"Grandma, I'm scared! Water!"
Li Lanzhen looked down and saw the brother and sister.
Linglong gripped her sleeve tightly, leaned against her leg, her big eyes filled with unease and fear as she stared at her.
Li Lanzhen bent down and picked her up. "Don't be afraid. Grandma is here. Linglong and her brother will be fine. We will cross the bridge safely and walk on the main road."
Upon hearing the words "official road," Su Chen frowned, his eyes filled with pain.
Since meeting the two children in the mountains, Li Lanzhen couldn't bear to abandon them and has kept them by her side ever since.
That night, he arranged for his grandsons to sleep at his own home. He took out Han Yinan and Miaomiao's coarse cloth clothes for them to change into. The older brother, Su Chen, was very happy to accept, while the younger sister pouted but still changed into them.
Anyone with eyes could see that the brother and sister had never done farm work or suffered any hardship. However, the brother was very sensible and followed Han Yinan in everything. When he went out to collect firewood, he would cut his hand but never complain. As for Xiao Linglong, she was too young, but she didn't just sit and eat. She would always hand you something or run errands for you. She was very observant.
Watching them eat dark brown steamed buns or drink dark brown porridge and vegetable soup, craning their necks and taking a long time to swallow, you can see that their past life must have been very good.
Su Chen never told Li Lanzhen what had happened between the two siblings or where their parents had gone, and she pretended not to know and never asked.
She didn't want her child to tear open that wound in their heart against their will; it must have been very painful.
Li Lanzhen held Linglong in her arms, and Su Chen followed closely behind her. The other children were all inside the thatched hut and did not give way. Only these two always stayed close to her, especially at night, and would call out if they could not see her.
Before they had gone far, Han Yuemei ran out and said, "Mother, Linglong and Su Cheng have come looking for you again."
Li Lanzhen said, "Isn't this it? I brought it back."
Han Yuemei went up and took Su Chen's hand, and they walked back together. This time, Su Chen held Han Yuemei's hand tightly. He felt very at ease holding his sister's hand.
Xue Laohu, Xue Bao, Han Mingjiang, and the others have not returned.
Li Lanzhen called on her second son's wife and the eldest daughter-in-law to make breakfast. This time, the black flour paste was mixed with wild vegetables, making it lighter, but they still made black flour and wild vegetable pancakes.
Because Li Lanzhen said to make sure everyone is well-fed. After crossing the bridge, I wonder what the situation is like on the other side?
After they finished eating, none of the men returned. Han Minghai said, "Mother, you stay in the thatched hut. I'll go check on them."
He stood up to go out and look for them, but Xue Laohu returned with several of them.
Han Mingjiang noticed the look in his mother's eyes and told her, "Mother, that girl has already set those three pieces of wood on fire. Although the rain is heavy, it hasn't extinguished the embers. We were afraid the fire would start, so we fetched water to put out all the embers and tamped the wood down to make sure it was solid before we came back."
Han Mingjiang said angrily, "Mother, you don't know how unreasonable Han Yanyan is. She wouldn't let us put out the burning wood and insisted that we jump down to save her daughter."
Holding his bowl, Xue Bao complained, "Auntie, you have no idea that Han Yan almost pushed my brother-in-law down the stairs."
Xue Nizi flew into a rage, grabbed a wooden stick, and stormed out.
When Xue Bao saw his sister go out, he quickly followed. When Han Mingjiang saw that his wife had gone to avenge him, he chuckled and also quickly followed.
Li Lanzhen stopped worrying about them; they wouldn't lose out anyway. Seeing that Linglong and the other children had eaten their fill and fallen asleep, she covered them with clothes so they wouldn't catch a cold.
Xue Nizi rushed into the cave and saw Han Yanyan kneeling on the ground, begging the old village chief, "Father, please, please find some people to save my daughter."
Aunt Huaihua got angry and kicked her, "What nonsense are you talking about? The water is so deep, how are we supposed to save you?"
Han Yanyan shouted at the top of her lungs, "Don't they have ropes? Go down with the ropes and fish her out! Find my daughter!"
