Chapter 4: Dark-hearted
Now, looking back, Lin Shu admires the foresight of the old man.
The old man's ancestors were bodyguards. In the late Qing Dynasty, the old man followed his father to join the Boxer Rebellion. After the movement failed, his father was beheaded, and the old man Lu ran back to his ancestral home.
He went home to marry and have children, and gathered a group of friends with his kung fu to make a living.
There is an official road in front of Lujia Village, which leads to Qiujia Town in the east, which is the only way to Qingxian City, and to Xuejia Town in the west, which is the only way to Rongcheng. There is another official road in the
east, which leads to Dalinjia Town in the south and Hujiajiu Town in the north.
These counties and towns all have their own specialties, and people often intermarry with each other. They are very busy with people coming and going from the south and the north, but they are not too conspicuous like the Quancheng.
The old man chose to open an inn and a big cart inn here.
At that time, Lujia Village was not called Lujia Village. It was renamed after the big cart inn was opened.
The old man Lu was capable, rich, and had connections. After opening the inn, the business was booming. He was also generous and often did charity, so he was quite prestigious in the surrounding area.
He was out and about every day, secretly supporting the revolutionary party. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he pretended to let Xiwu's eldest son go out to do business, but in fact he secretly joined the Red Army. In order to paralyze the Japanese puppet army, he pretended to be the village leader of the goodwill group, but used his connections to secretly support the armed work team.
At that time, the family looked like a big business, but in fact, all the money in the family was used by him to support the revolutionary team.
His wife took the initiative to give him all the gold and silver jewelry, saying that she couldn't see the jewelry clearly anyway because of her poor eyesight.
His first wife gave birth to a son and a daughter. Three years after his first wife passed away, he married a half-blind old girl from a large landlord in the county, and gave birth to a son and a daughter.
The youngest son was smart and studious since he was young. He attended a private school, but he was not interested in the big events outside. He had been farming and managing the store at home to support his parents.
He learned simple medical skills from an old Chinese doctor, and could do scraping, cupping, acupuncture and massage. He knew some common prescriptions, could treat common injuries, and could make secret medicinal wine.
He was also good at farming and raising livestock. He lived and ate with the long-term workers and store clerks, and was respected by the people below.
In 1948, in order to support his eldest son's revolution, Mr. Lu took the initiative to donate his family's fields and cart shop to the organization, and distributed them to poor middle peasants who fled from other villages. The houses originally lived in by the old partners and tenants were given to them.
Then there was a vigorous land movement in the area. Many landlords who exploited farmers and colluded with the Japanese puppet army were shot. However, the Lu family was praised by the organization, and the organization allowed the old man to keep two courtyards and some food-producing fields.
Everyone thought that the old man would keep the big tiled house where he lived, but he made a surprising choice - donating the big tiled house to the village branch and choosing two other courtyards for big cart shops.
Lin Shu felt that the old man was very wise. This adobe house was small and inconspicuous, and would not be envied.
In fact, this is the best house besides the big tile house. It is not made of dry earth, but of bluestone foundation, with half-meter thick adobe walls, warm in winter and cool in summer, and the beams are all solid pine wood. The roof is not made of straw but covered with black tiles, so it is not afraid of wind and rain.
The most important thing is that the yard is big enough, so that children and grandchildren can build houses to live in in the future, and the open space can be used to grow vegetable gardens and trees to supplement the family income.
In those days, the land was collective, and each person had at most one private plot. If they had to supplement their food, they would not be willing to grow vegetables, so the yard, the front and back of the house, and every corner of the village were places for growing vegetables.
Naturally, vegetables were planted in the Lu family’s yard, but they were basically melons and radishes that could supplement their food supply, as well as some onions, garlic, and leeks. As for leafy vegetables such as lettuce, greens, and spinach, there were almost none.
The original owner had been in a bad state recently, and the others were busy working in the fields. The parents-in-law were sad because their son was gone, and the whole family had no time to tend to the vegetable patch, so the vegetables in the vegetable patch were all wilted.
Lin Shu, a time traveler, had admiration and sympathy for Lu Shaotang, but no love, so she just sighed for a while and that didn’t stop her from living her own life.
She wanted to eat meat, but if she didn’t have meat, she had to eat vegetables at least!
At that time, there weren’t so many pesticides and ripening fertilizers, and the vegetables were all natural. Each vegetable had its own flavor, fresh and delicious!
If you don’t have oil to cook, just boil the vegetables in water and add some bean paste to mix them cold. How can you not have cold dishes in the hot summer!
