"Big brother, look, what good things we've brought!" In the evening, Douzi came to Yizhuang with a group of ragged orphans, and when he saw Li Zhang, he immediately ran over and shouted excitedly.

"What's good?" Li Zhang couldn't help but ask when he saw Douzi's excited appearance.

At this time, Li Zhang was also looking at the orphans behind Douzi, only to see that these children were short and thin, the clothes on their bodies were patches after patches, and under the messy hair was a dirty little face, if you didn't look carefully, you couldn't even distinguish between men and women, and these children were also carrying a wooden barrel, although they were separated by a distance, Li Zhang could still smell a strange fragrance.

"Just look at it!" Douzi waved as he spoke, and the dozen or so children immediately struggled to carry the barrels.

These orphans are all mixed with Li Zhang, although their brothers and sisters are not orphans, but his gambler father has been away from home for many years, and occasionally goes home and throws down a few copper coins at most, so their brothers and sisters are actually similar to orphans, from the age of Li Zhang to seven or eight years old, he has to bear the heavy responsibility of supporting himself and his sister, but his own strength alone is too thin, fortunately there is a kind elder who can take care of them, otherwise their brothers and sisters would have starved to death.

Later, Li Zhang rescued Douzi, and met a lot of orphans through Douzi, he was smart and literate, coupled with boldness and righteousness, so he slowly became the head of this group of orphans, and looked for food in the surrounding area, of course, their group of children must not have any serious livelihood, begging, petty theft and the like have been done, anyway, as long as they can earn a stutter, although they still can't eat enough, but they haven't been starved to death.

Douzi and their group of orphans usually have no place to live, so they set up a few sheds on the outer wall of Yizhuang, sometimes the weather is too cold in winter, they temporarily live in Yizhuang, of course, Li Zhang's brothers and sisters live in a side house is too small, so they can only go into the hall and those corpses as companions, although the hall is very gloomy, but at least there are walls on all sides, and there are covers on the top, so as not to let them freeze to death.

"It's ...... Swill? When the wooden bucket was lifted in front of Li Zhang, and he looked at the soup and water in the wooden bucket, there were some bones, vegetable leaves, etc., which also made him a little incredulous, isn't this just the swill poured together with leftovers, where can it be called a good thing?

"It's not swill, the leftovers of the newly opened restaurant on West Street, the chef of the restaurant is my fellow villager, today we did him a small favor, he introduced us to the restaurant to do things, mainly washing dishes and sweeping the floor, the reward is that the leftovers of the restaurant every day are ours, and we don't have to worry about hunger in the future." Douzi said excitedly again at this time.

Isn't leftovers just swill? Of course, Li Zhang looked at Douzi's excited little face, and couldn't bear to say it for a while, but praised him a few words, which made Douzi even more happy, and the group of orphans behind him couldn't help it at this time, and began to reach out to pick something in the swill bucket to eat.

Seeing this, Li Zhang hurriedly stopped these children, and then asked Douzi to pour the swill into the cauldron and heat it up, after all, the swill was not clean in the first place, and now it is spring, which is the most likely time to get sick, so it is still necessary to heat it up and disinfect it.

Li Zhang is the boss of the Douzi gang, and he is also quite authoritative among the children, so his words are also very effective, even if the Douzi children are hungry at this time, their chests are close to their backs, but they still obediently pour these leftovers into the pot, and the raccoon dog has already risen on fire, and after a while, a hodgepodge mixed with various fragrances is ready.

Speaking from the heart, these leftovers are indeed very fragrant after heating, especially for children like Li Zhang, they usually don't even eat as good as pig food, so they can't eat enough, and these leftovers have meat, vegetables, oil and water, so for them, these leftovers can be called a rare delicacy.

As soon as the hodgepodge was hot, Li Zhang immediately served a bowl of beans, and then he and a group of orphans rushed up, and a group of children kept scrambling around the pot like hungry wolves, even if they were screaming hot, they were reluctant to spit out the contents in their mouths.

The raccoon dog was also divided into a big bowl, at this time it was also like a little she-wolf, picked up the bowl and put it in his mouth, Li Zhang instinctively wanted to stop it, but opened his mouth, and finally shook his head weakly, he felt that these swills were disgusting, but in the eyes of the raccoon, this was a rare delicacy, if he imposed his ideas on the raccoon, it would only appear that he was very selfish.

In fact, Li Zhang was also very hungry at this time, except for the elm money soup this morning, he had not eaten all day now, because in the Northern Song Dynasty, the bottom of society like him generally only ate two meals, of course, some heavy laborers would eat three meals, but he only ate so much elm money all day, and before noon, he already felt empty in his stomach, and now he smelled the aroma of the hodgepodge, which made his stomach scream like a drum.

