Upon entering the city, Lin Yinan stopped and turned to look at the Lin Dongmei sisters.
What are your plans?
Lin Dongmei lowered her head nervously, her hands tightly clasped together. The backs of her hands were rough, red, and cracked, looking like an old woman's hands, even though she was only fifteen years old.
With her older, outstanding siblings above her, she did all the dirty and tiring chores at home from a young age.
Lin Yinan's gaze swept over Lin Chunfang behind her. She shrank back uncomfortably behind her sister, revealing a pair of large, clear black and white eyes.
Lin Chunfang is now eleven years old, and her eyes are clear and she is no longer the naive girl she once was.
"Sister Anan, please take us in!" Lin Dongmei pleaded. "I can do a lot of work."
Fearing she might disagree, Lin Chunfang added quietly, "I can work too, though I don't eat as much as before."
"What if your mother comes looking for you?" Lin Yinan was afraid of that unreasonable woman.
Lin Chunfang quickly waved her hand, "She's not our mother. Even if she comes looking for me, I won't acknowledge her! She not only wants to sell my second sister to an old man as a concubine, but she also wants to sell me into a brothel for money."
Not only Lin Yinan, but even Lin Dongmei was stunned.
They never imagined that Yu Suqin would sell even her own daughter for money; it was utterly depraved.
"You can stay here, but you can't slack off or cheat on your work. You have to follow instructions. Can you do that?" Lin Yinan said seriously.
The two sisters nodded repeatedly, and Lin Chunfang even raised her finger to swear.
"No problem! We promise to work hard and never slack off."
Then Lin Yinan led them to the dining hall, where there was a room where Yu Niang and her son used to live, and asked them to stay there temporarily.
I handed the two sisters over to Aunt Li and asked them to help out in the canteen for the time being.
There have been a lot of people coming from the county town lately, and the canteen has been a bit overwhelmed.
After the guards took away the wicked woman and her family, the order among the people waiting to register outside the city gate improved considerably, and they all lined up to register in an orderly manner.
Just then, Liang Wen led a group of men out of the city. They were preparing to reclaim wasteland and plant crops on the land that hadn't been cleared last year.
There were only a few people left before it was Aunt Liang's turn. She glanced at the line that had emerged.
"Liang Wen!" she murmured, hardly believing what she was seeing.
When Aunt Liang saw her younger brother, who had grown much taller and bigger following behind Liang Wen, tears instantly streamed down her face.
"Honey, please help me take a look. Are those the Liang brothers?"
Aunt Liang's husband and son looked closely and confirmed that it was indeed the Liang brothers.
"Liang Wen!" Liang Da Niang's eldest son called out to Liang Wen.
Hearing the shouts, Liang Wen stopped in his tracks. When he saw the familiar faces of Aunt Liang and the others, he was stunned.
"aunt!"
"Brother, who are you looking at?" Liang Xiaodi was chatting and laughing with someone and didn't hear anyone call him brother.
Liang Wen was somewhat excited, his hands trembling slightly as he carried the hoe. "Little brother, I saw my aunt's family."
Liang Xiaodi followed his gaze and his eyes widened immediately.
"Brother, it really is our aunt."
So, after giving some instructions to the people in line, Liang Wen led his younger brother into the queue.
"Auntie, Uncle!"
Seeing the two brothers standing alive in front of her, Aunt Liang reached out to touch their faces in disbelief.
"I'm so glad you're all still alive!" she said, her voice choked with emotion.
When the Japanese pirates attacked, everyone was busy fleeing for their lives. Only after they escaped did she realize that her younger brother's family had not escaped.
If both brothers are still alive, then are her younger brother and sister-in-law also alive? Aunt Liang looked at them with hope in her eyes.
Where are your parents?
Liang Wen said sadly, "They're all gone."
His cousin quickly changed the subject, "I see that you two brothers are doing quite well now."
"We are so grateful to the city lord for taking us in," Liang Wen said sincerely when talking about this.
As they chatted, it was soon time for Aunt Liang and her family to register.
Upon hearing that the village was to be reorganized, Aunt Liang stammered, "Can we go back to our original village?"
“Your original village is already full. If you insist on going back, there will only be barren land left in the village. All the fertile land and good land have been distributed. If you go to the newly assigned village, you will be allocated fertile land,” the clerk in charge of registering the households advised.
Liang Wen said, "Aunt, let's choose the new village. It has fertile fields, and the crops grown there will be better."
After hearing what her nephew had said, Aunt Liang didn't insist on returning to her original village.
"Then you can help us make arrangements. Even if we go back to the old house, the thatched hut there will probably have collapsed by now."
After Aunt Liang and her family registered, the clerk told them to wait outside the city for a day, and they would go to the village together early the next morning.
"Aunt, Uncle, you can rest here for a while. When my brother and I get off work, you can stay at our house for the night."
The Liang couple said they had no objections, but the cousin asked, "Awen, where are you going?"
"We're going to clear the land over there."
“Come, I will go with you.”
Unable to refuse, Liang Wen had no choice but to take his two cousins to the reclaimed land.
The two cousins were honest men who spoke their minds. When they arrived at the wasteland, they didn't just sit idly by, but picked up sickles and helped cut grass.
When they finished work, Liang Wen and his brother took Liang Da Niang and her family into the city. He bought two jin of meat at the Longtan Grain Store, planning to cook it at his home that evening.
Seeing that he bought so much meat at once, Aunt Liang was shocked and said that the two brothers didn't know how to manage their money. Liang Wen had to explain to her that it was a bonus he received last year, and that the two brothers usually ate in the canteen and hadn't spent a penny of money.
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