Chapter 48
Old Mrs. Lu had agreed when Mrs. Chen came to help Sang Luo ask if she could buy a chicken. She guessed that someone would come to her house today, so she deliberately did not go anywhere that afternoon and waited at home.
I really saw it.
The old lady smiled and invited the two into the house, looking at Sang Luo as they walked.
After taking a closer look, I felt that this girl actually had very nice eyebrows and eyes. If she could gain some weight, she would be absolutely pretty.
What attracted Mrs. Lu's attention most was her eyes, which were bright and clear.
Such people have strong temperaments and upright minds.
"I've been hearing about you from my kids lately, but now I've seen you in person, and I can see that you're really a capable kid."
While praising Sang Luo, she called her daughter-in-law to make mint tea and serve pumpkin seeds to the guests. A young daughter-in-law came out of the house when she heard the sound, greeted Mrs. Chen, nodded to Sang Luo, and went to the kitchen.
Sang Luo stopped him and said to Old Lady Lu, "Grandma Lu, please don't bother me. I just came here to buy chickens. I just bought a few ducklings today. To be honest, I'm in a hurry to build a chicken coop and duck shed. We need to talk. You can come to my house the day after tomorrow. I'll have plenty of time then. Please allow me to entertain you and the uncles and aunts."
After hearing what Sang Luo said, Mrs. Lu stopped insisting and said with a smile, "That's fine. I won't force you to stay if you're busy. I'll take you to the back of the house to see the chickens, and you can pick two that you like."
At this point, he beckoned the young daughter-in-law to come over and introduced her to Sang Luo: "This is my second daughter-in-law, you can call her second aunt."
Then he smiled and said to his daughter-in-law: "Liu Niang, this is A Lie's wife, I think you know her."
Wang Liuniang really knew that Ah Xu had been talking about it all the time recently, and what he envied most was that his cousins at home could go to Shen An's house to work.
There was a rare smile on her face, and she smiled and nodded to Sang Luo as a greeting.
Sang Luo also smiled back and called her Aunt Lu.
Mrs. Chen, who was standing by, saw Wang Liuniang's smile and her eyes moved. Mrs. Lu also curved her lips upwards and said to her second daughter-in-law in a gentle voice, "Now that you are out, you should take a break. Don't stay in the house weaving all day. People need to move around to exercise their muscles and bones so that they can be healthy. If you stare at weaving every day, you won't notice it when you are young, but your eyes will be damaged in a few years."
Wang Liuniang nodded: "Mother, I understand."
She speaks softly and is gentle at heart, yet she seems to have an indescribable melancholy.
Mrs. Lu said nothing more. She led Mrs. Chen and Sang Luo out of the yard and walked to the back of the house. A woman who looked about the same age as Qin Fangniang came out of the kitchen when she heard that they were going to catch chickens. She followed them silently. Mrs. Lu saw her and introduced her to Sang Luo: "This is my eldest daughter-in-law. You can also call her aunt."
Sang Luo had to call her Aunt Lu.
The woman smiled at Sang Luo and said, "You must be Alie's wife, right? I often hear Shuanzhu, Tiezhu and Huzi from our family talking about you these days."
His voice was slightly raised with a smile, which was very different from the silent appearance when he came out of the house just now.
Sang Luo smiled: "I have to thank them. The children also helped a lot. Otherwise, I would not be able to live in the new house today."
When Lu Dalang's wife heard Sang Luo praising her son, she smiled brightly and was very happy.
The back of the Lu family's house is also next to a mountain, and the chicken coop is built on the side of the mountain. At this moment, the chickens are not in the chicken coop, but are digging in the ground behind the house to find food. There are about ten chickens.
Mrs. Lu said, "These are all the chickens I raise. The half-grown ones are from the nests of my own hens in April this year. Take a look for yourself. If you want one, point it out to me and I'll catch it for you."
Sang Luo smiled after just one look and said, "Grandma Lu, your chickens are so healthy, any one of them is good, why should I choose? I'll just pick two with easy-to-identify colors."
The first half of the sentence is not an empty compliment. Free-range chickens in the countryside are rarely listless, but these chickens are all very energetic.
