In the early spring, the south of the Yangtze River gradually became greener, and from the small hills covered with green wormwood, there was no second village within five miles. A stream gushes from the ground at the edge of the village, and the clear water flows around the village to the north.

Qi Su Niang walked to the edge of the village, exhausted. She fell under the tree by the stream, looking at the two wisps of gray cooking smoke over the village a hundred paces away, and pondered it repeatedly. The sound of chickens and dogs barking faintly came, Qi Su Niang seemed to smell the fragrance of food, her heart suddenly heated, but her body became more and more hungry and cold.

The stream is about a foot wide, clear and clear, and three small bamboo rafts are tied to the trees at the head of the village, gently swaying with the flow of the stream. Qi Su Niang barely washed away the stains on her face with her unconscious hand holding the cold stream water. Take off your muddy cotton clothes and replace them with wet clothes that have dried in a tarpaulin bag. Her feet were covered in layers of yellow mud along the way, hard as iron, and she stretched out her foot and smashed it the stone, and the mud cracked into three petals, revealing the swollen and deformed feet and rotten cloth shoes inside.

The cold water washed away the mud on the feet and shoes for a long time, revealing the original state. Although it was difficult to put on, Qi Su Niang still put the broken shoes on her toes in pain.

Qi Su Niang pulled the grass roots and barely tied up her dry messy hair, hung Xiao Cui's old cotton clothes on the tree by the stream, and said in a low voice: "You wait here, I'll pick you up later." With that, he endured exhaustion, pain, and numbness, and moved towards the village one step at a time.

Qi Su Niang hid behind the big locust tree at the head of the village and looked in, although the village was not small, but there were not many houses, when the first household was surrounded by a short tree, there were four or five mud-walled thatched houses, and a woman in her forties was standing in the courtyard and bowing her head to feed the chickens. I saw that she was wearing a coarse gray cloth dress that was knee-length, gray wide-mouth pants underneath, wearing round cloth shoes, a coarse blue cloth scarf tied around her waist, and a coarse blue cloth wrapped around her hair bun on her head. At her big feet were two little hens with reed flowers, flapping their wings and snatching food from her. Behind the woman, the smell of polenta wafted from the stove in the courtyard.

At the west end of the thatched house, under the smoke of another cooking, there are high mud walls and tiled roofs exposed, but there are only three or four rooms. More than ten zhang behind the thatched house and mud tile house, there is a vacant land that seems to be threshing. There are some farm tools on the threshing floor, and there are some broken grass huts and wooden shelves scattered on all sides, which do not look like people living there.

Qi Su Niang saw that there were few people in this village and the land was poor, so she hesitated. She was a ten-year-old girl, hungry and tired, covered with frostbite and falls, and had no power to resist. She saw from afar that the woman was neatly dressed and diligent in housework, and after thinking for a while, she slowly walked into the entrance of the village, and came to the edge of the low fence.

Before she could speak, the woman happened to raise her head, revealing a plain face, looked at Qi Su Niang at a glance, and suddenly snorted. She looked at Qi Su Niang suspiciously, looked at her way again, and asked, "There is no dock nearby, how can the little girl come from the other side of the river?" Where is your father? Are you lost? After that, he dropped the chicken food, wiped his hands heavily on the hem of his clothes, hurriedly opened the door, and shouted in the direction of the mud house as he walked: "The actor's mother, the actor's mother, come out and see, there is a little girl on the other side of the river." ”

Qi Susu listened to the Jianghuai Township and almost wanted to cry. Goodbye to this woman, although she is from a poor family, she also knows the etiquette of advance and retreat, and her face is kind, and her heart is a little peaceful, and when she is about to speak, the woman holds her hand, looks up and down carefully, and sighs: "Poor one, my hands and feet are frozen and rotten, and I am so thin that I must not have eaten and drunk well." Without waiting for her to answer, he helped her into the courtyard, sat her down on a small stool, and went to the stove to fetch a bowl of hot corn porridge.

Qi Su Niang has not been in the hot soup for more than ten days, and she held it in her hand for a while, warming her body and mind, and the frostbite on her hand was due to heat, and she was alive with blood, and suddenly wisps of blood and yellow pus oozed from the sores.

