"Xiaobai, Xiaobai, come out for lunch!" Suddenly, Zhao Shilang's hurried call came from outside the house.

After a few words, Zhao Siniang, who was sorting out her thoughts, endured it. But the time for a cup of tea passed, Zhao Shilang was still shouting and screaming there, and Zhao Siniang, who was not very good-tempered, said that he couldn't bear it.

"Zhao Shilang, you're enough! If you don't study well, you will know how to fight dogs all day long. Call it again! If you bark again, you'll throw that broken dog out! I saw Zhao Siniang standing on the threshold, her hands on her waist, and shouting angrily at Zhao Shilang.

Zhao Shilang rarely saw his little sister pose as a shrew, and he was so frightened that he stepped back. First, he took two steps back, probably thinking that the safety distance was not enough, and took two steps back, and then he stood still.

However, as soon as he thought of his dear little friend, Zhao Shilang plucked up his courage again, took a step forward, and asked for help from the most capable little sister in the family: "Little sister, you don't need to throw it, Xiaobai is gone." I finished my lunch and couldn't find it again. You're so powerful, just help me find it! ”

Zhao Siniang subconsciously wanted to pick up the next sentence: It's good if it's gone!

But when she saw Zhao Shilang's anxious expression, she thought of how much he loved that dog on weekdays, and knew that that dog meant a lot to him, and if it wasn't good, it was his life.

So, Zhao Siniang hurriedly swallowed the cool words that were almost in her throat, and asked patiently: "Where does it like to go on weekdays, have you looked for those places?" ”

Zhao Shilang saw that his little sister was willing to help, and his heart was relieved, and he hurriedly replied: "Xiaobai is a good dog, and he is very dutiful." Except when I take it out for a walk, it is almost always at the back door to watch the house, and never runs around. However, I searched all over the house and back alleys, but there was no trace of it. ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Shilang cried out very unproductively.

When Zhao Siniang saw her second brother's stupid look, she felt that her brain hurt. After thinking about it again, he called the two helpers who were in charge of washing the dishes. Inquired: "Aunt Wang, Aunt Zhang, you have been washing dishes in the backyard before, have you seen our little white dog?" ”

Aunt Wang and Aunt Zhang looked at each other. They all shook their heads to indicate that they didn't see it.

At this moment, a weak voice came from the back door: "Second Young Master, your dog is now in the north of the city, and he was caught by the Ding family boy who didn't learn well." ”

Zhao Shilang's brother and sister looked at it fixedly, and it turned out to be the little boy named Chu Xiaolou.

To be said. He and Xiaobai also had an entanglement.

Zhao Shilang adopted a fixed-point feeding method for Xiaobai, and when the time came, he would put the full meal in the dog bowl by the back door. And like people, he also gives Xiaobai three meals a day. In fact, if you feed the dog, two meals a day is enough, and you don't have to feed a third meal at all. However, Zhao Siniang's family runs a food shop, and there are a lot of leftovers every day, since Zhao Silang insists on feeding, his family will not stop it. And yet the magic is. This dog, who eats three meals a day, always looks like he can't get enough to eat, and often runs to Zhao Siniang's table under the table as soon as he arrives. The family thinks it's strange, but if you eat more, you can eat more, anyway, it's not bad for a few bites, and no one takes it seriously.

Until one morning, after Zhao Shilang fed Xiaobai, he turned back halfway for some reason. Only then did he realize that someone was pulling Xiaobai's food into the basin he brought, and Xiaobai stood aside stupidly, timidly, and didn't dare to say a word. Zhao Shilang is not a stingy person. If someone else just steals Xiaobai's food, he doesn't care. Seeing Xiaobai as his life, he saw Xiaobai's face full of grievances, and suspected that the person had beaten Xiaobai, so Xiaobai would dare to be angry and dare not speak (the above is purely his brain). So he immediately stepped forward and held down the thief.

Immediately after hearing the movement, Zhao Siniang's family came out, and before Zhao Siniang could open his mouth to ask, Jiang, who had shallow eye sockets, began to cry.

"Good boy, don't come and pour this meal in the future! You come to your aunt's place, and your aunt gives you something that no one else has touched, and you can take care of it every day. ”

I want to come in the Jiang family. If it's not in a desperate situation, who will run to grab food from the dogs?

Let's take a closer look, and sure enough!

Although it was the height of summer, everyone was dressed coolly, but the gown on this child's body was not only patched with patches, but also several sizes smaller, and it was like a stolen one, just enough to barely cover up the shame, which could not help but make people sad.

