Chapter 55 Cleaning up the old house
Chen Qingqing looked over when she heard this. On the small balcony next door stood a white-haired old lady with a hunched back and a crutch. She stared at Chen Qingqing with her presbyopic eyes slightly narrowed.
Chen Qingqing wanted to call out the other person's name, but she couldn't remember such a person in her memory.
"You don't know me, but you must know my husband, right? His last name is Ding, and everyone calls him Old Man Ding."
Chen Qingqing suddenly realized.
There is indeed an old man named Ding living next door. He has a very bad temper. Every day, he stays at home except for going fishing.
Chen Qingqing has been a neighbor next door for more than ten years, and she has only spoken to Old Man Ding a few times.
She heard that Old Man Ding had no children, but she didn't know that he had a wife.
"I was paralyzed in the hospital all those years, and Old Ding went fishing to pay for my medical expenses. Last year, the hospital issued a critical illness notice, and Old Ding took me back to take care of my funeral."
However, she was standing on the second floor and talked to Chen Qingqing for such a long time without even coughing.
Except for being a little older, she looked healthier than young people. How could she look like someone who had been issued a critical illness notice?
Chen Qingqing had a vague guess in her heart.
The old lady said again: "I often hear Old Ding mention you, saying that you are a hardworking little girl, helping your parents with work, and you like to study and are very motivated."
Chen Qingqing was a little surprised. She didn't expect that the old man Ding, who usually ignored her, actually remembered her and praised her in front of his wife?
Lin Bo also walked out at this time.
The old lady shifted her gaze to Lin Bo again: "Is this your wife?"
"And your children, so cute."
The old lady saw Xiao Huan peeking in, and her tone suddenly became gentle.
Lin Bo nodded politely and responded softly: "Auntie, do you need help?"
They are all neighbors and will live together for a month in the future. It is important to help each other.
"Indeed." The old lady paused.
"But you should deal with the dirt at the door first, and we will talk about it in a few days."
At this point, the old lady seemed to remember something and suddenly changed her tone: "Forget it, you can come over tomorrow morning."
Although the few people were confused, they didn't think much about it. With the help of an old lady, they couldn't cause any trouble.
Chen Qingqing didn't plan to clean up right away. They were tired after a day and hadn't had a proper meal yet.
When they walked into the room, the furniture and floor were covered with a thick layer of dust.
A piece of glass on the east wall facing the sea had broken at some point, and after the west door was opened, the sea breeze kept blowing through the room, sweeping up the dust and making people cough.
Zhou Weiyue quickly picked up the firewood in the basket and handed it to Chen Qingqing: "Sister Chen, take the child out first, the air outside is good."
"We will clean up here."
Shang Li also nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, we are enough."
Chen Qingqing did not refuse. The baby was indeed not suitable to stay in a dusty room.
She briefly told a few people about the layout of the small building.
Although it is a two-story small building, there are not many rooms.
The kitchen is on the south side of the first floor, and the living room is in the middle. There is a door on the east and west sides of the living room. The west door leads to the yard, and the east door is connected to the stairs leading to the beach.
The east gate is now locked, and Chen Qingqing couldn't remember where the key was.
Walking north along the living room, there is a small utility room and stairs. Going up
the stairs, there is a bathroom on the left, and there is a corridor in front. The first room on the left of the corridor is the second bedroom, and the master bedroom is at the end of the corridor.
Chen Qingqing's parents used to live in the master bedroom, and Chen Qingqing lived in the second bedroom.
These rooms are not locked, and of course there is nothing valuable in them.
The folk customs in Fengwei Village are also very good. The neighbors help to look after the house. Although no one has lived in this house for a long time, nothing in the house has been lost.
The master bedroom is naturally the room for a family of four, and it needs to be cleaned out first.
The four of them worked together and cleaned the house in ten minutes.
They put on the new four-piece suits that Chen Qingqing gave them, opened the windows for ventilation, and the cool evening sea breeze blew on their faces, quickly washing away the moldy smell in the house.
