In the year of Jiyou, the emperor was changed, and on the eighth day of the eighth month of August, the year name was changed to Chengyu.

In a small village in the north, the Shen family is busy.

Whether the emperor is changed or not, and whether the era name is changed or not, is not as important as whether there is rice in the pot at home.

The Shen family has been working on paper for generations, and whoever dies, wants boys and girls, paper cars and paper horses, and they all come to the Shen family to order. The Shen family has a rule, that is, women can't touch paper, the yin qi is heavy, and the fate of the woman is ominous after touching. However, when the Shen family reached this generation, they only had a ten-year-old daughter, and there was no male to inherit it.

"Let's go out first, don't touch anything in this house." Father Shen said.

Shen Xiaoyu looked at his father, and then said, "Dad, my mother's medicine has been cut off for several days, and my mother said that she wants to eat white flour steamed buns." ”

Father Shen sighed and said: "There is no money in the family, Lang Zhong also said that her illness cannot be cured, tuberculosis, how much money we have in our family is also going to be burned in, and now we can't get the money to buy food...... "He also wants to treat his daughter-in-law's illness, but this disease is a bottomless pit, and there is no money in the family, so he can't even die of his daughter here."

Shen Xiaoyu looked at the paste he had just put down, but he couldn't say anything, and his family was so white. For as long as I can remember, the white flour at home has never been for people to eat, and the family can only eat cornmeal and wheat bran, and the nest head is black. Her mother is sick and can't eat a white-flour steamed bun if she wants to.

When she returned to the room, her mother coughed twice, and Shen Xiaoyu could only use the little cornmeal left at home to knead a corn tortilla, there was no white flour steamed bun, the corn tortilla was softer, and then boiled some corn porridge without choking her throat.

She and her dad were still going to eat the black wotou.

I can't take care of a lot now, just live if I can.

"Xiaoyu, don't be busy, my mother is not hungry, you eat, there is no food at home, my mother knows...... Ahem. Zhao Yufang also knows the situation of her own family, she can't grow anything in the field for several years, God doesn't rain, her body has collapsed again, and this family is about to collapse.

Shen Xiaoyu pasted the pinched cake into the pot, next to it was a nest mixed with wild vegetables, and said: "It's okay mother, I'll go to the back mountain to take a look in a while, dig some wild sweet potatoes or something, you won't die of hunger!" But she also knows that every family is in such a situation, and it is estimated that there will be nothing to dig up in the back mountain.

In the afternoon, Shen Xiaoyu went to the back mountain with a basket of dirt, and saw a lot of people along the way, wild vegetables, wild mushrooms, she looked at what to pick up.

The back mountain is very big, but there are very few things to grow, to catch up with such a disaster year, although everyone can pick some things in the back mountain, but at most starve to death, want to eat, it is not easy.

In the evening, everyone from other families went down the mountain, and in order to find more to eat, she was stunned and walked back after dark.

When she got home, the basket was full of baskets, wild vegetables could be used to make soup, or steamed and mixed with pickles, wild mountain mushrooms were dried and eaten, some medicinal herbs, she was also ready to dry, and she could use them for her own use, and if she didn't use them, she would take them to Liaocheng to exchange for money, and if she had money, she could exchange them for some food and medicine for her mother, and the last few remaining sweet potatoes were enough for the family to eat at night.

"Xiaoyu, come here, my mother has something to say to you." Zhao Yufang knew that she might not survive for a few days, she had such a daughter in her life, because she was weak and sick, her daughter suffered a lot, not only sorry for her daughter, but also sorry for her husband, and failed to leave a man for the Shen family.

After Shen Xiaoyu filled the firewood in the stove pit, he sat down and listened to his mother's words obediently.

"My mother knows that I am not going to do it, and when my mother leaves, you have to take good care of your father, your father can't make any money from this work, if you can save money in the future, let your father find a second mother for you and give birth to a younger brother." Zhao Yufang didn't feel good when she said this, but when she died, she wouldn't care so much, the only thing she was worried about was that with Erniang, her daughter would become a little cabbage.

When Shen Xiaoyu heard this, he became angry, frowned and said, "If I have money, I will also give myself a dowry, my father wants to marry Erniang, no way." "She has seen the village to marry Erniang, as soon as Da Cui Niang in the same village died, her father used the dowry left by her mother to marry a widow, and the widow had a son left in a year, and since then Da Cui has lived as well as pigs and dogs, she can't live like that.

"It's my mother who is sorry for you, my mother doesn't want your father to be gone!" Zhao Yufang said that tears came down, Shen Xiaoyu looked at her mother like this, and said, "I know, mother, I listen to you!" "She didn't want her mother to go uneasy.

Zhao Yufang saw that Shen Xiaoyu agreed, and fell asleep, and after this sleep, he didn't open his eyes again, and the next day Father Shen came to see that the person was already cold.

Shen Xiaoyu cried sadly, although her mother was always sick, and the mothers of other children's children did this and that for their own children, but as long as people lived, she was satisfied, and now that people are gone, she has no thoughts at all.

