The blessing of the splendid farm family is married to the world

Chapter 198 Making Dumplings

Shen Xiao regretted his weakness and evasion.

Now his life can be a little more relaxed except for political affairs, and the backyard at home makes him want to stay for a moment.

During Ping Ming, the number of hawkers moving around Huoliang City increased. Although the Chinese New Year was about to come, the number of hawkers who came to the city to sell firewood and briquettes was several times higher than before.

Liu Er came out of a small alley carrying an empty load, saw the back of a person in front of him, and called out, "Brother Mantang?"

Liu Mantang turned his head and said with a smile, "How about it, the briquettes you picked are sold out?"

"It's sold out." Liu Er hurried forward and said in a low voice: "I found a good place, just in the alley in front, where the women living in flower houses lived, and they lacked everything to eat and use. My two baskets of briquettes were robbed as soon as I went in. Some people asked me to deliver the stove, saying it was for travel expenses. Otherwise, we brothers will deliver it together later?"

Liu Mantang nodded and said, "Okay. I'll sell the rest first."

Liu Er smiled and said, "Let's hurry up, lest other hawkers find this good place."

When the two brothers came back, they were pushing a trolley, which contained not only briquettes but also a briquette stove. Liu Er first went to the house that was the most generous at the beginning.

"Is anyone there? The briquette delivery man is here." Standing outside the courtyard gate, Liu Er shouted.

A little maid came over and opened the door. They had already bought briquettes just now, so they just wanted a stove. Liu Er helped deliver it to the kitchen and taught the little maid how to use it.

The little maid heard such trouble, and when she gave the money, she unconsciously muttered: "What's the matter, you can control the world, and you can control whether people go to find women or not?"

An older woman came in with a basket of radish and tofu, and said, "It wasn't the wife of the governor who encouraged me. I heard that Mrs. Xia just went to invite the governor Zong. We couldn't do it that night. Who If someone is someone from above, how many people can be killed if a single sentence is dropped."

Liu Er couldn't understand how these women in the flower building came to this place. He has been in and out of Fucheng all day recently, and he has heard a lot about it.

Seeing that the two women were so dissatisfied at this moment, they said, "Don't you all say that the Hualou is not a place for people to stay? Now the governor and his wife have decided to let you take the deed of sale and get free, why are you still unwilling?"

The older woman glanced at Liu Er, rolled her eyes and said, "What do you know as a charcoal seller? You haven't even stepped into the gate of our Zhenxia Tower. Half of the women who were kicked out were ours." Those who have been carefully nursed up in the building live their daily life, which is the life of a rich lady from a wealthy family."

"That's right," the little maid also rolled her eyes, "I really thought our brothel was the kind of low-class brothel in folklore, where you can't eat enough, keep picking up customers and get beaten. Those who go to our place are also masters at last. Our girls will only have one man from listing to conscientiousness. In the future, there is a high possibility that they will marry into officials and gentlemen as concubines, and at worst, they will become the mistresses of rich merchants. Who needs their fake kindness?"

The two chattered, and Liu Er couldn't even answer.

Liu Mantang grabbed his cousin and said with a smile, "I'm sorry, girls, my brother can't speak, so don't be as knowledgeable as him."

Then he took the money from the big maid with both hands, dragged Liu Er and left.

When they were going out, a few well-dressed and well-looking women came in at the door. When they saw Liu Er and Liu Mantang, their eyes showed disgust, and they flashed their handkerchiefs at their noses before walking in.

Liu Er couldn't help being angry and said, "Why are these women like this?"

Liu Mantang hissed, and waited until he pushed the cart out of the alley, and then said: "You have also been running in the city for half a year. I don't know that the most popular oirans in these flower houses are either the family members of criminal officials or the merchants who broke their homes. Are you a young lady? There are still some, they are all good-looking and carefully raised. They have to study hard in the brothel, but they are much better than us who don’t have enough food. "

"Now, the higher-ups don't let them do this job, what else can they do?" Speaking of this, Liu Mantang's eyes showed a bit of worry, and he didn't know where his sister was now.

Liu Er said: "Isn't there a sock factory recruiting people? After my sister went to work there, she said every day when she came home that the factory was so good."

Liu Mantang smiled and said, "I've said it all, we entered the factory to go up, and they entered the factory to go down, of course we don't like it."

Liu Er stopped talking, and the two of them pushed the empty cart out of the city and braved the severe cold for another twenty miles before arriving at a small village.

There are earthen houses in the village, as well as felt sheds bought from grassland herdsmen.

