Chapter 240240
When Jiang's father and mother are not at home, Jiang Ning is actually more relaxed. This relaxation is psychological. No one can oppress her based on her status and etiquette, or morally blackmail her as a matter of course.
Of course, there were people in the village who continued to use moral blackmail on her, but these people did not have any negative emotions towards her.
Now that the village has cement roads, Jiang Ning has resumed her daily long-distance running. She runs from the brigade headquarters at the bottom, along the cement main road, up the mountain.
When passing by the pond under the high platform, I saw a few geese raised by someone. They were wandering on the main road leading up the mountain early in the morning. When they saw her trotting over, they flapped their wings and chased after her.
Jiang Ning, who had been deeply traumatized by the goose as a child, was so frightened that he jumped faster than a rabbit and ran through this section quickly.
Fortunately, the big goose stopped chasing after about seventy or eighty meters, and ran back to the pond, picking up small fish and shrimps to eat from time to time.
Few people get up in the morning in winter, only a few old people get up and go to the rice field early in the morning to pull some straw. The straw has been fed to them for several years or even decades, and has also been with them for several years or even decades. Many buffaloes are said to be their family’s livestock, and many have become old friends of these old people.
When they were young, buffaloes were the strong labor force of the family and had to be carefully taken care of. Now they are used to taking care of them. The old people can go without food and sleep, but they will never let the buffaloes get cold or hungry. Although the cowshed is an old mud house, it cannot leak wind or rain, and they have to change the straw for them frequently to ensure that their straw nests are clean and warm in winter.
In order to prevent the buffaloes from eating the straw in their kennels when they wake up hungry in the morning, these old people get up early in the morning, pull straw to feed the buffaloes, lead them to drink water, and then send them back to their kennels.
Some elderly people who have a good relationship with their old cows at home even take out a large-bristle brush and brush the cows, talking to them while brushing.
The village on a winter morning is as quiet as an ink painting.
She ran up the mountain along the cement road. There was a thin mist in the mountains. The distant and nearby mountains seemed to be shrouded in winter fog. From time to time, she could hear the singing of birds and the gurgling of streams. What she breathed in and out was the clear and cool air of the mountains and forests.
She ran until the end of the cement road.
I originally thought that there would be no one in the mountains at this time, but I didn't expect that my uncle's grandfather and grandmother had already woken up. In front of the small house on the mountain, they lit a fire and saw smoke rising. From afar, they saw someone going up the mountain. My uncle's grandmother didn't know it was Jiang Ning, so she shouted, "Who is that? What are you doing up the mountain?"
There were always people going up the mountain to steal trees and bring them home to make beams for the house. My uncle's grandfather and grandmother were very alert. When they saw someone going up the mountain, they would pay attention to whether they had any hatchets or axes with them.
If you want to cut grass, it's fine to bring a sickle, but it would be a problem to bring a hatchet, because unless you need to cut trees, you don't usually need a hatchet and a sickle is enough.
The sickle blade is thin and light, which is fine for cutting thin branches and dead grass. However, it is easy to cut a tree as thick as a wrist. Generally speaking, no one is willing to use a sickle to cut down trees.
Jiang Ning raised her voice and shouted, "Uncle Grandma, it's me! Ning Ning!"
During the years when my uncle's grandmother was an educated youth, she cried a lot, and her eyes were not very good from crying. She could see people up close, but from a distance, she couldn't see their faces clearly. When she heard Jiang Ning's voice, she immediately laughed and came down to greet her: "Ning Ning is back? Did you miss breakfast? Come up quickly, I'll make you an omelet!"
The egg and chive pancakes made by my uncle’s grandmother are also a specialty. Jiang Ning only ate them once when she was very young.
She couldn't quite remember why the two families didn't interact much. In her memory, it seemed that she had never been a guest at her uncle's house, and it was her uncle Jiang Guoliang who came to her house most of the time.
She was also a person who was afraid of bothering others, so she put her hands in front of her mouth like trumpets and shouted to Uncle Jiang’s grandmother: “Uncle’s grandmother, no need! I will go down after running. I haven’t been up the mountain for a long time, so I came up to take a look!”
