Chapter 241: Inquiring about the past

Xia Juanjuan smiled and said, "Nothing, I just remembered something. Thank you for today. If there's nothing else, I'll leave. I'll treat you to dinner another day."

Dahei smiled and sent her back, then asked, "Sister, what about that farmer brother? Should we still follow him and send him to the train station?"

Xia Juanjuan thought about it and realized that Liu Lan had secretly instigated Song Xiuyue to harm her. Although Li Qiang and Wang Guixiang were not good people, apart from some conflicts caused by the children fighting, they did not have any deep hatred. On the contrary, she had to thank him for stealing Liu Lan's jade, which enabled her to discover a big secret.

Therefore, Xia Juanjuan smiled and said, "Then I'll trouble you to escort him to the train station."

As for whether he would be targeted later on the train, it all depended on Li Qiang's luck.

After listening to this, Dahei agreed without any problem.

Li Qiang was also lucky, and he was also quite alert, so he returned to Qingshui Village safely.

When Wang Guixiang heard that he sold it for thirty yuan, she was also quite disappointed.

Thirty yuan is not a small amount, but a job in a county factory, even a temporary one, would cost at least a hundred yuan, not to mention other expenses.

Only then did they realize how fantastic their original idea was.

Now that he can't go to the county town, he has to stay in the village. Other households in the village have electric wires and are bright, but his house has nothing. When he goes out to chat, people tease him for being too stingy.

Li Qiang had no choice but to go to the commune and make a fuss, insisting that they come and install wires for his house alone. He only had to spend two more yuan to get the matter settled.

After Xia Juanjuan came back, she began to think about where to start to investigate this matter.

If you ask Liu Lan directly, she might not tell you. She might look back and find that the jade she secretly hid was lost, and she would suspect that she stole it, which would cause another big fuss!

But if you ask Shen Wanxue directly, what if the jade was obtained by Liu Lan from someone else in her early years, and Shen Wanxue's child was not fostered in the Li family? That would give her hope and then let her down, which would be unbearable.

I'd better ask indirectly first.

It was just around the corner for the Laba Festival, so Xia Juanjuan started preparing Laba porridge.

Laba porridge is made from eight ingredients, and the ingredients are easy to get: rice, millet, red beans, mung beans, peanuts, lotus seeds harvested in summer, dates and chestnuts harvested in autumn. These are enough ingredients.

Cook it into a thick porridge and sprinkle it with sugar. Both adults and children like to drink it.

Xia Juanjuan carefully crushed the larger ingredients in the porridge, such as peanuts, lotus seeds, dates, and chestnuts, with a spoon before she dared to feed some to the triplets.

Now, the triplets are one year and one month old, and it is almost time for them to be weaned.

After they turned one year old, Xia Juanjuan began to feed them less frequently and focused mainly on feeding them.

When the three little guys were hungry, they would still make a fuss about wanting to drink milk. However, at such times, Xia Juanjuan would deliberately hide, wipe the milk with coal ash, and lie to them that the milk had gone bad. In short, she used all kinds of tricks to coax the three little guys to eat even though they were so hungry.

After a month, it seems to be quite effective.

Sometimes, she would wake up in a daze in the middle of the night, and think of her motherless grandmother drinking, and would howl sadly, which made Xia Juanjuan feel both funny and pitiful.

After cooking Laba porridge, Xia Juanjuan served a bowl and brought it to Zhou Qiuhe.

Zhou Qiuhe is still in confinement after childbirth. When Liu Lan was drinking chicken soup, she would run over quickly to ask for some. But it was just a dream to ask her to come over to cook for her or take care of her while her daughter-in-law was in confinement after childbirth. Therefore, Li Jie was the one who took care of the cooking these days.

Lijie is a rough guy, but he is already quite good at cooking.

I definitely don’t know how to make something like Laba Congee.

When I went to take a look, I saw that there was corn paste and sweet potatoes on the table, and some fried cabbage. When Zhou Qiuhe was in confinement, she had a bowl of noodle soup made of white flour paste and eggs.

Even so, Zhou Qiuhe was reluctant to drink it herself, and asked Li Jie to get a small bowl and share some among the three kids.

Dongbao is also two or three years old. He follows his two older sisters happily, looking both pitiful and cute.

Xia Juanjuan brought the Laba porridge over. Li Jie and Zhou Qiuhe saw it and were so grateful that they didn't know what to say.

After Zhou Qiuhe gave birth, Xia Juanjuan sent ten eggs over. If she made something delicious later, she would ask Xiaowen and Xiaowu to bring some over, which was beyond reproach.

Xia Juanjuan sat down and chatted for a few minutes tentatively.

She had heard before that most of the people in Qingshui Village were refugees from other places, and later, with the consent of the township, they settled down here. The Li family seemed to have also fled here, but she didn't know any more details.

"Third brother and sister-in-law, I heard before that our Li family also fled here to escape famine. So where is our ancestral home?"

Li Jie and Zhou Qiuhe thought it was just a casual chat and didn't take it seriously.

