If there is an afterlife (novella) Zhang Baotong

Originally, having a child was enough for Li Xiuying to be busy, but now that she has added another sheep, you can imagine what it will make her busy.

Outside her house is a cottage on each side, with a kitchen to the west and a warehouse for miscellaneous items to the east. Now, she freed up the clutter in the warehouse and kept the sheep inside. In order to make the sheep have a comfortable, clean and warm place, she gets up every morning, goes inside to clean, cleans the sheep manure, shovels the sheep manure into the vegetable field in front of the house, and shovels some of the grass and wood ashes in the kitchen and pads it on the wet ground, just like changing the child's diaper. Then, put in some more feed, let the sheep eat, and start milking. In the evening, it is necessary to clean up again, remove the manure and put in the feed. She knew that the child's milk depended entirely on the sheep and that the sheep could not be allowed to get sick or malnourished. If something happens to the sheep, the baby's milk will be cut off.

In the past, although they didn't have much money, and they didn't feel that they had to spend money, but now, she realized that she had to buy everything, and everything needed money. However, she didn't have a penny in her hand. Although some money was saved, as soon as her husband died, all the money was used up. In the past, because of her husband, she never thought about earning money and using money, earning money belongs to her husband's business, she just spends money, she spends it when she has money, and she doesn't spend it when she has no money. The husband sat in the house and made up the mat when he was fine. A mat can be sold for twenty or thirty yuan. He can make up a table in two or three days. Now that her husband is gone, she has to rely on herself to earn money.

So, when the work in the house was done and the child went to bed, she sat down in the house and began to make a table. She used to make very few tables, and she didn't do it very quickly, but now she has to do her best, otherwise, she will have no pocket money at home, which will really make her feel embarrassed. In fact, it is not an easy task to weave a mat, you have to go into the reeds to choose some better reeds and cut them back, use the reed thread to split the reed into long strips of reeds, and then use the reed to peel off the reed skin. In the process of weaving, whether it is stepping on the corner, the heart of the mat and the edge must have a certain amount of craftsmanship, but also pay attention to the tightness of the mat flower, and squeeze it tightly with a cry knife at any time, so as to weave a reed mat of higher quality.

In the past, her husband was doing all these things, so she didn't realize the complexity of things at all, and now she has to do it all by herself, and she deeply understands the difficulty of the world. However, no matter how difficult things are, she has to straighten up and do it desperately. Otherwise, life will be bogged down and cornered.

Jia Yougen soon brought five or six people to repair her house. Of course, he just repaired the house for her, not built it. Therefore, they used a guillotine to cut the straw into small sections, and selected some fine soil and mixed it into mud, and pasted the whole outer wall of the house with a layer of mud. Replace the plastic sheeting on both windows with new ones. The broken tiles on the roof were replaced with new tiles, especially the roof of the hut where the sheep were kept, and the hole was repaired and covered with tiles. And the broken door was also stained with a layer of black paint. In short, the renovated house has been renovated as if it had been renewed.

The renovated house feels very different, and after a few days of drying, the cottage looks like it has been renovated, and in the bright sunlight, it looks very clear and eye-catching, as if heralding a new hope. Therefore, these days, Li Xiuying's mood is very happy, and she feels that the world is new.

The child is very well-behaved, doesn't cry much, and often shows an innocent and cute smile to Li Xiuying. This made Li Xiuying very happy. Li Xiuying thought about what is the purpose of having children alone? Is it to prevent old age, or is it to have some sustenance and hope? Maybe both. But Li Xiuying's raising of a child was purely accidental, if it weren't for the pity of this child, she might have jumped into the icy river water and became a lonely ghost. So, it wasn't so much that she saved the child, but that the child saved her. If it weren't for this coincidence of fate, the two of them wouldn't have met each other, and it was fate that held the two of them together. Therefore, Li Xiuying not only loves this child deeply, but also has a sense of gratitude for this child. She even felt that this child was her lifeline. She wants to spend her life raising him as an adult so that he can live a good life.

In order to raise the child, Li Xiuying is simply desperate, after a day's work during the day, she is too tired, but as soon as she eats dinner, feeds the child, and puts the child on the bed, she has to start making a banquet again. You can make a table and sell it for twenty or thirty yuan. And twenty or thirty yuan can buy food for the child for several days. She kept making mats, often working until late at night, until her back hurt and she couldn't open her eyes, and then she turned off the lights and went to bed. However, as soon as the day came, she got up and began another day's hard work.

At this time, she felt that for a woman, a man is too important, he can work hard for the family during the day, he can guard the woman at night, and he can also relieve the woman's worries when she is lonely and upset. However, the husband has already left and will never come back. This made her cry as soon as she thought of it. But how nice it would be if the husband was still alive!

On that day, she wanted to go to the market and sell the woven reed mats, because the woven mats had already filled half of the room, taking up more than half of the already small house. She counted more than thirty in all. It took her almost two months to compile these seats. If you sell all these seats, you can sell them for at least eight or nine hundred yuan. In fact, these mats should have been sold long ago, because there are many things that the children and the family urgently need to buy. It's just that because the market town is so far away, it will take more than half a day to go back and forth, and if you delay in the market town for another two or three hours, when you sell the reed mats, it will be about the afternoon or evening when you return home. And the child has to feed several times a day, and each time the milk is heated. However, as soon as she left the house, where should the child be heated for feeding? It is for this reason that she never dared to go out to the market.

However, she really can't go to the market anymore, because the weather is cold, goat milk is very scarce, and the child's food is constantly increasing, the goat milk is not enough for the child to eat, and the sugar is gone two days ago, without sugar, the child does not like to drink milk very much. She also has to buy some feed for the sheep. All of this is urgent and cannot be delayed.