Ugly

Chapter 31 - 35

Chapter 31.1 – Going to the county town for medical treatment

Jiang Zhen frowned, then asked, "What happened to your wife?" He had seen this man several times these days. He had also seen his two children catching shrimps by the river, but he had never seen his wife. Unexpectedly, he was dying.

"Sick." The man touched his face again and wiped away the rain mixed with his tears.

Fishermen didn't live very well.

They didn't have their own land or place to stay. Although they could catch fish and sell it for money, their income was actually very small, and they could only support a day-to-day existence. Once they got sick, they could only wait.

At first, his wife just had a stomachache, and he didn't take it seriously. As a result, he had been vomiting and burning up these days, and he had become very thin. . .

Yesterday, when it was sunny, he took all his savings and took him to see a doctor. As a result, the doctor said that it would take at least twenty or thirty silver to cure him, but he could not guarantee that it would work. And if they could not cure his illness, then they could only wait for his death.

He had come here with his boat from far away to earn a living. He had no relatives here and no place to borrow money from. The only thing he owned worth some money was his boat, but the people who needed a boat here did not lack a boat. And nobody else needed a boat . . . Who would buy such a broken boat?

What's more, that boat was his home. If they sell it, their family would have no place to go.

The fisherman's name was Wang Haisheng. The wife he spoke of was actually a ger named Sun Xiaoshan. He had picked him up from the river.

For people like him who have no land of their own or any foothold, and live on a boat, it was very difficult to find a wife.

People who cherish their children even a little wouldn't marry their daughters or gers to a person who didn't have a fixed residence. So Wang Haisheng, like Eldest Jiang, was in his mid-twenties and still hadn't gotten a wife.

Then one day while he was catching fish, he saw someone floating from the distance; he picked up a ger.

This Sun Xiaoshan also had a bitter fate; his mother died early, and his father married another woman, who treated him badly. Later, when he was only fifteen or sixteen years old, he was sold to an old man in his forties.

After he got married, the old man was nice to him, and he was able to live a good life for a while. However, within two years, the old man died of an illness.

After the old man died, it was the son of the old man who took charge of the household. It was reasonable to assume that his stepmother should still able to eat well under him; otherwise, he could make him remarry. But the son of the old man had a crooked mind and tried to force him. The wife of the old man's son became angry, yelled at him to get out and called her family to beat him up.

He didn't want to live any longer, so he threw himself in the river. Later, he was fished up by Wang Haisheng. He was very grateful, so he decided to live with Wang Haisheng.

They had been together for ten years and had two children. The elder one was Wang Yuer, a ger and nine years old this year. The younger one was called Wang Daniu. He was six years old this year and was male.

In fact, between them, they had another child but they had lost him (due to death, not abandonment).

Although their family was poor, they had a happy life, but then Sun Xiaoshan suddenly became ill.