Chapter 9 Planning to Renovate the Cave
"Wanqing, here are ten taels of silver, which is your betrothal gift. I will use this ten taels to buy you two sets of clothes in the city." Gu Yan came back excitedly holding twenty taels of silver.
"Didn't you say that you have no money at home? What's this?" Li Wanqing asked curiously while looking at the silver.
"My father gave it to me. On the surface, my mother has the final say in our family, but in reality, my father is the real head of the family.
"This should be the silver my father hid. My father has always valued the eldest son, that is, my eldest brother. I guess this silver was reserved for my eldest brother." Gu Yan said dejectedly.
Li Wanqing had no way to deal with this. When she stretched out her five fingers, they were all of different lengths. Her parents were partial to each other, so she could only let it go.
But there was no need for Li Wanqing to comfort him, as Gu Yan comforted himself: "It's okay, I've let it go anyway. It doesn't matter if they don't value me, as long as my grandparents love me wholeheartedly."
"Since your grandparents know that they are biased, will they just do nothing about it?" Li Wanqing was a little curious.
"I can't do anything about it. My parents didn't beat me, scold me, or abuse me, but they just ignored me.
To be honest, they didn't do it on purpose, because I have lived with my grandparents since I was a child, and my grandmother didn't like my mother. The reason she raised me was because after I was born, my mother only cared about my second brother who was in poor health and didn't care about me at all.
Even because my second brother wanted to drink milk, my mother ignored me who was just born and fed all the milk to him.
Of course, these are what my grandma told me in private, and I don’t know whether they are true or not.
I only know that when I was little, I went there to look for my mother with great joy, but she ended up hugging a boy who was a little older than me.
She didn't respond to my arrival, just glanced at me and then lowered her head to talk to the boy in her arms.
Later, when I missed my mother, I went there several times, and every time I went, I was ignored by my mother without exception.
After that, I stopped coming here and lived with my grandparents until they passed away.
However, I didn't move back home after my grandparents passed away, I only went back for meals.
But Wanqing, you know what? Sometimes it's not the beatings and scoldings that make you feel bad.
In fact, subconscious neglect is even more painful. Once, my father went to sell the game and came back with a few meat buns.
He bought them according to the number of people in the family, one for each person in the family, but in the end after counting, there was still one missing. That was because he forgot about me when he bought the tickets.
You don’t know how sad and embarrassed I was when everyone’s eyes were on me.
Although my father immediately told me that he had eaten it and that the meat bun was mine, I didn’t own it, and everyone knew it wasn’t mine.
I ran away at that time. Because of this incident, I didn’t go home for several days. Later, my father came to me and apologized to me.
I followed him back, but I was the only one who knew that this matter would haunt me forever." Gu Yan hung his head and told Li Wanqing about his grievances.
Li Wanqing didn't expect that this family would use cold violence against Gu Yan. People who have not experienced it may not know that cold violence is really more painful than being beaten.
The Gu family may not know what cold violence is, but they did it to Gu Yan unknowingly.
Li Wanqing had no way to deal with what had happened. Looking at Gu Yan, who was like a big puppy, Li Wanqing patted his head comfortingly: "You have me in the future. Let's live a good life together and ignore them."
Gu Yan took the opportunity to hug Li Wanqing and hid his red eyes on Li Wanqing's shoulder.
Li Wanqing froze for a moment, but did not resist. Since the two of them had decided to be together, they had to have a more intimate relationship than this. What was the big deal about just hugging now?
After hugging Gu Yan for a while, Li Wanqing broke free from him and changed the subject, "Since we're getting married, we need to decorate this cave properly."
Gu Yan also raised his head and looked at the old things in the cave. These things were used when his grandparents were still alive.
He has been muddling through the past few years and has never changed.
It's okay if I can live here alone, but I can't live here with my wife.
"What do you want to do? Tell me and I'll do it." Gu Yan said.
Li Wanqing also didn't want to get married for the first time in her two lives in a broken cave.
She stood up and walked back and forth, thinking about how to decorate the cave.
This cave is gourd-shaped. The entrance is small but the inside is spacious. It is not small, about 30 to 40 square meters.
There was an earthen kang against the west wall of the cave, covered with a homemade straw mat, and on the straw mat was Gu Yan's bedding.
Opposite the earthen kang are two large wooden boxes, to the north is a mountain, and to the south is a half wall made of adobe.
There is a ground stove on the ground outside the wall, and the stove is connected to the kang. In winter, when the stove is burned, the kang will become warm.
Then there is a stove, and next to the stove are two small jars, which should be filled with grain.
There is a wooden door at the entrance of the cave, which doesn’t look very sturdy.
There is a specially leveled platform outside the door, and on the left is a cultivated vegetable patch, which looks like a two-mu plot of land.
On the right is a wooden shed with some firewood scattered inside.
On the left side of the cave, there is a wooden door above the vegetable field, and I don’t know what it is used for.
This is Gu Yan’s current living environment. If he wants to live comfortably, he must plan it well.
"Gu Yan, I want to renovate this cave. Do you think it's okay?" Li Wanqing looked inside and out and had an idea in her mind.
"Okay, why not? Wanqing, how do you want to transform yourself? Just tell me, I'll listen to you." Gu Yan stepped forward.
"First, we need to clear out everything in the cave and move the kang to this location." Li Wanqing wanted to build the kang in the innermost part of the cave in the north-south direction.
Gu Yan nodded: "Okay, I'll listen to you. But if you change it this way, the stove will have to be placed inside."
"No need, the stove will be covered in ash if it is placed inside. This is what I think. The stove should remain in its original position, and we can build a small fire wall in the room." Li Wanqing gestured to the current location of the kang.
"By burning the stove, not only will the kang be warm, but the fire wall will also dissipate heat, making winter more comfortable.
This half of the wall needs to be raised and a door left here, so that the cave is divided into an inner room and an outer room.
When outsiders come to your house, they won’t see the bedroom as soon as they enter.
Put a few chairs and a table in the outer room, which can be used as a dining table so that there will be a place to sit when someone comes to your house.
This wooden door also needs to be replaced. It doesn't look sturdy.
There is also a wooden shed outside. I am thinking of renovating it and building a wooden house directly, with half serving as a kitchen and the other half as a firewood shed.
That’s all I can think of for now. The other thing I want to do is buy some coarse cloth to make bed sheets and door curtains.
Oh, and please buy some white paper so I can paper over the cave."
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