The hand that had been unconscious for a few days suddenly hurt sharply, Qi Su Niang didn't know whether she liked the pain, and tears finally dripped from her eyes, and they smashed into the bowl one by one, splashing the old high.

"Ouch, the golden beans have fallen, okay, okay." The woman seemed to pity her, and at the same time could not help laughing, but she was not good at words, so she had to laugh and touch her head vigorously to comfort her. Qi Su Niang only felt that the gentle human hand was caressing her head, dispelling the loneliness and despair of more than ten days, although she gritted her teeth and wanted to hold back, the tears in her eyes kept falling. Sister-in-law Qi laughed even more.

At this time, a refreshing voice sounded, and he said with a smile: "Sister-in-law Qi, this little girl just didn't want to cry, and she had to cry generously when you joked like this." ”

Qi Susu raised her sleeves to wipe her tears, turned her head to look, and saw a dignified woman standing in front of her, wearing a cotton shirt with a round neck and oblique buttons, thick cotton pants with a green shuttle, a half-old floral scarf around her waist, a floral headscarf on her hair, and a pair of feet that were not big or small were exposed at the corners of her trousers. Her facial features are delicate, her eyes are smiling, although she is very neatly tied, but with an elegant voice, Qi Susu squinted, looking at the sun, you can see the smile lines in the corners of her eyes.

The woman in Tsing Yi stepped forward, looked at Qi Su Niang carefully, and nodded: "Since you have come to us, you can take a breath and eat, and then talk about the rest." He turned his head to the woman surnamed Qi and said, "Sister-in-law Qi, although there is an empty house in your house, Tianwang is living, my family is not there, and I am lacking a companion, so let her come to me to rest." With that, he coughed slightly.

Sister-in-law Qi saw her coughing, and hurriedly rushed up to relieve her, complaining about herself: "I just don't remember, I know that you are sick, you can't blow the wind, and I always forget every now and then, and call you out to suffer." ”

The woman in Tsing Yi smiled softly: "You know that I am a lively person, and I can't stand being lonely the most, if you don't call me from time to time, where would I be able to live this life?" ”

Qi Su Niang saw that this Qi sister-in-law heard such unlucky words and didn't think about it, so she knew that Qi sister-in-law was a rough and straight person, but she was very surprised in her heart, although the woman in Tsing Yi was coughing, her spirit was excellent, but she didn't know why her language was sluggish, and when she was thinking, the woman in Tsing Yi had walked to her side and looked at her with a smile.

Qi Su Niang drank up the corn porridge in a few sips, got up from the small stool, and was about to bow and thank you, when she suddenly remembered the old rules that she had learned on the boat and had almost forgotten in the past ten days, so she put her hands under her waist, bent her knees deeply, and blessed Aunt Qi, "Thank you, Auntie." ”

Sister-in-law Qi and the woman in Tsing Yi both laughed, and Sister-in-law Qi stroked her face and said with a smile: "Go to your Aunt Chen's house and have a good rest." Ming'er came to play with my family. He smiled at Mrs. Chen again: "It's still a girl's heart, if my family's strong son is as well-behaved as her, I don't have to worry about him every day." ”

Chen Niangzi smiled slightly, took Qi Su Niang's hand and walked out. Just a few dozen steps, I came to a mud house surrounded by mud walls, one into three rooms, one hall house, two side rooms, and there was also a stove room in the courtyard, which looked much smaller than the grass house of the Qi family, but it was more solid.

Qi Su Niang was already very tired, and she didn't have time to see more when she entered the hall, so she couldn't sit for a while, so she fell asleep on the table of the eight immortals in front of the god cabinet. By the time she woke up, it was noon on the third day. Qi Su Niang was about to uncover the coarse blue cloth quilt covering her body, but found that her hands and feet were thickly pasted with herbs, wrapped tightly in cloth, and the bruises and frostbites on her body were also taken care of. She looked at the old cotton clothes and pants on the bedside pillow, which were obviously changed in a hurry, and slowly got up.