Chapter 1
"This is it."
Under the setting sun and amidst the lush forests and abundant grass, a lone thatched hut stands about twenty or thirty feet ahead, hidden by the trees.
The village chief, who was leading Shu Wanxiu and her niece all the way, pointed to the thatched house and said.
Having fled famine to this place, Shu Wanxiu had even pawned her bundle. Apart from a tattered set of clothes that barely covered her body, two chipped earthenware bowls, and a bag of rations she had received from the government office, she had nothing.
The man had led the way for dozens of miles and helped carry most of her things along the way. She really didn't know how to thank him, so she could only bow repeatedly and say thank you.
"Alright, the house has been uninhabited for a long time. I wonder if there are any snakes, insects, or rodents hiding there. Let's hurry up and check it before it gets dark, so we don't get bitten or gnawed by insects or rodents at night."
The dark-skinned, thin village chief glanced at them, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper, before finally sighing helplessly, "From now on, settle down here in peace. If you manage to cultivate the wasteland around your house and plant fruits and vegetables by next spring, I will register it and allocate that land to you."
As for how to divide the farmland they will cultivate next year... well, they're just two women and children, how many acres can they cultivate? Let's wait and see.
Exhausted from the long journey, Shu Wanxiu hadn't thought about what was to come. She was already deeply grateful to have a place to stay and to receive winter rations from the imperial court.
She and her four-year-old nephew bowed deeply to Village Chief Pang, saying, "Thank you for your consideration, Village Chief."
Pang Zhishan accepted the bow with his hands behind his back and then said, "It's just following the law. Go inside and take a look."
"Ai!"
With a final grateful glance at Village Chief Pang, Shu Wanxiu held the bag of grain by the opening with one hand and supported the bottom with the other. She called to her thin, frail nephew and led him along a clear path toward the thatched hut.
This thatched hut has two rooms, both with their doors closed.
I don't know how many years it has been abandoned. Spider webs, torn by the wind, hang everywhere on the door and window frames, and all kinds of wild grass grow under the eaves.
Shu Wanxiu randomly chose a room to go inside and take a look, but she had to deal with the spider webs before going in, otherwise they would stick all over her head and face.
She used whatever was available, pulling out a handful of weeds with one hand to remove the cobwebs from the door frame before reaching out to push the closed but unlocked door.
She used only 20% of her strength, and the door almost fell down with a 'bang'. She hurriedly reached back to hold it up, and the dust that fell from the top of the door cascaded down all over her.
"Cough, cough! Cough cough cough..." Despite choking incessantly, Shu Wanxiu didn't forget her nephew, "Shouyi, cough! Step back quickly."
Shu Shouyi, who was four years old but only reached Shu Wanxiu's thigh, obediently took half a step back, then grabbed her clothes and hid behind her, and didn't move anymore.
Shu Wanxiu originally wanted to back away to avoid the remaining dust, but when she felt her nephew standing behind her and was afraid of stepping on him, she stopped and didn't move. She just held her breath, closed her eyes, and turned her head away. She only opened her eyes again after the dust had all fallen.
"Cough cough cough..."
The smell of dust didn't dissipate quickly, and it was still choking to breathe in.
She could barely make out the situation under her feet. Seeing that there was no standing water or insects in the small patch of ground in front of her, she tiptoed and carefully stepped in.
The rickety door was simply removed and placed against the wall, with the plan to put it back on later, so as not to cause injury when people were cleaning the house and going in and out.
She placed the door panel down with one hand, lifted the bottom of the grain sack and held it in her arms, finally taking in the interior of the dilapidated thatched hut.
From the outside, it looks like a dilapidated house; from the inside, it's not only dilapidated but also utterly bare.
There wasn't a single table or even a single bench inside, let alone any wooden cabinets or boxes.
Although there was a wooden bed against the wall, the bed legs were sunken.
Observe the worm-eaten patterns on the bed board, resembling earthworms.
This tells us that the bed is quite old.