The little boy claimed to be Chu Xiaolou, and according to his confession, he fled with his family a few years ago. Although his family is much luckier than other homeless escapees, relying on his father's carpenter's skills, he settled in Youdu early, and settled down in Liuzhifang in the north of the city last year. Even though the home was just a thatched hut that leaked when it rained, the family was content.

Unfortunately, after this year, his father became seriously ill and was too sick to get up. Without any savings, his family lacks the support of the pillars, and the meager income of her mother washing clothes for others is not enough to make ends meet.

In desperation, he had to go out to beg. It's good not to ask for how much you can get, but to think that you can save your own ration. In that case, there might be hope for Daddy's medicine money. However, the north part of the city, where his home is located, is difficult to protect itself, and where there is surplus food to help others, he has to try his luck in other parts of the city. In just a few months, the child had been bitten by dogs, chased away, and even beaten by beggars with the same poor background as him. But even so, he still insisted on going out to beg every day.

One day, he came to the door of a restaurant in the east of the city to beg, and the shopkeeper hated him for hindering his business, so he asked his men to drive him away. That guy was very inauthentic, just to drive away a child, and actually used the half-human-tall fierce dog in the backyard of the restaurant. The poor young Chu Xiaolou was driven by the vicious dog and fled to a secluded back alley, that is, the alley behind Zhao Siniang's house.

After making sure that he had finally escaped, he let out a long sigh of relief. Just then, he saw a puppy crouching by the door, burying his head and munching on his food. Probably because he was so hungry, he thought that the dog's food was sweeter than what he had eaten during the New Year. He was chased by a dog and fled all the way, so it stands to reason that he should be very afraid of dogs. But the dog looked so docile, and the food in the dog bowl looked so sweet...... So he stretched out his "claws" to the dog bowl, and found that the food inside was much more delicious than he had imagined. Having tasted the "sweetness" once, he couldn't help but come again the next day, and then the third day......

In the first two days, he still hid in the back alley, and when no one was around, he directly ate the dog food in the rice bowl and then fled. But after a few days, he found that this back alley was rarely walked, and at the same time, he also figured out the pattern of the family coming out to feed the dogs. Even better, the dog never barked, so he was no longer so afraid. So in the following days, in addition to eating breakfast, he would bring lunch home to make up for his father, who was sick in bed. Until he was caught, he didn't fall for a day.

When he was caught that day, his first reaction was not fear of being beaten, but disappointment - his father would never be able to eat such a good meal again.

"Little ghost, where do you live? Lead the way! The rest of the family was full of pity. Only Zhao Siniang spoke expressionlessly.

was so noisy early in the morning that Zhao Siniang broke out when she got up. She was still a little stunned, and she didn't have time to think about it, her thoughts at this time were simple and rude: our shop is not a good hall, and it is not responsible for poverty relief, if anyone comes to touch something and take it away but is not punished, just wait for the closure of the door! In the final analysis, the poverty of the Chu family is not caused by our family, and your poverty cannot be used as a reason for you to come to our house to steal! In any case, stealing is stealing, it's just not right! And the child did something wrong. It should be handed over to the parents for discipline, and it should be corrected in time while they are young and not yet finalized.

Therefore, even though Chu Xiaolou repeatedly emphasized his own difficulties, Jiang and others interceded for him many times, Zhao Siniang still refused to give up, and let Zhao Yongzhong drive the carriage all the way to the Chu family in the north of the city.

It is said that "the east is rich and the west is expensive, and the south is cheap and the north is poor", and there are naturally many poor people living in the north of the city, and the poor are also divided into three, six, nine and so on.

On both sides of the official road leading to the north gate is the most prosperous area in the north of the city. There are a variety of shops lined up in the forest. Although most of the shops on this street, called Tung Fu Street, are not owned by people from the north of the city, many of the helpers inside are locals from the north of the city who live nearby. Although their wages are not high, they are better than stable jobs, and their lives are much better than those of other people in the north of the city.

The entire north of the city is except for this small piece. There is not a single decent market, not even a decent shop, just a few small warehouses scattered around. It can be seen from this that the consumption level of ordinary people in the north of the city is low and how sad their lives are.