The mountain is still the same mountain, the stream is still the same gurgling stream, and every blade of grass and tree on the mountain seems to have not changed, yet there have been many changes.
The hilltop near my home used to be full of wild chestnut trees, but now they are all planted with tea trees. On the contrary, at the foot of the mountain, in response to the current slogan of returning farmland to forest, many pine and fir saplings less than thigh-high were planted on both sides of the cement road in areas that were originally vegetable fields at the foot of the mountain. It is conceivable that in three to five years, a pine forest and fir forest will rise here again.
The reason for choosing the vegetable fields at the foot of the mountain is because the pine forest and fir forest are located a little further away from the hilltop, so the shade of the trees cannot block the sunlight of the tea leaves.
She looked at the tea trees on the entire hill, which were arranged in neat clumps. Not far away, there was a wooden sign stuck in the soil with words such as "Wugong Tea No. 3" and "No Picking" written on it.
Seeing that she refused to come up, her uncle's grandmother went back to the hut, brought out two rabbits, quickly walked down the mountain, and stuffed them into Jiang Ning's hands.
She originally wanted to wait until the Chinese New Year when her two sons and daughters-in-law would bring their older grandson back and leave the two rabbits for her children and grandchildren to eat.
Uncle Jiang didn't know how to use a gun, but he knew how to make rabbit traps with thin wire. People like them who grew up in the mountains could easily find the paths rabbits usually took. They would follow the rabbits' footprints and place a few traps on the paths they took, catching them one by one.
Uncle Jiang's salary has now increased to three hundred yuan a month, almost catching up with the monthly salary of the teachers at Linhe Primary School. In addition, this year they were allocated four acres of tea land. Although their family was unlucky and the land they were allocated was all tea land in the shade of the valley, the quality of the tea was not high and the price was not as high as the tea from people living in the sunny direction. However, because of this, Jiang Guotai did not take away the Mingqian tea from her family's tea land. Instead, he made a fortune for them. This year, the income from tea alone is nearly ten thousand yuan.
They will not quit their patrolling jobs in the mountains, but they plan to use the 10,000 yuan to build a new house for their family, to avoid the situation where their daughters-in-law come back every year and always complain that their country home is dirty and messy, and the house is dilapidated, and their grandchildren don't like to live there, so they come back less and less.
They always think that their children and grandchildren are unwilling to come home because of them, because they are useless and have not provided them with a good environment. They believe that as long as they build a better house, their children and grandchildren will be willing to come back.
They don't ask for much. When others are having reunion dinner together during the Chinese New Year, their family can also be lively and bustling.
So Uncle Jiang's grandmother is especially grateful to Jiang Ning. If Jiang Ning had not suggested clearing the mountains and growing tea, and had not brought people from CCTV down to shoot a TV series for promotion, they would not have the tea mountains and tea fields they have now, and the income of nearly ten thousand yuan from selling tea this year.
The tea land will be divided again at the end of the year. She was thinking that when her eldest son and his family come back, the three of them will at least have three acres of tea land, and her son will be able to stand up straighter at his daughter-in-law's house.
In the opinion of Uncle Jiang’s grandmother, the reason why her son didn’t come back for the New Year was because he couldn’t hold his head up in front of his in-laws and daughter-in-law, so he listened to his father-in-law and daughter-in-law and didn’t come back for the New Year.
In short, my son had no choice.
Jiang Ning ran back home carrying two cured rabbits.
Grandpa Jiang is old and sleeps less, so he gets up early in the morning. Jiang Bai is also used to getting up early. When Jiang Ning came back, he saw Jiang Bai bending over and cutting withered wild wormwood in the yard.
Jiang Ning was holding two rabbits, standing in the corridor and asked Jiang Bai: "Second brother, what are you doing so early in the morning?"
"There is no firewood at home, so I cut some dry wild wormwood as firewood to cook breakfast!" Jiang Bai cut the grass very seriously and diligently.
In fact, there is dew in the mornings in winter. Even if these dry wild wormwoods are cut now, they cannot be used as firewood immediately. They have to be dried in the sun for at least a day before they can be burned.
