Peasant Girl Bookseller

Chapter 1 Arriving at Huangye Village for the First Time

In the early morning, the sun had just risen from the east and shone on the white-capped land. There was no heat at all, and the surroundings were still silent.Looking down from the top of the mountain, there is a row of "eight"-shaped barracks with wild goose wings spread out. There are also a few scattered villages near the barracks. A narrow river winds through the middle of these villages until it reaches the foot of the mountain.Of course, the river was frozen at this time.

The village near the foot of the mountain is called Huangye Village. There are about a hundred households. Most of them are Han Chinese who escaped from various Han army banners in the early years. They built several houses here and lived there.

The yard near the east end of the village occupies a lot of land, but the yard walls and houses look dilapidated. The three main rooms are made of brick and stone, and the remaining side rooms and side rooms are all adobe houses. The walls are made of broken stones and bricks, just to prevent chickens and ducks from wandering around, not to prevent theft.There are two bare trees in the yard, and the two thatched houses near the south are livestock houses. At this moment, I can hear the snoring of piglets and the lowing of cows.

"The one from Dafu's family hasn't woken up yet. The pigs are barking." A 50-[-]-year-old woman's voice came from the main room. The voice sounded soft, as if she lacked confidence.

"Got it, got it, what's the rush." ​​An impatient voice from the east wing replied.

"Da Ya, Da Ya, you are a dead girl, and you are quite dead, why don't you get up and do things?"

"Okay, let me go. There's nothing taboo about life and death in the first lunar month. The child has just had a serious illness, and it's not a big deal. Don't you feel bad for a mother?" Then he heard the man whispering. The sound of getting up and getting dressed.

"What's wrong, I think it's pretending to be sick, isn't the fever gone?"

The one called "Da Ya" is a ten-year-old girl who is curling up under the quilt at the moment, with boredom and sadness on her face.

Ye Meng was so angry that she followed her classmates out on a trip, saying that she was going to explore an ancient cave in the western suburbs of Beijing, but she didn't know what happened, and when she woke up, she became a ten-year-old girl.

The original body of this body was also surnamed Ye, whose first name was Ye Maixiang, and whose nickname was Da Ya. When Ye Meng came, it was said that she was seriously ill and had a fever, so she was let in in a daze.

Ding Xingwang of the Ye family. His grandfather, Ye Tiezhu, is just 50 years old this year. His ancestral home is Sichuan. He was originally the last soldier of the Han Army under the Xianglan Banner. His wife, Liu's family, is from a nearby family, so she chose to settle here.

Mai Xiang's grandmother Liu gave birth to eight sons and one daughter. Although only five of these eight sons survived, they made a real contribution to the prosperity of Lao Ye's family.

Mai Xiang's father is the eldest, and his name is Ye Dafu. Ye's sons are named very simply, from one to eight blessings, and now there are Dafu, Erfu, Sanfu, Wufu, Bafu, plus a Jiufeng.

Jiufeng is only ten years old this year, the same age as Mai Xiang. Her birthday is at the beginning of the year, and Mai Xiang is at the end of the year. After eight sons, she is looking forward to her only daughter. I think her status in the family.

"Sister, mother called you, why don't you get up?" Mai Huang next to Mai Xiang poked Mai Xiang.

Mai Huang is eight years old this year. Mai Xiang's mother, Mrs. Zhao, gave birth to five daughters in one go, and four survived, and now she has another one in her belly. Therefore, Mai Xiang is basically responsible for all the family affairs.

Ye Meng comes from a well-to-do family in the city of Nanjing. There are several salted duck restaurants in the family. She is the only daughter in the Ye family. Letting Ye Meng live in such an ancient farmhouse that lacks clothes, food, and vegetables is enough to make her miserable, but she is still the eldest daughter, and all family affairs are assigned to her. What is the difference between these days and living like years?
Ye Meng has been here for three days, shed all tears in these three days, and couldn't find a way to go back, Ye Meng began to think about how to go in the future.

First of all, she has no feelings for the Ye family at all. The Ye family lacks everything else but no children. Therefore, no one in the Ye family will spoil the children. They beat or scold them every day. Ye Meng is already a little numb. up.

To say that the only place that warmed her these three days was Ye Dafu. Ye Dafu saw that Mai Xiang had been listless for the past three days, her eyes were swollen from crying, and when he asked her what, Ye Meng just shook his head.

