Chapter 206 205. Child.Adopted.Bride?
Not many refugees fled to Qingmi County.
At least not as many people fled as when the drought and locust plague hit Nanjiang before.
Because Dongyuan and Xiling are not actually bordering each other, there is Nanjiang and Songyong in between, and Qingmi County is not at the junction of the three prefectures, but there is a river flowing from Qingmi County to Dongyuan.
In comparison, Qingmi County is closer to Takin Kingdom.
Therefore, if the Takin Kingdom also intervenes in the war, Qingmi County will be the second group to suffer, and the first group will naturally be the border counties neighboring Takin.
The road is long.
Naturally, most of the refugees could not escape to Qingmi County.
Some died of starvation or disease on the road, some managed to survive in the outskirts of a county town or village, or hid in the deep mountains and forests, where they could at least find shelter from the wind and rain in caves or tree huts, and had wild vegetables and tree roots to eat.
As long as they could stop to rest, catch their breath, and have something to eat to avoid starvation, they would settle down there. Over time, these Dongyuan people would be assimilated into the local community, becoming Nanjiang people, Songyong people, and Xiling people.
From an outsider to a local.
They are like the Selaginella, which temporarily encounters adversity and is almost withered and dead, but as long as the wind blows them to a place with water and nutrients—
Even with only a little water and a little nutrients, they can survive tenaciously.
certainly.
There are also people who sell their children.
Some were so cruel that they just wanted to make money and live a carefree life, without caring about their children's lives; some worked as slaves in wealthy families in order to keep their children alive. At least they had food to eat and clothes to wear, which was better than wandering with their parents, without enough food to eat and clothes to wear.
Although the sources of the disasters are different, one is a natural disaster and the other is a man-made disaster, the appearance of this hell on earth is almost the same as the previous drought and locust plague in Nanjiang.
It is so sad that anyone who hears it will cry.
Most people in Sanlihe Village sympathized with Uncle Wang and the refugees, so when they learned that Lei Li wanted to let them settle down in the village, they had no objection.
——Only those who like to gossip secretly muttered a few words, not daring to say it openly, for fear of being criticized by the villagers and also afraid of making the Lei family unhappy.
The young man, Wang Sheng, was the only one among the refugees who could speak Mandarin. When he learned that Lei Li had helped them get their household registration, the eight-foot-tall man sobbed again, wishing he could work like a slave to repay the Lei family's kindness.
"We lost our identity seals on the road and knew it would be difficult to get settled. We were all thinking of trying our luck at the brokerage firm to see if there was any family willing to buy us out so we could at least have something to eat."
"It's just that there are so many of us that it would be hard to stay together even if we were bought."
"Especially Uncle Wang's family. His three grandchildren are young, so there's a high chance they'll be bought off. But they have money, so why would they want two old men to follow them?"
"Don't even mention that Brother Fu's child is sick. Even the dental clinic might not want him..."
"But apart from being enslaved, we had no other options. We couldn't even enter the city, and we couldn't work to support our family. Fortunately, we met you, sir..."
Wang Sheng wiped his face and cried as he spoke. His wife stood next to him, also wiping her tears with gratitude and sadness.
They were originally pregnant on the road, but due to the long journey and the exposure to the elements, the child was miscarried and the wife's health was also very poor. Now that they have a household registration, they can slowly earn money and make up for the loss.
They will not be displaced if they have children in the future.
Not to mention the others.
There are either old people or young people but they have no money, and it is as difficult as climbing to the sky to register their household on their own. The family of Mr. Fu, whose child was treated by Doctor Niu, is even more grateful to the Lei family and Doctor Niu.
Lei Li also sighed when he saw this.
To the best of his ability, he could only help Wang Sheng and the others, and also notify County Xu Xingzhe to make things easier for other fleeing people, or at least not drive them away.
What happened after that was out of his reach.
—
Wang Sheng and others settled down in Sanlihe Village.
But they had no place to live, so Lei Li discussed with the village chief and the elders of the village and decided to lend them the old temple on the edge of the village temporarily.
The old temple was used to enshrine the ancestors of the village, so it was built very large.
Later, Lei Li and Zhou Yi built a school for the village and rebuilt the ancestral hall at the same time. They built it to be as big as the school, and it was very grand and spacious. Not to mention the tablets of the ancestors, the ancestral hall would be enough for another two hundred years.
——During the reconstruction, Lei Li also added a rule: after the death of women and husbands in the village, as well as young boys and girls, their spirit tablets can be moved into the new ancestral hall to be worshipped by their descendants.
An old custom in the village.
After the death of a woman and her husband, their spirit tablets cannot be placed in the ancestral temple and can only be buried next to their husband. Not to mention the youngest boys and girls. Nowadays, there are cases where boys and girls who are born to "lose money" are deliberately drowned or strangled to death.
But now Lei Li is basically the one who calls the shots in Sanlihe Village.
Even the village chief and clan elders did not say a word about the rules he set, nor did they dare to say a word. After all, their own children were working for the Lei family, and the food rations for the whole family were in the hands of Lei Li. How could they dare to go against Lei Li?
