Chapter 262: Early Morning

The black ash sewage flows on the bluestone slabs.

Mrs. Xin was reluctant to wet the shoes on her feet, and with a baby tied to her chest, she rolled up her trouser legs and walked among the charred ruins of the house.

Remove charred wooden beams, crumbling earthen walls, and search the ruins for anything that can be useful.

The clay pot covered in grass ash in the east kitchen, and a large piece of wood in the hall with scorched marks......

Her feet were red from the cold water.

The old man and his two children sat in the corner.

From time to time, the old man let out a heavy pant like pulling a bellows.

The two children, one older and one younger, snuggled next to their grandmother, and the older girl still had a dirty face and couldn't stop shaking.

It is both cold and scared.

The bag of wheat that Xin Niang brought back was picked up from the sewage and held by the old man like a life-saving straw.

Sensing that his sister had been trembling, the boy, who was about four or five years old, held the girl's hand in his arms in a daze: "Sister." ”

Before he could finish speaking, he felt the hand in his arms tremble violently.

The boy turned his head to look, and Xin Niang took out a black jar from the ruins with her bare feet expressionlessly.

The boy had seen many expressions on his mother's face.

The tenderness when my father was still there, the grief after my father's death, the bitter cry when I returned home late in embarrassment, the usual anger,

But he had never seen his mother so insensitive.

Most of the children have a keen intuition, and he senses that something is brewing under the calm appearance of Mrs. Xin.

Mrs. Xin didn't speak, and put on the kudzu shoes that were put aside without any expression.

The child in his arms moved slightly, and his mouth was flat and he wanted to cry.

Mrs. Xin lowered her head and glanced at him, in slow motion, unbuttoned her clothes, and sat in the alley without cover to breastfeed the child.

The baby sucks a few drops of milk and can't suck it anymore.

Suddenly there was a baby's cry in the alley.

There is still no grain of rice sticking to the teeth in the family, and Mrs. Xin is not.

It's just that at this time she is like an ignorant wooden man, crying with a child in her arms, and she doesn't react.

"Yueniang, it's okay, it's okay."

Her appearance frightened the coughing old woman, who gasped for breath and struggled to sit up and pull the placket of Mrs. Xin's clothes.

"Wait for tomorrow, tomorrow we will go out of the city and go to the countryside to find my mother's brother, we will always live, we will always live."

The old woman had been bedridden for many years, and her body smelled bad, and the ravines on her face were filled with black ash.

She muttered to herself, not knowing whether to comfort Mrs. Xin or herself.

Just then, there was a creak, and a door opened.

Xin Niangzi was shocked, and a glimmer of light burst out of her eyes.

The sister-in-law of the Tao family stood by the door, took two steps with a blank face, and stuffed a palm-sized dry cake into Xin Niangzi's arms.

"You have been neighbors for many years, it's not that you don't help you, but you really don't have the ability."

In this year, even relatives dare not take in such a large family.

Tao Niangzi knows that she can't be hard-hearted today, if she lets this big family into the house, it will be difficult to invite her out.

After she finished speaking, she pulled the corner of her skirt out of Xin Niangzi's hand, walked home mercilessly, and slammed the door shut.

Mrs. Xin's hand was stretched out in the air, but she didn't catch anything.

After being stunned for a long time, the dough cake in her arms snapped and fell out.

This voice woke Xin Niangzi up.

She looked at the bread on the ground in a daze, and then looked up at the old and two young people huddled in the corner.

With a flash of fierceness in her eyes, she picked up the dough and didn't look at anyone, tearing the half of the dough into her mouth like a wolf.

The wheat crackers were dry and hard, and Mrs. Xin swallowed them with a clenched throat.

The old man in the corner hugged the two children tightly, and no one dared to speak.

After eating the choking dough in a big gulp, Mrs. Xin stood up and snatched the wet burlap bag from the old man's arms.

Pulling the two children, I found a shelter at the end of the alley full of urine smells.

Stuffed the old man with his two children into a corner.

Holding up this slightly wet sack, several people huddled together, which was considered to have a place to take refuge on the night of the upcoming curfew.

She didn't say anything the whole time, but the old man breathed a sigh of relief and looked up at the vast sky.

As the night approached darkness and oppression, and some snow began to fall in the sky again, the old man hugged the two children tighter and sighed.

……

The night passed, and the morning came.

The man surnamed Tao walked out of the house, and he subconsciously looked left and right.

Seeing the old and young family huddled in the corner, he touched the wheat cake in his arms, and hesitated and walked over.

"The lady of the Xin family?"

He called softly, and handed the wheat cake in his hand forward, and the tentacles were cold, and he was startled, and when he hurried to look, he heard a cough.

The old woman, who hadn't slept soundly, opened her eyes.

The man surnamed Tao breathed a sigh of relief, he didn't dare to say more, he handed the wheat cake directly, and ran out of the alley as if he were running away.

The old man pinched the half of the wheat cake and handed it to the awakened Mrs. Xin.

Sitting stiff in the cold wind all night is uncomfortable for anyone.

The old man coughed, and his chest felt like a big hole, and he was panting heavily.

Yesterday I was frightened and frightened, and I got cold at night, and the big girl's face was flushed.

She gagged her mouth with her small hands, carefully gagging the cough back down her throat.

Mrs. Xin took half a piece of wheat cake from her mother-in-law, but she didn't eat it this time.

Instead, he got up and knocked on the Tao family's door.

The door opened for a long time, and before the Tao family's sister-in-law spoke, Xin Niangzi handed over the small bag of wheat grains in her hand: "Please ask the Tao family's sister-in-law to borrow me the stove." ”

"I'll make a hot meal for the whole family."

Sister-in-law Tao looked at her in a daze, with a complicated expression, and finally turned sideways to open the door.

With the help of the Tao family's stove and the Tao family's firewood, Xin Niangzi used her own clay pot to cook a pot of thick porridge without leaving any wheat cakes.

After thanking him, he carried the can of porridge to the end of the alley.

The jar was placed on the ground.

When it cooled, he took a wooden spoon borrowed from the Tao family and fed it to the two children.

Mrs. Xin's mother-in-law didn't say a word, the skin on her face slackened, and she stared at a withered yellow grass stalk by the wall.

"Mother, grandma, you eat too." The older girl took a small sip of porridge and then stopped opening her mouth.

"Grandma doesn't eat, grandma doesn't hunger."

Mrs. Xin's mother-in-law touched her granddaughter's hair.

"Mother's eat." The little boy spoke.

Mrs. Xin shook her head and filled his mouth with porridge again.

The big girl chewed the wheat grains in her mouth, hung her head and thought for a long time, and finally took a deep breath: "Mother." ”

"Sell me."

Mrs. Xin's hand trembled suddenly, and her tears crackled and fell into the jar of porridge.

"Hmm." She replied softly.

After feeding a jar of porridge into the stomachs of the two children, he opened the placket and fed the baby in his arms.

Then one left and one right, holding the two children, walked out of the alley without looking back.

The old woman who was left alone in the alley saw her granddaughter looking back, smiled and waved at her.

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350 mane manuscript fee was sent today! I don't know which channel it came from, but whatever! Buy a hand holder with my new keyboard, Meizizi~