022, Stay
022, Stay
Back at the clinic, Lu Mingfei told his father and mother about finding a place to stay. Because his father's medicine was still boiling on the stove, they waited for a while in the clinic. They left only after the medicine was ready and his father drank it.
When they came out of the clinic, the sun in the west had already set behind the mountains and dusk was falling.
There were even fewer people on the street now, and they were pulling ox carts on the road.
At this time, Lu Youtian was unable to get out of the ground or walk, so he could only lie on the ox cart and let others pull him along. Looking at his wife and children walking beside him, he felt the reality that the three of them had left the Lu family. He knew that the days ahead would not be easy, but now that he had saved his life, no matter how difficult it was, it would not be as difficult as dying and leaving his wife and children behind to live in this world.
When they arrived at the pancake shop, the front door was already closed. Lu Mingfei led the way, leading his mother and Uncle Chunping, who were leading the cow into the alley.
“Knock knock—”
When they arrived at the side door, Lu Mingfei reached out and knocked on the door. They stood outside, waiting for the person inside to come and open the door for them.
Not long after, they heard the sound of someone walking inside, and a familiar voice responded to them, "Coming, coming."
"Aunt, I'm here with my father and mother." Lu Mingfei also spoke, responding to the people inside and letting them know that they were the ones waiting outside the door.
The footsteps on the other side of the door were getting closer and closer, followed by the sound of someone taking off the bolt, and then the door was opened from the inside.
Xu Yueniang's smiling face appeared in front of everyone. She opened the door and let everyone in: "You are here, come in quickly."
Lu Mingfei had taken his father to the pancake shop a few times before and had met the owner and his wife a few times, but they were not familiar with each other. This time, he was going to stay at someone else's house, and before entering, he felt that they should first introduce their family members' names, so he introduced the mother standing next to him: "Hello, auntie, this is my mother, Liu Sanniang."
"My father is unable to move around easily, so he's lying on the oxcart. His surname is Lu, and his name is Lu Youtian. This is an uncle from our clan, also surnamed Lu, named Lu Chunping. You just met him. We are all villagers from the nearby Shihua Village."
"My real name is Lu Mingfei, and my family calls me Qilang."
"Sorry to bother you." Liu Sanniang said embarrassedly.
"It's okay. I won't bother you." Xu Yueniang smiled and nodded at Liu Sanniang. She had seen the father and son of the Lu family several times, and she had also seen the man leading the cow just now. Only Liu Sanniang was seeing her for the first time. She smiled and said to Liu Sanniang, "You can just call me Yueniang. My head of the family's surname is Lu, and his name is Qingfeng."
The woman in front of me was wearing a green cloth dress with several patches on it. Perhaps because of what happened at home, she looked a little disheveled and her hair was messy, but she still looked like a beautiful woman.
The woman looked slightly older than she was, with an oval face, willow-shaped eyebrows, and almond-shaped eyes. Even with the slight traces of time on her beautiful face, it still did not diminish her beauty. This beauty was full of the gracefulness and gentleness of a woman. The woman before her was obviously a woman with a very gentle personality, which was exactly what she lacked.
So almost at first sight, Xu Yue Niang felt that Liu San Niang was very much to her liking.
"Our door is a little small, so your oxcart can't get in. You'll have to leave the cart outside and carry the person down." Xu Yueniang also noticed a person lying on the oxcart. It was the man who had brought the children to their house to buy sesame cakes two days ago. She called her husband over to help, and together they carried the person into the prepared guest room.
Boss Lu and Lu Chunping carried Lu Youtian into their guest room and put him down on the bed. They also helped to bring the two large boxes and two large baskets from the ox cart into their house and put them away.
Afraid that the cow would be taken away if left outside, Lu Chunping untied the rope on the cow, led the cow into the yard, tied it to a rope, gave the cow some water to drink, and brought a handful of grass to the ground for the cow to eat.
Seeing so many things unloaded from the ox cart, Xu Yueniang didn't ask any more questions. After settling Lu Youtian in the house, she said to her husband and Liu Sanniang and the other guests, "Put the things here. Let's go outside for dinner first."
Liu Sanniang looked at her husband lying on the bed unable to move, and hesitated whether to go to dinner.
Seeing Liu Sanniang's hesitation, Xu Yueniang said, "When you're full, bring some food in here for your husband. You need to be full so you can have the energy to take care of your husband. How can you take care of others when you're hungry? Just tell me."
"You guys go ahead, I'll rest here for a while." Lu Youtian said to his wife and children.
Hearing this, Liu Sanniang told her husband to rest well here and call them if anything happened. Then she took the child and Lu Chunping and followed the host out to the courtyard to have dinner.
