The Little Widower (farming)

17

The corn husks in a field were quickly removed and dried in the sun on the other side of the yard. In the originally small yard, there was only a path left for one person to pass.

Because she got up too early in the morning, Li Xin took Niu Niu back home after finishing her work. Naturally, Zhou Yuan could not stay any longer. Aunt Sun washed the dishes and asked Chen Qing to catch up on his sleep.

The medicine Li Xin gave him in the morning was very effective. Now it didn't hurt much anymore. He almost fell asleep on the bed.

He rarely dreams, but today he had an unprecedented dream.

In the dream, I saw my little dad looking gentle before jumping into the river, and then he was following Ren Yazi everywhere and being looked at, and finally he landed on a person whose face Chen Qing couldn't see clearly.

"Chen Qing?"

The man in the dream found it difficult to move, so Chen Qing nodded vigorously.

"I'm Meng Tao."

Chen Qing opened his eyes wide and tried hard to see his face clearly, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see clearly.

"I..."

"Take good care of my mother."

Chen Qing still nodded: "You..."

"You don't have to do it for me. We are not familiar with each other."

Chen Qing was stunned.

"I won't tell you anymore. Take good care of my mother and do what you want to do."

"No, Meng...Meng Tao!!"

Chen Qing sat up from the bed, his forehead was covered with sweat and his heart was beating fast. Aunt Sun was talking to Zhou Yuan outside the door. Chen Qing's call was so loud that the people outside the door heard it very clearly.

The smile on Zhou Yuan's face disappeared and he nodded to Aunt Sun: "Auntie, I'll go back first."

"Okay." Aunt Sun also went to see Chen Qing anxiously and waved to him.

"Aqing, did you dream about Taozi?" Aunt Sun walked to Chen Qing's bed and saw that he was sweating profusely.

Chen Qing nodded: "I didn't see his face clearly. He said he asked me to take good care of you."

Aunt Sun wiped her tears: "I knew he was a good boy."

He didn't enter her dream because he was afraid of her. Sad?

It's just that their days don't have so much time for sadness, and there are still many jobs waiting for them.

The harvest in the village's flatlands was not as difficult as in the mountains, so they didn't get up so early again.

At this time, when they went out, people around them were also working. Everyone was talking and laughing all morning. When someone was laughing and joking, the work seemed not too tiring, and soon all the land was harvested.

Several pieces of land next to Chen Qing's house belonged to people who had gone to the frontier with Meng Tao.

"Your Meng Qi, I heard you're getting married?" They finished breaking the corn and were now chopping corn stalks.

"Yes, after harvesting the grain and paying taxes, you can marry a new wife." Meng Qiniang was in high spirits. Although Meng Qi did not have the same military exploits as Zhou Yuan, at least he was back in full force, right? , married a daughter-in-law, and had a child, that was all she could hope for.

Aunt Sun also smiled, but her smile was a little bitter: "Very good, very good."

Meng Qi also came over to help. He had not seen Aunt Sun much since he came back. It was his mother who told her not to go to Aunt Sun. They went in front of her, fearing that she would think of the pain of losing her son. Even when they wanted to offer incense to Meng Tao, their mother stopped them.

After all, after the baptism of life and death, the few people who came out of Luohe Village have matured a lot. Maybe they had a childish mentality before, but now they are able to stand on their own.

Meng Qi said hello to Aunt Sun, and then told Aunt Sun some border affairs under the disapproving eyes of his mother.

Aunt Sun listened silently, and occasionally wiped her eyes with her sleeves: "Thank you, Meng Qi."

Meng Qi was stronger than when he was young, and he was very tanned. He felt a little regretful: "We entered The military camp was dispersed, and several people were in different camps. We rarely saw each other on weekdays. We didn't know much about Brother Tao, but he must have been very brave on the battlefield because he received a pension of ten taels. "

After all, Zhou Yuan had made military exploits and came back alive. No one knew how much the imperial court had given him.

Zhou Yuan had also told her these words, but even if she heard them over and over again, she would not get bored.

As they talked, these two pieces of land were collected. Meng Qi looked at Aunt Sun and said, "How do you get it back? This place is not close to your home? How about I ask Qi Zi to pick some for you?"

Sun said. The aunt shook her head: "We borrowed Zhou Yuan's ox cart."

Meng Qiniang suddenly realized: "Yes, your two families are close to each other, and his family also has cattle."

With Zhou Yuan's help, Chen Qing's family harvested more this autumn than before. It was much faster, and all the collected corn was piled in Zhou Yuan's yard.

In addition to Chen Qing's family, there are other families who also want to borrow Zhou Yuan's cattle, so that they can be used as livestock. Who is willing to do the hard work themselves? But Zhou Yuan didn't lend money to every family. He only lent money to people whose families had no men and who were old, weak, sick or disabled. He didn't ask for any reward, as long as he fed the cows well.

The autumn harvest in the village is in full swing, and the village chief's family is no exception. Although his family is wealthier than other families in the village, they are not like Li Tiejiang's family who rent out all their land. On the contrary, their family is richer than other families. There is more land for planting.

Li Tiejiang's family is becoming more and more prosperous now. It seems that the war has had some impact on them here, but the blacksmith job has been registered in the yamen. The weapons and weapons needed on the front line are not all made by the blacksmith. Of?