Many women and husbands in the village still feel very proud. They have worked hard at home all their lives and have children to continue the family line. Why can't they enter the ancestral hall and enjoy the worship?
On the day the ancestral tablet was moved, the whole village was filled with joy.
Lei Li specially picked a good place to keep it, where he could put his parents' bodies after they passed away, and then put his own and Zhou Yi's bodies there, so that the whole family would be together.
With the spacious and bright new ancestral hall, the old temple became abandoned.
Build a kitchen and toilet, fix the roof to prevent it from leaking, clean the cobwebs on the ground, make a bed of wooden boards and spread some straw, and then you can live in it.
It is a bit crowded for several families to live together, but at least they can shelter from the wind and rain and use fire to cook, which is enough to make them grateful and full of hope.
It is the autumn harvest season in Sanlihe Village.
Wang Sheng and others were very considerate and would help the villagers harvest rice. The Lei family did not farm, so they had enough to eat the rice paid by the tenants. The village chief's family had the most land, so they started harvesting from the village chief's house first.
Help each family one by one.
Since they are all honest and hardworking without any cheating, the host will naturally provide them with a meal so that they can have the strength to continue cutting.
In the past, hiring people to harvest rice required not only a meal but also money. The minimum pay was twenty coins a day, but these people only wanted a pound or two of rice.
The price of rice in Xiling is cheap.
A pound of rice only costs six cents in the county town, so the villagers are naturally happy to let them harvest it.
After this, the villagers' attitude towards these outsiders became better. Sometimes when Wang Sheng and his friends came to their homes to harvest rice, they would bring them a bowl of mung bean soup with sugar cooked at home.
Wang Sheng and his friends work so hard not only because they want to build good relationships with the villagers, but also because they want to send their children to the village school.
That’s a school!
A school with three teachers!
Among the three teachers, one is still a student, which means he is a scholar!
If their children could go to school, the boys could learn to read and write and find jobs, and the boys and girls could marry into good families. This was something they had never dreamed of before.
I heard from the villagers that this was built by Boss Lei and Boss Zhou of the Lei family, and they also invited the teacher. Wang Sheng and others admired and respected the Lei family even more.
What made them even happier was that their child had a great time playing with Young Master Jiang!
Little Jiang is kind by nature and has a strong sense of justice. He knows that the new children in the village came from far away and their hometown has suffered a disaster, so he feels very sympathetic towards them.
The little guy felt that he was an "official" - a "little judge", and the person with the most friends in the village. He had the obligation to take new friends out to play, so he went to find those new friends every day, taking them to the river to catch fish and to the mountains to pick wild vegetables.
The children in Uncle Wang's families are all older than Xiao Shengjiang, ranging from twelve to five years old, including boys, girls, and little boys.
The child who was hiding in her arms while eating pilaf that day was a little girl, only six years old. She was a little withdrawn and shy, and usually stayed with her mother, not interacting much with other children.
I only love playing with little gingers.
The little girl was very pretty. When she was fleeing on the road, her father smeared her face with black ink to prevent her from being killed, robbed, stolen, and sold.
Such a pretty girl is very popular among children of the same age in the village, because everyone likes people with good-looking faces, and children like pretty ones even more.
Little Jiang also likes beautiful people, and his sister lost her father and suffered a lot. His father and dad told him to take care of them.
Ginger is a big boy now!
Ginger is really good at taking care of people!
Little Jiang took good care of his new friends and got along very well with the children in the village. Little Jiang was secretly proud of himself and thought he was doing a great job as an "official".
When the little girl's mother saw that Young Master Jiang liked her own child, she started to think about it.
As a widowed woman, it is not only difficult for her to raise a child on her own, but it will also be difficult for her to find a good marriage for her daughter in the future. If only... she could give her daughter to the young master as a child bride.
She didn't expect the young master to marry her daughter as his principal wife in the future. She just wanted her daughter to be a good concubine. As long as the young master Jiang would treat her daughter better because of the affection they had for each other since childhood, she would be happy.
But being a mistress was not something a respectable family should do, so she asked her daughter what she thought.
The little girl was only six years old. How could she know anything about child brides or marriage? She only knew that Master Jiang's father had saved her and her mother, and she wanted to repay him.
Young Master Jiang liked to play games, so she played games to make him happy; Young Master Jiang liked to catch fish, so she learned how to catch fish and caught big fish for him; if Young Master Jiang wanted her to be a child bride, she would do it.
She wants to repay the favor.
When the woman saw her daughter nod, she found an opportunity to tell Lei Li.
When Lei Li heard this, he was overjoyed. He didn't expect that his little Jiang was so lucky in love. At such a young age, there were already girls who were interested in him.
He said, "I don't have the final say on this matter. I have to ask our ginger first. If the two children agree and have feelings for each other in the future, it will naturally be a good thing."
"However, children are fickle-minded and probably don't know what a child bride means, nor do they understand what marriage is. If your daughter regrets it in the future, our family won't force her. Everyone has their own destiny."
“Yes, yes.”
The woman nodded repeatedly and said, but when he didn't nod immediately, she felt relieved and felt that the Lei family was a good family. "That's right..."
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