"This earring was left by your mother, you can keep it." An earring wrapped in a handkerchief in Daddy Shen's hand was the only thought left by Zhao Yufang.

Shen Xiaoyu looked at the earrings, she knew that these earrings were not worth anything, there was no rice grain at home, and her mother used another earring to exchange three catties of cornmeal with Zhang Matchmaker from the same village, this thing is not even as good as the leftovers in the eyes of the rich.

Shen Xiaoyu wrapped the earrings in a handkerchief, and listened to Father Shen say: "Go and scald the paste, there is a family in the city that has ordered a lot of goods, and I have to drive them out, otherwise the family will really have no money." He was also helpless, he couldn't take care of his daughter-in-law's death, but he still had a child, and he couldn't let the child starve.

Shen Xiaoyu watched his father go to work for other family members, and he stayed in the house to look at his mother lying on the door panel. The shroud was old, she had washed it, and it was clean. Her mother was already thin, but now she looks even more out of shape. At first, she cried, but then she couldn't cry, her mother was gone, and like Dacui's mother, she left the child and left, and she couldn't come back from crying.

At night, Father Shen went to sleep first, and Shen Xiaoyu went to the courtyard and lit a small oil lamp.

Her father had long said that she would not be allowed to touch these papers, which was unlucky, but she couldn't take care of anything now, and her mother was most at ease with her.

After Daddy Shen got out of the house, he directly found a bamboo stick to tie it in, twitched Shen Xiaoyu's body a few times, and scolded: "I said I wouldn't let you touch it, why do you want to touch it!" ”

Shen Xiaoyu raised his neck and shouted: "I'll touch it, my mother is dead, you still have the heart to take care of the dead people of other families, you kill me, I will be with my mother, and I won't need this paper man!" ”

Daddy Shen couldn't say a word, although he was a daughter, but he also knew Shen Xiaoyu's temperament, and it was very hard!

Shen Xiaoyu, who was beaten, finally watched her father burn the little paper figure she pasted in front of her mother's grave, saying that it was a grave, but she couldn't even afford a coffin. Father Shen was afraid of wild dogs, so he deliberately dug deeper, there was no way, the poor couldn't afford to die.

Shen Xiaoyu felt that her father was too ruthless at first, and she had to beat up every paper person, but now that she thinks about it, when she was a paper person, the sighs in her father's room didn't seem to stop.

"Dad, go back, I'll go to the back mountain to find food." She and her father still have to live.

"Go ahead, don't come back too late, there are wild dogs in the mountains at night." Father Shen said that his daughter has been sensible since she was a child, and her mother's health has not been good since she was a child, and he said that men can't touch the stove, so Shen Xiaoyu can afford the stove at home.

She has played in the back mountain since she was a child, and the terrain is also familiar, she can walk three laps with her eyes closed, and nothing will happen to her when she walks down the mountain in the dark. Normally, there was no one at this time, and she was not afraid, but today she clearly heard someone talking in front of her.

"Hurry up! There's no one at this time, so let's solve it quickly! "Someone's voice came, perhaps thinking that no one would be here at this time, so he didn't lower his voice.

Shen Xiaoyu listened, didn't dare to make a sound, the fire in front of her slowly approached, and she squatted behind the grass. By the faint light of the fire, Shen Xiaoyu saw that there were three people, two adults and one child.

"It's easy for you to say, I haven't killed anyone, I'm going to do it!" Another stout man said, looking reluctant.

As soon as he heard the word "killing", Shen Xiaoyu was scared and wanted to leave, but because he stepped on a tree branch on the sole of his foot, he made a sound.

"Anyone?" The stout man heard the movement and looked over, and Shen Xiaoyu quickly turned his head and ran.

"Why don't you chase after it?" The thin man said.

The stout man chased after her, and Shen Xiaoyu hid in the tree hole, and only when the stout man ran over did she get out.

As soon as she ran two steps, she heard someone shouting behind her, and she heard the thin man's voice, so she went back to the tree hole.

The boy ran out of breath, and the thin man chased after him fiercely, but the boy stumbled and fell, right in front of the tree hole.

As soon as the boy looked up, he saw a pair of feet in front of him, and then looked along the foot net, he saw Shen Xiaoyu with a frightened face, and when he was surprised, Shen Xiaoyu dragged the person to the tree hole, covered his mouth with his hand, and the two of them didn't dare to make a sound at all.

The fat man and the thin man came back after a while, and the two didn't know what to do.

"It's really unlucky, hurry up and find it!" The thin man scolded, and the two went separately.

Shen Xiaoyu breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the person leave, and as soon as she wanted to come out, the little boy grabbed her and said, "The two of them are looking for someone, they can't go out!" ”

Shen Xiaoyu shook his head: "I know that the path can go down the mountain!" "Now the two of them are grasshoppers on a rope, if one is caught, the other is estimated to be unlucky!

Shen Xiaoyu pulled the little boy down the mountain in a hurry along the path, and only then did he have a chance to breathe.