Sang Luo glanced at the group of half-grown chickens and picked out a male and a female that looked happy.
Mrs. Lu smiled and nodded. Before she moved, Lu Dalang's wife said, "Mom, let me do it."
As she spoke, she stepped forward with extremely skillful and nimble movements. With a few scoops, she grabbed the chicken that Sang Luo had set her eyes on and held it in her hand.
When one chicken was caught, the other chickens all flew away in all directions. Lu Dalang's wife was not in a hurry. She tied the feet of the chicken in her hand with a straw rope and put it into Sang Luo's cloth bag. She turned around and went back to get the food bowl, knocked it out, and scattered the leftover bran and vegetables on the ground. Then a group of chickens that had just run away rushed back stupidly to grab the food.
She caught the second one accurately.
Mrs. Chen smiled and said to Mrs. Lu: "Your mother Chun is really capable. You are lucky."
Old Mrs. Lu agreed with a smile and couldn't help but praise Qin Fangniang as well.
The two old ladies praised each other's business. Sang Luo quickly tied up the cloth bag and handed it to Lu Dalang's wife, saying with a smile: "Aunt Lu, please weigh these two chickens to see how heavy they are."
Lu Dalang's wife nodded and went back to the house to get the scale. Mrs. Lu then called out to Mrs. Chen and Sang Luo, "Let's go back to the house and weigh it. It's outside in the sun."
When the group arrived, Lu Dalang's wife had already taken out the scale. When she saw Sang Luo and the others coming over, she hooked the cloth bag in her hand on the scale and weighed it in front of Sang Luo. She then showed the scale star and the raised scale bar to Sang Luo and told her a weight.
The price was agreed to be the market price. Sang Luo calculated, took out a string of whole coins from her purse, counted out forty-two coins and put them in the purse, strung the remaining fifty-eight coins together and handed them to Old Lady Chen, saying with a smile, "Grandma, here are fifty-eight coins, please check if they are correct."
When Mrs. Lu heard the number, she shook her head and said, "Why fifty-eight coins? If fellow villagers pay the same price as the market price, what kind of fellow villagers are we?"
Without counting the money, he took out two coins from the string of money Sang Luo gave him and handed it back to Sang Luo: "Fifty-six coins, one coin cheaper for one chicken."
Sang Luo laughed and took the money readily: "Okay, then I won't refuse. I appreciate your care, grandma."
Old Madam Lu curved her eyes and said to Mrs. Chen beside her with a smile, "This generosity is very endearing."
"Who said it wasn't?" Mrs. Chen also laughed. The two old ladies could get along well with each other. They actually had a lot in common in their views on people and things.
Mrs. Chen knew that Sang Luo had to go home and was busy, so she said, "Okay, I still have to take her to Muramasa's house to buy two more. You go ahead and do your thing."
When she heard that Sang Luo wanted to buy two more, Lu Dalang's wife's eyes sparkled. After the people walked away, she whispered to her mother-in-law, "Mom, the Sang family is doing well."
The old lady glanced at her and said: "If you work hard, you will naturally be able to make a living."
Lu Dalang's wife was embarrassed and didn't say much.
On the other side, Sang Luo was quite a distance away from the Lu family, and she was also curious: "Grandma, I have met the first and third uncles of the Lu family, but I don't think I have met the second uncle of the Lu family?"
Mrs. Chen paused for a moment, walked in silence for a while, and then said, "I'm afraid it's gone."
Sang Luo didn't expect such an answer and was stunned for a moment: "How could it be?"
Granny Chen looked at her and sighed, "Your A'lie, my Dashan, Lu's Erlang, and Shi's Dalang were all conscripted together that year. There were more than just the four of them. More than a dozen people from the village went, and none of them came back."
"At the beginning of the year, we heard that some people had returned. We went from village to village, and there were more than ten villages nearby, but less than 20 people returned alive."
When the old lady talked about this, her shoulders and back seemed to hunch a little.
She smiled, forced herself to cheer herself up, and reminded Sang Luo, "There will be a party at home the day after tomorrow. Your eldest sister-in-law from the Shi family will also be there. Remember not to ask about your uncle from the Shi family."