Jiang Bai naturally knew this, but there was no firewood at home, so he had no choice. He couldn't go to the mountain to chop firewood without eating breakfast.
The last thing Jiang Bai wanted to experience in his life was hunger, so filling his stomach was his first priority at any time.
Jiang Bai was chopping wood enthusiastically. After Jiang Ning finished brushing his teeth and washing his face, he called out to Jiang Bai, "Second brother, stop chopping wood. Let's go to my aunt's house for a meal!"
Compared to Jiang Ning, who has been used to being fed by Aunt Jiang since childhood, Jiang Bai is actually more afraid of bothering others than Jiang Ning. He always habitually solves all problems by himself and dares not, nor is he used to bothering others.
He is used to putting himself in the position of taking care of others and taking care of the people around him.
For example, he would rather go to the weed-covered yard to chop some withered wormwood to make breakfast than go to Uncle Jiang's mother's house.
Jiang Ning, on the other hand, was used to eating at her aunt's house, so she took Jiang Bai, who was feeling awkward and wanted to make his own breakfast, and Grandpa Jiang, who was in a good mood, and went to her aunt's house.
As expected, Aunt Jiang had already prepared a big pot of chicken noodle soup with big bones and local chickens. When she saw them coming, she couldn't stop smiling.
The second cousin's wife also smiled and said to Jiang Ning in a dialect different from the local dialect: "Mom started making chicken bone soup last night. I am really grateful to you. The chicken noodle soup mom made is so delicious. You guys should go and eat it!"
My second cousin's wife has a personality similar to that of my eldest aunt, and she is a little slow-tempered. She was full after eating a big bowl of noodles, but it was so delicious that she couldn't help but get another bowl. My second cousin Jiang Hongbing was standing by and watching her with a smile.
Jiang Ning didn't hesitate and hurried to serve the noodles, but Jiang Bai felt embarrassed.
Aunt Jiang didn't want Jiang Ning to do anything. She asked Jiang Ning to sit in the fire barrel and not move. She brought a large soup bowl full of pork bones, a chicken leg, and a lot of noodles to the table and fed Jiang Ning.
After Jiang Ning's meal was served, it was Grandpa Jiang's turn. As for Jiang Bai, since he was a grown man, he naturally went to the kitchen to serve the food himself. Did he really need her to help him serve the rice?
Jiang Bai was too embarrassed to ask his aunt to serve noodles, so he went to the kitchen to serve noodles himself.
Aunt Jiang gave Jiang Ning, Jiang Bai and others a lot of food yesterday, and forgot about the firewood for a moment. When she asked Jiang Hongbing to go build a house, she also picked up a bunch of firewood and went to the Jiang family.
But this load of firewood was far from enough for the Jiang family to burn at the end of the year. In the afternoon, Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai went to the mountain to chop firewood again. Just as they walked up the mountain and had not yet started chopping, they were discovered by Uncle Jiang. Uncle Jiang then pulled Jiang Bai and carried a load of firewood down the mountain.
Under the guidance of Uncle Jiang, Jiang Bai found two dead trees. He dragged one in his hand and Jiang Ning dragged the other. The two of them dragged the trees back to the yard with great effort. For the whole afternoon, Jiang Bai, the big star in the eyes of others, was in the yard, chopping wood diligently.
Jiang Ning was sitting on the corridor of the waterproof layer on the second floor, basking in the sun while watching her second brother chopping wood attentively.
What Jiang Bai didn't know was that many people around him were standing on the upper floors of their own homes, looking at Jiang Bai who was chopping wood in the yard with smiles on their faces.
He has become a sight to behold in the eyes of others, but he himself is totally unaware of it.
Jiang Ning felt that her second brother was sometimes particularly virtuous.
On the 25th day of the lunar year, Jiang Guoliang and his wife came back, but Jiang Guoan, who was "helpless" in the eyes of Uncle Jiang and Aunt Jiang, did not come back this year.
