While people on the mountain are leisurely waiting for the rain to stop, things are not so easy in the village.
There were already forty or fifty people taking shelter from the rain in the warehouse. Each family had brought all their grain, bedding, and other valuable items, which were neatly piled up in one corner.
Everyone sat on the ground, talking about the rain, discussing the land, and worrying about the houses.
This is their entire life.
Wu Yang brought over a bag of ginger and borrowed Li Laoshi's pot to boil ginger soup for everyone to drink to ward off the cold.
Seeing that everyone was cold, Xu Genyou simply boiled a large pot of ginger soup, added some scallion segments, and everyone drank it.
Amidst the cacophony of voices, Qin Shi, wrapped in rain gear, sat on the outermost edge of the warehouse shed, head down and buttocks sticking out, like a quail.
She was too ashamed to squeeze in with others to avoid the rain, but the shack was about to collapse, and her son Xu Genqing couldn't really abandon her. When pushed to the limit, he carried her here.
But there were people everywhere, and Qin felt embarrassed, so she sat outside, letting the wind and rain soak her halfway up.
Xu Genqing was so angry that his eyes were blazing: "Mother, you're not just ruining yourself, you're torturing me. If you catch a cold, where will we find a doctor and medicine for you?"
Liu brought over a bowl of ginger soup: "Qin, don't be so hard on yourself, and don't worry the child. If you catch a cold like this, you'll only suffer."
Madam Qin glanced at her and muttered, "You're just pretending to be kind. When I was being beaten, you didn't say a single nice word!"
Liu was a kind-hearted woman and didn't hold a grudge against Qin. She simply urged Qin to drink the ginger soup to warm herself up, saying, "Village Chief Jiang is a good person. The past is the past, and the present is the present. If you're wrong, admit it. Don't hold a grudge against her."
Qin was so cold she couldn't stand it. She shifted her position, but still wouldn't admit her mistake: "She's always been one to torment people, she'd love to kill them."
Liu was good-natured but had moral principles. She knew she was wrong, and she would even drive away her own daughter-in-law.
Now, hearing Qin Shi's own improper behavior while constantly blaming others, he couldn't stand it anymore and muttered as he stood up: "If you don't want to drink, then don't! Anyway, if you die, you'll just be filling your own hole, it has nothing to do with others, and the village will be quieter when you're dead."
Upon hearing this, Qin became anxious, snatched the bowl of ginger soup, drank it down in a few gulps, wiped her mouth, and said angrily, "I won't die, I'm just doing Jiang Pozi's wish for nothing."
Further away from Qin Shi, there was another person, also pretending to be dead with his head down and buttocks sticking out, except that even his ears couldn't get any peace while he was pretending to be dead.
Xu Gensheng squatted down beside him, muttering to himself, "Grandpa, why did you do this to yourself!"
Xu Changming's shack collapsed.
He was pulled out from inside and brought to this warehouse.
Xu Changming kept his eyes tightly shut, pretending he hadn't heard anything.
But it seems like Xu Gensheng is the only one in the world with a mouth, constantly showing off all day long.
"Grandpa, I told you before that Aunt Jiang learned a few skills outside, but you just wouldn't believe me."
"How are things now! Whoever is the village chief, as long as there's a roof over their head and dry ground under their feet on a rainy day, they're considered capable!"
"Talented people aren't limited to men or women! Don't you think so?"
Xu Changming's old face twitched, his complexion indistinguishable between white, black, and gray, and he wished he could shut his grandson's incessant chattering mouth.
The heavy rain lasted for a day and a night, and only gradually subsided at dawn.
As the rain was about to stop, everyone who had been sheltering from the rain in the warehouse all night came out.
They were worried about their land and houses; although they had a place to shelter from the rain, all their possessions were outside.
Without waiting for village chief Jiang Zhi to come and supervise, Tian Gui, Xu Genyou, and eight others took the initiative to start inspecting the village's situation.
Aside from seven or eight houses that were leaking, two thatched huts collapsed.
Because of the leak, everyone had already gone to the warehouse. No one was injured in the collapsed shed, but it needed to be rebuilt.
The other people's shacks only leaked a little and could be repaired.
Standing outside her own shed, Tian Tao first opened the tightly covered rabbit pen to feed the rabbits grass, and then let the chicks out to feed them.
The Tian family raises chickens and rabbits.
Although the rabbit pen was built outside the shed, Tian Gui was meticulous in his work.
The enclosure was built with stones underneath and covered with bamboo cages for keeping the chicks.
This way, the rabbits below can neither dig a hole to escape nor worry about wild dogs or other animals jumping in and biting them.
Chickens living on the second floor can also get ventilation.
Yesterday, when the wind started blowing, we covered the top of the bamboo cage with tree branches and firewood, so we didn't have to worry about getting wet even in heavy rain.
Seeing that the rabbit was alright, Tian Tao chopped up some vegetable leaves, mixed them with rice bran, and scattered them on the ground. The chicks that had just come out of the cage ate them happily, chirping away.
She glanced to the side, then turned and ran back to whisper to her mother, "Mom, the shack next door collapsed. Luckily, the people there had already left, or they would have been buried inside."
Tao'er's mother quickly tidied up the bed. When she heard her daughter talking about the Qin family next door, she glared at Tian Tao and said, "Don't talk about people behind their backs. If your father hadn't built our shed so sturdily, it wouldn't have been able to withstand this rain. Didn't you see that the base of our shed is also flooded?"
Tian Tao kicked the dirt on the ground to cover the water stains, wrinkled her nose and said, "My dad's skill in building sheds is something he's really honed. Before, my family lived in a shack, while my eldest uncle and third uncle lived in a house."
When the past was mentioned, Tao'er's mother's expression turned somewhat pale.
The three brothers used to live together, but the elders in the family said the house was too small and they insisted that Tian Gui and I move out to a shack by the field the day after we got married, saying that it was spacious there and wouldn't interfere with our work in the fields in the morning and evening.
They lived there for more than a decade, taking care of all the farm work, and their children were born and raised in a makeshift shack by the fields.
My eldest daughter is now eleven years old and still lives in a shack.
If it weren't for her in-laws saying that Tian Tao was old enough to marry out early, she and Tian Gui would never have considered becoming outsiders.
Looking back now, being an outsider is fine, even though I have no relatives or friends and I only eat vegetable porridge.
At least the three children can eat their fill, and they no longer have to worry about being glared at by their sisters-in-law for eating too much, nor do they have to worry about their mother-in-law smashing bowls and plates at mealtimes, or having that perpetually sullen face.
Now Tian Gui can get close to the other villagers, and the female village chief is also a good person. In just a few months, she has enabled the villagers to have food to eat.
Peach's mother touched her protruding belly, sighing with mixed feelings of joy and happiness.
While living as a refugee in Xujia Village, she found herself pregnant again after several years of celibacy.
This child came at the worst possible time, amidst the chaos of war, and was stranded far from home, barely having enough to eat.
But Tian Gui said several times that this child was blessed, and since he had come, he should take good care of him.
People say that children are born with their own food supply, but Peach's mother never believed it.
She gave birth to three children, and whenever there was a shortage of food in the family, it was because the children were eating too much and suffering losses.
However, when Tian Gui went to buy grain for the first time after becoming pregnant, he couldn't even get into Lihua Town, but he ended up meeting the village chief.
When they came back, they could work and exchange their earnings for food, so the family never ran out of rice and flour again.
Although we still eat porridge, we are full every meal.
Tao'er's mother now truly believes that the child brought his own food rations, and she no longer worries about being called a starving ghost reincarnated.
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