Awakening from a bout of dizziness, Ning Hong rubbed her groggy head and sat up on the straw bed.
This house is so dilapidated.
The bed is a straw bed, and the roof is also made of straw.
It seems to be raining outside, and inside the house, it's drizzling softly too.
The wooden door hung crookedly on the edge.
I reckon he would have fallen over with just one kick.
Is this place really run-down? You can see all the way to the back at a glance. In the middle of the table is a table with a patched-up leg and two other chairs with broken legs.
Given their extreme poverty, it's no wonder that their younger sister ended up on that path.
"Brother, you're awake." A petite girl carefully carried in a bowl with a broken edge.
He stared intently at the bowl, swallowing hard.
"Look, we have something to eat. It was given to us by the aunt next door."
"That person is so stingy, how could he be willing to give us food?"
"I knelt at their doorstep. Brother, if you don't eat something soon, you won't be able to hold on." The girl licked her dry, chapped lips and pulled her worn-out cotton coat tighter around herself.
This coat is old and doesn't fit well; in many places, the yellowed cotton wadding is showing.
"You knelt at their doorstep?"
"Yes, I heard my eldest cousin is going to try to become a scholar, which is a very important title. My eldest cousin's wife is very concerned about her reputation, so she gave me a small bag of coarse grains."
Although it was coarse grain, and only a small bag, weighing about two pounds, it was enough to feed her brother for several days.
She's alright. It's winter now, and there's snow everywhere outside. If she's starving, she can just grab a handful of snow to fill her stomach.
"Then eat the glutinous rice."
"No, you eat it. You'll get better if you eat it."
Nuonuo is absolutely certain that the food is authentic.
"But???????"
"Brother, I'm not hungry, I'm really not hungry, I'm all round and chubby here." Nuonuo patted her belly. A smile appeared on her dirty little face.
Ning Hong suddenly felt a pang of sadness upon seeing this.
"Nuonuo, go and close the door."
"Okay? Brother, do you feel cold?" Nuonuo obediently closed the door.
She is ten years old this year, but she looks only about six years old. Her body is very thin, but her head is unusually large.
Her exposed hands and feet were somewhat swollen, which seemed quite out of place with her thin body.
Ning Hong closed the door, which was practically useless, and then waved to Nuonuo, who climbed onto the bed.
"Brother, can't you sleep? Do you want Nuonuo to sleep with you?"
Nuonuo reached out and patted Ning Hongze's shoulder, "Brother, go to sleep quickly."
"Brother isn't sleeping? Does brother have something to tell Nuonuo?"
"What is it?"
"My brother dreamed that he met his father."
"What?" Upon hearing "father" and "son," Nuonuo's cat eyes widened instantly.
It actually looks rather cute.
What did your father say to you?
"He told me to take good care of you." Ning Hong rubbed Nuonuo's dry hair. Fortunately, there were no lice in her hair. Otherwise, even in ancient times, he would have shaved off all of Nuonuo's hair.
He had no patience to pick the lice off one by one.
"What else did Father say? Did he tell you where the grain is hidden at home?"
Where in our house can we store grain?
"Hmph, I knew it." Their hopes were dashed; what their family needed most right now was food. Nuonuo didn't have much of an impression of this father. In short, he was always running around outside, and their mother was always crying. Later, their father passed away, and after crying for seven days, their mother abandoned them and remarried.
"Then why does Father want to see you? He wouldn't want to take you away, would he? That won't do." Thinking of this possibility, Nuonuo jumped up from the bed. "You're the only family I have left."
After their mother remarried, she never came back to see them again. At that time, they were still young, and their older brother was only ten years old. They would dig for wild vegetables and catch pheasants to exchange for food.
As for their family's land, they originally had three mu of land, but his grandmother said that they were too young to know how to cultivate it, and that leaving it in their hands would only waste the land. It would be better to let their uncle cultivate it and give them some grain every year.
Ning Hong agreed.
They really can't do farm work.
They just didn't expect that the promised 300 catties of grain a year would be replaced by the fact that Grandma said she would give him money to support his old age instead of money. If he didn't have the money, she would give him silver instead. In the end, they only received 50 catties of grain, which was coarse grain.
As for their house, it had already been sold by his mother.
She took the money with her.
I heard that it was with this money that she was able to remarry smoothly.
The thatched hut they now live in was provided free of charge by the village chief, who saw how pitiful the siblings were. It's located at the foot of the mountain, quite far from the other houses in the village.
However, being far away has its advantages; at least the area is large enough that the brother and sister can grow some easy-to-grow vegetables in the yard.
As for why Ning Hong is unconscious.
He was beaten by his uncle.
He turned fourteen this year. In modern times, fourteen is still a child, but in ancient times, fourteen was old enough to get married.
He wanted his uncle to return the three acres of land to him. He would farm it himself and ensure his sister wouldn't go hungry again.
As for the pension for his grandmother, he will remember it; anyway, he will give her 250 catties of grain a year.
But my uncle has been farming these fields for so many years that he has long considered them his own, so why would he agree to this?
They started arguing immediately.
His uncle, young and strong, pushed Ning Hongze down in one go, and Ning Hongze's head hit a stone in the field, causing her to bleed a lot.
It was thanks to the cold weather that the blood froze instantly, which saved Ning Hongze's life.
This uncle was quite ruthless. After checking Ning Hongze's wounds and seeing that he was still breathing, he simply carried him home without even bothering to find a doctor to examine him. He even had his son, who was still in school, write a transfer agreement and press his fingerprint onto it using Ning Hongze's blood.
A deed transferring these three acres of land?
Ning Hong touched the treated wound on her head and then reached out to touch Ning Nuonuo's leg.
"Ouch, brother, don't touch it."
Ning Hongze's hand had barely touched Ning Nuonuo's knee when Ning Nuonuo gasped in pain, tears welling up in her eyes.
Ning Hong's expression changed, and she hurriedly pulled up her pants.
"elder brother."
Ning Nuonuo's knees were swollen, and could even be described as frostbite.
"Why would you kneel before someone like that in the dead of winter?"
Ning Hong tenderly took out a pair of knee pads and frostbite ointment from his online store. He carefully applied a thick layer of frostbite ointment to the frostbitten areas of Ning Nuonuo, and then put the knee pads on Ning Nuonuo.
The warmth instantly dispelled the tingling and itching sensation in my knees. "Brother, what is this?"
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