shen Lingling, Cheng Tao has been working with her for quite some time and has his own observations. At least he knows that Shen Lingling is not as gentle and kind as the outside world says.
Judging from Chen Moli's previous personality, she was really easy to be bullied.
Shen Moer understood what he meant and smiled and thanked him: “Principal Cheng, thank you.”
Before going out in the morning, Shen Moer had simmered half a pot of mung bean soup in the pot. When she returned home at noon, the mung bean soup was already cooked. She poured the mung bean soup into an enamel pot, lit the fire again, and made two egg pancakes.
After making the egg pancake, she ate one with mung bean soup. Just after washing the dishes, there was a knock on the gate.
They are Fu Mingze, and the grandsons of Aunt Chen and Aunt Cai. One has a nickname Maomao and the other has a nickname Shuner.
Both naughty kids looked a little listless. It was easy to imagine that no child would be happy to be dragged here to do homework in the middle of the day.
Shen Moer directly served three small bowls of mung bean soup. When Maomao and Shuner saw the food, their eyes immediately lit up. They held the bowls and gulped down the soup. After a while, they finished it. They raised their hands to wipe their little mouths and sighed, "Sister Moer, your mung bean soup is so sweet!"
"Yes, they put a lot of mung beans in it, unlike my house, where it's just like plain water."
Shen Moer laughed: "Then come over to drink another day."
In fact, she exchanged the mung beans with Aunt Chen. Aunt Cai should have grown some as well, but they were both frugal people and there were many people in the family, so they didn't put in as many mung beans and sugar when cooking, so the soup naturally became a bit bland.
Fu Mingze also finished drinking and took the initiative to wash the bowl. Shen Moer glanced at him, but didn't see any clues from his expressionless face.
She ignored him for the time being and moved a small table and stools to the two naughty kids, letting them sit down and do their homework.
Cheng Tao's habit is to assign homework for the day in the morning, so that some children can find time to finish their homework without having to wait until after school in the afternoon, so as not to be late for going home to work in the evening.
There is no way around it. Rural children are basically considered a labor force when they are in primary school. Many of them usually need to do chores at home. If their work is delayed because of school, some families may not let their children go to school.
Sure enough, the two naughty kids took out their arithmetic textbooks and slightly wrinkled exercise books from the small bamboo basket they brought. Then they each took out a pencil about the same length as their finger from their pockets and started doing their homework.
Pretty good.
Shen Moer took two not-so-broken chairs that had been repaired by Zhao Zhengyang from the house and placed them at the other end of the corridor under the eaves, keeping some distance between them and the two naughty kids, ensuring that they could see each other but could hardly hear each other talking.
Fu Mingze came out after washing the dishes, took a glance, then walked over consciously and sat on the empty, broken chair.
"Do you want me to start from the beginning?" he asked.
Shen Moer shook her head: “No, there are some things I don’t understand, just help explain them.”
She opened the textbook, found the first part she didn’t understand, pointed at the text and said, “Here, this paragraph…”
After saying that, she turned her head and looked at Fu Mingze. She didn't want to meet his deep eyes directly. Shen Moer blinked and said casually, "Can you help explain this part?"
Fu Mingze cleared his cough to cover up, retracted his gaze from her, and looked at the textbook: "Well, the meaning of this paragraph is..."
After explaining a paragraph, Shen Moer compared it with the questions in the textbook to deepen her understanding. Fu Mingze looked at her slightly lowered eyes in the midday sun, her long eyelashes trembling gently, as if brushing against his heart again and again, making him feel uneasy.
Fu Mingze sighed secretly and couldn’t help but said, “Comrade Shen Moer, I want to apologize to you for what happened yesterday.”
The voice was low and inexplicably sounded as if it was begging for mercy.
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