He was the only male in Liu Er's family, and the family's life was relatively difficult. In their area, there were only a few sheds surrounded by felt.

Next door is a courtyard with earthen walls, which is the home of my cousin Liu Mantang.

At this time, there was a panic-stricken cry from Liu Mantang's home.

"My poor girl, how can someone abuse you like this?"

Liu Er could tell that it was the voice of his second aunt, and his mother's soft voice of comfort: "Sisters and sisters, don't be sad, at least the child is back now. If it weren't for the warlord who made the decision to let go of the bond, our child would When did he die there, no one knows."

Liu Er and Liu Mantang looked at each other, thinking of that person.

Hall sister.

Miss.

The two threw down the car and rushed into the yard. When they entered the dark room, they didn't see anyone, but they smelled a sour smell first.

Then, on a wooden board against the wall, they saw the skinny elder sister.

"How could this be?" Liu Mantang ran over and squatted down, his hands trembled with the appearance of the elder sister.

Those beautiful women in Hualou made him completely unexpected that his sister would be like this in the same place.

"Is it Xiao Liu?" The woman on the wooden board barely opened a slit of her eyes and said with a smile, "I thought I would never see you again in this life."

"Sister," Liu Mantang said with dry eyes, "Why are you in this state?"

The second day after the brothels in the whole city were beaten, he and the third brother went to the place where the elder sister entered, but they couldn't find anyone, and a skinny woman told them that she couldn't find it, so she found someone and went out. , to reassure them.

Liu Mantang planned to take advantage of the time before the Chinese New Year to do business well, so he saved enough money to go to the yamen to inquire.

Liu Daniu said with a smile: "After entering that place, how can there be a piece of good skin?"

But Liu Er suddenly thought of the glamorous woman on the street where they delivered the stove and coal pellets today.

The thin, skinny old lady next to her couldn't bear it any longer, and cried loudly on her daughter: "You must know that place cannibalize people. Our family was so hard to die back then that we didn't buy you." that place."

At this time, a sneering voice sounded at the door: "You want to sell to a good place, but no one wants to be a servant for someone else with her big sister who looks so rough."

Then, under the fierce eyes of the whole family, the woman standing leaning against the door frame said: "It will be fine after a while, send it away quickly, this is full of illness, don't spread it to our family."

"Sister-in-law, is what you're talking about human?" Liu Mantang almost gritted his teeth and said, "When my eldest sister entered that place, didn't your family increase the dowry? My father wanted to save face and was exhausted. He killed my eldest sister himself, and he also got it out for you."

The woman said disdainfully: "Your family is so poor, I don't have much to say, how do you live? What about father-in-law and eldest sister, it's because your family is incompetent, it has nothing to do with us."

"Hurry up and send people away,"

She was interrupted by a person who rushed in. It was a girl with only one braid behind her head, and she was wearing a white cotton and linen jacket.

This characteristic is so obvious that all the female workers in the woolen factory over the barracks wear these filial piety clothes and wear a big braid behind their heads.

When Aunt Liu saw the clothes she was wearing, she stopped choking and turned around to leave.

The woolen factory was built by people from the Governor's Mansion, and the girls in it relied on someone to back them up, and they were all fierce. Some time ago, there was a girl in their village who didn't want to marry the old widower her parents had arranged for. The manager in the factory said, and it didn't take long for a good guy from the military camp to be appointed there.

I heard that the wife of the warlord had personally checked the purpose, so the family didn't dare to say anything all of a sudden, and now the family still has to look at the face of a daughter when doing things.

Muttering in her heart, Aunt Liu went out, and after a while, the girl had a wooden rope around her neck, and she pulled Aunt Liu away.

Liu Daniu went home, as expected, just to meet her family before she died.

Mother Liu followed and sent her out the door, crying to her heart's content, but she couldn't open her mouth to leave Miss Liu behind.

If such a girl stays, it will only make the Liu family lose their heads.

Liu Mantang chased for a long time, and wanted to keep the elder sister down, Liu Da Niu looked at her younger brother who was only a few years old when she left, and knew to make the decision for her at this moment, she said with a smile: "You go back, I am not worthy to enter the Liu family's ancestral grave now. Moreover, I still have the coffin money in my hand, and Hongying girl is here, so I will not expose the corpse to the wilderness."

Liu Er also followed, tears in his eyes didn't stop.

Liu Daniu waved her hand towards his door, "Go back."

