If there is an afterlife (novella) Zhang Baotong

Back in the house, Li Xiuying burned milk for the child, she boiled the goat's milk in a cooking cauldron, poured it into a bowl, added a spoonful of sugar, and waited for it to cool. Then, the bottle was scalded with boiling water to sterilize. When the milk has cooled, pour the milk into a bottle and feed the child. The child may be hungry and is eating happily. This made Li Xiuying feel very pleased.

However, not long after the child had finished feeding, she began to cry again, wondering if the child had not eaten enough and wanted to feed the child again, but the child refused to eat, just cried. She couldn't figure out what was wrong with the child, was he sick? She touched the child's forehead with her hand, and there was no fever on it. So, she opened the quilt and saw that it was the child who was pooping and peeing, and the layer of diapers wrapped in it made a large piece of wet yellow and shiny, emitting a bad smell. She thought about how uncomfortable it would be for the child's lower body to be stuck with feces and urine, how could he not cry?

She snorted, uncovered the baby's diaper, and threw it on the floor. Then, start looking for something to change your child's diaper. She retrieved her husband's past clothes from the bedside, cut them into pieces with scissors, and used them as diapers for the child. However, the child's body was soaked with feces and urine, and it turned a lot red. She had to wash the child. So, she began to boil water, and when the water was boiled, she poured it into her basin, mixed it with some cold water, and began to wash the child's body. After washing, wrap the quilt under the child with a clean diaper.

She had to wash the child's diaper, but she could not leave the child alone in the house, and if she held the child, she could not do anything else, so she cut a piece of the sheet along the sides with scissors, rolled it into a thick rope, and tied the child to her back. Then, picking up the basin, he went to the edge of the reedy ditch and began to wash the child's diaper.

It was twilight at this time, and the sun had already set down the mountain, and the cold wind kept blowing from the gray sky, and drilled down the placket and cuffs of her clothes, making her shiver incessantly. The river was cold and cold, sticking to your hands like knives. Li Xiuying squatted on the edge of the river with the child on her back, and put the diapers in the river water piece by piece to rinse. As she washed, she thought that just now, she was thinking about jumping into the river and ending her life, but now, she was washing diapers for a baby who was not her own. What an incredible shift.

After washing the diapers and returning to the house, she pulled a rope in front of the door and folded the washed diapers on the rope to dry. She hasn't been done yet. The child was hungry again, with his mouth wide open, crying loudly. She knew it was time to breastfeed her baby again. I haven't raised a child, so I really don't know the difficulty of raising a child. With this child, she almost didn't stop for an afternoon. However, it was this busyness that made her feel fulfilled and warm, so that she forgot the sorrow and sorrow of her husband's death at once.

Finally, after finishing his work, just after falling asleep, the child cried and asked for milk. So, she had to put on cotton clothes and get up, open the door and go into the kitchen next to it to heat the child's milk, and then change the child's diaper, so that she didn't sleep well all night. However, as soon as the day dawned, she immediately got up and went to Yuling's house to fetch milk for the child.

This time, Yuling was not polite again, and according to the country's purchase price, she was charged 7 dimes per catty. It made her feel a little pain. She is not afraid of hardship and burden, but she is afraid of spending money. Because she can't earn money, she is most afraid of spending money. Within a few days, the 20 yuan was gone. It made her feel crisis and panic. If you don't have money, you don't have milk, but children can't eat without milk. This question has been confusing and worrying her for days. In the past, she and her husband lived on the two acres of land by the ditch, and their usual expenses were barely maintained by her husband making a reed mat and selling some money. As an adult, if you don't have money, you can spend money less, as long as you have food to eat, you can survive, but children are different, if you don't have money, you won't have milk to eat, because their own family doesn't produce milk, and they have to spend money to buy other people's milk. There is also white sugar, which also costs money to buy.

Lee so-young has no money anymore. In order to breastfeed the child, she came to Yuling's house again. She said to Yuling, "Give me your sheep, and I will exchange the land north of my house for your sheep." When Yuling heard this, she was taken aback, she had never encountered such a thing. Land is the lifeblood of farmers, and no one will sell or abandon their own land.