In recent years, everyone in their area knows that if you run into someone you don't know well and the man is not at home, don't ask, as asking may easily expose the person's sad secrets.
Only then did Sang Luo understand why the young Aunt Lu always had a layer of lingering melancholy between her brows even when she smiled at her, and she always seemed to lack a little vitality.
If she still felt that things were getting better and the future was promising when she bought a bunch of things at noon, she now feels a little sad.
Wars in ancient times were the greatest suffering for the people. She had only been here for a short time, and she might not have encountered many things.
Sang Luo didn't ask why he always talked about wars, she just nodded and said, "I know."
Thinking that the old lady's eldest grandson was in the same situation, he looked at Old Lady Chen with some guilt.
The old lady smiled and said, "It's okay. You don't know. Besides, living in such a world, people have to learn to comfort themselves. Otherwise, what can we do?"
How to live?
After letting out a long sigh, the old lady straightened her expression, perked up, changed the topic, and introduced the Muramasa family to Sang Luo.
"There aren't many families in our village. If we talk about a family with a large population, the Lu family is one, and the Zhou Cunzheng family is one."
"Zhou? Are you from the same family as Zhou Lizheng?"
Granny Chen nodded and shook her head, "We are descended from the same ancestor, but we are only the fourth generation. We are considered brothers, so our relationship is not that close anymore."
Sang Luo herself was an orphan and had a very vague concept of some clan relatives, but she had the memories of her original body and could understand what the old lady meant by clan brothers.
In the Dagan Dynasty, the first generation were biological brothers, the second generation were cousins, the third generation were clan brothers, and the fourth generation were what the old lady called clan brothers.
It seems that the blood relationship has indeed become very weak.
If one can become a village chief, his living standard is usually the best in the whole village. Zhou Cunzheng's family is like this. Although it is also a mud house made of rammed earth, the roof is covered with tiles, which is obviously different from other villagers who all use straw. Because the family is prosperous and the house is big, although it is also a mud house, it looks a bit more impressive when compared with the houses of other families in Shili Village.
Old Mrs. Chen should have very good interpersonal relationships. She can talk to anyone with a smile, and the same goes for Zhou Cunzheng's family.
After explaining her purpose in a few words, the village chief's wife looked at Sang Luo and said, "This is Alie's wife. She has been in our village for some time, but I have never met her before."
To handle household loan matters, one would go directly to the village head in the neighboring village. The village head only assisted the village head in his work on a daily basis, coordinated neighborhood relations, and dealt with some disputes. Therefore, Sang Luo seldom went out, so it was not surprising that the people in the village head's family had never seen her.
Granny Chen smiled and said to Sang Luo: "This is our village's principal daughter-in-law. According to seniority, you should call her aunt."
The age of the village chief's wife is about the same as Qin Fangniang's. It seems that Zhou Cunzheng in the village is still quite young.
Sang Luo smiled and called Aunt Zhou.
Zhoucunzheng's wife smiled and led the two to the chicken coop, saying, "We don't have many chickens at home, but I heard that you just built a new house and you can't buy chicks at this time, so it's no problem for me to give you two. You can pick one yourself."
This time Sang Luo picked two little hens, plus the two bought from the Lu family, that is, one rooster and three hens. After raising them for another two or three months, they should be able to lay eggs. If three hens can lay three eggs a day, it will be enough for their family to eat.
Zhou Cunzheng's wife was also a capable person. She caught the chickens, tied their feet and weighed them. She did the job very skillfully.
These two chickens are slightly lighter than the two from the Lu family, just right, also fifty-six cents.
The two families had no relationship, so naturally there was no need to talk about favors. Zhoucun's wife accepted the gift with a smile, and Sang Luo and Chen Pozi then said goodbye.
Passing by Chen's house, Sang Luo remembered that she had not returned from the county to buy vegetables today. Thinking about dinner in the evening, she had wild vegetables at home, so she asked Mrs. Chen and bought two eggs.
As soon as he said this, he took out two cents from his purse and stuffed them into the old lady's pocket, as if he would not take a single cent less.
