The logistics director, who was overhearing the move, was thinking to himself, "Who would dare to take anything from either of your families? You probably don't know that before you came, the women in the family quarters had already found out that one of you is the most skilled surgeon in the military hospital, someone who ranks among the best in the country. It's said that half of the officers in the army have consulted Dr. Liu for their injuries or had surgery performed by her. She has also saved dozens of officers at the regimental level and above from critical condition."
And Nurse Zhou's contributions were no less than Dr. Liu's. When a soldier went to the military hospital's surgical department for treatment, he didn't know who Nurse Zhou was.
This is like someone carelessly offending one of these two. When you go to the military hospital for treatment, you'll have to think twice. You don't want them to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut or give you an injection.
The new house was indeed as Dad had said, but thankfully it also had a kang (heated brick bed). Both houses had kangs built facing north and south, measuring 4 meters by 2 meters. The only difference was that in Uncle Shen's house, a small, one-meter-wide room had been partitioned off near the inner window of the west room. A window had been installed above it, making it less dark and more ventilated. A door had also been installed there. This inner room became Sister Nan's bedroom. There was nothing they could do; the house was only so big.
Because our family is small, we have plenty of space. That's only because we're small; if we had more people than Uncle Shen's family, we wouldn't have room to live. But I heard that some families have even built kang (heated brick beds) in the woodshed next to the kitchen.
The military family quarters are all newly built houses; even the woodsheds are better than those of ordinary people, and there's no problem with living there.
It wasn't until some time after we moved in that we realized, unlike other newcomers, there weren't any people deliberately trying to cause trouble for us. Instead, we heard people saying how formidable Mom and Aunt Zhou were, and that they didn't dare to mess with them.
Another thing is that Mom and Aunt Zhou's jobs are better than many of the women in the residential area. They are also soldiers, so their salaries are good and they have to be nice to them. But they never expected that Mom and Aunt Zhou would go to work at the hospital the day after they moved in. They could hardly see them at all. After get off work in the afternoon, it was already late when they came back. How could they have time to chat with them?
There were some sarcastic remarks, but I didn't have time to pay attention to them. My mother and Aunt Zhou had to leave an hour and a half earlier every day and ride their bikes to work. They simply didn't have time to stay at home. Even when they were on rest, they didn't go out much or take us kids to the city.
We don't care. We're busy every day. We get up early to exercise, and after breakfast, we take some baskets to dig for wild vegetables (actually, we go to find secret spots). After lunch, we start sorting the wild vegetables, drying them, and we also have to squeeze out time to study for two hours.
In the evening, we would sit together and discuss what we had learned that day, as well as some information we had gathered from the residential area. We would talk about which families we could get close to, and which we needed to be careful of but not offend. Even though we were young, we knew the importance of certain things.
What makes us happiest about coming here is that there are mountains all around, which we can go to anytime. The key is that our parents don't have to worry. Within a certain area, the troops have cleared everything out, and there are no wild boars or anything like that at all.
We don't know what the other kids do every day, but the five of us carry baskets and water bottles and go to the nearby mountains. We dig up any edible wild vegetables and pick any edible wild fruits we see. We don't let anything edible go to waste, because we've been hungry before. Not to mention my older brothers and sisters, even I, ever since I started practicing martial arts, feel hungry much faster. Although there's food in my spatial dimension, we can't leave anything behind; we definitely can't let anything go to waste.
"Big brother, it's already August. In another month, chestnuts and walnuts will be ready to harvest. Let's hurry up and see if we have any. We can come and pick them after school this afternoon." I said whatever came to mind.
"Sure, you've all gotten used to the mountain paths around here in the last few days, so just come over when the time comes."
But remember, don't fill the baskets completely. Put some wild vegetables or firewood on top to cover them up. Right now, everyone is starving, and when they see us with so much food, they'll definitely be envious and follow us. If nothing happens, great, but if something does, we won't be able to explain ourselves, understand?"
"I understand, big brother, don't worry," the third brother said.
"That depends on whether they can catch up with us," Fourth Brother said.
"Yes, just like Lao Si said, we'll start practicing cross-country running with weights when we head back. If someone is following us, we can quickly dodge them."
"Okay," Sister Nan said, still quite enjoying this intensity.
In the days since we moved to the military region, we've been able to hunt a few pheasants or rabbits in the mountains every day. We roast three each time: one for our family, two for my older brother and his family. They have a large family, and besides, these animals are probably hunted by my older brother and Sister Nan. I'm only seven years old now, so it's good if I catch one every few days.
Meanwhile, we also set traps in several nearby locations. Our eldest brother assigned us tasks: our third brother was responsible for three locations, and my fourth brother and I were responsible for three locations. We were to go and check the traps every day to see if there were any results.
This morning, my mother and Aunt Zhou each carried a basket on their backs and left 15 minutes early to go and cure salted meat.
These past few days we've heard that a few families in the residential area are shamelessly going to other people's homes to freeload meat, so we're being extra careful. During the meal, Uncle Shen only said:
"It can't be that bad, can it?"
Upon hearing this, Aunt Zhou angrily retorted, "What do you know?"
"What's wrong?"
"Even though I'm not home most of the time, I know better than you what happens in the residential area every day."
"Is there something you need?"
"Let me put it this way, you know, there's a family whose children are waiting outside someone's house just to get some meat. If they don't get any, they start crying. And not only do they cry, but the parents don't care. They even take their children to the house where the meat is cooked and make a scene, demanding more food. If they still don't get any, they stand at the door and start cursing."
"Whose house is this? Whose house is this?"
"It's the house at the far east end of this street, the one in front of the other. I heard the man's surname is He, and his name is He Haonan, the same job as you. His wife's name is Wang Xiue, and they have five children. The eldest is the same age as our Shen Dong, and the youngest is the same age as Mianmian. There are three boys and two girls in the family. You wouldn't believe it, the kids are dressed worse than beggars."
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