Jiang Guoan’s wife thought that since they all went back to Jiangjia Village to celebrate the New Year last year, they would have to stay in Wucheng this year to celebrate the New Year with her parents, right?
It has been a year since he last returned to Jiangjia Village, but seeing that Wucheng has been developing better and better this year and becoming more and more beautiful and prosperous, Jiang Guoan feels that it is also comfortable to stay in the city. He will definitely not return to Jiangjia Village in the future, but will live in the city. In addition, his father-in-law is about to retire, and his father-in-law wants to step forward, which will push Jiang Guoan to take a further step. He will be more willing to stay at his father-in-law's house for the New Year.
Anyway, he never went back in previous years, but he went back to celebrate the New Year last year. What else does he want? I stayed in the city with peace of mind.
Grandpa and grandma Jiang waited anxiously until the early morning of the 28th day of the lunar year, when Mayor Jiang returned with his family on Jiang Guotai's small motorboat.
Jiang Guoan hasn't come back yet.
On New Year's Eve, the whole village would worship their ancestors together, so this year the land distribution was carried out on the twenty-ninth day.
On the evening of the 28th day of the lunar year, the village cadres, Jiang Guotai who had returned to the village, and Mayor Jiang who had come back to celebrate the New Year, held a meeting together.
Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai, two promising young men, were also there.
The meeting mainly discussed two things, the most important of which was the previously agreed distribution of tea land by the end of the year.
Not to mention those in the second and third branches who have already received tea land, this land distribution is mainly aimed at those individuals in the second and third branches who did not join in planting tea trees last year, as well as those in the first and fourth branches.
Almost all the tea fields on the hillside on the right are owned by people from the first and fourth branches of the family. They sorted them out together this year, and they paid the money and worked hard to plant the tea trees. So there is no problem in allocating the land to them.
As long as the young people come back on New Year’s Eve, they can get a share of the tea land. As for those who don’t come back, they can only wait until the next time.
The second thing was what Jiang Ning proposed, which was to allocate residential land to the girls in his hometown.
As soon as Jiang Ning said this, it immediately caused a commotion in the village committee.
Because since ancient times, there has been no tradition of allocating residential land to girls, because girls have to get married! Besides, there is only so much land in the village. Even though there is still some to be shared now, the villagers keep having children. In another ten years, not to mention girls, even boys may not be able to get any homesteads. With such limited resources, the tea land was originally shared with girls because Jiang Ning is also a girl. Now they are reluctant to give up the homesteads as well.
"No, that won't work. If we divide the land among the girls, what will happen when they get married?"
A man from the second house said, "Why not? There are girls who are getting married, and there are girls who are being adopted as sons-in-law. They are all from our village. Girls who are adopted as sons-in-law stay in the village, so why can't they have homesteads?"
The man who was speaking was the one mentioned last year. He was the father of the village's most promising female college student since Jiang Ning's generation. His daughter was actually only one year younger than Jiang Ning, but she was three years younger than Jiang Ning and would take the college entrance examination next year.
His family is the most famous family in the village, except for Jiang's father and Jiang Qinqin's mother, for the importance they place on girls.
His family is famous not because his daughter has good grades and there is going to be another female college student in the village, but because of the importance his family attaches to his younger sister.
Because his parents doted on his sister very much, he and his brothers' children called his sister uncle instead of aunt since childhood.
When Jiang Ning was young, she was always wondering why Jiang Weiwei's aunt was called uncle.
With today's thinking, it would naturally seem strange for a girl to be called "uncle" by a man, but in the eyes of his parents, his brothers and sisters, and the villagers, this is how much they value his sister, because in his parents' eyes, there is no difference between their daughter and son. They raise his sister the same way as they do their brothers, and even love and pamper her a little more.
Of course his parents knew that their daughter should be called aunt, but they insisted that their grandchildren call her uncle to show their respect for their daughter.
His parents didn't want their daughter to get married and wanted her to stay in the village, but given the living environment at the time, it seemed that there was no better way out for girls when they grew up except to get married.
His sister has been divorced for two or three years and is now in her early thirties. His parents are also old. The only thing they are worried about is their divorced daughter who has nowhere to go. They are all worried about the fact that this daughter, whom they have cherished since childhood, has no place to go.