Boil the greens, spinach, and cabbage. You can also eat the lettuce with the sauce! Mix
cucumber, pepper, bean sprouts, and coriander to make a tiger dish. Add some vinegar and soy sauce. It is spicy, sour, appetizing, and heat-relief. After eating it, you will feel energetic. She wants to plant vegetables all over the yard! ! With such a big yard, you can plant a circle of peanuts and sunflowers on the edge, and you will have snacks on weekdays. You can also trim a few vegetable plots. Cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons can be used as fruits. Green vegetables, spinach, lettuce, peppers, and loofahs must be planted! Eggplant, lentils, and gourds can be eaten until late autumn. She didn't have to work hard to grow the main winter vegetables, such as radishes and cabbages. They were planted in autumn and harvested in the beginning of winter, and every household had to stock up a cart of them. She originally wanted to exercise, so now she just picked up the hoe and continued to dig the ground in the vegetable patch, exercising and working at the same time. The two kids woke up from their nap and ate the roasted cicada monkeys. They didn't go out to play, but came to help their mother dig the ground with small shovels for digging wild vegetables. Panpan was digging while he was hesitating, and soon he started playing with insects. Tiantian was busy educating her brother while digging the ground, "Don't be distracted!" The ground in the yard was hard, and Lin Shu was so tired that she was panting and only dug a few steps away. Lin Shu thought about it and went to fetch half a bucket of water to splash the ground. It would be easier to dig if the ground was softened. It hadn't rained for a few days after the corn was planted. The May day was hot and dry, and the water seeped in as soon as it was splashed. Panpan became interested again and helped to water the ground with a watering can. The children were having a lot of fun and began to step on the mud pits barefoot. Tiantian frowned at them. The three of them were playing and digging the ground. Several little girls shouted outside the gate: "Panpan, Panpan, let's go pick cicada monkeys and catch grasshoppers!" Panpan's voices were mixed with one or two Tiantian's. Tiantian pouted at Panpan, "Honghong, Juanjuan, Huahua, and Yuanyuan." Lin Shu: "..." There's something wrong with you. She washed Panpan, put on the small straw hats woven by their grandfather, and put a paint-chipped army green water bottle on their backs, and let them go out to play with their friends. After the children left, Lin Shu worked hard to dig the ground and tidy up the vegetable patch, working hard for her own appetite.
Just as she was panting from exhaustion, she suddenly heard the sound of a child crying on the road to the west, mixed with the screams of other children.
Lin Shu's scalp suddenly exploded when she heard the voices that sounded like Panpan and Tiantian's. In her previous life, she was a person who was not in a hurry because of her physical condition, but now she couldn't stand her children being beaten and crying.
The screams instantly made her fall into the scene where Panpan was locked in the cellar by the traffickers and tortured inhumanely!
It was unbearable!
The hoe was too heavy, so she threw it away, turned around and picked up a stick as thick as her arm and ran out, her mind full of the miserable scenes of Panpan and Tiantian being beaten.
She couldn't stand her children suffering.
Lin Shu hurried out the door and walked west, and saw a group of children over there, all of them were three or five years old, and there was not even one seven or eight years old.
Lin Shu saw Panpan holding Tiantian's hand. The siblings stood outside the circle of children. There was also a dark and strong girl standing in front of them.
About five or six little girls were beating two boys, scolding them while beating them,
"You are so mean! See if you dare to bully Panpan again!"
"That's right, you deserve to be beaten for being a chatterbox!"
"Put a bug in his mouth and let him talk nonsense!"
"Wuwu, my mother said his father..."
"You are still talking! Keep beating!" The dark and strong girl pointed at the two boys on the ground with her short fingers like a commander and asked the other girls to continue beating them.
She turned to Panpan and comforted him, "Panpan, don't be angry, I'll beat them for you and see if they dare to say anything."
Panpan nodded repeatedly, "Huahua, thank you, you are as powerful as a female militia!"
The black and strong Huahua became more and more proud, feeling that justice had come upon her, and she had to discipline the naughty child.
Tiantian glanced at her brother with cold eyes.
Panpan smiled at her, with a sweet smile.
Lin Shu: "......?"
Is this kid a black-bellied and charming person?
It was not until the two boys on the ground begged for mercy and dared not bully Panpan anymore that the soldiers showed mercy and let them go.
Lin Shu thought that the children were having a good time and she, as an adult, should not interfere, so she went back to continue digging the ground.
Outside, Panpan thanked the young ladies one by one, praised them, said goodbye to them and went home with Tiantian.
"Panpan, play for a while." The little girls were reluctant to let him go.
Panpan: "I have to go home to comfort my mother. She just heard it and is very sad."
"Oh, then you go quickly." A little girl ran over and put a piece of candy in his palm, "Give it to auntie."
Panpan didn't want the candy. He and Tiantian went home hand in hand.
Tiantian whispered, "Mom just came. She must be sad to hear what you said."
Panpan whispered, "Didn't grandpa tell mom that dad was going to beat the bad guys? Let's tell her."
Tiantian sighed, "Do you think a grandpa from the commune would lie?"
Panpan: "He is just an official of the commune. Above him are counties, regions, provinces, troops, the central government and so on. What does he know? Only the big leaders will know what our grandpa is talking about. "
Tiantian's thick, curly eyelashes drooped down, "But, I miss Daddy so much, I haven't seen him."
Panpan: "Me too, let's go home and coax Mom."
Lin Shu, who was digging the ground, saw them coming back and thought about how to communicate with the children and try not to fight. She found that watching videos to raise children online could not gain real parenting knowledge. After all, the videos were either staged or the children were different and could not be copied.
Panpan and Tiantian both stared at her, "Mom, don't be sad, Daddy is fine."
Lin Shu didn't want the children to be traumatized, "Of course, he's fine."
For children, white lies are necessary.
After a while, the quarrels of children, old women, and old men came from outside, saying that your child hit my child, your child was mean and deserved a beating, and they were arguing fiercely.
Classmate Lu Panpan was concentrating on helping his mother dig the vegetable patch, digging in the mud with his white and tender feet.
Little girl Lu Tiantian looked at the mud spots on her pants that were splashed by her brother, with a look of disgust and hopelessness.
Lin Shu felt soft in her heart, what a lovely boy.
"Mom, I'll tell you a secret." Panpan suddenly raised her head and said to Lin Shu.
The light soy sauce is not here, that's what the heroine thought, she was full of food in her mind, in fact, she has never tasted the light soy sauce in her impression, haha.