It's not Sang Luo's fault. It was really that during the time when the house was being built, she cooked at Chen's house. The old lady bought vegetables and cooked, and she gave her a lot of eggs in private. Sang Luo didn't know about it at first, but after so long, how could she not notice it?
Since her family built their house, most of the eggs laid by the chickens raised by the Chen family have been given to her.
At that time, the two families ate together. The old lady always felt that the whole family was taking advantage of her by eating white rice and meat with her, and she always felt guilty. She would feel comfortable and at ease if they secretly gave her a little money.
So Sang Luo didn't say anything, but now the house was built and she was cooking in her own home, so how could she dare to take advantage of the old lady?
Seeing her expression, Mrs. Chen smiled and said, "Don't worry, I will take it. I make a living from selling chicken butts."
Lehehe stuffed the money into his sleeve and went in to get her eggs. When he came out, he had two more eggplants in his hand: "Come on, help me."
Sang Luo burst out laughing and thanked her without hesitation. She held the cloth bag and two eggplant stems in one hand and two eggs in the other. Just as she was about to leave, she remembered the bag of millet she had bought and said, "Grandma, I'll come over later to pound the millet."
Old Mrs. Chen turned sideways and glanced at her own yard, and smiled: "It's not there. Your aunt must have pounded it for you and sent it over. Go home and check."
When she returned home, she saw the grain bag she had bought under the eaves of the thatched roof.
Chen An ran several times and brought back the straw and mats. They made the bed, and the brother and sister sat and lay on the new bed, feeling very sleepy. When they heard Sang Luo coming back, they climbed down from the new bed and greeted her happily.
"Sister-in-law, I've fed the ducklings some water and will keep them in the backyard for now."
"Sister-in-law, Auntie Youtian has pounded the rice for us. I have poured the rice into the rice jar and the chaff into the cloth bag."
The two siblings ran to Sang Luo one after the other and told their eldest sister-in-law everything they should tell her. Their eyes were fixed on the cloth bag in her hand that was struggling from time to time. Chen An helped take the eggplant and eggs and asked with shining eyes, "Did you buy the chicken too?"
Sang Luo smiled, "After I buy them, I'll lock them up in the backyard for two days to get familiar with them. After I build the chicken coop, I'll let them roam free outside. I'll put them back in the coop at night."
He carried the cloth bag into the backyard, closed the gate, put down the cloth bag, took the chickens out one by one, and then loosened the straw ropes tied to their feet one by one.
As soon as the four chickens were freed, they ran around the yard, scaring the ducks lying on the fine hay in the corner of the yard so much that they huddled together and made bleating sounds. The originally empty backyard suddenly became lively with the flying of chickens and the quacking of ducks.
Chen Ning's eyes sparkled: "Sister-in-law, I'll go pick some dandelions and mugwort, and find some barnyard grass, and mix it with some bran to feed the chickens."
Barnyard grass is the fruit of barnyard grass. Barnyard grass also has another name, dogtail grass. In years of famine, people use dogtail grass as food, and it can also be used to feed chickens and ducks.
The girl is quite professional in raising chickens and ducks, and it is obvious that she has done this kind of work a lot in the past.
Sang Luo smiled and replied, "Okay, but be careful. You have to watch the feeding these few days. Don't let the ducks eat the chicken feed. They are still young and can't eat many things yet. The recent food must be prepared separately."
"Got it." The brother and sister responded and ran out of the door.
Sang Luo took a look at the three ducklings and saw that they were adapting well. The four newly bought chickens also became less noisy after a while and walked around everywhere, but no one was seen pecking at the ducklings, so she closed the door and left the backyard.
She first went into the hut and took a look. The beds were made neatly, and there was some straw standing in the corner, which must have been left over. Sang Luo thought that it would be nice to use the straw to make a chicken coop and a duck coop.
Before I started, I went to the bathroom and discovered that in addition to the toilet and the newly bought bathtub, there were two dustpans in the corner. They were filled with pebbles that were obviously carefully selected. Each one was of uniform size and round enough. Some even had beautiful patterns. Each one must have been washed, and there was not even fine sand on the stones. They were exceptionally clean.
Sang Luo was puzzled. He had just told her about it last night, and it had only been half a day. Where did he find so many beautiful pebbles?
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