The bedding had not been dried in time and had a stale smell, but they could make do with it for one night. They planned to ask other people tomorrow if they had clean ones.
Zhou Weiyue stood by the window, stretched her arms, faced the sea, and took a deep breath: "This is the feeling of freedom!"
She heard a click, realized that the door of the second bedroom was opened, and immediately turned around and rushed to the second bedroom.
"How about it!" Zhou Weiyue was particularly excited, wanting to see what kind of room Chen Qingqing lived in when she was a child.
Zhou Weiyue guessed that it was probably the pink color that girls love the most, or the rebellious black color.
...But the result was unexpectedly simple.
It was so simple that it seemed as if no one had ever lived in this room.
A single bed, only a mattress, and not even a quilt.
Shang Li opened the closet, and there was a winter quilt and a thin summer quilt inside.
There was not a single piece of clothing in the closet, and the desk in the room was also empty.
It seemed that the person who moved out never planned to come back.
The second bedroom was naturally where the four of them lived.
Although it was called a second bedroom, it was not small. One person slept on a single bed, and three people could sleep on the floor.
But it was impossible for the three of them to sleep on the floor at the same time, so someone would definitely have to stay on the first floor to keep watch every night.
Overall, it was not crowded.
The bathroom facilities on the second floor were all good, but unfortunately, the water supply was cut off.
The only thing to be thankful for was that the toilet could still be flushed with seawater, which was what they had just used to clean the house.
They could finally say goodbye to open-air toilets and the mosquitoes that could get in everywhere.
After cleaning up the second floor, several people walked downstairs with cleaning tools and suddenly smelled the fragrance of vegetables.
Several people ran downstairs, and heard the sound of spatulas and iron pots colliding in the south kitchen. The smell of oil smoke and the aroma of long-stale food filled the air, enough to make people in the end times burst into tears.
In a blink of an eye, Lin Bo came out with the dishes.
Seeing the people crowded in the stairwell, Lin Bo thought it was a little funny: "What are you all doing there? Why don't you come and get some rice?"
"... Serving! Of course we have to!"
Without saying a word, several people rushed into the kitchen and turned on the rice cooker. Before they put the rice in their mouths, the aroma of the rice was about to knock them down.
Each person had a bowl of rice filled with a spike. They cleaned the tea table in front of the TV in the living room and wiped the soft leather sofa dry before inviting Chen Qingqing back. There were
four dishes and a soup on the table: green pepper and eggs, mushu pork, celery fried with pork belly, stir-fried Chinese cabbage, and a bowl of seaweed egg drop soup.
These vegetables were given to them by Wei Zheng. Chen Qingqing placed them at the door of the freezer, where the temperature was just right for the fresh-keeping layer.
Chen Qingqing made milk powder for Shu Shuan, fed her a whole bottle of milk, and then put her in a cradle at the door of the utility room to coax her to sleep.
She walked into the living room but found that no one had touched their chopsticks.
Although they all stared at the steaming dishes, drooling, they still restrained themselves.
"Sister Chen!" Zhou Weiyue immediately stood up to greet her, pulled her to sit in the middle of the sofa, and handed her a bowl of rice.
"Thank you Sister Chen for helping us all this time!"
"I'll do it first, you can do whatever you want!" Zhou Weiyue took a big bite of the white rice, and the protruding rice suddenly turned into a crater.
Shang Li was dumbfounded: "I've heard of drinking, but I've never heard of drinking rice."
Zhou Weiyue chuckled twice, "Just kidding." It wasn't
until Chen Qingqing took the first bite of the dish that everyone started to use their chopsticks.
Lin Bo cooked a big pot of rice, but it was eaten up cleanly, without a single grain of rice left.
After eating and drinking, everyone lay on the sofa, enjoying this rare quiet and happy time.
"Bang!" Suddenly there was a loud noise, as if something was thrown in, and then exploded in the yard. Huo
Huo, who had finally fallen asleep, was awakened by the sudden noise and burst into tears.
Everyone immediately stood up and looked outside.
"Kid in the house! Come out quickly, there's a fire!"