Du Ruo drank cornmeal porridge and ate some freshly picked vegetables from the garden. He felt refreshed and thought it was good. "I'll just eat this. You don't need to prepare anything else. Why don't I see your eldest brother?"
"He went out to work and only came back two or three times a year. He was working as a bricklayer in the city just to keep his mouth shut." Sister Cheng looked at Du Ruo and said, "Sister, if you have any work, please introduce some to me. Thank you, sister."
"Okay, if anyone needs a job, I'll have them find you."
Sister Cheng nodded happily: "Then thank you in advance, big sister."
After lunch, Du Ruo wanted to take a stroll in the village. Sister Cheng said, "Go ahead. I have some work to do. There's not much to do in our village, and the population isn't large. You won't get lost if you wander off. 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 aren't any wolves, tigers or leopards here. We're just worried you might get lost on your first trip into the mountains. You're 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 the rooftops and some independent houses. There were several houses next to each other, and some were isolated in the distance.
It was noon, and most of the villagers were taking a break, with only a few children playing games under the shade of the trees.
The children all had a few glass marbles in their hands, mixed with colorful beads. This was...
Just then, a child flicked out a small bead from his hand. Du Ruo bent down to pick it up and asked with a smile, "This is quite beautiful. 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 bolder ones said, "We picked them up from Hetao." After the child said that, he secretly glanced at Du Ruo's face.
Du Ruo's dress and temperament were different from those of the villagers, and the 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: "Let's go to the store and buy some popsicles. Let's have one each."
The child didn't dare to take it. Du Ruo said, "I live in the Cheng family up ahead. I'm not a bad person."
There are many cases of child trafficking 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 at the Cheng family's house up ahead, the tall child breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed the back of his head: "Are you a relative of Aunt Cheng? You're treating us to popsicles. That's too much money."
The popsicles sold in the village store are all five cents each. There are only seven or eight children here, and one yuan can buy twenty popsicles. Children's daily pocket money is five cents and ten cents, and one yuan is rarely seen.
Du Ruo handed the money forward again: "I want to eat too, you go buy some, just buy one yuan, we can share it among the few of us, each person can get a few more."
The child smiled widely, and the children nearby also jumped up happily, running after him and trying to get popsicles.
After a while, she 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 it.
Du Ruo sat under the tree and gave two popsicles to each person, leaving four. He ate one himself and pointed to the old men and women napping under the tree in front and said, "Give these three to those old people."
When they had food, the children were very diligent and jumped 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 seven or eight years old muttered quietly nearby: "There are no glass marbles, but there are a lot of broken things. They are in the cave on the other side of the hill."
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're not strangers. Guizhen is my cousin. We're family. Girl, 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 just sit there.
When she heard that he lived in the city, another old lady smiled and said, "You city people are so pretty, fair-skinned and beautiful, unlike us country folk who roll around in the mud all day. No matter how good your parents are, you can't handle it, right?"
A few words made everyone laugh.
Someone asked: "My dear, are you married? You seem to like children very much?"
"My children are already several years old."
"Oh, you don't look like it. Are you twenty years old?"
Du Ruo smiled: "I'm already twenty-six."
"How do you look like that? You look younger than my eighteen-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 the glass marble in his hand 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 picked up a lot of things in this village?"
An old woman slapped her thigh and said, "They're just some muddy stuff, or broken lumps of iron, not worth much." She lowered her voice and said, "Actually, people in our village know that this thing is probably old, but people say that even old things are only valuable if they are worth gold or jade. This muddy thing will never be worth two cents."
Du Ruo really wanted to ask, who the hell is talking nonsense? Is it true that antiques can be discussed in this way?
An old man sighed and said, "Our village is just unlucky. Some people in the neighboring village have found gold hairpins, and some have even found a huge lump of gold. But we haven't even found a single piece of silver in our village."
When 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 over a hundred yuan."
"That's nothing. Old Zhang even picked up a plaque that people said was made of jade. He sold it for a thousand yuan. Otherwise, how could his family, being so poor, have the money to marry a daughter-in-law?"
"That's what it means to be blessed. You don't have to work hard. If you're not blessed, you'll be heartbroken. People are lucky enough to have that luck. In our village, all we pick up are scrap copper, iron, clay figurines, and tiles. People won't even want them if they're given away for free."
Du Ruo was completely speechless.
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