"Da Ni, Er Ni, we have finished cutting grass for the pigs."
A group of women who were washing clothes gathered next to the Daqing Lake. They looked at the sisters who had come down from the mountain and greeted them kindly. Everyone knew what kind of life the girls of the Jiang family led. They all lived in the same village. Although they liked to talk about the Jiang family on weekdays, they still had a little pity for those girls in their hearts.
Jiang Dani had just come down from the mountains after cutting grass for pigs. She was wearing a gray dress that was a little too big, and it looked like a sack on her thin body. The backpack behind her was almost half the size of her body, and the hemp straps cut deeply into her shoulders. A two-year-old child was tied to her chest with a cloth strip. Her dry yellow hair was tied into two braids and hung down in front of her chest. Sweat beads covered her dark and thin face.
The two-year-old child was very active, waving his hands and kicking his legs wildly in front of her chest, which made people panic, fearing that Jiang Dani would fall down at the next second.
The little girl next to Jiang Dani is her younger sister Jiang Erni. She also has a big backpack on her back. Unlike Jiang Dani who is gentle and shy, Jiang Erni's eyes are a bit unruly. Because of long-term hunger, her cheekbones are slightly protruding and her eyes are scary. Everyone who has seen her says that this girl will definitely be extraordinary in the future. This sentence is not a compliment, but a bit derogatory. The little girl is too opinionated and disobedient. Who will want her in the future?
Jiang Erni was holding the hand of a little girl of three or four years old. She was the third daughter of the Jiang family. Her clothes were already full of patches. One of her hands was held by her elder sister, and the other hand was in her mouth, sucking her fingers happily. They had just found a bunch of ground mallow on the mountain. The black little fruits were sweet and sour and tasted delicious. Unfortunately, the bunch of ground mallow had been destroyed by the children who went up the mountain, and only a few were left.
Jiang Dani and Jiang Erni were reluctant to eat them, so they gave the wild fruits to the youngest three Ni and four Ni. Four Ni was still young, so she sucked some juice to sweeten her mouth. But San Ni ate the most. At this time, she was sucking her fingers, still savoring the taste of the wild fruits that remained on her fingers.
Jiang Erni felt sad when she saw her sister like this. Her family was obviously the best in the village, so why did she and her sisters have to live like this while the two fat pigs in her second uncle's family could eat their food. They also bullied her sisters wantonly. Was it because they were daughters?
Sooner or later she will have to prove to others that daughters are no worse than boys.
Jiang Dani is nine years old this year, which is considered half an adult in the countryside. Her grandmother Miao Sanfeng and her mother Gu Dongmei are usually busy earning work points in the team, so she is the only one who does all the housework. When she was a little older, Miao Sanfeng took advantage of her husband's prestige in the village and helped her take over the job of feeding pigs in the team. Although she was not very old, she could still earn three work points a day.
Now each production team is based on a village, and every member needs to participate in collective labor to earn work points. Male labor generally gets 10 work points, and female labor generally gets 7 work points. Jiang Dahai and his wife Gu Dongmei are the main force of the production team. They work hard, so their work points are relatively high. Jiang Dahai can get eleven work points a day, and Gu Dongmei can get eight work points. Jiang Cheng, the old man of the Jiang family, does not participate in labor because he has leg injuries and receives subsidies from the army. Although Miao Sanfeng is old, she is hardworking and can get seven work points a day.
According to their family conditions, there is no need for their children to earn work points. In Datian Village, only widows or families with many people but no main labor force would ask the team leader to arrange work for their children.
Feeding pigs is not an easy job. She has to get up before dawn and go to the mountain to cut grass for the pigs. Because of her young age, she can only carry ten kilograms of grass at a time. There are ten big fat pigs on the team, and she has to go up and down the mountain several times a day. She is in the growing period, and not only does she not have enough to eat, but she also has to endure such heavy labor every day. At the age of nine, she still looks thin and small.
The Jiang family's conditions were already among the best in Qingshan Village. Even if they didn't like girls, there was no need to treat them so badly. However, Miao Sanfeng was notoriously tricky, and no one dared to say anything behind her back. Besides, these days, life was difficult for everyone. Even if they felt sorry for those girls, they didn't have the energy to help them.
Fortunately, Jiang Erni is older now and can help her elder sister with some things, which finally makes Jiang Dani feel relieved.
"By the way, Dani, your mother and her family didn't come to work today. I heard she's about to give birth. You should go back and check on her. Maybe she's already given birth to a big fat little brother for you."
The person who was speaking was the wife of Mo Dashuan, the team leader of the Qingtian Village Production Team. She was not tall but very strong and generous. She had a good relationship with Gu Dongmei and had long been fed up with Old Lady Miao's behavior.
