Chapter 414: Lu Dongcai (Part 1)
As soon as the sun sets, the house becomes gloomy. Since it is still light outside, we don’t dare to light the kerosene lamp inside the house.
Gao Xiulan was cooking, Lu Minghai was sitting behind the stove making a fire, and Lu Dongcai was sitting on the doorstep of the kitchen door holding Chuyi in his arms.
"Tomorrow is Sunday. I've already told your Third Aunt that Dongping will be at home tomorrow and will go with you. The food and other things have been weighed out, and I've borrowed the cloth coupons from your Third Aunt. We'll leave early in the morning to sort things out and bring the people back as soon as possible."
Lu Dongcai turned to look at her, his lips trembled twice but he didn't say anything else.
He has no say in matters that have already been decided.
However, he was unwilling in his heart.
He just got divorced two months ago and found another one. He is leaning on me. I can't figure out how his life has come to this.
But what can be done even if he doesn't want to? He's not a child anymore, and his parents have been worried sick about him for the past six months. If finding another one can really make the family feel relieved, then go for it.
Lu Dongcai couldn't sleep well that night. As soon as he closed his eyes, he dreamed of Li Laiying. He dreamed of the time when they had just met, when she sat there, smiling peacefully at him. But before he could even get close, she started yelling like a madman: "Go away! That's not my child, my son! Give my son back to me."
I woke up, shivering all over.
It was still dark outside, but there were already voices. His cousin's voice echoed outside: "Is Dongcai still awake?"
He sat up, put on his shoes in the dark and left the house: "Get up!"
One hundred kilograms of food were divided into two sacks. He and Lu Dongping each carried a sack, and Lu Minghai followed. They had just left the yard with a torch when Zhou Meiying arrived. Gao Xiulan apologized, "You have to go over the mountains and across the ridges again."
Zhou Meiying said, "Hey, we're all on the same team, and we've been friends for so many years, so let's not use those polite words."
It is really not easy to climb over Maoerling. We set out before daybreak, and by the time we reach the destination, the sun has already risen high.
His new in-laws' surname is Hu, and the place they live is really isolated from the world.
His father Lu Minghai and cousin, as well as Zhou Meiying, took care of other matters, so he didn't need to worry about them. He had just met his future wife.
A skinny little girl.
She was dressed in dirt, with her hair messy like a bird's nest. She was hiding behind the door, looking at him timidly with a pair of big eyes.
There are many children in the Hu family. Lu Dongcai doesn’t know whether they are from the whole family or just Hu Qingqing’s brothers and sisters.
The Lu family got the food and gave out the cloth coupons, and then went to the team to write a note and go through the formalities.
Erya became Hu Qingqing and became the daughter-in-law of the Lu family in front of the mountain.
The girl, who was not even seventeen years old, didn't know what being a wife meant. She only knew that her family didn't want her anymore. She stood in the yard blankly for a long time until Zhou Meiying called her. She turned around and followed without looking back.
Lu Dongcai walked at the end without saying a word. He looked at the clothes that barely covered her body, and the shoes that couldn't even cover her heels, and sighed deeply.
This was a pitiful person, even more pitiful than Li Laiying at that time. He suppressed his rising sympathy and patted himself: "Remember this, Lu Dongcai." Pitiable people are not necessarily good people. Thinking of the chaotic days at home before, he began to feel scared.
The journey back was much faster than the journey there, but it was very dull. Lu Minghai walked in front and talked to his nephew, and Zhou Meiying would join in the conversation from time to time, leaving the newlywed couple behind.
Lu Dongcai walked behind and looked at the person in front. He said he was seventeen years old, and he would be seventeen at the end of December at the end of the year, but he looked like he was only fourteen or fifteen, about the same age as Chun'e.
Is this his wife?
He sighed again and again and rubbed his temples with his hands.
When we got home, it was still quite early and the sun hadn't completely set yet.
Gao Xiulan sighed at her new daughter-in-law, found a set of clothes her youngest son had worn, and went to the next door with her family. Lu Dongping's wife had a sewing machine, and she wanted her to help her make Hu Qingqing a set of clothes that would fit her.
