In the sweltering heat, the two sisters carried a few small bundles home, intending to clean the house first.
Since Tao Changyi had failed to help with the promised house purchase through connections, the Tao family prepared housewarming gifts for the three Cuihua sisters.
Those were things that the three sisters couldn't bring with them. They found a carpenter in Xihe Village to make custom furniture, and a blacksmith to forge kitchen utensils and farm tools. They even asked a few people in the village to help repair the roof and house of Cuihua's house when they delivered the housewarming gifts.
It simply involved raising the height of everything inside and outside Cuihua's house, including the windows, the door, and the walls, and the total cost was less than a hundred yuan.
Knowing they couldn't refuse this generous gift, they simply kowtowed to express their deepest gratitude to the Tao family.
They had already agreed to send the gift over early the next morning.
When Cuihua led her two younger sisters to push open the gate of the Wei family home, and saw the so-called new home that was in ruins and overgrown with weeds, the three sisters did not feel that the house was not worth buying. On the contrary, they felt that from now on they had a new home where they could work together to make a difference, and their eyes were moist with emotion.
Cuiju couldn't hide her excitement; even her voice trembled slightly.
"Big sister, from now on, we have our own home, right?"
Cuilian couldn't believe her eyes. "This is wonderful! We don't have to live under someone else's roof anymore. Although the Tao family has been good to us, I've never felt like it was my own home. Now it's different. This house may be dilapidated, but the three of us sisters are capable enough to fix it up sooner or later. Sister, what are we waiting for? Let's get to work!"
The new house was too dilapidated; it would take several days to finish the work. Cuihua told her two younger sisters to start the work first, and then knocked on the gate of the neighbor's house.
The neighbor next door is surnamed Liu, and they are related to the village chief's family. Taoyuan Village is a large village with two or three hundred people. The proportions of people with the surnames Liu, Tang, Wang, and Zhang are roughly the same, and the rest are people with surnames from other places.
The door opened, and seeing who it was, Cuihua quickly greeted them sweetly, "Grandma, it's me, Cuihua. My sister and I are back and would like to clean the house. Could we borrow your hoe, sickle, or some other tools? We don't have anything nice, but could this be a token of our gratitude?"
Cuihua gave the old lady two boxes of matches. The old lady had already heard that the house next door had been bought by Tang Youtian's eldest daughter.
Seeing how polite she was, she pushed the gift back, saying, "You silly child, it's just a farm tool, why should I give you a thank you gift? No need, take it back. Come in and take whatever you need. How are you and your sisters going to cook? There's nothing in that yard!"
Back then, all the usable things belonging to Old Wei's family were taken away by the village, and the rest were picked over by the villagers. Now that house is like a wasteland. Even though they live next door, she never thought of making use of their land. Mainly because she has space in her own house and is too lazy to search it up again.
"We brought some dry food with us when we came back. We'll use it for two days first. Once the house is ready, my uncle and the others will come over to help us."
"Oh, the uncle you're talking about, is he the one who came back with you that day?"
"Yes, Grandma, my uncle and aunt are good people. Please accept these matches; I've already taken them."
Cuihua pressed the matches into the old lady's hand, and then took the hoe and sickle. Seeing this, the old lady did not refuse.
"Alright, Grandma will boil a pot of mung bean soup for you in a bit. It's hot today, so drinking it will help you cool down."
After Cuihua finished speaking, she took a hoe and two sickles and went to the neighbor's yard.
"You two cut the grass, and I'll hoe the ground. After you're done cutting the grass, stack it to the side. In a few days, Uncle Tao and Auntie will come over, and we'll have them take it back to feed the animals."
"I know, sis,"
The yard is overgrown with weeds, so we definitely have to clear it out first. Otherwise, there won't even be a place to step, so how will we deal with the aftermath?
While Tang Cuihua and her two sisters were busy working in their new home, Xiao Jiu, wearing a straw hat and carrying a small bamboo basket specially woven for her by her grandfather, followed behind her third and fourth brothers, searching for wild vegetables in the mountains.
Although it's August, wild amaranth, purslane, lamb's quarters, and goji berry sprouts are growing luxuriantly in the mountains, as are water celery in the streams. There are also many mushrooms in the mountains after the rain, and black fungus on dead wood can all be picked.
This is Xiaojiu's favorite thing to do. Every day, she goes out in the sun, not afraid of the sun, and picks wild vegetables with great enthusiasm. She can also pick up some cicada shells while digging for wild vegetables. One day after the rain, she even picked up a nest of quail eggs that she scraped off the tree.
Fortunately, they fell into a nest of grass. The quail eggs were hard enough that they didn't break. There were six of them!
Xiao Jiu was overjoyed when she thought of the brooding hen that her grandmother had borrowed from Grandma Zhou.
"Great! We can take this home and see if we can hatch quails. If we can, we can raise quails."
Quail eggs were a delicacy, and only wealthy families could afford them these days. The two brothers were very fond of them and carefully carried them home.
My father has recently made progress in his negotiations with someone; the other party is willing to buy their house for 2,500 yuan, but my father hasn't agreed yet.
They wanted it to rise even higher, but it's been stuck in this stalemate ever since.
However, the Tao family had already realized that their father intended to sell the animals, so they planned to move the poultry and other animals from the ancestral home to the old house first.
Besides the laying hens, ducks, and geese, all the other chickens in the house are too big and old to be slaughtered and eaten.
All the rabbits have been sold, and there are no plans to raise any more.
We need to raise a bunch of chicks and ducklings in advance, so we specially borrowed a brooding hen from Grandma Zhou's house.
As soon as the quail eggs were brought home, Grandma put them under the old hen. As soon as she put them in, the hen flapped its wings to protect them.
"Milk, can't it recognize that this egg is smaller than the others?"
Two goose eggs, four duck eggs, and four chicken eggs were added, and now there are six more quail eggs. Xiao Jiu thinks this hen has really had a tough time!
"It's alright, let it incubate, we'll see if it succeeds or not."
The hen's nest is placed in a quiet barn where no one usually disturbs it. Water and feed are placed next to it so that it can eat and drink whenever it wants.
The siblings went hiking in the mountains every day, getting tanned and becoming friends with the village children.
The children in the village are easier to get along with than the children in the town.
Xiao Jiu, in particular, has made friends with four or five girls of similar age. Sometimes when she gets up late, they wait for her at the door to go up the mountain together. Now that Xiao Jiu is over five years old, she no longer needs her grandmother to take care of her, which saves the old lady a lot of trouble.
Before each trip up the mountain, Grandma would always give her something to eat, such as cornbread, eggs, or wild vegetable dumplings made from a mixture of sorghum flour and sweet potato flour. They were dark and not very tasty, but the villagers often fed the children this. Grandma was just doing what local customs did, making it for others to see, and she also told her to bring them back if she didn't like them.
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