Chapter 5: Prelude to the Famine
Desperate wails and sobs continued. Li Xiujuan and Grandma Lin, who were in the crowd, instinctively used their bamboo baskets to swat away the locusts, but after the locusts finished eating the grain, they quickly flew to the next place to land.
Even from a distance in the sky, the terrifying sounds of the locust swarms could still be heard.
"God is trying to kill us."
"This is the grain planted in the fall. Now there's no harvest at all. How are we going to survive in the second half of the year?"
"My family tightened our belts to wait for the autumn harvest to make ends meet, and now it's all gone."
"Oh no, this is going to be a famine."
Lijiacun
After Lin Zhaozhao signed the severance document with the Li family and took away Li Jue's pension, Xu Juanzi's second daughter-in-law, Xu Lianhua, returned from her parents' home and made a scene after learning that Xu Juanzi had messed things up.
Li Zhong, angered by Xu Juanzi, pretended to be deaf and dumb. The couple joined forces, but Xu Juanzi was no match for them. Her face and body were covered with scratches left by her second daughter-in-law, Xu Lianhua. Not only that, Xu Lianhua also became a hands-off manager, expecting to be waited on hand and foot.
Xu Juanzi secretly tried to outmaneuver Lin Zhaozhao and humiliate Xu Lianhua, but she forgot that Xu Lianhua was more assertive than Lin Zhaozhao and had Li Zhong protecting her. Xu Juanzi ended up losing both her wife and her army.
Not only did household chores fall on her shoulders, but she also had to take care of the fields.
After only a morning of work, Xu Juanzi was already experiencing backaches and pains. This made her miss the time when Lin Zhaozhao was around. She was gentle and easy to manipulate, and would never dare to go west if told to go east. She would even occasionally give her money from her own family.
If she had known this would happen, she wouldn't have been so eager for the second son's pension, or she wouldn't have snatched the jade pendant she was wearing.
Xu Juanzi was filled with regret, but she knew she still had to do the work.
Wearing a straw hat, Xu Juanzi took a sickle and went to the field. Because it hadn't rained for more than half a year, the field was severely dry, and the ears of grain were shriveled. Xu Juanzi rolled up her trousers and was just about to go down to the field when everything went black. A swarm of locusts fell, and the sharp forelegs of the grasshoppers scratched her face.
Xu Juanzi snapped out of her pain and began wildly hacking at the locusts with her sickle, but she couldn't hold off the swarm of locusts that was like a thousand horses. Not a single grain of rice was left in the field, not even its husk.
The sickle fell to the ground, and Xu Juanzi collapsed to the ground, exhausted, her face contorted with grief. "It's all over, everything's over."
After the locust swarm left, Grandma Lin and Li Xiujuan estimated their losses. Their rice harvest was early, so the losses weren't significant. However, in their vegetable garden, only a few misshapen gourds and cracked dates remained. The peanuts were still growing in the ground, but all the leaves were gone. The fruits were still there, and with the surplus at home, their family would have no problem getting through the winter.
The real danger lies in the fact that while your family has grain, others have none.
“When Fusheng comes back, go to Shizi Village and ask your mother what she thinks.”
“Okay.” Li Xiujuan’s family is from Shizi Village. Her mother fled from the south when she was young. This year there is both a severe drought and a locust plague. I’m afraid she won’t be able to stay for long. Let’s communicate between the two families so that we can help each other out.
As night fell, the Lin family hastily ate dinner, and Lin Fusheng and Li Xiujuan went to Shizi Village in the dark.
Grandma Lin then pulled Lin Yangyang along to pack up their belongings. First, they packed up the grains: the newly dried rice, three jin of fine grains, and about ten jin of coarse grains that had just been replaced, along with the dried mushrooms, eggplants, long beans, radishes, and cabbages, as well as the smoked pheasants, rabbits, and wild boar meat that Li Xiujuan had hunted. All of these were piled up in half the room.
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