The fragrance of sweet potatoes wafted in the courtyard, and Qi Su Niang's stomach growled. It took her half an hour to put on her green shuttle cotton clothes and pants, put on the green cloth cotton shoes in front of the bed, and slowly walked to the door of the room. Qi Su Niang opened the door and took a look, and saw that the shabby cotton clothes hanging by the stream were hanging in the yard and had been washed.

The woman in Tsing Yi came out of the stove, looked at Qi Su Niang and smiled slightly, stepped forward, bent down to tie Qi Su Niang's trouser belt, buttoned her clothes, and said, "Hungry, go sit in the hall." With that, he went back to the stove.

Qi Su Niang looked down at the neat clothes, went out of the room, and walked into the hall. In the center, on the long wooden case, there is a cabinet and a tablet. In front of the long table is an unpainted elm table with a wooden comb-backed chair on each side. There are also two unframed painted landscape paintings hanging on the left and right walls.

Mrs. Chen brought a bowl of fragrant sweet potato rice into the room, led Qi Su Niang, who was standing, to sit on the comb chair on the left, and dragged another chair to sit opposite her. Chen Niangzi scooped a full spoonful of sweet potato rice with a wooden spoon, blew it just right, and sent it to Qi Su Niang's mouth. Qi Su Niang was stunned for a moment, looked down at her tightly wrapped hands, then looked at the woman's smiling face, and slowly opened her mouth.

After feeding and eating a hot meal, and then falling asleep, Qi Su Niang only felt that her vitality was restored, and she knew that this body was stout, although she was short of food and clothing, she had been starving and freezing for more than ten days, and she was not sick, as long as she did not get epilepsy, it was really easy to use, and she was very happy.

Qi Su Niang lived here for a few days, and the injuries on her body slowly healed, and from Chen Niangzi's mouth, she knew that there were only two families in this village. These two families originally lived in the village near the east bank of the Cao River, but due to the floods for many years, they retreated again and again, and retreated to this village nearly sixty or seventy miles offshore, outside Gaoyou Prefecture, Yangzhou Prefecture.

This woman in Tsing Yi has a husband's surname Chen, and she has an only son named Chen Yan, who has won the fame of Tongsheng Xiucai, and went to Jiangning Township to try it a few days ago. That Qi sister-in-law's maiden name is Song, there is a husband and a son, although the husband Qi Hu is here, the son Qi Qiang has fled Ding, and has not returned for four or five years.

Qi Su Niang was puzzled when she heard the word "escape Ding", and it was even more strange to think about this escape. Mrs. Chen glanced at her and said in detail that the imperial court used capitation to collect taxes, and the poor households really couldn't afford it. The Chen family was exempted from Ding tax because of Chen Yan's meritorious reputation, and sighed: "Qi Qiang's kid is very stubborn, but he is too smart, and my family can barely make up for him with this Ding Yin, but he doesn't want to live or die, and he refuses to settle down, and leaves home in a bad mood, only saying that he will make a lot of money." "I don't say much else.

Qi Su Niang sighed secretly when she heard this, and suddenly pulled out the words "paved into the mu" from the pile of old papers in her mind, forgetting her meaning and not knowing the time, she only knew that the poor people were really unbearable these years, and the floods every year did not force people away, and all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes made people leave their homeland and drift away.

Aunt Qi's only son was not there, and when she heard that Qi Su Niang was also surnamed Qi, she was even more happy, and pulled Qi Su Niang to her house to play and talk. Qi Su Niang saw that his house was also generally neat and clean, with the divine cabinet and the ancestral tablet of the Qi family. Because it was not yet the first month, there was also a pot of daffodils wrapped in red notes. On both walls are red New Year paintings. The front door of the window is plastered with red blessing characters and red window flowers.

Qi Suniang came out of Qi's house and looked at the threshing floor behind the village, Uncle Qi was sweating profusely, and he was building an elevated granary shirtless, which was really unreasonable, and he wasted half a day's efforts. Qi Su Niang didn't dare to ask for help, so she had to stare at it for a long time, and when Aunt Qi came to hurry, she left in a daze.

She planned carefully in her heart, seeing that there were many empty houses in this village, and the village was kind, it was her luck not to bully her for being an orphan girl and selling it. I also saw that although this Chen Niangzi's family was ugly, she had a talent, and she was a person who knew etiquette and etiquette, so she wanted to tell her life story truthfully, and then begged to be taken in.

Unexpectedly, when she returned to the house, Mrs. Chen was looking for some old clothes, sprinkling thread powder, and burning a charcoal bucket. She lowered her head and held the scissors and changed her clothes, and said casually: "Su Niang, I see that you are from the north, and your accent is from the capital, but your hometown is by the Yongding River?" ”

Qi Su Niang was taken aback, nodded again and again, and asked her how she knew. Chen Niangzi said with a smile: "Since you are from the Cao River, and you are wearing wet clothes, the water must be good, and you are a riverside family." The north and south are flooded, the south is the Huang, Huai, and Yangtze rivers, and the north is only the Yongding River near the capital. ”