Yuling couldn't make up her mind about this, so she called the man. The man's name is Jia Yougen, and he is a well-known shrewd person in the village. Of course, Jia Yougen knew that the two acres of land in Li Xiuying's family were not the land allocated to her family by the village, because her adoptive father was not from the village, so the village would not give him the land, and the two pieces of land were opened up by her adoptive father by the ditch in the past. The one on the north side is about one acre, and the one on the south side is slightly larger, about one acre and two or three acres. At that time, there was a lot of wasteland along the ditch, and no one cultivated it. Later, however, people began to cultivate land along the ditch. In order to seize wasteland, there have been cases of killing people in the village. Although Li Xiuying's two acres of land do not belong to the cultivated land in the village, the grain is no less than the cultivated land in the village, and it will not cause illegal incidents. However, exchanging an acre of land for a sheep, Jia Yougen feels that this will give him too much advantage, he doesn't want to take advantage, but taking advantage of this kind of advantage will make others say that he is taking advantage of people's danger or deceiving others, especially Li Xiuying is a widow of a man who has just died, the family is so poor that he is dinging, and he has a child picked up from the garbage heap, if he agrees to this deal, not to mention that others will scold him, even he himself feels that he can't sleep well at night.

He thought for a while, and then said to Li Xiuying, "My sheep is worth two or three hundred yuan at most, but your piece of land will have to be sold for one or two thousand yuan." If you were to trade that piece of land for this sheep with me, you would be at a loss. "Li Xiuying is a woman, she lives half a mile away from the village, and she rarely interacts with the people in the village, so she really doesn't know much about this kind of thing. Exchanging land for sheep, of course, she knew that she had suffered a big loss, but she really had no other way. If she had a little way, she wouldn't exchange her land for sheep.

She said sadly and helplessly, "I know everything you say, but I don't have anything at home, only these two pieces of land." After Jia Yougen finished smoking a cigarette, he said to Li Xiuying, "Otherwise, I will exchange this sheep for your piece of land, and then I will find someone to repair your house for you." Your house is really uninhabitable. When Li Xiuying heard this, she immediately nodded and said, "That's great." My house was supposed to be repaired, but because there was no money, it was never repaired. Jia Yougen said, "Then let's find a few witnesses, write a statement, and tell this matter to death, no matter what happens in the future, we can't go back." Li Xiuying said, "I agree, you just look for someone." ”

After a while, Jia Yougen called four people who usually had a good relationship with him, and everyone sat in the hall of Jia Yougen's house, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes, and wrote a statement. Then he asked Jiang Sanwang, who wrote the form, to read the letter to Li Xiuying. Jiang Sanwang read, "Li Xiuying of this village proposed to exchange the piece (one acre) of land by the ditch of his own village for the dairy sheep of Jia Yougen's family. In order to compensate for Li Xiuying's losses, Jia Yougen proposed to renovate Li Xiuying's house. Both agreed and never reversed. ”

Jiang Sanwang, who wrote the complaint, asked Li Xiuying and Jia Yougen if they had any opinions. Li Xiuying agreed, and Jia Yougen had no opinion. So, Jiang Sanwang asked the two of them to sign with the witnesses present. Li Xiuying was illiterate, so Jiang Sanwang asked her to press a handprint on her name.

After the matter was settled, Jia Yougen helped Li Xiuying lead the sheep to the door of Li Xiuying's house, and told her how to herd the sheep and how to milk and other matters that should be paid attention to, and especially emphasized that there is less goat milk in winter, and it is necessary to do a good job in keeping the goats warm, cleaning and feeding. Not only should the sheep be fed some grass, but also some nutritious feed. Then, he pointed to the house and said to Li Xiuying how the house should be renovated. Li Xiuying said to Jia Yougen, "I don't know anything about this, I ask you for some of it, as long as you repair the house and let me live there for another twenty or thirty years." Jia Yougen said, "Old sister-in-law, don't worry, I promise to repair the house for you, so that you can live for another twenty or thirty years without a problem." ”