It's impossible to know for sure whether the bed legs were broken by insects or rotted from being left out for too long, but in any case, if the bed legs aren't repaired, no one can sleep on them tonight.
Shu Wanxiu's gaze shifted to the wall. There were four walls, and on the left wall, there was a row of wooden hooks, but nothing was hanging on them. Looking up, there was nothing to see either, just a few beams and a thatched roof.
Ultimately, what's most daunting to examine closely is the condition of the ground.
On the uneven, untamped muddy ground, puddles of water were scattered here and there.
This indicates that the house is leaking in more than one place.
She unconsciously tightened her grip on the grain, afraid that it would get wet and spoil, as it was the very thing that allowed her and her niece to survive.
How do I start cleaning this house?
Shu Wanxiu was completely clueless.
She was a pampered child at home, and apart from spinning cloth, feeding poultry, and helping to cook a couple of meals during the busy farming season, she basically never did any other farm work or household chores.
As her brows furrowed deeper, a child's innocent voice suddenly rang out, interrupting Shu Wanxiu's worries.
"aunt."
Standing beside her, Shu Shouyi looked up at her with tear-filled eyes, pleading and aggrieved.
"I don't like it here, can't we go home?"
go home?
They traveled thousands of miles with their people to get here! How can they possibly go back?
Shu Wanxiu's eyes were sore, but she tried her best to suppress her sadness and forced a smile. However, before she could say a few words of comfort, Shu Shouyi had already withdrawn his pitiful and pleading look and changed his expression.
His lips curled into a wide smile, the tears in his eyes vanished, and he innocently pointed to a clump of weeds by the door, laughing, "Auntie! Look! Dad, Mom, Grandpa, and Grandma have all come to pick us up! They want us to hurry up and catch up with them so we can go home together!"
The childlike and cheerful words sounded somewhat incongruous coming from the mouth of a child with a large head and a small body, who was so thin that he was practically skin and bones. When she looked into those deep-set, dark eyes, Shu Wanxiu felt a chill run down her spine for no reason and couldn't help but shiver.
...
As the aunt and niece entered the house, the village head glanced at their backs, then turned and hurried down the mountain with his hands behind his back.
It had rained this morning, and the soil was soft. I had to scrape off the thick mud stuck to the soles of my straw sandals after walking only a short distance.
Early in the morning, he first walked more than 20 miles along mountain roads to the county, and then led his men back without dismounting. His straw sandals and trouser legs were filthy beyond recognition.
But even in his most disheveled state, he couldn't compare to even one percent of the aunt and niece he had brought back from the county town.
Pang Zhishan shook his head and sighed repeatedly. This year has truly not been a peaceful one.
In early spring, the Prince of Ning, who was enfeoffed in the Guanzhong region, rebelled. The imperial court dispatched a fierce general who spent several months suppressing the rebellion. In early summer, when the wheat was ripening, the northern lands suffered three consecutive months without a drop of rain, and all the grain in the fields withered and died, resulting in a complete crop failure.
He only knew about the matter concerning Prince Ning; he only learned about the latter matter the day before yesterday.
That noon, a local official came to the village to deliver a message, saying that a drought had struck the north, and many famine victims had fled thousands of miles and poured into their prefecture and county. The imperial court had recently issued documents ordering officials in various prefectures and counties to register these famine victims locally and then resettle them in different townships and villages.
On the way to pick up the people today, Pang Zhishan was uneasy the whole way. Several times he was distracted and almost slipped and fell into the field.
There's nothing he can do; Wupai Village is mountainous with little arable land. If this group of disaster victims is large, even if they were distributed among various villages, there would still be quite a few people. How should he possibly resettle them?
Who would have thought that when they inquired in the county, they learned that of the dozens of famine refugees who had fled, only one in dozens had survived. Moreover, since the entire prefecture and more than a dozen counties were resettling them together, each village only needed to accommodate one or two households. Only then did they breathe a sigh of relief.
"Village Chief Pang, it's getting dark, why are you only now coming down from the mountain?"