Xu Yueniang invited the guests to sit down together. She asked her husband to sit with Lu Chunping, while she and Liu Sanniang sat on the other side with their child.
There was a pile of sesame cakes on the table, as well as one meat dish and two vegetarian dishes.
Xu Yue Niang said to the guests a little embarrassedly: "The food at home is just simple, please don't be disgusted."
"No, no, this is already very good." Liu Sanniang waved her hands hurriedly. She was telling the truth. When they were at the Lu family, they could only eat meat once a year, on New Year's Eve. However, the meat was for the men in the family. The women and children could only drink some meat soup at most.
But today they were guests at someone else's house, and the host served them a big bowl full of meat.
"Eat, everyone, eat, stop watching." Lu Qingfeng came over with a wine jar and asked Lu Chunping, "Shall we have a drink?"
"Okay, okay, you can drink a little less." Lu Chunping was afraid that drinking would cause trouble. He also brought the big cow from their clan leader's family. If he got drunk and lost the cow, he would not be able to explain to the clan leader's family when he returned.
"Okay." Seeing that Lu Chunping was a straightforward man, Lu Qingfeng poured half a bowl of wine into each of their bowls and said with a smile: "I dare not drink too much. I have to get up early tomorrow morning to knead the dough for the illness. If I drink too much, I won't be able to get up."
Seeing that the men were drinking, Xu Yueniang also invited Liu Sanniang and her son to have dinner.
Lu Mingfei was chewing on a pancake. He had already eaten half of it, but that half was not enough to make up for it. He was still hungry. While eating the pancake, he praised, "Uncle, aunt, your pancakes are really delicious!"
"Haha, if it tastes good, eat more." Xu Yue Niang looked at the little boy with eyes full of love.
Listening to the conversation between Boss Lu and his uncle Chunping at the dinner table, Lu Mingfei learned that the Lu family used to be wealthy, but it fell into decline during the generation of Boss Lu's grandfather. Boss Lu's father was a gambler and lost all the family fortune, leaving only this shop for his son, Boss Lu.
"If my mother hadn't threatened me with her life, I'm afraid my father would have lost all the money in this shop. Alas." When he said this, Lu Qingfeng couldn't help but sigh. It was unclear whether he was sighing that his father had lost all the family fortune, or that his mother had married the wrong person.
Lu Chunping didn't know what to think. Other people's mothers at least left a shop in Kyoto for their descendants. What could his mother leave them? And what could they, in their own generation, leave for their descendants? He couldn't help but ask himself.
Seeing her husband talking about these old things again, Xu Yueniang said to him, "Alright, alright, you complain to others after drinking a few glasses of wine. These are all old things. Stop talking about them. What's in the past is in the past."
"Yes, yes, look at me..." Boss Lu smiled and let the guests drink and eat.
When they were almost done eating, Xu Yueniang got up and looked at the porridge cooking in the stove, then came over to Liu Sanniang and said, "I made some porridge in the pot for Qilang's father. It's ready now. Please bring a bowl into the house for Qilang's father to eat."
"Thank you so much for troubling you. Thank you, thank you..." Liu Sanniang didn't expect Xu Yueniang to specially make porridge for them. As she spoke, she was about to stand up to thank Xu Yueniang. However, before she could stand up, Xu Yueniang held her down and prevented her from getting up.
"Thank you, auntie, thank you, uncle." Lu Mingfei also thanked his parents and the two kind people who took them in.
"No thanks, no need to be so polite. It's fate that we met. It means we are destined to be together." Xu Yueniang looked at the little boy with undisguised affection in her eyes. At this moment, she was thinking about something, but she didn't want to bring it up right away. It was a bit too abrupt and she was afraid it would scare the mother and child.
After everyone had finished eating, Xu Yueniang filled a bowl of vegetables and a bowl of porridge and asked Liu Sanniang to take them into the house to feed the man who was lying in bed and unable to get out of bed.
This time Liu Sanniang did not refuse. After thanking him, she took the things and went into the house.
When his mother brought food into the house for his father, Lu Mingfei did not follow her, but stayed to help his aunt clear the table.
Xu Yueniang was delighted to see that the little child knew how to help others with work, but she was reluctant to let him go. She said to the child, "Auntie doesn't need your help here. Go play over there. Auntie can clean up by herself."
"If I work with my aunt, we can get it done faster." Lu Mingfei didn't leave. How could their family just stay at someone else's house, eat their fill while the host worked, and then just leave? If they did that, they wouldn't necessarily be welcomed back a second time. He understood this principle of life and work.
Seeing that this little guy knew how to help her with work, Xu Yue Niang looked at Lu Mingfei with even more fondness in her eyes.
By the time they had cleared the table and washed the dishes, it was already completely dark.
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