Lu Dongcai went to the kitchen and added a pot of water to the pot.
Lu Minghai came in and took a look: "What are you doing? Cooking now?"
"No, boil some water and let her wash."
If your clothes are a mess, you have to clean them up.
Their family is not rich, but they have been used to keeping things clean and tidy since they were young.
Lu Minghai sighed, "He's already been brought here, so he's part of our family. He's a little young, but what your mother said makes sense. Teach your son in public and your wife by her bedside. Teach him well while he's still young. Not everyone is like that."
Lu Dongcai responded, "I understand." What a joke! If he knew how to teach, he wouldn't be living like this.
He felt filled with guilt when he thought that such a young girl was his wife.
After dinner, he went to find Gao Xiulan: "Mom, isn't my brother's room still empty? Tonight——"
Before she could finish her words, Gao Xiulan started to scold her: "What's wrong with it being empty? Is it an eyesore to you? I won't even let the grass grow on it, so you should put your evil intentions to good use. I've brought my wife home, and you want to live in a separate room? Don't even think about it!"
"It doesn't matter. The quilt on his side is idle—" Facing his mother's fierce gaze, he became speechless and lost confidence.
Gao Xiulan waited until it was almost dark and no one could see anything. She stopped caring about him and just helped Chuyi pee and took him back to the house to sleep. She wanted to see how long the two of them could act as door gods at the gate.
She knew her own son very well. He was a kind-hearted man and he would never leave a little girl outside the door alone.
Lu Dongcai sat for a while, then resigned himself to his fate and got up to bring the large basin of laundry into the house. He asked Hu Qingqing, "Do you want to go to the bathroom?"
Hu Qingqing nodded, and Lu Dongcai shielded the kerosene lamp with his hand and took her to the toilet. After all the important matters were taken care of, he said, "I've boiled some water for you. Go and take a good bath."
"oh!"
She would respond from time to time to let people know that she was not mute.
After washing, her hair was wet. Lu Dongcai gave her his mother's wooden comb. She had never combed her hair since she was a child, so she didn't know how to use the comb.
Lu Dongcai sighed again. Today he had sighed out all the anger in his life.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he took the comb and smoothed her hair bit by bit: "It may be a little painful, just bear with it." After saying that, he changed his words: "You don't have to bear it too much. If it hurts too much, tell me. I don't know how to control my strength."
"Um!"
Lu Dongcai felt a little headache listening to her spouting out word by word. While fixing her hair, he said to her, "Don't be afraid of me. I'm not actually fierce. You didn't know when you just came here, but you will know after a long time. There are no bad people in our family, and we don't have any bad tempers. You probably don't know about me--" He told the little girl about the situation at home bit by bit.
I don’t know if he listened carefully or not. Before I could even comb my hair completely, the person in front of me had already started nodding off.
After straightening my hair, I wiped it again. It wasn’t completely dry, but that was all I could do.
Lu Dongcai blew out the oil lamp: "Go to sleep!"
Hu Qingqing obediently crawled into the quilt and lay there straight, not being able to be obedient. Changing to a new place did not affect her at all, and she fell asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.
Lu Dongcai couldn't sleep.
How could he sleep with another person around him, a little girl he didn't know.
The quilt was only so big, and his mother refused to take out another one. If two people were sitting next to each other and moved a little to the side, the other one wouldn't be able to cover himself.
It's still a bit cold at night.
Before he could fall asleep, the person next to him started to turn over. He was originally lying flat, but now he turned over to face him, curled up like a kitten, and kept moving closer to him.
Lu Dongcai felt like he could hardly breathe. He was so stiff that he was almost like a corpse and couldn't move at all.
He moved to the edge of the bed, but was worried that Hu Qingqing couldn't cover herself with the quilt, so he moved sideways to tuck it in.
With this movement, the person who was half asleep reached out and hugged his arm, and rubbed his arm.
Lu Dongcai:——
He didn't know how he managed to make it to dawn.
When it was daybreak, he caught a cold and sneezed several times when he stood up.