Speaking of Li Zhang, he likes to eat hot pot, and later heard that there are many hot pot restaurants that use saliva oil, that is, the hot pot that the guests have eaten, and the layer of oil on it is collected and then used, this thing is not much cleaner than the leftovers, Li Zhang estimated that he didn't eat less before, but at that time he didn't know, and he ate it, but he still felt a little disgusting when he thought about it, so he rarely ate hot pot outside later, and now let him eat these leftovers in front of him, he really can't eat it.

"Brother, why don't you eat?" In the blink of an eye, the raccoon dog ate a bowl of smorgasbord, and then looked at Li Zhang suspiciously while licking the bottom of the bowl and asked.

"I'm not hungry, you can eat." Li Zhang also felt his nose sour when he looked at the raccoon, and after speaking, he pushed his hodgepodge in front of the raccoon, but he twisted his head to the side, he was worried that he would not be able to hold back tears if he looked at it again.

"Brother, what's wrong with you, is the wound hurting again?" The well-behaved raccoon dog naturally discovered Li Zhang's abnormality, and asked again with great concern.

"It's okay, is the hodgepodge delicious?" Li Zhang took a long breath at this time, forced himself to calm down, and then asked with a friendly smile at the raccoon.

"It's delicious, I also ate two pieces of meat just now, I remember the last time I ate meat, it was last year when our father won money, and the haggis we bought was so fragrant!" Tanuki said with a happy face at this time, for her, being able to eat meat is the greatest happiness.

"In the future, my brother will earn money, and we will have meat to eat every day!" Looking at the raccoon's innocent smile, Li Zhang felt his nose sour again, and rubbed the other party's brain again.

"Well, when the raccoon grows up, I will also help my brother earn money to buy meat to eat!" When Tanuki heard her brother's words, she also nodded heavily.

A large bucket of leftovers was eaten by more than a dozen children, and the last one sat on the ground rubbing his stomach and humming, but Li Zhang called the beans over at this time, and then said in a low voice: "Beans, let's find a way to make money, at least to fill our dozen mouths!" ”

"What the eldest brother said is, but we don't have the strength, we don't have the skills, and no one wants to make money?" Douzi showed an embarrassed expression and said, in his opinion, earning money is to work for others, and part-time jobs either have strength or skills, neither of which they have.

"You don't have to worry about this, I have a way to make money, but before that, you all go and collect firewood for me, and then come back to light the fire to bathe and wash clothes!" Li Zhang showed a confident smile at this time and said, just now, he finally thought of a suitable way to make money.

"Take a bath? It's a cold night, what kind of shower are you taking? Douzi asked puzzled at this time, although it is now spring, but the night is still a little cold, and their group of orphans sometimes have to beg, washing too clean and not like beggars, what should I do if I can't get money then?

"Nonsense, aren't you going to work in the restaurant, it's a place to eat, but look at you all black and dirty, you can smell the stench every few steps, how do you let others eat then, do you want to work there for a long time in the future?" Li Zhang's eyes widened at the moment.

Douzi's group of children struggle with food and clothing every day, except for food, there is nothing that can arouse their interest, plus there is no elder discipline, all of them are dirty like mud monkeys, including Li Zhang and Tanukier, if Li Zhang's foot is not injured, I am afraid he will be the first to jump into the tank to take a bath.

"It's still the eldest brother who knows more!" Douzi heard this with an admiring face, and after speaking, he took the initiative to take off his clothes, and then ran to squeeze into the water tank with a group of children to play with water, and the raccoon dog took Douzi's clothes away and washed them, and when the boys with the belt were washed, she and a few girls boiled some more water, and then washed it in the wooden barrel in the room, and finally helped Li Zhang wipe his body.

After taking a bath, Li Zhang pulled the beans aside and told them for a long time, but the beans still didn't understand, but he remembered several of Li Zhang's requirements, and finally Li Zhang asked him to repeat his request, and then let the beans go back to rest.

It's not early, usually at this time, Li Zhang and they all go to bed early, because they don't have money to buy lamp oil, so usually when it's dark, they lie down to sleep, of course, the most important thing is that they usually can't eat enough, and they won't be hungry when they fall asleep, and they can save physical strength.

But today Li Zhang couldn't fall asleep in bed tossing and turning, no way, there was no food in his stomach, and the empty stomach bag seemed to be kneaded hard, this taste of hunger tortured him so that he didn't have the slightest sleepiness, but the raccoon dog who was still pestering Li Zhang to tell the story just now had already fallen asleep.

In the end, Li Zhang was really hungry and couldn't stand it, so he quietly got up, and then came to the kitchen outside, and turned it through the bright moonlight, hoping to find something to eat, but found that the grain jar was almost empty, and a thin layer of millet couldn't even cover the bottom of the jar, and besides, there was nothing to eat in the whole kitchen, not even oil, salt and other seasonings.

After rummaging through the kitchen, Li Zhang couldn't find anything to eat, and in the end, in desperation, he could only scoop up a big bowl of cold water, and then poured it into his stomach, and after mixing the water to fill his stomach, he returned to the house and slept with his head covered, but before going to sleep, he also secretly swore that he would never let himself go hungry again in the future!