Qi Susu was very impressed when she saw that Mrs. Chen was so careful, and listened to her again: "I haven't seen you mention your parents and relatives in the past few days, most of them are gone in the flood, or you have been sold, don't dare to say more?" After that, he stopped the scissors and turned his head to stare at Qi Su Niang, "The deed of sale is outside, as long as it is not found, it will be fine." Women don't need the nadine tax, wait for an opportunity to ask someone to settle a household registration for you in my house, and let your child no longer worry about every day. ”

Qi Su Niang heard this, looked at Chen Niangzi quietly on her face, and was horrified, she only lived in Chen Niangzi's house for a few days, she didn't say a word, she didn't do one more thing, but the old bottom was seen through and through, thinking about it left and right, knowing that the opportunity could not be lost, she knelt down and begged: "Auntie, I ...... Although Su Niang doesn't know what to do, she is a willing person, and she doesn't dare to thank her for the grace of her life, I just ask you to take me in and teach me, I ......"

Mrs. Chen didn't wait for her to speak, helped her up, and said while coughing: "There is no need to be like this, they are all victims of disasters by the water, and they know these difficulties." You are a bold and unyielding man, and you dare to fight for your life to escape to my house. But in the end, you are only ten years old, and you are a girl, this time you are lucky, your hands and feet are not wasted, but it is difficult to have a next time, if you are driven away, you can only die outside. After saying that, he smiled again: "It's just one thing, when your Uncle Qi is naked when he works in the future, you must not look at it in a daze, and you don't know how to avoid it." ”

Qi Su Niang was taken aback, and suddenly said: "No wonder Aunt Qi didn't give me a good look today, it turned out that she was jealous." When she was working as a supervisor on a construction site in the past, she had seen many shirtless men, but she didn't care, but when she thought about it, she knew that it was wrong.

Mrs. Chen covered her mouth and laughed, and gasped for a while: "Sure enough, it is a child who wants to be taught, if you want me to teach, I will not refuse, you go and get the first book on the second floor of the bookshelf in that room." ”

Qi Su Niang was in the same room with Chen Niangzi on weekdays, and knew that she was referring to her son Chen Yan's room, so she hurriedly went. She opened the door and saw a large bookshelf nailed of bamboo pieces against the left wall, a sketch hanging on the wall next to the bookshelf, and a long green bamboo table and a bamboo chair with a comb back in the center of the room, which was already shiny. On the right wall is a three-column shelf bed. The furniture is homemade, a natural, the only decoration is the thick blue bed tent carefully embroidered with the vermilion lotus branch pattern, at a glance you know that it is the craftsmanship of Mrs. Chen.

Qi Suniang walked to the bamboo frame and looked at the sketches on the wall, but she used green, vermilion, blue, ochre and other colors to finely draw the detailed drawings of the rivers, dangerous mouths, dams, and sluice gates in various places such as yellow, Huai, and Caoyun, and the water shape of the Yongding River in the north is not missing. Qi Su Niang had naturally seen a water-shaped diagram that was several times more precise than this picture, but at this moment, in this humble house, it was still very surprising to see it in Xiucai's room.

She didn't dare to stay long, hurriedly walked to the bookshelf, and swept the line books numbered in Arabic numerals at a glance. She casually took the book from the second floor, and before she could read the title, she was dazzled by the rows of books such as "The Book of Calculations" and "The Diagram of River Governance" on the shelves. She muttered to herself as she walked back, didn't this Chen Xiucai go to Jiangning Province to try? Could it be that to be a lifter is not to test the Bagu Wen, but to take the Zhihe?

Thinking like this, she returned to Mrs. Chen's house and picked up the book, only to see that it was actually a "Female Commandment", and she was immediately shocked. Seeing her face, Mrs. Chen smiled again: "I know how many words you know, but do you know who wrote this book and what it is?" ”

Qi Su Niang knew that she was powerful, so she didn't talk about it, and said with a smile: "Auntie, Su Niang only knows that what is written in this book is the rules of women, but I don't know who wrote it or why." ”

Chen Niangzi looked at Qi Su Niang with a smile, Qi Su Niang couldn't help but panic, desperately rummaging in her mind, squeezing and squeezing the little literary and historical knowledge thrown in the corner, Fang hesitated and said: "Su Niang heard about it...... I've heard that some of the rules in this book are really bad, and they are a bit violent......"

Chen Niangzi laughed crisply, turned around and closed the door, opened the first page, and pointed: "Humble first." The ancients gave birth to a daughter for three days, lay under the bed, made bricks, and fasted. Lying under the bed, it is clear that it is weak, and the Lord is also a person. Shook his head: "Mrs. Cao's family class is really covering up too much, she has benefited, but she has suffered a lot of people behind her." ”

Qi Su Niang didn't seem to understand these words, but she knew that she was degrading the woman to a very low level, but when she heard Chen Niangzi's words, she didn't think so, and she was relieved. Suddenly, I heard Chen Niangzi say: "Do you know that Empress Changsun made "Female Rules", and Empress Zetian made "Female Fan"? ”

Qi Suliang was stunned for a moment, I don't know why she mentioned it, so she had to shake her head, Chen Niangzi refused to say more, only said: "Go and memorize this book, if you have any illiterate words, come and ask me, and then think about what I said today after memorization, it can be regarded as I taught you." With that, another cough.