Hu Qingqing woke up. She had never slept so comfortably.
Lu Dongcai didn't sleep well, and there were two bruises under his eyes. He left the house.
We have to get to work and there is no time to delay.
Chuyi was still asleep, so he was picked up and carried to the field on his back.
Although Hu Qingqing looks young, she is very efficient at her work.
Today Gao Xiulan didn't give her a hoe to weed, but asked her to carry a backpack.
When they got to the field, they put Chuyi in a backpack, and the adults took a break and started working.
Hu Qingqing was watching the children and picking grass for the pigs.
This job was really too easy for her. She did everything at home, and pulling pig grass was like a game to her.
When Chuyi woke up with a groan, there were already several piles of pig feed in the corn field next to him.
There was no need to delay Gao Xiulan's work. She picked up Chuyi and helped her urinate, then made rice porridge for her with the boiled water she brought.
After feeding, he tied the cloth bag to his body and continued to pick grass for the pigs.
Lu Dongcai brought his children with him one morning, and the pig grass he picked was almost too much to fit in a backpack. He used his superb skills to stack the baskets into a small mountain.
Gao Xiulan handed her the hoe and took Chuyi off her back.
"You don't have to carry her all the time. It's annoying if you get used to it. She can't crawl around yet, so just put her down if she doesn't cry. It's not heavy, but it still weighs a bit, and it's annoying to have her on you all the time."
Hu Qingqing responded, "I understand." This was different from what her mother said at home. If she dared to leave her brother there, her mother would scold her to death and chase her across the mountain with a stick. She would not dare to go back for a day or two.
She walked behind with a hoe on her shoulder and secretly glanced at Gao Xiulan, her eyebrows curved with joy.
There is no leisure even at home.
Lu Dongcai was chopping grass for pigs.
Hu Qingqing had just washed her hands. After thinking for a moment, she took the initiative to move over and said, "Well, let me chop it. I know how to do it. You can do something else?"
Lu Dongcai glanced at her and curled his lips: "It's okay, you come, be careful not to chop your hands." She knows how to speak actively, which is a great improvement.
He got up and went to the kitchen, took a shoulder pole and went to fetch water from the well on the other side of the bamboo forest.
As soon as he came back, Chuyi was placed in a wooden basin.
Once the straps on her body were untied, she was free. She turned over stubbornly, and sat up with her hands on the edge of the wooden basin. She looked here and there, and saliva flowed from the corners of her mouth, all over the place.
Hu Qingqing finished chopping the pig grass, and Lu Dongcai filled the water tank.
I went to the main room and called her: Qingqing, come here.
Hu Qingqing stood up and instinctively wanted to rub her hands that had just chopped pig grass on her body. But when they touched her clothes, she realized that this was her best piece of clothing and she couldn't rub it.
When they got to the main hall, Lu Dongcai explained everything to her, "This is where the food is stored. There are bowls inside. There are four of us. We need two flat bowls and four ladles of water. It will be just right when we cook."
"Over here are the acorns that Dongfu and his family collected last year. They grind them together and use them to feed the pigs. There's a bowl inside too. Just half a bowl is enough."
"Oh!" Another word.
Lu Dongcai turned around and met her gaze: "What's wrong?"
"Well, mother," Hu Qingqing was still a little uncomfortable: "Mom, aren't you going to put the grain away?"
Lu Dongcai said, "We don't have that habit at home. When she collects food, it's usually fine grains, eggs, and so on. If you need anything, just tell her and she'll give it to you. The food is usually kept in the main hall. I'm telling you this because you'll be a member of the Lu family in the future, so of course you'll know this. You might need to cook something when things get busy."
Hu Qingqing nodded: "I understand."
"Well, go ahead, wash your hands, watch Chuyi, and take a break. You have to go to the fields in the afternoon."
The pig grass we pick today can feed the two small pigs in the pigpen for two or three days.
Tomorrow, Hu Qingqing will have to take a hoe and do the same work as them.
The day after the new daughter-in-law arrived home, the house seemed really different.
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