Hongying stopped in her tracks, turned around and said to the two of them, "Go back, sister Hongtao is in such a situation, there will only be endless rumors and gossips left behind, I am now a worker in a woolen factory, and I have already told the manager about the situation Well, the steward said that there is a new doctor in the barracks, and the madam will occasionally send him over to see us. Sister Hongtao can go over, and the steward can tell the madam, maybe the doctor can come to see my sister."

After hearing these words, Liu Mantang and Liu Er stopped in their tracks.

Seeing the figures of the two women walking farther and farther in the night, Liu Mantang and Liu Er chased after them at the same time.

"We'll send you to the wool factory and come back." Liu Mantang said.

Only then did Hongying raise her head, and looked at this person squarely.

Hongying looks ordinary, and there is a large scar on the right forehead, but in her eyes, there is no pain from being tortured by life.

"I hired a car, it's right in front." Hongying said, "Just drive us to the car."

Heart asked, "Hire a car? Where did you get the money?"

Hongying smiled and said, "Sister, the workers in the woolen factory are paid [-] Wen a month. I said I would pick you up, and the manager paid me half a month's wages in advance."

Hongtao looked at the black color of the sky that was slowly getting thicker, and also had a smile on her face, and said: "We have met kind-hearted people in the past few days."

Hongying hummed vigorously, "Sister Hongtao, you have to work hard, our good days are yet to come. Your hands are more dexterous than mine, and you will definitely be able to enter the woolen factory in the future, and maybe you can even be a manager Woolen cloth."

"I am like this, can I?"

"Yes, the person in charge said, Madam's exact words, all those who come out of our flower building are asked to go to work, and the conditions for recruitment are relaxed. Many sisters have gone there."

Listening to the two women's words, Liu Mantang and Liu Er felt as if they were stuffed with a ball of cotton, and they couldn't express their discomfort.

"May I take the liberty to ask, did Hongying's family come to that place because her family was poor?" Liu Mantang interrupted suddenly.

Hongying didn't shy away from this topic, and said, "That's right. Back then, my father was seriously ill, and my mother borrowed some lamb interest from the city. Later, my father was not cured, and my mother became tired and sick to pay off the debt. The interest was not paid. Those people dragged me to pay off the debt."

"It's a coincidence," she said with a sudden smile, "then the historian who kept the lamb broke down, and their young lady was also sold to a brothel to pay off the debt. Just understand, we untouchables, even if we are thrown into the quagmire with the nobles, we are still untouchables."

"What do you mean?" Liu Er asked.

Hongying smiled wryly and said: "Miss Dian Shijia is very talented, and she still lived a life like a master in the brothel. But it's us, the untouchables, who think that her life is good. Miss Dian Shijia, at the beginning, she did not hesitate to seek life and death. , for others, entering a brothel may be the same as dying."

It's just that at that time, she hated in her heart for a long time. In this world, is life predetermined from the moment a person is born?

Her family borrowed lambli from the classics historian, and the family did not end well. She was a low-class prostitute on the first night in the brothel, and she was raped by three men in a row and still gritted her teeth to live.

The classic historian is broken, and the young lady who grew up "drinking blood" in their family can still be supported by rich men to get by, and she still has the mind to seek death and life.

That's it, when everyone mentioned it, they also said that they were innocent and troubled, and pitiful.

And what about them, the worms born to be trampled into the dust?

Hongying mentioned this kind of dissatisfaction to an outsider, and the person asked a rhetorical question at that time, which made her unable to say anything.

"Who told you to borrow someone else's lamb?" the man said.

From there, Hongying understood a truth: if you don’t have money, don’t be a human being.

She wants to make money, and she also wants to become a master.

It's just that she didn't let go of the lamb that could ruin the family.

In the past, she had set for herself how many customers she had to pick up every day, and she didn't want the brothel to be destroyed in just one day.

After arriving at the woolen factory, Hongying knew that there was another kind of work that could earn more money than picking up customers.

Sitting on the carriage to the woolen factory, Hongying told Hearts all her expectations and plans for the future. She was so good at talking, that Hearts also raised some ideas about the future.

----

The New Year's Eve in the barracks was very lively. Zong Che asked the whole camp to celebrate the New Year together. All kinds of fresh meat and freshly ground flour were pulled into each camp before dawn.

The team leaders shouted loudly, "Come out to get flour, light a fire, take out all the tables that can be used, and make dumplings together outside today."

Eating dumplings during Chinese New Year is still a northern custom. Most of the northern soldiers are from the north, so Zong Che only prepared one kind of dumpling.

An Xu and Zong Che were woken up very early by the sound outside. Zong Che washed up and said to An Xu, "Let's go, I'll take you to make some dumplings with the generals."

(End of this chapter)