Blacksmith Li was summoned to Fucheng at that time and worked in Fucheng for several years. Because of our great victory, the enemy country gave a lot of compensation in silver, and the court paid these craftsmen a lot of money.

Fortunately, there are many young adults in the village chief's family. The village chief has three sons, all of whom are good at work. The three sons have married three daughters-in-law, two husbands and one daughter-in-law. The eldest son and the younger son have both married. The husband of the third son married a daughter-in-law. Today, the husband of the third son said he was not happy and was cooking with Aunt Wang at home.

"It's strange, why has no one come to borrow an ox cart this year?" Aunt Wang was tearing up corns while talking to her husband Zhang Ran. In previous years, at this time, some people without men in the family would come to borrow an ox cart, but this year it is. None came.

"I heard about it and went to borrow it from Zhou Yuan's family." Zhang Ran said.

Aunt Wang gritted her teeth. Ever since Zhou Yuan came, nothing had gone well for their family.

Then Chen Si and Meng Zhuzi were so desperate that they had to go to his house to steal things and pay for it. The married sister-in-law came to the house all the time to make trouble. A lot of old people still imitated the one who cried, made trouble and hanged himself. She looked so shameless that she even tasted the child's food, saying that her elder brother had not solved the problem for her.

In the final analysis, it's all Zhou Yuan's fault.

Now they are borrowing cattle from everywhere. In the past, their family had to collect some benefits when borrowing cattle. Now no one comes to his house and they can't even receive anything.

"What can I do!" Zhang Ran said, "Don't you have to treat him respectfully because of his military exploits? I heard that Tiejiang Li wants to marry his brother to him." Listen carefully. His words were a bit sour.

Aunt Wang sneered: "Don't everyone in his family look down on him?" Aunt Wang became angry when she talked about this. Originally, she wanted her youngest son to marry that Li Xin, but his family made every excuse to say that Li Tiejiang In Fucheng, it is said that Li Xin is still young and is unwilling to get married.

At this moment, he was rushing to the ground.

"If this marriage really happens, wouldn't Li Tiejiang and Zhou Yuan have to walk away in the village?" Zhang Ran was furious. He knew that he was the second best choice for the village chief's family, and he didn't know until he got married. My life is really miserable.

"Ha." Aunt Wang said no more, but moved her hands harder.

"Zhou Yuan's good conditions are not comparable to those of some embroidered pillows." Zhang Ran said sourly, "If you don't want to talk about anything else, let's just say that at night, I can't even turn off the lights. Aunt Wang

glared at him: "Shut up!"

The autumn harvest month has passed quickly. After the corn has been dried, it will begin to thresh. After the corn is threshed, it will continue to dry in the sun. After that, they waited for the court tax collectors to collect the taxes.

During the years of the war, land output was taxed at 15 per cent, and all farmers lived a tight life. After the war this year, the court has not yet issued a policy, so it is expected that the land output will drop a bit.

Farmers all rely on the land for their livelihood. Fortunately, the weather has been good these past few years, and there is still some leftover after paying taxes on the output. Otherwise, I don't know what life would be like today.

After all the corn was dried, Chen Qing began to thresh the corn at home. He wanted to select some with large and plump kernels for sowing, and kept the insect-free ones for his own consumption later. The rest were mixed together to pay taxes.

At this time, everyone was peeling corn at home, so Li Xin took Niu Niu to Chen Qing's house and talked to Chen Qing while peeling it.

"A relative came to my house." Li Xin said.

"Isn't it normal for relatives to come here?" They said so, but their family didn't have any relatives, and the one who came last time was still calculating his family's money.

"I heard from my father that he was a distant relative living many, many houses away from me." Li Xin remembered the time when she met that person. The family was having dinner, and her father was talking to her mother about Li Xin's marriage. Then I heard a knock on the door in the yard outside.

He went to open the door and saw a skinny man standing at the door, wearing a blue gown and carrying a book box on his back, looking like a scholar.

He looked sallow and thin, as if he hadn't eaten for a long time.

Li Xin didn't recognize this person, so she had to ask Li Tiejiang to come out.

Li Tiejiang also didn't recognize him. After asking for a long time, he finally found out that he was the grandson of Li Tiejiang's mother's cousin who had passed away long ago. He was thousands of miles away from his family. He didn't know how he found him. Came from his house.

Since everyone had come to the door, it was not easy to kick him out. Li Xin's mother gave him a pair of bowls and chopsticks. She must have been very hungry, so she ignored the elegance of a scholar and ate hungrily. I shed tears while eating, and Niuniu was so frightened that she also started crying.

Qi Shuning's story is very simple. He has a weak body, his biological mother died young, his mean stepmother, and her biological father became a stepfather after having a stepmother. Later, he lived with his widowed grandmother, but her grandmother also passed away and returned to her home. Life, it's just that there is no place for him in the family. His stepmother no longer allows him to study and asks him to do hard work. It's just that his body can't do hard work. He thinks about what his grandmother said that there is another relative in the house, holding his grandmother's token. Found Li Tiejiang's house.

Li Tiejiang sighed and looked at the token he took out. It was indeed his mother's thing: "How do you want us to help you?"

Qi Shuning said: "I want to study."