Now that the village is distributing tea land to the girls, he wants to fight for one for his sister as well. If his sister can also have a homestead in the village, she can return to the village to live. With the brothers taking care of her and her nephews and nieces, her life will not be bad at all.
Jiang Shujun, who works at the town tax bureau and lives in the eldest house, said, "If my daughter can get a homestead, can my piano also get one? I don't ask for a big place, I just want to build her a house. You know how much my aunt loves her. She was nearly 50 years old when she got her precious daughter, and she's a college student. Isn't it better for her to stay in the village than to marry off and become someone else's wife?"
He glanced at Jiang Ning and said, "I've always heard people say that girls go to school for other families. If the village can give homesteads to girls who don't marry out, then these books won't be for other families to read, right?"
Everyone's gaze fell on Jiang Ning again, and their eyes lit up at the same time.
yes!
If girls also had housing plots to share, then the golden phoenix that flew out of their village could continue to stay in their village instead of flying to other homes and benefiting other families!
But everyone was worried again.
It is easy to divide the tea land among the girls. There are so many hills. Such a large area of mountains cannot be divided up completely. It is just a matter of good and bad land. But there is only so much land in the village. If the girls don’t want to get married and want to marry into a family, where will the homesteads be divided?
Jiang Xin, Jiang Miao and others sat at the outermost edge of the crowd, listening to the village committee members discussing the issue of allocating housing plots to the girls in the village. They felt as if they had walked into the wrong village.
Last year we were still discussing allocating tea land to the girls, and this year it’s the homestead’s turn?
Although he was born in the countryside, he grew up in the city and considered himself to be very open-minded. After four years of college in the provincial capital, his horizons and thoughts became more and more open. Naturally, he did not think there was anything wrong with allocating residential land to girls.
What surprised him was when did the villagers become so open-minded?
The people who brought about all these changes were Jiang Ning, who was sitting at the main table with Jiang Guotai, Mayor Jiang and others. She seemed to notice his gaze, and saw that Jiang Ning's eyes were also looking straight at him, giving him a faint smile.
Jiang Ning nodded at him and turned her eyes away, continuing to be a mascot to be fought for, fighting for the rights of the girls in the village.
Seeing that their discussion had yielded no results, Jiang Guotai knocked on the table impatiently and said, "Why is it so troublesome? Isn't there a barren mountain next to Hongbing's house? For girls who want to stay in the village and marry a son-in-law but not marry, the residential land will be allocated there!"
When everyone heard this, they thought it was a good idea.
Less than two hundred meters away from where Jiang Hongbing is building his house now is a barren mountain, located right in the middle of Jiangjia Village and Xujia Village, dividing Jiangjia Village and Xujia Village into two.
This barren mountain is more than two meters higher than the surrounding fields. It is a flat area extending down from the mountain. Because there are many lush trees planted here, in those not-so-good years, this was the location of the educated youth. After all the educated youth returned to the city, this place became completely deserted. Also, because of the not-so-good years, many corpses were buried here, and there were desolate graves everywhere, which led to the fact that this place is gloomy all year round, and few people dare to set foot here.
Last year's severe flood drowned most of the trees on the barren mountain. Since this year, although many trees on the barren mountain are still standing, not a single green leaf has grown, making the place seem even more gloomy and desolate.
In the previous life, the brigade headquarters and the senior activity center were built here. At that time, whenever there was any trouble in the nearby villages, people would run here, so no one thought this place was eerie.
Therefore, this piece of barren mountain land is not wanted by any villagers.
When everyone heard that allocating housing plots for the girls in the village here would not infringe on the interests of the boys in the village, naturally no one objected. Instead, everyone was very supportive. So it was decided to allocate housing plots to the girls in the village who did not want to marry outside the village.
Now that the issue of allocating residential plots to girls has been decided, the next step is for families with daughters who do not want them to marry out to other families to start fighting for the residential plots for their daughters.
Because wasteland can be divided into good land and bad land.
