Chapter 280 The Third Valley (6)
"What's the problem?" Lu Yanyan looked at Sanmei and Hua Fu, confused. Sanmei's expression didn't fluctuate much, as if she was talking about a trivial matter, but Hua Fu was pale, with a frown on her face, and she was in a trance.
The two people's expressions were so different that Lu Yanyan couldn't figure out what was going on, so he had to follow them obediently. He walked through the felt carpet hanging at the door and into the first year's room.
As soon as he lifted the blanket, a strong smell of baby's feces hit him in the face, and Lu Yanyan couldn't help but hold his breath. After adjusting to the dim light in the room, he finally saw the furnishings of the first year room clearly.
There were no beds inside, as he had imagined. Instead, there were layers of bamboo shelves stacked together, the highest reaching almost to the roof. There were only narrow spaces between the bamboo shelves, so narrow that even babies less than a year old could only crawl on their knees in between. The babies were hidden in the darkness of the bamboo shelves, and Lu Yanyan couldn't see how many of them there were.
Each tier of beds has a semicircular, open pipe at the outermost edge, connected to a sealed vertical pipe and a strange drainer at the far right end. Simply place a wooden bucket filled with rice paste under the vertical pipe and pull the drainer, which will carry the rice paste into the pipes on different levels for the babies to eat.
Apart from the wooden shelves and pipes, the only things left in the entire room were a wooden ladder leaning against the wall, a bucket and a brush. These three items were used to check on the children on each floor and to clean food residues from the pipes.
Everything seemed normal. Lu Yanyan looked down at his third sister in confusion: "What happened?"
The third sister walked forward, stood on tiptoe and lay on the edge of the pipe. After groping in the darkness for a while, she seemed to grab something and dragged it out with force. It was a baby who looked five or six months old.
Even though Third Sister and Hua Fu didn't respond, Lu Yanyan immediately realized something was wrong. The baby hadn't resisted at all when Third Sister dragged him out. Lu Yanyan stepped forward and grasped the baby's thin arm, but couldn't feel a pulse. He was dead.
The third sister then spoke up, "My fourth sister and I just came to check on them, and we found three babies dead on this floor alone. We set up a ladder and checked three more floors, and there were three or four on each. It's far more than usual. There are still a few floors above that we haven't checked yet."
"It's the same with the two-year house. After Hua Fu saw it, she was anxious to come find you."
Hua Fu also recovered and nodded vigorously: "Third sister said that they might have been infected by the epidemic or frozen to death, but I don't think so. They look like they died of starvation."
After a careful inspection, Lu Yanyan found no signs of disease or bruising from frostbite on the baby, so it was likely starved to death. However, babies died of starvation every day because the food was stored in the pipes, and there was only so much. Only a small number of babies could get food each day, which was also a permissible means of elimination.
"But too many died today!" Hua Fu said anxiously. "I asked my third sister, and she said that in the past, one died every few days, because even the poorest children could always get a few bites of food every two days."
The third sister nodded silently to indicate that Hua Fu was right.
Lu Yanyan was no fool. He immediately realized, "Are you saying that less rice porridge was distributed to them today? Impossible. I saw with my own eyes that only half of the rice porridge was packed into the barrels and sent to the two rooms. Unless..."
Lu Yanyan's gaze fell on the thick felt blanket covering the doorway. After the children brought the bucket of rice porridge into the room, he couldn't see what they were doing inside.
But this is food for these little brothers and sisters who can't even speak. Lu Yanyan stepped forward and carefully wiped the bottom of the pipe with his fingers. The inside of the pipe, which hadn't been cleaned yet, only had a shallow layer of rough grains.
Lu Yanyan withdrew his hand from the pipe and pursed his lips. Was it because he didn't supervise them?
As if she could read Lu Yanyan's mind, the third sister dragged out several dead babies as she spoke, "Xiaowu and the others were too arrogant and ate too much. In the past, when the eldest brother watched, he would only eat the leftovers from the pipes. Now, they've become too greedy."
Hua Fu added, "Little Five, Little Nine, and Little Fourteen wanted to come over to clean the pipes, but I stopped them. The pipes next door should have been cleaned."
Seeing the lifeless children being dragged out by the third sister as if they were handling rubbish and thrown on the ground, there was not even the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, but a light "bang". Lu Yanyan could not help but clench his fists, and a burst of anger rose to his head.
It was his fault. He shouldn't have indulged himself and failed to fulfill his duty as a supervisory brother, which led to the death of his younger brothers and sisters.
"Where are Xiaowu and the others now?" Lu Yanyan asked, suppressing his anger.
"It's in the second-year-old house next door." The third sister answered casually, then suddenly remembered something and turned around with a hint of joy, "Does this count as reporting three people?"
Lu Yanyan was unable to answer her. He rushed out of the first-year dormitory, turned around and knocked open the felt carpet at the door of the second-year dormitory, startling the three people who were squatting on the ground and talking quietly.
"Big brother." After looking at each other for a while, Yiwu, the oldest of the three, stood up first, his expression timid yet tentative. "What's wrong?"
“Bang!”
Lu Yanyan slapped Yi Wu in the face and scolded him in a low voice: "What's wrong? See for yourself!"
He clenched his palm, lifted Yiwu to the edge of the pipe and pressed it down, right next to a baby's foot.
The tiny foot was motionless, its pale skin, darkened by sunlight, tinged with blue. At this hour, most babies would be awake from hunger, so it was obvious that he was dead.
"How much rice porridge did you steal today? Look at them! How many lives have been starved to death just because of your greed!"
Yi Wu was frightened by Lu Yanyan's aura. He defended himself with a wandering look in his eyes, "Brother, we didn't steal the food. Starving to death is a common thing... Ugh!"
Lu Yanyan looked down at him and slapped him again, and Yi Wu stopped arguing. Lu Yanyan looked like a real big brother at this moment. He said coldly: "I didn't want to hand you over to the father body."
"Wait, big brother!" Yi Wu and the other two panicked, but Lu Yanyan hated his previous carelessness. The three of them were quite thin, and Lu Yanyan was able to drag them all three at once, directly to the front door of the father's body.
The third sister had walked over at some point, standing in the shadows and looking over. Lu Yanyan noticed her gaze, then looked at the three people crying desperately but not daring to make a sound. He thought of the dead babies and took a deep breath.
It was he who did not abide by the rules of this courtyard. If the punishment fell on him, he would have deserved it, but his carelessness led to the death of his younger brothers and sisters.
Now that he has become the boss, he must take on the corresponding responsibilities.
"Master Father!"
Lu Yanyan, no, Boss Yi shouted towards his father's room, and the three people on the ground looked desperate.
Third update~Lu Yanyan is integrated into the story~
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
