Niu Dan picked up Niu Xibei and put all the clothes in the house into a bundle. The older child carried the younger child on his back and came to the vicinity of his house and hid Niu Xibei in a pile of straw.
"Xibei, wait for me for a while. I'll go get some food." Niu Dan touched Niu Xibei's head and discussed with him in a low voice.
Niu Xibei shook his head nervously, "Brother, don't abandon me. Xibei will be obedient."
Niu Dan stuffed the bundle into Niu Xibei's arms and grinned:
"Don't worry. Brother won't abandon Northwest."
Niu Xibei felt a little aggrieved, and he was afraid that Niu Dan wouldn't want him either.
Just like his mother and the father he didn't remember, did they both want him gone?
Niu Xibei pursed his lips and stared at Niu Dan with his big eyes, without saying a word.
Niu Dan sighed. Only his family had things to steal. He couldn't steal anything with Niu Xibei because his mother would definitely find out.
But when he saw Niu Xibei's aggrieved and frightened look, he couldn't bear it anymore.
He sighed, carried Xibei on his back, and slipped to the haystack next to his grandparents' house.
Niu Dan made a shushing gesture.
Whispered to Niu Xibei:
"Xibei, don't say anything. I'm going to steal two eggs for you."
Niu Xibei nodded and shook his head, "Brother, grandma is so fierce. She beats people, even mom was beaten by her." Niu Xibei was afraid that Niu Dan would not believe him, so he rolled up his sleeves to show him his arms, "Look, it was grandma who beat me."
"Brother runs fast. They can't hit him." Niu Dan touched Niu Xibei's head.
He sneaked into his grandfather's house quietly.
He went into the kitchen and came out with a bundle soon.
"Old woman, why does it seem like someone is coming in?" An old voice came from the room.
"What? There are steaming buns in the pot. The fourth child came back from town today. I also boiled two eggs for him to nourish his body. Studying is quite tiring, so he needs some nourishment." After the old woman said this, she quickly walked out into the kitchen.
Seeing this, Niu Dan picked up Niu Xibei and ran away.
From a distance, I heard his grandmother crying and cursing:
"Which bastard came to my house to steal things? I curse your family to death."
Niu Dan ran out of the village carrying Niu Xibei on his back. He didn't know where to go. He just didn't want his parents and grandparents to find them.
"Northwest, where do you want to go? Shall we go to the northwest?" Niu Dan heard that his second uncle had fought in the war in the northwest, so his second aunt gave the northwest this name.
Niu Dan thought that his second uncle's body was still buried outside Xibei City. How about he and Niu Xibei go kowtow to his second uncle and burn paper money?
Will my second uncle be miserable if he doesn’t have a lot of money to manage his relationships underground?
Niu Xibei shivered, "Brother, I'm afraid of the cold." He was scared of the cold.
"Then I'll take you south, and we'll go northwest when we grow up."
"Okay." Niu Xibei hugged Niu Dan's neck tightly.
…
Mengjiazhuang.
these days.
Meng Dachui and a dozen strong men from Mengjiazhuang were busy burning charcoal in kilns, which they would then send to Gu's charcoal shop in Mingfeng Town.
A steady stream of wood was delivered.
The felling, which had been stopped for a few days due to snow, resumed.
Looking at the increasingly warm weather, Meng Dachui was a little confused.
The weather is warming up again, do we still need to burn charcoal?
He was thinking of giving his boss a heads-up when he saw Su Qi coming over to inspect the work. He quickly put down what he was doing and ran over, "Madam, the boss, the weather is getting warmer. Why do we need to make charcoal anymore?"
Why don't we burn these woods to seal the kiln?" Meng Dachui was a simple man, always worried that his boss would lose money.
Su Qi rubbed his eyebrows.
Seeing the men gathered around her, Su Qi's face turned cold. She didn't like servants always giving her advice, especially about business decisions.
"From now on, whatever you are asked to do, do it accordingly. As for any decisions we make, they are not within your jurisdiction."
Meng Dachui knew that he had overstepped his authority.
He apologized awkwardly and returned to the cave.
The production of charcoal is quite high, but with the warm weather these days, fewer people are buying charcoal. No one wants to keep too much charcoal at home.
There is a lot of charcoal in the warehouse in the yard next to the Gu family courtyard.
Su Qi is not worried about having no place to put it, nor is he worried about not being able to sell it.
As she walked down the road and saw villagers piling their harvested sweet potato vines aside, an idea suddenly occurred to her. "Auntie, what are you going to do with these sweet potato vines?"
When the working lady saw that it was Su Qi, she quickly put down the sickle in her hand and stood up.
"Mrs. Gu, pick the tender sweet potato vines and take them back to feed the pigs. Burn the old ones as firewood. There are plenty of them in the village." The old lady was very thin, with one or two yellow ginkgo leaves stuck in her gray hair.
"Oh, there are not many sweet potato vines this year. Even the old man who is buried up to his neck in the loess can't understand the weather. Who knows what we will be able to eat in the fields in the future?" The old lady sighed.
I thought that fortunately I had work to do to support my family. This is how my family was able to survive.
He looked at Su Qi as if he were the God of Wealth.
Su Qi pinched the sweet potato vine with her hands, thought for a moment, and suggested to the old lady:
"Auntie, I have a way to never go hungry. But the food won't taste good."
Several other maids came over, and even Meng Dagui's mother came over. She smiled and greeted Su Qi, and said:
"Mrs. Gu, it's good enough to have something to fill your stomach. How can you be picky about flavors?"
“There are days when we eat tree bark.”
"Go back and chop these sweet potato vines into small pieces, mix them with bean flour and coarse flour, cook them, and dry them." Su Qi remembered that these were life-saving items during the famine years. "Cut them into small pieces and keep them at home. When you run out of food, won't they be life-saving food?"
"That's true. In bad years, even the bark is eaten away by insects."
"This is mixed with bean powder and coarse flour. It's much better than just eating vine bark." Meng Dagui's mother murmured.
The woman in the gray cotton-padded jacket thought for a moment and said, "After the New Year, there will be a period of scarcity. This is the best way to fill my stomach."
The old ladies fell silent, forgetting they were going to the edge of the woods to collect firewood. They quickly stood up and brushed off the grass scraps on their bodies.
"Mrs. Gu, we will go back and do as you said." After saying that, he ran away in a hurry.
The people in Mengjiazhuang became busy again.
Most people would do as Su Qi said. After all, it wasn't a big deal, just more firewood and effort.
People who live near the mountains don't worry about having no firewood to burn.
Many families even sent their half-grown children to tell their daughter's family who had married out.
There were also women who married in Mengjiazhuang and hurriedly asked acquaintances to inform their parents. Women who married in Mengjiazhuang basically had their families from the mountains.
Either it is as poor as Mengjiazhuang, or it is poorer than Mengjiazhuang.
Nowadays, many daughters-in-law secretly prepare bean flour and coarse flour and send them back home, instructing their parents how to cook them.
There is plenty of food in Su Qi's space.
But she had her own considerations, trying her best to enable the villagers to save themselves. She understood the principle of repaying kindness with gratitude and repaying hatred with vengeance.
What she wants is to lead everyone to develop and turn this area into her own sphere of influence in the future.
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