"Really? Thank you, Aunt Mo. I'll go home now." Jiang Dani's eyes sparkled when she heard her mother was about to give birth. She had always believed that as long as her mother gave birth to a younger brother, their lives would be better. Since she was a child, everyone told her that as long as there was a boy in the family, their future would be supported.
She never resented her grandmother for treating her like this. She had a small heart and was easily satisfied. During the three years of disaster, many girls starved to death or were thrown far away into the mountains by their families to fend for themselves. At least she and her sisters survived, and for this, she would not resent her family.
She knew that her parents loved them very much, but due to filial piety, they could not go against their grandmother. She would never forget the taste of the maltose her father secretly stuffed into her mouth when he took her to the market when she was a child, and the bran buns her mother secretly left for her sisters during the most difficult years, when she was so hungry that she almost fainted in the fields.
All these details were recorded in her mind, and they were the only glimmer of color in her dark and deprived life. She always believed that as long as she had a younger brother, her mother would no longer be scolded by her grandmother, her father would no longer always sigh, and the lives of the four sisters would be better.
"Chairman Mao blesses my mother to give birth to a son. If so, I want to see if my grandparents will send all the food from our home to my second uncle's house."
What Jiang Erni hated the most were the two little brats from her second uncle's family. While they ate steamed bread made of wild vegetables for every meal, the two of them could often eat steamed buns made of white flour. They would always take the food taken from her family's rice jar and ridicule them in front of them.
Jiang Dani hurriedly gave the pig grass she had cut today to the pigherd in the village who was in charge of looking after the fat pigs, and hurried back home with her sisters.
Nowadays, these fat pigs are important assets of the village. Team leader Mo Dashuan specially let the village's lonely old man Meng San live near the pigpen. He usually eats and lives with the pigs. The house is smelly and no one dares to get close.
In the past, Jiang Dani had to help Meng San cook pig food, but now she was in a hurry to go home. Meng San knew the situation of the Jiang family, and usually only a few sisters of the Jiang family would come to see this old man and chat with him, so he let them go back very readily.
Jiang Dani's basket also contained fresh wild vegetables picked from the mountain. The family's food had always been limited to grandpa and dad, and what was distributed to them was barely enough to fill their stomachs. Jiang Dani could only pick more wild vegetables and cook them with cornmeal. The wild vegetables had a bitter taste, but at least she could barely fill herself up.
The situation is much better now than in previous years. Wild vegetables have grown again. You know, in those years, even the bark of the trees was stripped off and they were said to be grass roots. People were so hungry that they even ate soil.
Dani and the others ran all the way home, and as soon as they opened the door, they saw Grandma Miao Sanfeng standing in the yard.
"Grandma, grandma." Jiang Dani and the others stopped immediately, lowered their heads, and were too scared to look at her. If grandma knew that they had sneaked back before finishing cooking the pig food, they would definitely be beaten.
"Dani, you guys are back."
Miao Sanfeng was completely different from usual. Not only did she not look at them coldly, but she smiled like a chrysanthemum and called them affectionately. Jiang Dani and her sister looked at each other and felt uneasy. Could it be that grandma had been contaminated by some dirt? Why did she become so weird?
"Your mother gave birth to a younger brother for you. He is very smart. He is in the house now. Speak softly and don't scare him." Now that Miao Sanfeng had a grandson, she was no longer so displeased with her granddaughters. She rarely gave them a good look.
"I'll go boil some egg water for your mother now. You guys go into the house to check on your brother." Miao Sanfeng hummed a little tune and walked towards the kitchen in a good mood. Her grandson still needed milk, so she had to nourish his wife well.
"We have a younger brother now, and mom gave birth to a son." Jiang Dani felt that all the suffering she had endured in the past had paid off, and she couldn't help but burst into tears.
"You little damn girl, why are you screaming? If you wake up your brother, I'll beat you to death." Miao Sanfeng came out of the kitchen and said viciously to Jiang Dani, and suddenly returned to her previous ferocious appearance.
Jiang Dani was so scared that she quickly covered her mouth, but her eyes still revealed an unprecedented brilliance.
"They only have their brother in their eyes." Jiang Erni muttered, seeming to be jealous of this brother who suddenly arrived, but the joy in her eyes betrayed her completely. To them now, this brother is really too important.
******
Jiang Lai Di only felt dizzy, as if she was trapped in a fog. It seemed that there were many people surrounding her, whispering something. She wanted to wave away the things blocking her way, but her hands were weak and she had no strength at all. Her throat seemed to be blocked by something and she couldn't make any sound.
Isn’t she dead? Where is she now?
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