Dangerous tree branches were cut down, and in the afternoon, several men braved the snow to repair most of the damaged roof. Fortunately, when the house was built, extra tiles, bricks, and wooden eaves were prepared, so they could be replaced whenever needed.
After the men finished repairing the roof, their limbs were stiff from the cold. Wang Lan started a fire in the front corner of the yard. Lu Yunfeng often made fires here, so he built a simple shed with one side against the wall and three sides open to the air. They could even roast meat inside when it snowed.
"When will this snow stop?" Lu Yan shook the snow off the red plum blossoms in the yard to prevent them from breaking. These plum trees were her sister-in-law's favorite.
Lu Yunxing brought out several bowls of rice porridge from the kitchen. "Come on, have some hot porridge first, this awful weather."
The men each downed a bowl, then breathed a sigh of relief. Zhao Fang took out slices of marinated pork. "Let's grill some meat first, the rice isn't ready yet."
Wang Chao took it, "It's still early, no rush to eat."
The Lu family is really wealthy. Who would dare to roast meat like that? The oil is dripping off, what a waste.
As soon as the aroma of meat wafted out, Xiao Si waited by the fire, "Meat, I want to eat."
Everyone laughed and could only give it to him first. Just as they were enjoying their meal, there was a loud banging on the door. Wang Chao put down the bamboo skewers, got up, and went to open the door. "Brother Ershui, come in quickly in this snowy weather! We're having a barbecue!"
Wang Ershui, who was standing outside the door, was very anxious. He called out to the inside, "Dayun, Dayun, you have a boat. Could you please go to Lijia Village and ask Doctor Li for help?"
With such heavy snow, the mountain roads have long been blocked; it's easier to travel by water.
Wang Chao asked, "What's wrong? Does anyone have a fever?"
It's easy to catch a cold and get a fever in winter.
Wang Ershui grabbed Wang Chao's hand and started walking, saying, "Two houses in the village have collapsed under the weight of the snow, and some people are injured. Come on, come on, let's go and rescue them!"
Upon hearing this, the men in the courtyard dropped their meat skewers and ran. Lu Yunfeng and his brother ran to the riverbank. Being hit by the falling object was no small matter; it could be fatal. Qin Xiaozhou followed them to the village to see if there was anything they could do to help.
The house that was crushed was Wang Gou Dan's. Wang Gou Dan's mother, her face covered in blood, sat on the collapsed eaves, wailing loudly. Wang Gou Dan, covered in dust and wearing a tattered cotton coat, sat beside her.
He has a wicked look on his face!
After taking a look, Qin Xiaozhou was reluctant to help. Wang Gou Dan was a perfectly good man in his twenties, but he was lazy and gluttonous. Even when he had land, he didn't take good care of it. His land was at the foot of Dongshan Mountain. He would just dig a little bit and leave the crops for a month or two without checking on them. The weeds would grow taller than the crops and kill them, resulting in a poor harvest.
Wang Gou Dan was lazy, and his mother wasn't diligent either. All she did was sit under the tree at the village entrance and chat all day. She was only in her forties, but she never washed her clothes or tidied up the house. Over the years, Chen Zexing had never seen the mother and son wear clean clothes more than a few times.
She complains about being poor and unable to afford new clothes whenever someone mentions it.
Poverty is often a sign of laziness.
Oh!
No wonder my daughter sold herself to a textile factory a few days ago; she probably couldn't survive at home.
Qin Xiaozhou walked to another house. The family was a widow with no children. Because she had parents-in-law to support, her parents-in-law did not allow her to remarry and kept her at home as a laborer. Her husband died when he was only thirty-four years old. The old couple forced her to observe two years of mourning, which made her past the age for official marriage.
She had no hope of having children in her life, and after the old couple died, there was no one to take care of her in her old age.