Pang Zhishan hurriedly descended the mountain and was immediately spotted by the lady of the first house at the foot of the mountain.
After asking that question, she quickly realized, "You brought those refugees back today? Are there many of them? Can you accommodate them all?"
Everyone in the village had heard about the plan to bring refugees back to the village from the county. This was a big deal, and if there weren't enough refugees to accommodate everyone, they would have to squeeze into the homes of the original inhabitants first.
After they settled down, we had to help them choose a site and build a house. Everyone had to contribute their time and effort, which was a very troublesome and unprofitable task. Everyone was very concerned about it.
The Wang family only lived too far from the village entrance; otherwise, even after dark, they would definitely be waiting at the village entrance to get the latest news.
Pang Zhishan was thirsty from walking, so when the woman asked him these questions, he stood at her door and asked, "Is your husband home?"
"Here he is, feeding the chickens behind the house."
"Then I'll ask for a bowl of water."
The woman quickly moved a stool out and placed it at the doorway.
It's getting late; it's better to sit outside in the bright light than to go inside.
After Pang Zhishan sat down, the woman turned and went into the kitchen to pour water, while shouting back towards the back of the house, "Husband, have you finished feeding the chickens? Village Chief Pang is here, come out and sit with us for a while!"
"Coming right up!"
Wang Jincai raised his voice in response, and without even bothering to collect the eggs from the henhouse, he hurriedly came out from behind the house.
"The village chief is here? Have the refugees been settled?" He had a good memory and asked the right question as soon as he came out, unlike his wife, who would worry about something all day but then forget about it in the end.
Pang Zhishan nodded, took a sip of water, and said, "They've been settled in the house where my eighth great-uncle used to live."
Having worked all day, his throat was parched. After answering that question, Pang Zhishan drank the remaining water in his bowl in one gulp.
Wang Jincai's wife then took the bowl and went inside to pour him water.
Knowing that no one in the village was indifferent to this matter, Pang Zhishan didn't wait for anyone to urge him and directly told them the whole story.
"The number of refugees this time is not large, and the higher-ups know that our Wupai Village has little farmland, so they only allocated one household to us."
"Only one household?" Wang Jincai's heart eased slightly, but he still asked urgently, "How many people are in this household?"
Pang Zhishan sighed and replied, "There were six of us when we left home, but after we fled to this county, only two of us are left!"
"It's so pitiful. All the able-bodied men in the family are gone, and the housekeeper didn't survive either. Only an unmarried young girl is left with her four-year-old nephew."
"hiss--"
Upon hearing this, the Wang couple both gasped in unison.
Wang Jincai slapped his thigh in genuine emotion and sighed, "What a tragedy! A perfectly good family, and now only two children are left?"
His wife, Lin Xinghua, added, "How can we live like this?!"
Actually, Pang Zhishan was also worried.
He'd been worried the whole way.
Although there are few refugees settling here, what can be done about this weak and young girl? Even if they are properly resettled in the village and given land next year, how many acres can the aunt and niece cultivate? How much can they harvest in the second half of the year?
It's likely that, just like ten years ago, we'll still have to rely on the villagers for help and support.
Another point is that the girl has grown up. The two of them, without any self-defense skills, live in that thatched hut halfway up the mountain. They probably have to guard against jackals and tigers! How can they protect themselves?
Oh dear! Thinking about it carefully, it's truly a source of endless worry.
"That's enough chatting." Pang Zhishan stood up, propped himself up on the stool, and said to the couple, "There's nothing on the mountain. I need to go home and get some firewood to take up with them."
Lin Xinghua glanced at her own woodpile and said, "Let's get the firewood from my house."
Her house is next to the mountain, so gathering firewood is usually easy for her.
Regarding the resettlement of refugees, everyone in the village should contribute in some way, so Pang Zhishan didn't refuse. He simply said, "Alright, I'll remember whatever contribution your family makes. We'll gather everyone at the village entrance again tomorrow morning to discuss this matter."
A note from the author:
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