Li Xianghai was an honest man, a bit of a murmuring fool who couldn't say much, so he asked Lian Qiuping and Li Yufang to cook.
At noon, Li Xianghai's mother Zhang Dacui heard Lian Qiuping, who had returned to deliver lunch, talking about family matters.
On the way back, she asked Li Xianghai what to do with the three children in the future and where to place them?
Although she was not a cruel person, natural disasters and man-made tragedies occurred frequently everywhere during these years, and grain production was low.
Although the autumn harvest is underway this year, the crops are not growing well. Even if the crops are harvested in a few days, they have to be paid first. I estimate that with this yield, there will be nothing left.
My own children don’t have enough food to eat, so I can’t support my daughter-in-law’s children. Really, where is the food supply at home?
Lian Xiaomin saw Zhang Dacui sighing and looking unhappy, and she understood what was going on.
But since they had just met, the other party didn't say anything extra, so she didn't say anything. She would find a time to tell her aunt about her plans.
My uncle’s sister, Li Yufang, was a shy little girl. She walked unsteadily, probably because she was hungry.
Li Yufang was wearing a black dress with patches on top of patches. She was holding a thin little girl with a small bun on her head. This was her aunt's daughter, Xiao Feng'er.
Xiao Feng'er looked at Lian Xiaomin timidly, then raised her head to look at her aunt who was holding her hand.
Li Yufang pushed her forward, but she still didn't dare to talk to Lian Xiaomin.
Lian Qiuping came over, picked up Xiao Feng'er, pointed at Lian Xiaomin and said to Xiao Feng'er: "Feng'er, this is your eldest uncle's sister Xiaomin, call me sister."
Xiao Feng'er was in her mother's arms, with her little face pressed against Lian Qiuping's neck. She tilted her head to look at Lian Xiaomin curiously, and called her softly, "Jiejie~"
Lian Xiaomin grabbed Xiao Feng'er's hand and squeezed it, happily agreeing: "Hey, Xiao Feng'er is so good!"
Lian Qiuping added, "Xiaomin, this is Yufang. You two are the same age, but you have to call her Aunt Yufang."
In this era, every family has many children, and sometimes the age gap is large and the seniority is high, but the people in Northeast China don’t care so much about these.
Li Yufen smiled and said to Lian Xiaomin, "Xiaomin, just call me Yufang and I will call you Xiaomin." Lian Xiaomin also smiled and nodded.
In fact, Li Xianghai's parents gave birth to seven children in total, but they only raised this son and two daughters.
The room where Lian Qiuping asked Lian Xiaomin and others to rest was where Li Yufang lived. Li Yufang readily said that her room would be given to Xiaomin and others first. Since she was happy to live on the same kang with her mother anyway, she would continue to live in her mother's room.
While cooking, Zhang Dacui stared at the rice pot with a melancholy look on her face. Her family's grain bags had long been deflated, and they were just waiting to get some food after the autumn harvest.
But her eldest nephew Zhang Shengli, the team leader of the Sandaogou Production Team, and his father Zhang Changshuan, Zhang Dacui's eldest brother, secretly told her a piece of news he had heard a few days ago.
He said that the grain output this year was too little, and there would be nothing left after paying the public grain tax. His eldest son Shengli was worried every day. What would he do if he couldn't get much grain? How would the more than 80 households in the village survive?
They were a large production team with a large population, and they had no idea how much relief grain the commune could provide.
Zhang Dacui thought, now that her in-laws' family had an accident and the three children were stranded at her house, she couldn't just ignore them no matter what. But what if the whole family got together and fought?
Her old daughter is as thin as a piece of firewood, and her little granddaughter, who is only two years old, is suffering even more.
If the eldest daughter Li Yufen and son-in-law Wang Baozhu had not come from Daliushutun a few days ago and brought a small bag of cornmeal, saying that they could hold on until the autumn harvest, the family would be out of food now.
Speaking of my eldest daughter's husband's family, the Wang family, it is a good family. Li Yufen has a hot-tempered personality and married a son-in-law who is three years younger than her. As the old saying goes, a woman who is three years younger than a man is likely to bring wealth, and no one would pick on her.
My son-in-law, Wang Baozhu, is the eldest of three brothers. He has a very open-minded and kind personality.
Ever since the two sisters of the Wang family got married, the three brothers Wang Baozhu separated and lived separately. The brothers and sisters-in-law were relatively harmonious and there were no conflicts, but they were all poor.
The parents-in-law naturally lived with their eldest son, and Li Yufen also had elderly parents and young children to take care of. In the ten years since she got married, she gave birth to four children.
The children are still young. The oldest one is only 9 years old, the second one is 8 years old, the third one is 6 years old, and the youngest one is less than 4 years old this year. They are as thin as chicks. Her family is also short of food and is worried that they cannot feed the children.
Although the black soil in Northeast China is fertile and better than that in other provinces, it has not been good in recent years and people generally do not have enough food to eat.
While Zhang Dacui was worrying, she added two more scoops of water to the thin corn porridge, put in a handful of chopped wild vegetables, and stirred it with a spatula.
There are at most two or three pounds of cornmeal in the flour bag. We'll just have to eat it as long as it lasts.
Soon the porridge was ready, and everyone was ready for dinner. The porridge bowl was brought to the table in the yard, Lian Qiuping put the bowls and chopsticks on the table, and called Lian Xiaomin to come and eat.
Lian Xiaomin held Xiaofu in her arms and sat at the dining table. She looked at the large bowl of thin cornmeal and wild vegetable porridge given to each person and wondered how much water had been added to it. It showed how poor this family was.
Xiaofeng and Xiaofu were both using small bowls. Lian Xiaomin picked up a small bowl and fed Xiaofu a bowl of porridge with a spoon. She then picked up her own bowl and took a sip. Oh my god, it was so unpalatable, with a bitter taste of wild vegetables.
How did this little kid Xiaofu swallow it just now? My god, he is really amazing. He seemed to be drinking it very happily just now.
Lian Xiaomin had never drunk this kind of thing. As a modern person, it is naturally unacceptable. But people nowadays are lucky to have cornmeal and wild vegetable porridge to drink, and Xiaofu is the same.
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