"Shuiyue was in the dilapidated temple. She was sick and kept asking for steamed buns, so I stole one from that person when no one was looking."
Upon hearing that Yue Shui was ill, Xiao Yue's face showed anxiety. It was so cold that day, and Xiao Yue had stayed in that dilapidated temple before. It was drafty from all sides. A little girl of only 12 years old... Xiao Yue became more and more anxious as she thought about it, and urged Chun Yue, "Take me to see her quickly."
As he spoke, he turned to Liang Qi and said, "Go and tell Uncle Liang that I'm going to check on Shuiyue."
Liang Qi smiled reassuringly and said, "I didn't go back. My father definitely can't leave, so don't worry."
As he spoke, he took Xiaoyue's hand and followed Chunyue toward the Earth God Temple.
The wind was very strong on the road to the Earth Temple, chilling Xiaoyue to the bone. Not to mention Chunyue, who was walking ahead, wearing tattered clothes with several holes of varying sizes.
The gate to the dilapidated temple was nowhere to be found. Inside, Xiaoyue discovered that the fire had gone out. Shuiyue was huddled by the fire, her brows furrowed, her small face pale, looking like an abandoned kitten.
Just as Xiaoyue was about to pick up Shuiyue, Liang Qi took off his dog-skin coat first, wrapped it around Shuiyue, picked her up, and walked out.
Once on the oxcart, there were only two seats left. Xiaoyue held Chunyue, and Liangqi held Shuiyue. They rode home.
Xiaoyue didn't wait for Shuiyue to get home, but went to Hu Langzhong's house to get medicine for her. Then the group walked together towards Xiaoyue's house.
Li Qianqian wasn't surprised to see Xiaoyue bring back two more children. If Xiaoyue weren't such a person, she and her brother wouldn't know how they would have gotten through the winter.
Xiaoyue looked at Li Lei's room. His room was a small living room with a homemade wooden bed that was not big enough for two people to sleep in.
Li Lei, who was cooking, saw Xiaoyue come into his room and basically knew what was going on. He went up to Xiaoyue and said, "The new boy and I can stay in the shack."
Xiaoyue looked at Li Lei: "No, the shack smells like chicken manure."
Li Lei smiled and said, "I put all five pheasants into the chicken coop. Then I helped the new guy clean up, put on a layer of mud, and then stick on two layers of paper for the walls. Although there is no stove there, there is still a heated kang bed, so we just need to build a stove."
"Where are you going to collect soil in this freezing weather?"
Li Lei chuckled and said, "You've forgotten about your trap. You can dig dirt out of a trap."
Xiaoyue smiled and said, "Okay, then I'll leave it to you."
He summoned Chunyue and told her what had happened. Chunyue nodded in agreement.
After placing Shuiyue on the kang (heated brick bed), Xiaoyue handed the medicine to Chunyue and found another medicine pot. Chunyue then brewed the medicine for Shuiyue.
Seeing that Li Lei had also taken the medicine and poured it into the time-space medicine pot to add water, he also took on the task of brewing medicine for Lu Xiaomei. He sat on a small stool and added firewood little by little.
Xiaoyue went to the west room again, where Yang's wife had finished half of the eight-panel horse-face skirt. Looking at Li's skirt, it was made of the same material, but in a different size.
Turning it inside out, you couldn't see even a single fold; everything was locked inside. Xiaoyue felt the workmanship was very meticulous.
I took a look at what Li Qianqian made. All three of them were about the same, with fine stitches and no loose threads. I still need to buy an iron.
Xiaoyue showed Li Qianqian the purse made from Ge Liuzhi. Li Qianqian smiled and said, "You're still young. I'll make clothes for Chunyue and Shuiyue later. Why don't you make two sets of clothes for them?"
"I'll make one for Shuiyue, Ge Liuzhi will make one for Chunyue, and after we finish Chunyue's, we'll make one for Xiaodouding. Her cotton-padded clothes are all dirty. It's so cold today, we need to finish the clothes quickly."
Li Lei brought the food up. The women sat at one table, and the men sat at another with Li Lei. They ate a hot meal. After taking her medicine, Shuiyue, who was about the same age as Li Xu, also sat up to eat.
Two people are coaxing the little one; three children, you pick up a piece of food for her, she picks up a piece of food for you—it's a very harmonious scene.
Yang Xu was still talking to Ge Liuzhi.
Several adults were also very happy to see it.
Lu Xiaomei recovered quickly, perhaps because Xiaoyue had cleaned her up. She was more energetic, though she still coughed, but not as badly, and a smile returned to her face.
After dinner, Xiaoyue cleaned up the dishes, and Shuiyue jumped down to help. Li Shi and Yang Saozi also wanted to help, but Li Qianqian pulled them to the west room to do chores.
Looking at Li Qianqian, Xiaoyue couldn't help but smile. Xiaoyue knew that Li Qianqian was under even more pressure than Xiaoyue herself, afraid of delaying the project and unwilling to waste any time.
Xiaoyue didn't let others waste time, and she didn't drag the children away to clean up. She finished quickly and was washing the dishes when Chunyue wanted to help. Xiaoyue smiled at her and told her to go play with the two children.
Chunyue was different from Liuxu. She knew that Ge Liuzhi was making clothes for her, so she learned from Ge Liuzhi stitch by stitch.
The three men, Li Lei, Liang Qi, and Chun Yue, finished their meal. Liang Qi didn't leave either; he went with them to clean up the shack in front of them.
Liang Qi, carrying a basket, jumped down into the pit and started digging with a shovel, while Li Lei added water and began building a stove. Before, when no one lived there, there was no need to build a stove; just adding a few pieces of wood to the stove hole was enough to keep them warm for half the night.
Even now that I live here, there's still a stove. We can still cook a few things. We put that broken pot on top of the stove, add water to the pot, and then start a fire. We mix the hot water from the pot with cold water to wipe the walls.
Chunyue was in charge of cleaning the house. The house was very small, with only a small space to turn around after the kang (a heated brick bed). Chunyue first picked up the beautiful pheasant feathers from the kang, the floor, and the walls and put them aside. Then she used a broom to sweep away all the pheasant droppings from the walls and the floor, including the ceiling, and swept all the dust off.
After cleaning, I helped Li Lei and Liang Qi with some work. The two of them carried a total of four tons of soil, and they also found some weeds outside. They chopped the weeds into sections and mixed them into the mud. After mixing it all together, Liang Qi found two flat wooden planks, and then used a basket to carry the mud into the house. The two of them started plastering the walls, one on each side.
Chunyue followed their example and started wiping the ground as well.
After an hour and a half, the fire was finished, and Chunyue watched as it was started.
After drying the walls, Xiaoyue asked Li Lei to move the remaining wallpaper into the shack.
Needless to say, Chun Yue took over half of Li Lei's work, whether it was cooking, brewing medicine, or cleaning the chicken coop and the area for geese and ducks.
When Yang Sao and Li Shi returned home that evening, a complete ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) had been finished. Li Qianqian carefully inspected it and placed the two items at the head and tail of the kang (a heated brick bed) respectively.
At night, Shuiyue becomes lively and energetic. Since there is no blanket, Xiaodouding takes the initiative to share a blanket with Shuiyue.
Chunyue and Li Lei were also crammed into a single bed, and Chunyue even fell off twice in the middle of the night.
The next day, Liang Qi went to town again. Xiao Yue asked him to buy some scraps of fabric and eight jin of cotton to make quilts for the two of them. She also asked him to buy some good quality white wallpaper, extra thick.
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