Chapter 101 Cave
Du Ruo drank cornmeal porridge and ate some freshly picked vegetables from the garden. She felt refreshed and thought it was good. "I'll just eat this. You don't need to prepare anything else. Why didn't I see your eldest brother?"
"He went to work and only came back two or three times a year. He worked as a bricklayer in the city just to make money." Sister Cheng looked at Du Ruo and said, "Sister, if you have any work, please introduce some to him. Thank you, sister."
"Okay, if anyone needs a job, I'll let him find you."
Sister Cheng nodded happily: "Then I'd like to thank you first, big sister."
After lunch, Du Ruo wanted to take a walk in the village. Sister Cheng said, "Just go ahead. I have some work to do. There's nothing to do in our village. There aren't many people. You won't get lost. But there's one thing. Don't go into the mountains behind."
"Are there still jackals, tigers and leopards in this mountain?" Du Ruo asked half-jokingly.
Sister Cheng said, "There are no wolves, tigers or leopards here. We are just worried that you might get lost on your first trip into the mountains. You are not as familiar with the terrain as we are."
Du Ruo said she understood, and she walked slowly towards Sister Cheng's house. The village was not big, with some houses connected to each other and some independent houses. There were many houses next to each other, and some were lonely in the distance.
It was noon and most of the villagers were taking a nap. Only a few children were playing games under the shade of the trees.
The children all had a few glass marbles in their hands, with colorful beads mixed in. This is...
Just then, a child flicked out a small bead from his hand. Du Ruo bent over to pick it up, and asked with a smile, "This is quite pretty. Where did you get it?"
The children didn't know her, and they gathered in groups of three or four. The timid ones didn't say anything, while the braver ones said, "We picked them all from Hetao." After the child said that, he secretly glanced at Du Ruo's expression.
Du Ruo was different from the other villagers in terms of her dress and temperament, and several children felt a little restrained when they saw her.
Du Ruo smiled, took out a dollar from his pocket, and handed it to a tall kid: "Go to the grocery store and buy some popsicles. One for each of us."
The child didn't dare to take it. Du Ruo said, "I live in the Cheng family in front. I'm not a bad person."
There are many child kidnappings these days, and adults in the family will tell their children from a young age not to let beggars take them away, so children are all a little wary.
When Du Ruo said she lived in the Cheng family, the tall child breathed a sigh of relief and touched the back of his head: "Are you a relative of Aunt Cheng? You treated us to popsicles, this money is too much."
The popsicles sold in the small shops in the village are all five cents each. There are only seven or eight children here, and one dollar can buy twenty popsicles. The children's daily pocket money is five cents and ten cents, and one dollar is rarely seen.
Du Ruo handed the money forward again: "I want to eat too, you go buy some, just buy one yuan ones, we can share them among ourselves, each person can have a few more."
The child showed a huge smile, and the children nearby also jumped up happily, running after him and trying to get popsicles.
After a while, they came back with a bag of popsicles in a plastic bag, all wrapped in popsicle paper. The children handed the bag to Du Ruo, asking her to share the popsicles.
Du Ruo sat under the tree and gave two popsicles to each person. There were four popsicles left. He ate one himself and pointed to the old men and women who were taking a nap under the tree in front of him and said, "Give these three to those old people."
When they had food, the children were very diligent and jumped up and down to deliver it.
Du Ruo asked the children, "Are there any on this glass marble mountain?"
Some children shook their heads and said: "It's in Xiaohetao."
A little girl of about seven or eight years old muttered quietly: "There are no glass marbles, but there are a lot of broken things. They are in the cave on the other side of the hillside."
Du Ruo was moved when he heard this: "Which hillside?"
"It's the one under the big locust tree on the back hill."
As they were talking, the old men and women came over and asked, "Are you Guizhen's relative?"
Du Ruo was stunned for a moment. She guessed that Guizhen was probably Sister Cheng.
She smiled and said, "I'll stay at her house for a few days." Du Ruo did not give a direct answer and was vague about the answer.
The old lady next to her smiled and said, "We are not strangers. Guizhen is my cousin. We are one family. My dear daughter, where do you live?"
"I live in the city." Du Ruo answered as she stood up. These people were all elderly people, and it would be inappropriate for her to sit like that.
When she heard that he lived in the city, another old lady smiled and said, "You city people are good-looking, fair-skinned and pretty, unlike us country folk who roll around in the mud all day long. No matter how good your parents are, you can't stand it, right?"
These few words made everyone laugh.
Someone asked: "My dear, are you married? You seem to like children."
"My children are already several years old."
"Oh, you don't look like that. Are you twenty years old?"
Du Ruo smiled: "I'm already twenty-six."
"How do you look like that? You look younger than my 18-year-old granddaughter."
Du Ruo knew that this was a compliment. No matter how young she was, she couldn't possibly look like an 18-year-old girl.
A child handed a glass marble to Du Ruo: "Auntie, I see you like this, can I give it to you?"
An old man said nonchalantly, "There are a lot of these things in Xiaohetao. They are not worth much. Girl, if you like, go to the Hetao area and pick them up."
Du Ruo asked with a smile: "You have picked up a lot of things in this village?"
An old lady slapped her thigh and said, "They are just some muddy stuff or broken iron lumps, not worth much." She lowered her voice and said, "In fact, people in our village also know that this thing is probably an old item, but people say that even old items have to be worth gold or jade to be valuable. This muddy thing will never be worth two cents."
Du Ruo wanted to ask, who on earth is talking nonsense? Can antiques be discussed in this way?
An old man sighed and said, "Our village is unlucky. Some families in the neighboring village have picked up gold hairpins, and some have picked up huge gold nuggets, but we haven't seen any silver in our village."
Talking about this, the old people all felt a little emotional.
"That's right. That old woman Wu picked up two gold coins and sold them for more than a hundred yuan."
"That's nothing. Old Zhang even picked up a plaque. People said it was made of jade. He sold it for a thousand yuan. How could he afford to marry a daughter-in-law if his family was so poor?"
"That's called being blessed, so you don't have to work hard. If you're not blessed, you'll have to work hard. People who have that kind of luck, like in our village, all they pick up are broken copper, rotten iron, clay sculptures and tiles. People won't even take them if they're given to them for free."
Du Ruo was completely speechless.