Zhou Qiuhe smiled and said, "You'll have to ask Lijie about this. My family also fled from famine, but we're not from the same place as them."

Li Jie scratched his head and smiled, "When we fled here, I was only three years old, and Li Zhan was almost one year old, so we didn't remember anything yet. But I heard from my father and elder brother that we came from Shandong Province because of the Yellow River flood. We were originally going to flee to the northeast, but when we got here, we couldn't go any further, so we had to stop."

Xia Juanjuan nodded and said with a smile: "Lizhan was less than two years old at that time, so young..."

Just think about how he was just a tiny kid, not much older than Yanyan, Yeye and Yaoyao are now, and yet he followed the adults to flee from famine. It’s so pitiful just to think about it.

Xia Juanjuan couldn't help but feel heartbroken.

Li Jie recalled, "That's right! I vaguely remember that my father carried me on his back, and my sister or brother took turns carrying Li Zhan. Sometimes I had to walk on my own. Anyway...it was so difficult to survive back then."

Xia Juanjuan nodded, and suddenly asked, "Third brother, have you ever heard of a person named Liang Yunxia?"

In the past, Shen Wanxue had asked her once out of the blue if she had heard of it.

At the time, she felt strange, why would someone ask her a name out of the blue? So she remembered it.

Now that I think about it, maybe it has something to do with the foster care of Shen Wanxue's child!

"Liang Yunxia?" Li Jie repeated in a daze. After trying to recall for a long time, he shook his head and said, "It sounds familiar... By the way, there seems to be a person named Liu Yunxia in the next commune. Is she?"

Xia Juanjuan couldn't help but feel a little disappointed after hearing this. Li Jie was only three years old at the time, so it was normal for him to not remember things. From the looks of it, it was estimated that she would still have to ask Li Qiang and Liu Lan...

Suddenly, Xia Juanjuan was moved and asked: "Third brother, come to think of it, my sister, it has been so many years and I haven't seen her back. I don't know how she is doing now..."

The eldest brother of the Li family, the father of Xiaowen, Xiaowu and Beibei, has passed away, but the eldest sister of the Li family should remember a lot of things when she was fleeing famine!

When Li Jie heard her mention her elder sister, he sighed and said, "Alas! There has been no news from my elder sister since she got married. The Li family is sorry for her. When I was ten years old, in order to have enough food for the family, my father and mother married her to a forty-year-old widower in Lin County for a twenty-yuan betrothal gift. Because of this, my sister never came back after she got married..."

This road...isn't passable either?

Xia Juanjuan was somewhat disappointed, but there was nothing she could do. She chatted for a while and then went back.

That night, Laba porridge was brought to Shen Wanxue and Yang Qiushi.

I happened to see Shen Wanxue making clothes, so I went over to take a look. It looked like a man's cotton jacket, made of new cotton. I smiled and asked, "Auntie, are you making this for the uncle in the west?"

Shen Wanxue smiled and said, "I've already sent the one I made for your uncle. As for this one... well, let's not talk about it. Juanjuan, thank you for sending us food again. We haven't finished the millet, cornmeal, flour, and eggs you sent us last time."

When Xia Juanjuan saw her change the subject, she roughly guessed that judging from the size of the clothes, it was probably made for her son.

In the past, he would have just followed suit and not brought up the subject and exposed other people's wounds. But today, she was going to hint at it, so this was a good entry point.

Xia Juanjuan picked up the cotton shirt and looked at it from side to side, then said with a smile, "This cotton shirt is similar to the body shape of my Lizhan."

After Shen Wanxue heard this, her face suddenly turned pale. In her mind, this dress was made according to Liezhan's body shape.

After a moment of silence, Shen Wanxue sighed and said with a smile: "What you said is similar to Lizhan's figure. But... if you don't mind, hurry up and I will make another one for Lizhan..."

After hearing this, Xia Juanjuan quickly said, "Auntie, that's not what I meant..."

Shen Wanxue smiled and said, "It's okay. You and Lizhan have secretly taken care of me for the past one or two years. Let alone one cotton coat, even if it's ten, it's worth it!"

Xia Juanjuan said, "Auntie, it's really not necessary. I made a very nice cotton jacket last month and sent it to him. Besides, they have uniform military coats in winter, so he won't be frozen!"

After hearing this, Shen Wanxue smiled and said, "Ah... you are so reserved with me. This... has some special meaning, otherwise I am not a stingy person..."

Xia Juanjuan gritted her teeth and asked directly, "Auntie, I'm going to ask you something. Is this... something you made for your lost son?"

Upon hearing this, Shen Wanxue was stunned for a moment, then her eyes suddenly turned red. She quickly turned her face away and said, "Ah... Ah! These two days are exactly his birthday, so I make one every year, thinking... even if the child can't wear it... it's also... for the mother... Ah..."

Having said that, I really couldn’t go on and could only sigh.

Xia Juanjuan was excited.

Lizhan’s real birthday is December 11th of the lunar calendar, isn’t it just a few days away?