Although Ye Meng has no memory of the original owner, she is not worried about revealing her secrets.Because she just suffered a serious illness, and from Zhao's tone, she herself is a person who doesn't like to talk but only does things.

Ye Meng's personality is lively, cheerful, and loves to talk and laugh, but she really doesn't want to face this reality, so she chooses to escape like an ostrich.

Ye Dafu thought that his daughter was not in good health, but he couldn't see any serious problems, and the family didn't have any extra money to go to the doctor to get medicine, so Ye Dafu just did his best to do more housework for Mai Xiang, anyway, now winter leisure.

"Sister, what's the matter with you?" The third girl, Mai Qing, was only five years old, she stretched out her little hand, touched Ye Meng, and she was called Mai Xiang from then on.

"Eldest sister is fine. Elder sister is going to get up now. Sanya sleeps a little longer. It's cold outside, so be careful." Mai Xiang squeezed the quilt for Sanya.

The place where Mai Xiang lives is an adobe house, which is connected to Ye Dafu's house. Except for two big kangs, there are two wooden boxes and a kang table on the kangs, and there is basically nothing else.

Just as Mai Xiang came out of the room, she saw Ye Dafu carrying a bucket of hot water out of the kitchen, so Mai Xiang followed.

There is only one little piglet in the barn, which was just caught. The Ye family has a poor family and has no surplus food to feed the pig, but there is some swill in the house, so usually a little piglet is caught after the new year. Sometimes pigs don't eat much.When the pigs are ready to eat in the spring, Mai Xiang and the other children will be responsible for weeding or driving the pigs out to graze, so as to save some pig food.

Mai Xiang didn't say a word, watching Ye Dafu take a handful of hay from the haystack in the hut and put it in front of the cow, then Ye Dafu added some wheat bran to the cow trough, and then washed it with hot water, watching the cow put his head After reaching into the trough, he carried hot water to the pigsty again.

"Big girl, you go to the kitchen to see if the fire is not extinguished. Your mother should get up, and see what you can do for her." Ye Dafu glanced at his taciturn daughter, as if he felt apologetic. Like a bamboo pole, with thin yellow hair, as a father, he felt very sorry for his child.

As soon as Mai Xiang arrived at the door of the kitchen, Mrs. Zhao was bending over to take out a cabbage from under the wall. At this time, there were no vegetables in the northern countryside, except for cabbage and sauerkraut, which were radishes, the big round radishes.

Mai Xiang helped Mrs. Zhao into the house, and watched Mrs. Zhao pick up the kitchen knife, skillfully cut half of the vegetable leaves, and put them in the basin for washing. Mai Xiang hurriedly took over the job, because she knew how to do it.

This vegetable leaf is used to cook corn paste. The Ye family's breakfast is mainly corn paste. Only adults have a dry ration of steamed corn bread, and children only have a bowl of paste.

"It's better for mother to cook. You go and wash your sisters' trousers. They have been worn for more than half a month." Zhao said.

"understood."

Mai Xiang lit the fire for her, turned around and left the kitchen, picked up four pairs of dirty trousers from the wing room where she lived, all with patches, put them in the wooden basin and brought them out.

The second aunt Qian came out with a pair of trousers, saw Mai Xiang carrying a basin, and knew that she was going to wash the trousers too, so she smiled and said, "Mai Xiang, come, rub these two trousers for the second aunt too. After two strokes, Second Aunt will not go out, and if your little sister wakes up, I'm afraid she will cry and look for me."

Qian also has three children, two sons, the oldest is seven years old, named Maizhong, the second is Maili, four years old, and a youngest daughter named Maijin who was only three months old is still eating Milk.

Before Mai Xiang could refuse, Mai Xiang's mother, Mrs. Zhao, shouted from the window: "Big girl, what are you dawdling about? Why don't you just go, mother, how many things are waiting for you."

Although Mrs. Zhao scolded Mai Xiang as soon as she opened her mouth, she was protective of her weaknesses and would not let others order her children easily.

The Ye family already has three daughters-in-law, and the work at home is done in rotation, with one shift every three days. They are in charge of cooking and feeding the animals, and each house is in charge of the laundry and cleaning.

If someone has something to do or visit relatives, you can choose the days when you rest. In addition, you can also do some needlework on the rest days during the winter leisure time. The money sold is used by each family to subsidize the children of each family, such as clothes, shoes and socks. If the conditions are good, you can also buy some snacks in private, these elders don't care.

(End of this chapter)