The thirty-seven-year-old woman stared blankly at the collapsed house. At her feet were two overturned wooden buckets and a carrying pole. Neighbors were frantically prying up the thatch, and two men lifted the rafters. Qin Xiaozhou ran over to help, clearing away the clods of earth. Underneath, there was an old man with his eyes wide open, lying face down, blood all over the back of his head. He was breathing but not exhaling. One of the men checked his breath and shook his head: "He's done for."
Even if someone dies, they still have to be carried out. Several men pried open the rafters together. Zhao Chunhua sighed, walked to the widow's side, and comforted her by supporting her shoulders, "Sister, it's all fate, don't be sad."
Miao San Niang remained expressionless. These two old men and women had been ordering her to fetch water in the freezing cold, threatening to withhold food if she refused. For years, she hadn't had a proper meal, constantly being ordered around to do this and that. She, a woman, was being treated like a man. And today, before she even entered the house, it collapsed right in front of her.
Perhaps it really was fate. The snow was too heavy, and she walked slowly. If she had walked a step faster, she would have been buried in it. She didn't feel sad at all about the deaths of the two old people; it was better that they were dead. It was just that she couldn't go back to her parents' home, and now that the house had collapsed, she had nowhere to go and no food. How was she going to survive?
Seven or eight men dug through the rubble and pulled out an old man and a woman. The old woman's neck had been broken and she was already dead. The old man's limbs twitched and stiffened shortly after he was dug out. Everyone knew what this meant. One of the men found a piece of cloth in the rubble and gave it to Miao San Niang.
Miao San Niang seemed to have lost her soul and remained motionless. Wang Ye Hong, being a kind-hearted person, opened the cloth in front of everyone, revealing a hundred or so copper coins inside, which were clearly the family's savings.
meager!
Soon the old man also passed away, and snow fell on his body. Wang Chao could only call a meeting and have the two old people lie in state in the ancestral hall. Miao San Niang was also to stay at the threshing ground. The villagers were to give whatever they could.
Miao San Niang picked up the flattened pot. The bowls were broken or chipped, and everyone looked at her pitifully. Wang Ye Hong stopped her, saying, "Don't pick them up anymore. There's no shortage of pots and pans over at the threshing ground."
Wang Chao and several men carried the bodies of the two elderly people to the ancestral hall. They didn't even have a coffin, so they could only place them on straw mats. Qin Xiaozhou couldn't enter the Wang family ancestral hall, so the Lu brothers hurriedly found Doctor Li. Doctor Li bandaged Wang Gou Dan's mother's head. It was getting late, so they had to stay at the Lu family's house for the night.
Qin Xiaozhou explained the situation to her family. Wang Lan took out a basket from the woodshed, filled a cloth bag with five jin of rice, and then went to the storage room to take out a piece of pork, washed off the dust, and covered it with radishes and greens. "Xiaozhou, you and your mother go there."
The snow was heavy and difficult to walk outside. Zhao Fang was worried about going home alone, and Lu Yunfeng, being a man, was also not comfortable going to the widow's place. So he carried the things to the threshing ground and then gave them to Zhao Fang to carry inside.
Lu Yunfeng waited outside. To the north of the threshing ground were fields, where winter wheat had already been sown in the fall. In previous years, some green seedlings could be seen, but this year the snow was deep, and the wheat seedlings were buried under the snow, so all that could be seen was a white expanse.
Even in Qingzhugou, it's hard to see any greenery.
Two or three people arrived intermittently, carrying vegetables and radishes. Lu Yunfeng greeted them. Wang Yehong was carrying a quilt, followed by the village chief's wife carrying a small jar of oil. She was very enthusiastic when she saw Lu Yunfeng, "You've come too?"
Lu Yunfeng nodded, "My home is far away and difficult to walk, so I brought some vegetables with me. My mother and Xiaozhou took them inside."
Wang Yehong smiled and went to stay in Miao Sanniang's room. After Zhao Fang came out, the three of them went home together.
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