The bicycle was a domestically produced Hongqi brand with a bell on the front. Apart from the large front bar, it was not much different from the ones in later generations. Hao Yuanchao took a long step forward, and with a "ding-ling" sound, he said with a smug look on his face, "Get on." He acted as proud as if he were driving a limited edition supercar in later generations.
Jiang Shuyao couldn't help but laugh, "Comrade Hao really does adapt to local customs."
Seeing her smile, Hao Yuanchao felt happy. "That's right. Off-road vehicles weren't that rare in the past. Now, if I take you for a ride on this bicycle, I'm sure all the girls and aunts will envy you."
While joking, he didn't forget to move his feet. The nights in the 1960s were not like those in the 21st century. This was a mountainous area with plenty of wild animals, so it would be better to go back early.
This time they went out with light luggage. They gave the wardrobe, bed and other things to the Jiang family. They gave away small items that could not be taken away and secretly put valuable things such as banknotes and passbooks into the space. They packed their clothes and sent them to the military district first. In the end, there was only one package. There was no one on the road, so the package was also packed into the space and taken out when they were almost there.
At this time, the villagers were already asleep and there were no dogs. Cats and dogs had disappeared in the past three years and no one was keeping them. The villagers went to bed early and everything was quiet. Hao Yuanchao's return did not attract any onlookers and he walked home leisurely. However, before he arrived, he heard a baby crying from the blue brick and tile house. That was his old house.
Hao Yuanchao and Jiang Shuyao looked at each other and suddenly quickened their pace.
The moonlight at night was quite bright, and the two of them were not night blind, so they could see the road clearly without spraining or falling, and soon arrived in front of the tile-roofed house.
This was the house built with the allowance Hao Yuanchao sent back. His hometown was demolished and rebuilt, and it was later used as the main residence. The materials were very good, and there was a wall around it. For safety reasons, glass shards were added to the wall. Hao Yuanchao tried to climb over the wall but failed, so he knocked on the door and shouted, "His second aunt, open the door, it's me, Hao Yuanchao."
The shout caused an immediate movement in the house, but it was a chaotic sound, and someone said "Iron Pillar!", but no one knew what was happening inside.
After a while, there were some knocks and the door latch was pulled. Looking down, a thin boy who was waist-high appeared in front of him. His clothes and hair were a little messy. He had a pair of big, bright black eyes. He tilted his head and looked at Hao Yuanchao, as if he was trying to identify something.
"Why is it you Tiezhu? I'm your second uncle, remember?" As soon as Hao Yuanchao opened his mouth, the little boy's bright black eyes filled with tears. "Second uncle, please take your younger brother and sister to the hospital. They are going to die. Wow~" He burst into tears.
Hao Yuanchao's face changed color, and without asking any questions, he rushed in and headed straight for the room where the crying sounded. Just then, his second aunt came out holding a baby. Seeing Hao Yuanchao, she smiled awkwardly, "Uncle, why are you back now? The child has a fever. I was just about to take him to see a doctor."
He heard the baby crying shortly after he entered the village. If he wanted to see a doctor, he would have gone long ago. How could it be so convenient!
Hao Yuanchao was angry, but it was obviously useless to care about the reason at this time. The child was crying like this, and the other one was not seen and was not crying either. He couldn't help but feel worried, afraid that something might happen.
I quickly ran in to see the other child, but saw two kids lying in the room, Erwa Shugen and the baby. Under the orange oil lamp, their faces were abnormally flushed. I went up to touch them and found that both of them had a fever!
The older one was still unconscious from the fever, and the younger one was not crying but just humming, his voice was weak and pitiful. Hao Yuanchao felt irritated, so he hugged each of them with his big hands and walked out of the house.
Jiang Shuyao just walked into the room. Seeing his appearance, she quickly stepped forward and asked, "What's wrong?"
"They have a fever. I have to take them to the hospital immediately." Hao Yuanchao suppressed his anger and tried to soften his tone, but he couldn't control it at all. His face turned dark and ugly. "You hold the other child, that one has a fever too."
His second aunt immediately trembled and timidly opened her mouth to explain something, but because of the momentum, she didn't know how to say it.
Jiang Shuyao frowned, not paying attention to the others. She went over and took the child from the woman's arms. The two of them hurried out, saying as they walked, "This is a bit far from town. Is there a clinic in the village?"
"There's a barefoot doctor!" Tiezhu had caught up at some point. "But the 'medicine' the barefoot doctor prescribed didn't work. Drinking tree roots didn't help. My younger brother and sister also had a fever. My second aunt said the barefoot doctor wasn't helpful and it was too late to go to the hospital. She just gave them water, saying it would get better, but my sister kept crying. My younger brother stopped crying after a while."
Hao Yuanchao and Jiang Shuyao were both shocked when they heard this. Their brother cried for a while and then stopped. Was he confused because of the fever?
"Let's go to the barefoot doctor first. If not, I still have Western medicine. We can't go to the town without getting anything done. It's too far!" Jiang Shuyao made a decision.
Hao Yuanchao immediately said, "Tiezhu, lead the way!"
Hao Yuanchao didn't directly answer Shugen's question. Instead, he said, "I'm coming back this time to take the four of you away to live with me and your second aunt in the military district. Are you happy with that?"
"Live with uncle and aunt?" A puzzled look flashed across Shugen's little eyes, not quite understanding what this meant.
"Just like you lived with your parents before, you will live with me and your second aunt from now on."
"My parents are dead. Will you die too?" People in rural areas are not shy about talking about death in front of children, because death is very common in rural areas. In addition to death from old age and illness, every year there are people who die while swimming, or are gored to death by wild boars while climbing the mountains. In the past few years, there were also people who starved to death. Various kinds of death and death at any time and anywhere make rural people sad and accustomed to it. Even in an era without gossip and entertainment, death is still brought up as a topic of conversation after dinner, especially abnormal death. People will say it's a pity or bad luck, but they don't worry about whether the children will have any psychological problems after hearing it, or tell them with white lies that the dead are just sleeping/going on a long journey/turning into stars in the sky to protect them.
These things don't exist. They'll say that when a person dies, they're gone, buried underground, and will never be seen again. Even if children are confused and don't understand, further questioning won't bring comfort, but rather impatience. At most, they can be more patient and tolerant for a month or two before and after the funeral, but after that, these feelings will fade.
In an era when food and clothing were still a problem, death would never make rural people sad year after year. What they worried about were the crops in the fields and the living people. The dead would eventually fade away from their hearts when they turned into yellow earth, and there would not be much sadness even when they were mentioned.
Shugen was initially heartbroken when his parents died. He cried, woke up in the middle of the night to look for them, unable to sleep. But he was still young, still naive, and couldn't fully grasp the true meaning of death. No one around him, except his eldest brother, Tiezhu, told him to remember them. When he asked about his second aunt, she simply told him not to ask again. People were gone, gone. Everyone's lives were no different from when their parents were still alive. The neighbor lady still cried at dinnertime, calling her children to eat. The team leader still walked around the fields, urging them to work. His playmates still climbed trees to get bird eggs and competed to see who could urinate the farthest. His "world" was normal, no different at all, except that the people he called his parents no longer lived at home. Shugen was still young, and he didn't understand why his eldest brother, Tiezhu, cried secretly every night.
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