When Xu Yan got up to eat breakfast, Liu Mancang and Zhao Jisheng arrived.
Zhao Jisheng was alright, but Liu Mancang almost cried when he saw Xie Zhuo, constantly calling him "Third Brother" this and "Third Brother" that.
"Can't you take your medicine before you come over if you're sick?" Xie Zhuo was annoyed by his nagging, so she frowned and slapped his arm. "Say it again and I'll slap you, you believe me?"
Liu Mancang shut up.
The three of them went to the backyard warehouse, cleaned up the coal stove, and carried it into the house just as Xu Yan finished eating breakfast.
To be honest, this stove is quite different from the one Xu Yan had seen on TV.
The furnace is small and simple in structure, consisting of a square furnace plate on top, a cylinder about 40 or 50 centimeters high in the middle, and three iron legs at the bottom. That's all.
Xu Yan stared for a while and saw Xie Zhuo go to the backyard and take half a basket of coal briquettes to put into the stove. Then he placed a large aluminum kettle on the square stove plate.
"Is this all you need?" Xu Yan went over and reached out to touch the stove, but Xie Zhuo stopped him.
“The fire isn’t fully lit yet,” Xie Zhuo said. “Once the coal briquettes on top are lit, the room will be warm.”
Xu Yan nodded.
Seeing that she was still eager to reach out and touch the stove, Xie Zhuo said helplessly, "Although the temperature hasn't fully risen yet, the stove is still very hot. Don't touch it with your hands."
While the two were talking, Liu Mancang and Zhao Jisheng finished tidying up the stove that had been in Da Bao and Xiao Bao's room.
"Third," Liu Mancang probably wanted to call him Third Brother again, but remembering Xie Zhuo's threat earlier, he swallowed the address that was on the tip of his tongue, peeked into the house, and asked, "Are we coming or not?"
"Right away," Xie Zhuo glanced at him, then picked up a broom, swept up the coal dust on the ground, and took it out.
When Xie Zhuo, Liu Mancang, and Zhao Jisheng went out to borrow an oxcart from the brigade to haul coal from the state-owned coal mine in the city, it was the hottest time of day.
Many people who felt cold staying at home stood wrapped in clothes under the wall of a dilapidated village at the entrance of the village, chatting and basking in the sun.
When they saw Xie Zhuo, they all turned to look at him.
Wang Guilan called out to Xie Zhuo, "Hey, third brother, you're back?"
Xie Zhuo was being blown by the wind and didn't feel like talking much. He felt that as soon as he opened his mouth, a blast of cold air would be forced into his mouth. But since they lived in the same village and he usually got along well with Zhao Bin, he turned around and nodded to Wang Guilan, "You're back, Auntie."
“You’ve been away for quite a while this time,” Wang Guilan said.
Xie Zhuo nodded again.
"Where have you been?" a woman standing next to Wang Guilan interjected. "Did you go to the Southern Province? Aren't your eldest and second sons already dead..."
Before she could finish speaking, Wang Guilan nudged her with her elbow, her brows furrowed.
The woman shut up.
Xie Zhuo, who was walking forward, stopped and looked at her.
There are many people in Qingshan Brigade, and Xie Zhuo doesn't know the names of some of them that he doesn't interact with much. He can only roughly know whose father or mother they are.
He vaguely recognized the woman speaking; she was Yao Guangju, Wu Yuzhen's eldest daughter-in-law.
Because she and Wu Yuzhen had children one after the other, they were the subject of much gossip in the village.
"If you can't speak properly, then shut up," Liu Mancang couldn't hold back his temper before Xie Zhuo could even open his mouth, and started cursing at him, "If you don't have that mouth, you can barely pretend to be a person."
Yao Guangju's face immediately turned ugly. "Liu Mancang, what's it to you? Did I say anything to you?"
"Hey, I'm the kind of person who likes to stand up for what's right and do what's right," Liu Mancang grinned at her, then stopped faking his smile.
"Your husband is always playing cards in town, you're always gossiping behind people's backs, and your mother-in-law is obsessed with that arrogant and domineering fat boy in the house. It's true what they say, birds of a feather flock together."
Yao Guangju's face turned even uglier, and she bared her teeth and claws, trying to pounce on Liu Mancang, but was stopped by an aunt from across the street from Liu Mancang's house.
"You've got some nerve, haven't you? Weren't you the one who started this trouble?"
“Did I call him Liu Mancang?” Yao Guangju glared. “He’s meddling in other people’s business. Is Xie Laosan mute?”
As soon as Yao Guangju finished speaking, a small clod of earth exploded right in front of her. When the clod fragments hit her shoes, she jumped up with a scream.
Zhao Jisheng, who hadn't spoken until now, was still holding a fist-sized clod of dirt in his hand, staring at her expressionlessly. "My third brother doesn't hit women, but I don't have that many rules."
"Try saying it again."
This time, Yao Guangju didn't dare to talk back. Her face turned bright red, and her eyes were fixed on Zhao Jisheng.
Finally, Wang Guilan stuffed a handful of sunflower seeds from her pocket into her hand and said, "Alright, we all live in the same brigade, we'll run into each other all the time, you really have a big mouth."
As Xie Zhuo walked past the group of people sunbathing, he saw Zhao Jisheng still holding that clod of dirt, tossing it around in his hand. He glanced at Zhao Jisheng's face and asked, "Has your family been having a hard time lately?"
"Hmm?" Zhao Jisheng turned to look at him.
"I was almost turning into a cold-blooded killer," Xie Zhuo glanced at the clod of earth in his hand, "I didn't even have a chance to exert my strength before the battle was over."
"I don't need you. Besides, I was just trying to scare her. I'm not actually going to fight her."
Zhao Jisheng chuckled, threw the clod of dirt in his hand on the ground, clapped his hands, and then wiped his hands on Liu Mancang's pants in front of him.
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