The best plot of land is naturally the former educated youth site, where the brigade headquarters and the elderly activity center were later located, which is the outermost part of the barren mountain, facing the sun. The terrain is high, and only a small waterproof layer needs to be built to prevent floods. The land is also side by side with the house built by Jiang Hongbing now. Although it is in a barren mountain, its location is actually better than that of Jiang Hongbing's home!
It’s just that no one thought of developing the barren mountains in the past. Now that I think about it, if the barren mountains are really developed, the outermost location will really be a good location!
As for the locations further inside, because they come down from the mountain, the closer you are to the inside, the higher the terrain is, the lower the waterproof layer needs to be built, and the cost of building a house is also lower. In fact, it is more suitable for girls who do not have much money to build a house.
The second is the location facing the edge of Jiangjia Village. Because it is far away from Jiangjia Village, if there is any problem, just shout towards the village. Since the distance is not far, the third and second rooms living at the outermost part of the village can actually hear the shouting. Relatively speaking, the safety will be much higher.
The worst locations are, firstly, the end close to Jiangjia Village, and secondly, the more you go in, the more desolate graves there are, and the closer you get to the mountains.
Because there are wolves.
Jiang Guotai made the decision on the spot to give the outermost acre of land close to Jiangjia Village to Jiang Ning as a residential site. He also allocated a residential site next to Jiang Ning for his daughter Jiang Miao.
Jiang Miao will most likely not return to live in the village in the future, but the village is obviously developing better and better now. Jiang Guotai would be stupid not to fight for benefits for his daughter. He is not really doing charity.
Mayor Jiang said with a smile: "Then let my Yanyan's homestead be next to Miaomiao's. The three of them get along well, and if we build houses together in the future, we can take care of each other."
This statement is pure nonsense. Jiang Ning, Jiang Miao, and Jiang Yanyan have been separated since childhood and have never played together.
Jiang Shujun also said immediately: "My piano and Ningning have been classmates since childhood. Ningning is her best friend in the village. So we should be next to Ningning, facing this acre of land in Jiangjia Village!"
It just so happened that Jiang Qinqin's home was right at the front, below the third room. If Jiang Qinqin's homestead was here, she would be face to face with Jiang Qinqin's family. If she had any problems, she could just shout or call out, and her brother would be able to hear her. Her eldest sister was married in Xujia Village, and she happened to be located between Xujia Village and Jiangjia Village, so she would be able to be taken care of if anything happened in the future.
Seeing that these people were quick to take the best positions, Jiang Guoqi from the second house quickly fought for his sister and daughter, saying, "The piece of land near Yanyan, in the direction of Xujia Village, should be given to Weiwei. I know my sister is a married woman, and I won't fight with the girls in the village for the best land. I'll just give the piece of land near Weiwei, in the direction of Xujia Village. Is that okay?"
The people in Xujia Village are wild in nature. His sister was raised like a boy and her temper is not much better. However, he is not afraid of the people from Xujia Village coming to make trouble. Besides, there are four brothers in their family, and he has many sons in his generation. Although they are still young, they are not pushovers.
Basically, all of the people present here are either village cadres or heads of families with more influence in the village.
The four rooms are all invisible. They just follow whatever the first, second and third rooms say in the village. There is no one here. There are only Jiang Shujun, a village cadre and the village electrician in the first room. The village cadre's daughter has been married for a long time. The electrician has two sons but no daughter, so it seems that they have nothing to do with it. They just watch the people from the second and third rooms grabbing the deserted mountain that no one cares about.
Although Jiang Ning didn't come back to live, she didn't object when Jiang Guotai snatched the best piece of wasteland for her as her homestead.
Because she knew that only she, Jiang Yanyan, and Jiang Miao, who were considered the most prestigious daughters of Mayor Jiang and the most promising daughter of Jiang Guotai by the girls in the village, including herself, a college student, were willing to build houses here and might live here in the future. Only then did they dare to ask for the residential land here and really develop this barren mountain into a place where girls could choose to be independent and have a place to stay in the village in the future as long as they did not want to get married or leave home.
Instead of just getting married and drifting away.
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