For her own safety, the puppy's mother stewed three chickens and cooked a pot of rice. While the Japanese gathered around the table to eat chicken and drink, she could only sit on the doorstep, waiting for them to order her around.
The three little Japanese soldiers started singing Japanese songs while eating. The puppy's mother gritted her teeth and cursed secretly. She said that next time she would prepare some poison at home and sprinkle it in the food. She must poison these bastards to death!
Only when the Japanese soldiers had eaten and drunk their fill and left with the smell of alcohol on their faces did she collapse to the ground with her legs completely weak.
Lin Youliang saw that the three Japanese soldiers did not kill or beat anyone, they just robbed the food... He thought about the bullets in his hand and did not ask anyone to chase them. He asked everyone to carry their things down the mountain and go home.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The loss this time was not serious, but the people whose things were stolen would definitely have a good cry.
For example, Zhang Xiaonv.
"If I had known earlier, I should have stayed at the foot of the mountain like the puppy's mother! She was fine and could even hide some food! The food that I didn't have time to carry up the mountain wasn't stolen! Two bags! Those are two whole bags! It's enough for our family of four to eat for two months!
Wuwuwu... we worked hard for half a year to get food..."
"What bullshit are you talking about! Go ask the puppy's mother how panicked she was! What if the Japanese got drunk and drew their swords? What are you thinking?"
Lin Wenxuan sighed and placed Xiao Yulan in front of her.
"Yulan! Go! Wipe your grandma's tears and stop her from crying!"
Little Yulan held her father's hand and twisted her body before throwing herself into her grandmother's arms. The little baby didn't understand the sufferings of the world yet, and she grinned and patted her grandmother's arms in a baby voice.
"Ma'am...Mother..."
Why do the older generation always say that children are hope? Maybe it’s just like it is now.
Zhang Xiaonv hugged Xiao Yulan and cried and laughed. No matter how sad she was, she had to take care of her child and live her life.
Liang Shengdi looked at the happy scene of grandparents and grandchildren over there, holding her face and sighing involuntarily.
Two more bags of grain flew away, and the porridge will probably be thinner later.
As it turned out, Liang Shengdi's guess was correct.
The weather was cold, and the next grain harvest was still more than half a year away. The Lin family had to rely on the few bags of grain left to survive the cold winter. And who knew what the situation would be like next year!
Every day when Zhang Xiaonu took out the grain bag, her hands shook like a sieve. She scooped a spoonful and shook it three times.
No matter how hard life is, we cannot let the children suffer. Yulan doesn’t eat much, so she cannot reduce her food intake.
Lin Wenxuan still had to go out to work, so he couldn't be too hungry. The reduction in rations was not much, only about one third of the amount.
Liang Shengdi lies in bed every day and doesn't work, but she is pregnant... Forget it, just leave half to her.
The one who ate the least was Zhang Xiaonv herself. Every day, the rice soup at the bottom of the pot went to her, and there were not even a few grains of rice left in the bowl.
Porridge was still eaten every other day. On the other day, they ate sweet potatoes, which were also distributed according to large, medium and small sizes. Zhang Xiaonv took the smallest one.
Even so, she still said that she was staying at home all winter and was lazy at home all day. She wasn't hungry at all.
Liang Shengdi sighed helplessly in her heart. This time she didn't say anything about not having enough to eat, otherwise she was afraid that her mother-in-law would starve to death before she did.
The last time she ran up the mountain, the bleeding that had just stopped began to seep out again every day, so she had to spend money to buy medicine again.
The eggs laid by the chicken were all used to exchange for medicine. Every time Zhang Xiaonv took out an egg, she felt like she had another wrinkle on her forehead.
But in fact, the whole family was very worried about the child, and they didn't know whether he could keep the baby. Even the youngest Yulan, lying on the head of Liang Shengdi's bed, pointed at her belly with her fingers, and then shouted,
“Brother…brother…”
I hope my little brother can be born safely.
Since winemaking is not allowed this year, it is rare for the men in the village to find odd jobs. Even if they do find one, the employers pay them in legal tender, which is waste paper that depreciates every day. Everyone would rather pay for food.
But food is precious, and not many people are willing to use it directly as payment.
Lin Wenxuan would go out frantically looking for food every day, whether it was wild bamboo shoots or wild vegetables, and sometimes wild fruits, wild persimmons, wild dates, etc. He would bring them back and eat them with porridge or sweet potatoes, which could be considered a snack.
Occasionally, we would find bird eggs and hibernating snakes. We would bring them home and boil them into a soup, which the whole family would share and which would keep them warm for days.
Liang Shengdi always felt that she had eaten all the snakes in her life in the past two years. Sometimes she felt nauseous while eating, but she tried her best to swallow them down, and said to her child while touching her belly,
Don't vomit! If you vomit, you'll just starve.
I don’t know if the child was lucky or the snake was strong enough, but by the Chinese New Year, the child was back to normal.
Now that her daughter-in-law no longer needed to take medicine, Zhang Xiaonu happily traded all the eggs she'd laid for cotton. She'd rather trade them for grain, but no one was willing to sell. There were plenty of people buying grain, and the price was higher than in previous years, but few actually came to sell.
Although there is not much cotton, at least it can be used to make winter clothes for the children.
Liang Shengdi seemed to have forgotten the existence of the chicken. Even on New Year's Eve, she never mentioned killing it and eating it. After all, it was her mother-in-law who was raising it now, so she could raise it forever if she wanted.
During the first month of the year, the Japanese came again.
Lin Youliang said that the constant fighting was not only impoverishing us ordinary people, but also the Japanese. Especially those who stayed behind in the strongholds. They only had things to loot when they went out to fight. If they stayed here all the time, they would have to take care of most of their own food, drink, and toilet. If they didn't have enough to eat, they would have to go out to loot.
"Then we can't possibly support them!" Everyone sneered and went into the mountains along the old route.
Everyone has gained experience from escaping.
Some people even said that it would be better to store the grain directly in the mountains and move it up the mountain after the grain at the foot of the mountain was eaten up. Otherwise, the Japanese would have to come back and forth to move the grain, which would be very tiring.
Many people think so, but no one really dares to put grain on the mountain.
I’m afraid that if the Japanese don’t take it away, it will be stolen by our own people.
These days, big ingots are not as valuable as grain, so you have to keep them by yourself to feel at ease.
For example, Zhang Xiaonv slept with her head resting on a grain bag, fearing someone would steal her food in the middle of the night.
When the Japanese couldn't find food, they got angry and smashed things or set fire to the village, which were all old tricks.
They also knew that the villagers might have hidden in the mountains, but they did not dare to go into the mountains unless it was absolutely necessary.
After all, there were many of their accomplices left in these mountains. Although they were not human, they still wanted to live. So they burned a few houses and then went out cursing and continued to go to other villages to sweep away the fish that had escaped the net.
During the Chinese New Year, someone's house burned down and needed to be rebuilt. Everyone helped to repair the house while beating and scolding the Japanese devils, otherwise they would not be able to survive the winter.
Fortunately, the Lin family’s house escaped the disaster.
Liang Shengdi sat by the window, touching her belly, looking outside and thinking.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