Although Zhao Siniang had learned about the situation in the north of the city before she came, she felt a little bottom in her heart. But when she actually came to the willow branch workshop in the northwest corner of the north of the city, she was still taken aback - she saw that there was a depression all around, and there were some low and dilapidated grass houses as far as the eye could see. To put it mildly, even her cowshed is stronger than these houses. After all, her family's cowshed has laid nearly ten bowl-thick wooden pillars as load-bearing columns, but the grass hut here is only a dangerous wall piled up by broken yellow mud mixed with straw, as if it will be destroyed after a gust of wind.

Zhao Siniang guessed that this willow branch workshop should be below the extreme poverty line.

After arriving at Chu's house, Zhao Siniang first looked around. But I saw that there were rows and rows of clothes hanging in the yard of his house, and most of them were colorful skirts. A closer look at the styles reveals that these clothes are extremely revealing and unlikely to be owned by a woman from a good family.

After admiring these "colored flags" fluttering in the wind for a while, Zhao Siniang began to pay attention to the Chu family's house itself. I saw that the thatched roof of this thatched house was scattered on the roof, and there were many fist-sized bluestone blocks scattered on the roof, presumably to prevent the thatch from being blown away by the strong wind.

When I entered the house again, there was a small window with a square inch on the yellow mud wall, and most of the window paper on it was gone, leaving only some yellowed rough paper edges on the window lattice. The window paper was damaged like this, but it also saved the effort of opening the window, and an old bamboo window brace was put aside. I saw a ray of sunlight shining in through the window, bringing a glimmer of light to the gloomy room.

With this light, Zhao Siniang finally saw the furnishings in the house clearly, and knew that what Chu Xiaolou said before was not pretending to be pitiful and sympathetic, and his poor family had indeed reached a situation where he couldn't open the pot.

When she first went out, Zhao Siniang was aggressive, and she made up her mind to let Chu Xiaolou's parents teach their son a good lesson. But halfway through the car, most of her ignorant karmic fire had been extinguished, and she began to realize that she was making a fuss, and even a little unreasonable. So I gradually had the idea of going home, but I couldn't pull off this face. and witnessed the plight of the Chu family with her own eyes, and her heart was as hard as she was greatly touched, where could the original words of accountability still be spoken?

Chu Xiaolou didn't ask if it was true, but it was indeed forced by life, in order to earn his life! Or is it for his bedridden father to fight for his life! Such a good boy should never be embarrassed. Zhao Siniang immediately decided to change her rhetoric.

She told too many lies, and she opened her mouth to come: "Uncle and aunt, don't worry! We didn't have any other meaning here, in fact, we ...... "Seeing that your child is diligent and the firewood he picks up is dry and neat, I will come over to discuss with you to see if he can collect firewood for our family." As for the price, you can rest assured, and you will never treat him badly.

Zhao Siniang naturally hadn't seen the firewood picked up by Chu Xiaolou, but what did it matter? She believes that such a good boy will not be bad at doing things. Taking a step back, even if Chu Xiaolou picked up all the wet firewood, it didn't matter, she actually just wanted to find a reason for this trip in the name of this, so that she could step down. Also, I just want to subsidize the sensible Chu Xiaolou a little.

It's just that Chu Xiaolou is "not angry", and before Zhao Siniang could tell the lies he made up, he couldn't bear the matter, like pouring beans from a bamboo tube, and told his parents what he had done outside.

Chu Xiaolou's father Chu Gang was so sick that he couldn't get up, so he sat up on the kang with the old mat on his back. He stretched out his right hand and pointed at his son tremblingly, his lips shaking to rebuke something, but he couldn't. Of course, this man hated his son for taking the wrong path, but he hated himself even more for being a father in vain.

Chu Xiaolou's mother Zhou is also stupid, she is simple, she doesn't know what to say, she only knows that her son should be scolded and beaten if he does something wrong, and she has to wake up her son to wake up. So she repeated "you shouldn't" in her mouth, and beat the baby hard in her hand.

Don't say that at this time, Zhao Siniang has decided not to embarrass Chu Xiaolou anymore, even at the beginning, she just wanted to send Chu Xiaolou home and let his parents teach him a lesson. This lesson mainly refers to oral education, of course, two taps are fine. To be honest, she is not against corporal punishment, but only if it is in moderation.

Zhao Siniang never expected that before she could say anything, Zhou, a mother, couldn't wait to beat the child to death, obviously exceeding this degree. This is worth it, and it must be stopped immediately, otherwise the child will have to be broken.

Helplessly, Zhou's attack was not only heavy but also very fast, and by the time Zhao Siniang and Jiang pulled her away, Chu Xiaolou had already been hit several times, and even his face was colored. (To be continued.) )