Chapter 44 Zhang Xiulan
After spending two hours organizing some pictures and links, Lin Xi finished her afternoon work, lay down for a short rest, and it was already 4:30 pm.
Although the sun isn't as scorching as it is at noon, it still beats down on the earth. As soon as you open the door, you can almost hear the roar of the heatwave hitting you.
There's nothing I can do, and nothing I need to do, except stay in my room.
Lin Xi only cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, her room, and the living room used for eating in the old house. More than half of the space in this three-story house was still untidied.
Since this house will be demolished and rebuilt sooner or later, there's no need to tidy up the useless space. We'll talk about everything after we pick up Yu Shiyun tomorrow.
Making dinner at 4:30 was a bit early, and Lin Xi was bored when she heard noises coming from downstairs.
A slightly rough female voice called her name in a Yunnan accent: "Xiao Xi! Xiao Xi! Is that you back?"
Lin Xi recognized the voice, but upon turning around, she realized it was her aunt Zhang Xiulan's voice. It was just that she hadn't heard it for seven years, so it sounded unfamiliar.
It must have been those village women who told Zhang Xiulan at noon that she rushed to her door after the sun was at its strongest in the afternoon.
Lin Xi had no choice but to get up, take off her pajamas, change into a T-shirt and jeans, and go downstairs to open the door.
A middle-aged woman stood at the door, wearing a printed brown and green top and a slightly worn straw hat. She appeared to be in her fifties.
It's Zhang Xiulan.
Zhang Xiulan stared at Lin Xi's face for a long time, then pouted her wrinkled lips and finally spoke: "It really is Xiao Xi back."
Lin Xi greeted her awkwardly, "Auntie."
Zhang Xiulan walked in as if they were old friends, glanced around Lin Xi's house and only the living room with clean tables and chairs was tidy. "You came back alone?"
What else?
Lin Xi didn't want to waste her breath arguing with her, so she just hummed in agreement.
Zhang Xiulan sat down: "When did you get back?"
"yesterday."
"Why did you suddenly come back? It's been seven years and you haven't even called home once." Zhang Xiulan's tone was a little resentful.
Lin Xixin said that she grew up in Nanhua and never lived at her grandmother's house when she was a child, so she didn't have much contact with Zhang Xiulan.
Zhang Xiulan was not as familiar to her as Gu Lanjuan.
As for why there has been no contact for so many years? Contact is a two-way street. The elders did not take the initiative to care for the younger generation who are living alone after their parents passed away, and the younger generation did not think of relying on the elders they had only met a few times.
Before Lin Xi could figure out how to reply, Zhang Xiulan bombarded her with questions: "Have you finished your studies?"
"Why didn't you stay in Nanhua?"
"Do you have a job? What kind of job do you do?"
"How long have you been back?"
Lin Xi touched her head; she had only been downstairs for a short while, but she was already sweating profusely. "I'm back to work."
Upon hearing this, Zhang Xiumei's eyes darted around, and she lowered her voice to ask, "The house in Nanhua has been sold?"
"No," Lin Xi answered decisively.
She was wrong just now; her elders didn't abandon her immediately after her parents passed away.
At that time, the eldest uncle proposed to sell the house in Nanhua and take Linxi back to Yunxiang to study, and they would raise Linxi.
At that time, Lin Xi had just finished the high school entrance examination and was admitted to the second-ranked key high school in Nanhua District D. If he continued to study in Nanhua, it would not be a problem for him to get into a first-tier university. However, the education level in Yunxiang was relatively backward, and the undergraduate admission rate was generally not high.
Moreover, Lin Xi was not familiar with her uncle and did not want to leave her familiar living environment.
Her aunt showed her kindness and comforted her about her parents' passing, until Lin Xi overheard a conversation between her uncle's family.
The eldest uncle and second son went out to work in their early years and have not been around to take care of their elderly parents all these years. They also had a daughter. After their death, their family property should be returned to the family and given to the eldest uncle's child, Lin Jie, who is Lin Xi's cousin.
At that time, a house in Nanhua could be sold for more than three million yuan. When my aunt heard that, her eyes lit up. That was money that a family in Yunxiang might not be able to earn in a lifetime.
Raising Lin Xi, a girl who will be an adult in three years, is a matter of adding more chopsticks to their diet.
Lin Xi didn't go far to Yunxiang to begin with, and after overhearing this conversation, he became even more disdainful of the people from his hometown of Yunxiang and directly refused to go back to Yunxiang with them.
After all the commotion, they couldn't drag Lin Xi back to Yunxiang directly, so they had to give up. After that, the already estranged relatives lost contact.
Lin Xi finished her studies with the help of her parents' savings and compensation money.
If her uncle's family found out that she had sold the house, they would definitely try to get their hands on the money. So when Zhang Xiulan asked about the house, she insisted that she hadn't sold it.
Zhang Xiulan's eyes fixed on the spot, her tone indifferent with a hint of disdain: "Then what are you doing back here? What good jobs are there here?"
Lin Xi thought for a moment: "Become an internet celebrity. Auntie, you probably don't know, it's about making videos and uploading them online to earn money from views. The videos I make back in Yunxiang are good, so I can earn more money."
Lin Xi speaks fluent Mandarin, which already makes it difficult for Zhang Xiulan to understand. Now, with the addition of new vocabulary, she is even more confused. She pouted and asked, "So you're going to stay here?"
"yes."
"This house is too old and dilapidated; it hasn't been renovated at all."
"I'm about to renovate."
Lin Xi subconsciously challenged Zhang Xiulan, because she knew that Zhang Xiulan was a very traditional village woman who always considered herself the eldest sister-in-law in the family and believed that all of the Lin family's property should belong to their eldest grandson.
This goes back to the time when Lin Xi's grandmother favored her eldest son over her three children. In Lin Xi's generation, Lin Xi and her cousin Lin Jie didn't grow up together, so it's impossible to compare the degree of favoritism. But in the past, when they ate New Year's Eve dinner together, Lin Xi's grandmother would tear off both chicken legs from a chicken and give them to Lin Jie.
Lin Xi also has a third uncle, but he has never appeared in Lin Xi's memory.
She had overheard her mother gossiping that this third uncle was a rare college student in the village back then, with a promising future, but his family was really poor. Back then, her grandmother had just emptied the family's savings to build a house for Lin Xi's eldest uncle, and they really couldn't afford to support this college student, so they came up with a solution. Someone thought this young and promising college student was willing to sponsor his studies, and the condition for their gratitude was that he become a son-in-law who would live with the family.
Therefore, Lin Xi's third uncle got married before going to university.
After that, he never appeared again and lost contact with his family.
Lin Xi could vaguely sense the uncle's dissatisfaction with his family of origin.
But there are many kinds of dissatisfaction. Some people, like her father, are kind-hearted but were not valued as children. Even when they went to work in Nanhua, they would still send money home.
After being rebuffed by Lin Xi, Zhang Xiulan lost interest in the conversation and said, "I need to go home now to make dinner," before heading out.
Just as Lin Xi was about to close the door, she saw Zhang Xiulan weeding vegetables in the field in front of her yard.
She then noticed that the fields in front of her house were neatly planted with vegetables.
Their house was in the most remote corner of the village, and the nearby fields all belonged to their family. Zhang Xiulan took advantage of the fact that Lin Xi's family was away and requisitioned these lands.
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