The next day, when the sun was high in the sky, Su Qingci slowly pushed her bicycle toward Yunhai Village.
They came to our door yesterday; we should give them a grace period.
As soon as Su Qingci reached the village entrance and walked under a shady tree, she heard several women squatting under the tree, eating and gossiping.
Su Qingci subconsciously pricked up her ears, and sure enough, the other person was talking about the information she wanted to know.
"If you ask me, Liao Sigui and Xu Dasheng were really lucky. A whole ship of people went with them, and only the two of them survived."
"Isn't there three?"
"I mean the sailors, the sailors recruited by the Ghana."
"The higher-ups gave orders yesterday that it's not allowed to talk about this matter, so Si Gui and Xu Dasheng are fine."
“You know Da Niu from the next village, right? He’s one of those people who floated home on the water. He received a call yesterday evening telling his family to bring him back.”
"Oh dear, this is terrible!"
"What happened? Tell us quickly!" The group of women looked at the woman who was leading the group, their eyes full of gossip.
The woman leading the group, seeing everyone staring at her, said smugly, "You have no idea."
“Yesterday, my husband and I went to their place to take care of some business, and we saw Da Niu’s wife and his blind old mother pulling him home on a cart.”
"The villagers said it was bad luck and kept their distance."
"The two children were sitting on the cart, crying loudly. The scene was truly heartbreaking."
"Oh, poor thing."
"The two children are only six years old and less than four years old. Their mother is blind and they have no brothers to help them. I heard they only have one older sister who is married far away and whose family is in even worse condition."
"What will become of this family in the future?"
"Yes, the old are old, the young are young, the whole family is old, weak, women and children, and no one can take care of them."
"The Ghana disaster has really caused a lot of people to suffer."
“Generally, those from families with better financial conditions will go to sea on ocean-going ships and work for themselves.”
"Back then, the Ghana ship was offered at such a high price, and everyone was somewhat aware that there would be risks involved in going abroad with it."
"So those who followed were mostly from poor families who didn't own fishing boats and needed money. They thought they could get the two thousand yuan to help their families out of their immediate crisis, but what happened? They lost their only source of labor."
"There are quite a few families like Da Niu's. I heard that there's a family in Panxi Cave who are in a similar situation. Their daughter-in-law jumped into the sea last night with her newborn baby. Luckily, she was rescued by some women from their village who were out gathering seafood at the beach."
A woman put down her chopsticks. "You mean Haiyong's house?"
"Yes, yes, your family is from Panxidong, you should know about his family situation."
"How could I not know? Her family lives right next to my second uncle's house. Haiyong's father suffers from severe decompression sickness, the kind where he can't even stand up with crutches. His wife is also a little disabled, and the whole family depends on him to support them. When I went to visit my second uncle before, I happened to run into him on his way out."
"His pregnant wife was standing at the door wiping away tears. He comforted her, saying it was okay, that when they came back, they would have enough money for the baby's birth, and they could also buy painkillers for his father."
"Before he even came back, his wife fell while taking care of her father-in-law and went into premature labor. The baby was born weak, and now there's a sick father-in-law at home, and the man is gone. How are they going to live like this?"
"It would be better to be dead."
"Oh dear, poor thing, what a tragedy!"
"Right? That's why I said Liao Fengmei's family and Xu Dasheng's family are lucky."
"Don't you think it's because their ancestral graves are buried in good places? It seems that the ancestral graves of the Xu family and the Liao family are both located at the foot of Daling Mountain behind here."
"That's quite possible..."
Su Qingci pushed her bicycle forward with a tense expression.
Si Gui and Xu Dasheng returned yesterday afternoon, so they should be fine.
According to her analysis, perhaps the three of them didn't even mention her.
Logically, Su Qingci should have been happy, but at this moment her mood was somewhat heavy.
The original plan was to send the bodies of those people back so that they could return to their roots, and so that their families could have a grave and a place to pay their respects in the future.
Now it seems that this is not the case.
Su Qingci couldn't help but think to herself that if she hadn't brought them back, perhaps their family members would still be waiting at home with a glimmer of hope.
Although that glimmer of hope will slowly fade away, at least they still have this expectation to support them, so they won't end up like Haiyong's wife, who jumped into the sea.
As if she had thought of something, Su Qingci rode her bicycle towards the next village.
It was still breakfast time, and as we entered the village, many people gathered together with their bowls in hand, gossiping about Da Niu's family, as expected.
Su Qingci grabbed a child, asked for directions, and then pushed her bicycle toward Da Niu's house.
A low house, with an incense stick stuck on each side of the entrance.
Looking through the front door into the house, one could see a corpse lying on a tattered mat in the main hall. His face was covered with paper money.
A dark-skinned, thin child was playing on the ground. Upon seeing the stranger, he timidly retreated to his father's side. His clear, innocent eyes cautiously looked at Su Qingci. His two little hands instinctively reached out and hugged his father's stiff arms that drooped to the ground. His small body slowly nestled towards his father, wanting to seek his father's protection as always.
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