She first counted her property and found that the stack of bills Qi Shaoqiang gave her last time was forty-eight yuan.

After buying all the things, he had more than one dollar left, so he gave Xiaolan one dollar to make clothes, and Zhu Xia lost ten cents.

She found thirty large reunion notes left by Xu Shuzhen in the closet, but she had no intention of using the money for the time being.

So all the property I have on hand now is 53 yuan, not counting the fractions.

Jiang Li opened the door and went to Widow Liu's house according to her memory.

She was the only one in her family, along with a seven-year-old boy named Doudou. She was a widow with a weak child. The team saw that her life was not easy, so they tacitly allowed her to raise a dozen chickens at home.

If a wife in the village was pregnant and felt malnourished, she would secretly go to Widow Liu's house to buy some eggs or roosters to supplement her health.

As soon as Jiang Li entered the door, she heard a dog barking. A small black dog came over, wagging its tail. It was not shy and circled around Jiang Li, licking her new leather shoes with its tongue.

Hearing the dog barking, Widow Liu put down her bowl and peered out of the kitchen.

Jiang Li stood under the tree, gracefully, with small leather shoes on her feet and a veil on her head, and she looked as if she had been reborn.

"Lizi, why are you here? Come in and sit down!"

"Auntie, do you want to eat?"

Jiang Li looked at the big rooster standing in the yard with its head held high, its feathers sparkling in the sun and its comb bright red. She licked her lips.

"I heard you have big roosters for sale. I want to pick a big one."

Widow Liu smiled when she heard this, put down her bowl and grabbed a big rooster, "Okay, the rooster is one yuan per pound, I'll give you a discount of 1 cent, one yuan per pound."

She took the scale from the house. "It's 4 ounces of pound, 7 yuan and 4 cents."

Jiang Li gave him seven dollars and five cents, then begged, "Auntie, can you do it for me at home?"

Widow Liu was stunned for a moment, then looked at Jiang Li with sympathy, "Is your grandma not letting you eat again? Or is she not letting you enter the kitchen?"

Jiang Li didn't expect such a big misunderstanding to happen, but she didn't explain it. She said with a bitter face, "Auntie, I'm so hungry."

Widow Liu sighed, it was just as expected, the family that murdered Old Lady Zhou and Wang Juhua were not good people, and they didn't teach their daughter well either.

Jiang Hongmei is so shameless that she sneaks into someone's bed, and she chose to do it in her own home.

What had become of her home? A brothel or a kiln?

As a widow, I have always been the target of gossip. Now that this has happened, I will be talked about for a long time.

"Just wait, I'll do it for you."

Doudou was holding the bowl of rice. Seeing his mother busy killing a chicken, he quickly put down the bowl and started a fire to boil water.

Boil the chicken, pluck the feathers, clean the chicken's internal organs, and soon the chicken is in the pot.

"Lizi, how do you want to cook this chicken? Stewed or braised?"

Jiang Li squatted in front of the stove and said, "Stew it."

"Okay, Auntie will stew it for you. Eat the chicken, and you can save the chicken soup for noodles tomorrow. I'll stir-fry the chicken entrails with chili peppers and sour beans for you to eat with rice."

Jiang Li gave her more than 40 cents for cooking. Widow Liu gritted her teeth and added plenty of seasoning and oil, and also added wild mushrooms she picked in the mountains.

At last, the stewed chicken soup was golden and tempting, with a strong chicken flavor and a hint of dried mushroom aroma. Jiang Li and Dou Dou, one big and one small, squatted by the stove, both of them swallowing their saliva.

"Pear, eat it." Widow Liu brought her own food to the small table in the main room, and left Jiang Li to eat at the big table in the kitchen.

"Doudou, come here."

Doudou's eyes couldn't even move. He kept sniffing with his nose clenched. He was lucky to take a few more breaths of the chicken aroma.

Her clothes were soaked with saliva, but she didn't ask Jiang Li for meat or cry. She just followed her mother obediently.

Jiang Li picked up a few pieces of chicken and filled a small bowl with chicken soup, and brought it to the main room, "Auntie, let Doudou taste it."

Widow Liu stood up anxiously and made excuses, "Lizi, what are you doing? You spent money on this, how can we eat such expensive things of yours?

Doudou, don’t answer it.”

Jiang Li didn't want to refuse her. She was in a hurry to go back and eat the chicken leg. She forced the bowl on the table and said, "Auntie, this is for the child."

Widow Liu looked at the chicken on the table, then looked at her son with a big head and a small body, gritted her teeth and said, "Eat it."

Wow! After being suppressed for a long time, dark clouds gathered and finally heavy rain fell.

The big raindrops hit the scorching hot loess, bringing a cool breeze to the village.

The chicken is firm in texture. Widow Liu’s cooking skills are good. She first squeezes out the chicken oil and then stir-fries the meat. She then simmers it over low heat until the chicken is soft but still chewy.

Jiang Li ate a large pot of stewed chicken with soup and meat, a bowl of sour beans and chicken offal, and five steamed buns.

Jiang Li stood up by holding on to the wall. This time she was really overwhelmed.

The sound of gongs and drums rang out, and voices came closer and closer. "All the villagers, come here. The roof of the granary is leaking, and the barn has collapsed..."

"Li Zi, it's over!" Widow Liu came in holding Dou Dou, her face full of anxiety.

She stuffed Doudou into Jiang Li's hand and said, "Help Auntie watch over it while I go to the granary to check."

The whole village worked overtime to harvest the grain. The first batch of grain was just threshed, dried and stored in the granary yesterday.

Unexpectedly, the sudden heavy rain collapsed the roof of the granary, and we don’t know what the situation is now.

Widow Liu was anxious to see the baby, but Doudou was in poor health and could not be left alone. She was worried that such a big movement would scare the child, so she had to ask Jiang Li to take care of the baby temporarily.

Jiang Li couldn't sit still, this was related to the food supply of the whole village in the second half of the year and even next year. If the loss was big, not only would they be held accountable for not paying the public grain, but the situation in the village would definitely not be so good.

The collective warehouse was in the house behind the brigade headquarters, very close to the educated youth site.

When the rain gradually stopped, Jiang Li held Doudou's hand and looked at the warehouse from afar, paying attention to what was going on there.

One after another, workers wearing straw raincoats and holding onto door panels came from the other side of the warehouse.

Jiang Li ran into Aunt Jingui by chance and asked, "Auntie, what's going on in the warehouse? Is the food safe?"

Aunt Jingui frowned, "The pig pen is half collapsed, and a pregnant sow ran in and got frightened. There is no veterinarian in the team to deliver the baby, and we don't know if it will be OK.

There is no problem with the food. The branch secretary noticed that the weather was not right, so he covered the food with plastic sheets last night and soaked two or three bags. When the weather clears up, we can just dry them in the sun to remove the moisture."

Jiang Li breathed a sigh of relief, at least nothing happened.

"Someone is going to be in trouble this time!" said the scoundrel as he walked past Jiang Li wearing a tattered straw hat, gloating over the misfortune.

"Auntie, who's going to be unlucky?"

Aunt Jingui sighed, "Who else could it be? The educated youth in charge of looking after the pig pen? It seems to be Guo."

I was so soundly asleep during my lunch break that I didn't notice the pigsty had collapsed.

If anything happens to the piglet, the captain will definitely not forgive him."

Being talked about, Guo Haifeng looked depressed at this time, and he stood in front of a female educated youth and begged.

"Xiaoting, just help me this time and tell the captain that it was you who was watching the pigsty last night.