When Zhou Daniu was in his thirties, his widowed mother became anxious. At that time, women of the same age in the surrounding villages were married, but Zhou Daniu's widowed mother was still too concerned about her reputation to want Zhou Daniu to marry a widow.
In rural areas, widows are generally regarded as women with "hard fate". The reason they become widows is that their hard fate has killed their husbands.
Zhou Daniu's widowed mother was afraid that her only son would die if he married a widow. Daniu was her only child!
Zhou Daniu was left alone like this. After a year or two, his widowed mother fell ill and passed away. After the funeral, Zhou Daniu, who was already poor, became even poorer.
Year after year, Zhou Daniu was already in his forties and had long given up dreaming of marrying a virgin girl.
In the rural areas of Yuyuan County, there used to be such a custom: if a family had many children and the husband could not bear the burden of the family, he would ask another man to come and help with housework.
This work is not in vain. The man has put in the effort to help you raise children, and in return, the woman of the house has to sleep with the man. If a child is born, it is up to the two families to negotiate which man's name will be the child.
This custom is ugly and disgusting. However, when a family is starving to death, face is secondary.
Something similar happened in Zhoujia Village a few years ago. Even Zhou Daniu's mother, unable to raise her young son alone after her husband died, once found a bachelor to live in her home for five or six years.
It's not like Zhou Daniu's mother hadn't thought about marrying that bachelor, but the bachelor didn't dare to marry! Widows are known to have strong lives, and not all men are fearless of death. This kind of "living together" relationship was automatically interpreted by the villagers as: if you don't have a wedding banquet, you won't be cursed by the widow.
After Zhou Qiji became paralyzed two years ago, Zhou Daniu set his sights on Zhou Qiji's wife Qiuxiang.
Qiuxiang is not yet thirty years old. She is considered to be the best looking young wife in Zhoujia Village. Most importantly, her husband is not dead and she is not a widow. If Qiuxiang is willing to let Zhou Daniu come to her house, Zhou Daniu will probably jump for joy.
After Zhou Daniu had evil intentions towards Qiuxiang, he often showed his affection to her. Unfortunately, Qiuxiang had no interest in Zhou Daniu at all. Facing Zhou Daniu's greedy face, Qiuxiang wanted to take off her shoes and stick them in his face.
Qiuxiang is a decent person. When Zhou Qijia became disabled, the burden of the entire family fell on Qiuxiang's shoulders. Qiuxiang was busy like a top every day, but her heart was full of hope. Her children were still young, and when they grew up, she would have a much easier time.
Qiuxiang took excellent care of her bedridden husband, Zhou Qijia. Every day, upon returning home from work, no matter how exhausted she was, Qiuxiang would help Zhou Qijia turn over and massage his legs. Doctors had said that long-term bedridden patients without assistance could easily atrophy their leg muscles.
Zhou Qijia sometimes wished he were dead. It would be better if he died, so that the family wouldn't have to waste food, and Qiuxiang would have an easier time taking care of the children.
Zhou Qijia had thought and said so, and whenever he showed any signs of suicidal thoughts, Qiuxiang would tearfully try to persuade him. A family without a father and only a mother raising a group of children was the hardest. Although Zhou Qijia was paralyzed, as long as he was around, Qiuxiang felt a sense of security.
Looking at the little children, Zhou Qijia nodded. After all, life only comes once. Who wants to die if they can live? His children are all sensible. Qiuxiang is right. As long as the children grow up and there are more laborers in the family, life will gradually get better.
Over the past two years, the production team has taken good care of Qiuxiang's family, thanks in large part to the efforts of team leader Zhou Qimin. Zhou Qimin and the Zhou family are cousins, and he feels sorry for their plight, so he's willing to help wherever he can.
During the production team's grain distribution, Zhou Qimin resisted pressure from several team members and forgave Qiuxiang's family's debt. After the grain was distributed, Qiuxiang borrowed 300 kilograms of grain from the team. While this amount wasn't enough to feed her family for a year, Qiuxiang was confident that if she could just make it to the next harvest, she could borrow more grain from the team to tide her over.
Five years at most, no! Three years at most, and her eldest son would be in his teens. A teen could help the production team herd cattle or something to earn a few cents, and their family's life would improve.
On this day, Qiuxiang was feeding rice porridge to Zhou Qiji who was lying in bed when team leader Zhou Qimin came to the house.
When Zhou Qimin walked in, Zhou Qiji and Qiuxiang were both surprised.
Zhou Qimin had just visited Zhou Qi's family two days ago and told them to take good care of their injuries. He also told Qiuxiang to go to his house to look for his sister-in-law, Zhou Qimin's wife, if they had any difficulties at home. As cousins from the same ancestor, Zhou Qimin would not leave his cousin's family alone.
Zhou Qimin's face was full of energy that day. Although Zhou Qimin had some selfish motives, as the team leader, he forgave Qiuxiang's family's debt with just a few words, but he was also a little proud to be able to help his cousin's family.
Zhou Qimin's expression was not very good today. Although he didn't look very sad, Zhou Qijia still saw a hint of sadness on his face.
"Qijia! Sigh..." Zhou Qimin saw his cousin lying on the bed, so thin that he was just a bag of bones. The words rolled over his lips several times, but he couldn't say them. Two years ago, Zhou Qijia was strong enough to kill a cow, but now he was just a pitiful man struggling to survive.
"Brother Qimin, has something happened? It doesn't matter, just tell me, I can bear it." Although Zhou Qijia felt something was wrong, he spoke very frankly.
After the food distribution that day, Qiuxiang went home and told Zhou Qijia what happened during the food distribution. Zhou Qijia was a little worried. A year ago, when he was first injured, everyone in the team agreed to give his family food subsidies.
Two years passed, and Zhou Qijia was still bedridden. A long-term patient's bedside is unwelcome, let alone a powerless peasant like Zhou Qijia. Over the past year, guests at Zhou Qijia's home have gradually disappeared. Even his two brothers, who share the same blood and father, feared that Zhou Qijia would bring down their family.
Zhou Qijia looked at his numb legs and felt depressed.
When the grain was being distributed, several team members started a commotion. Although Zhou Qimin ultimately prevailed and cleared his family's debt, who could truly predict the nature of human nature? Who could be sure that one of the team members, resentful enough to lodge a complaint with the higher authorities?
After all, Zhou Qimin was just a small team leader. No one reported the matter of their family erasing the debt, so Zhou Qimin could make the decision. If someone held on to it, it would be difficult for Zhou Qimin to do anything.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