As soon as Xue Nizi came in, she heard these words. She went over and grabbed Han Yanyan, who was kneeling on the ground, and slapped her twice across the face. "You good-for-nothing Han Yanyan, you not only ruin your own parents every day, but you also want to ruin my man. Did you almost push my man into the flood to save your ungrateful little brat?"
At this point, Han Yanyan also gave up and started fighting with Xue Nizi, shouting loudly, "I'm going to push him down! I'm going to push him down! Who told his mother to build that bridge? If she hadn't built that bridge, how would my daughter have gotten up there? How would she have fallen off the bridge and been swept away by the flood?"
Xue Ni grabbed her hair. "You know your daughter was swept away, yet you still pushed my husband into the flood to look for her. How are you going to find her?"
He then pushed Han Yanyan to the ground and gave her a severe beating.
The old village chief and Aunt Huaihua were powerless to do anything about it. The two of them sat on the straw mats on the ground, their expressions numb, seemingly lost in thought.
Meanwhile, Gu Yuli's younger sister, Gu Yushi, huddled in a corner with wide, panicked eyes, pressed tightly against the cave wall, unsure of what to do.
She felt that her sister was wrong, but her sister had loved her since childhood. Their father often beat them, and their mother didn't care about them. They often didn't know where their next meal would come from. It was her sister who would secretly sneak into the kitchen and bring her some vegetable pancakes or porridge to eat.
Gu Yushi knew that if it weren't for her older sister Gu Yuli, she would have starved to death long ago. But now that her sister was gone, there would be no one to protect her in the future.
She didn't know who to blame. Blaming Li Lanzhen, her nanny, didn't seem right either. Grandma Lanzhen said that the bridge was built so that everyone could get out of here.
However, if Li Lanzhen hadn't built the bridge, her sister wouldn't have stood on it and wouldn't have fallen into the flood.
She stared blankly at everything with wide eyes. Her mother was being beaten, but she didn't go to protect her, because from childhood to adulthood, their mothers had never protected them when they were beaten.
Gu Yushi knew that her maternal grandparents treated her well, caring about whether she had eaten enough and whether she was cold. She thought to herself that she would stick close to her maternal grandparents from now on.
After beating her up, Xue Nizi stood up, smoothed her hair, and kicked Han Yanyan, who was lying on the ground and had hit a dog to death, saying, "Can you be a decent human being? Take good care of your parents. They had such a hard time on the road to escape famine, and they were still taking care of you and your two children."
After saying that, he glanced at the village chief, whose expression was numb, and then turned and left the cave.
Back in the thatched hut, everyone had already eaten, and Li Lanzhen was discussing the matter of crossing the bridge with several of her in-laws.
Xue Laohu said, "I don't think now is the best time to cross the bridge. The rain is too heavy, it's slippery, and the heavy rain is already blinding, making it hard to see the road ahead."
Han Shunde also said, "That's true, otherwise we'll wait and see."
Li Lanzhen nodded. "Let's observe the rain first. We must cross when it lightens a little; we can't wait for it to stop. We don't know when it will stop, or what might happen in between. Look at the mountain we're on now; the east and west sides are completely flooded. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow."
Ever since Gu Yuli fell off the bridge, Li Lanzhen has been very anxious, always thinking that she should leave this place as soon as possible and get to the main road, which would make things much better.
Thinking of this, Lanzhen said, "We still need to make it clear to everyone and tell them to prepare dry rations, preferably in the form of wild vegetable pancakes. Once we come down the mountain and onto the main road, we don't know how many people are fleeing famine, or whether they have any food. We might not have much time to cook. Make the rations as small as possible so that we can eat them in small bites when we're hungry, and not attract attention."
Pack up all your belongings. As soon as the rain lightens a little, we'll cross the bridge. What about the mules, cattle, and horses? How will they get across?
Zhang Deshui said, "My dear in-law, it's alright, I'll take care of this. I've been serving these livestock for years, and I know their habits."
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