"Don't listen to him, I'll pay the money." Qi Laosan beckoned Haizhu to come over and watch, "I'll pay the money." ”

Haizhu pulled her purse and followed, "I'll go, you watch here." ”

"I don't need you, I'll bring the silver." Qi Laosan pressed her hand, "I'm still here, I don't need you." ”

Haizhu stopped and let him follow the medicine boy to get the medicine and pay the money, seeing that he smiled at people and asked the price, he knew that he didn't have much silver, no wonder she said yesterday that she wanted to take her second uncle to see a doctor, but he didn't answer.

The doctor was still cleaning the suppurated sores, Haizhu didn't dare to look at it, she stood outside the door and asked her second uncle if it was good to prick needles like this, or if he could make his arms and hands move through acupuncture.

"The old man's medical skills are shallow, and he doesn't have this ability."

Qi Laosan came over with the medicine bag and said, "Haizhu, go out to eat, I'll watch here." ”

She was indeed hungry, and Haizhu didn't go far out of the hospital, so she bought three meat buns and a bowl of sugar water at the rice stall to eat on the side of the road, and after eating, she bought ten meat buns and brought them in.

It was inconvenient to eat in the medical hall, Qi Laosan went out and squatted down along the wall, Haizhu came out and said: "I inquired with the sister-in-law who sells steamed buns, there is a carpenter with good craftsmanship on the west side of the dock, and you will carry my second uncle over later, I will find someone to make him a well-fitting chair, and my grandmother can also push him out to bask in the sun when you are not at home." ”

"It's not easy to have a chair like this, is it? How much silver? ”

"Don't care how much money you have, this is my heart for my second uncle." Haizhu understood his hesitation and continued: "In the future, my second uncle will be taken care of by you, and if I don't contribute, let me pay this money." ”

Qi Laosan chewed on the bun and looked at her with a face.

“…… I don't know what you think, but we are a family and we should support each other to get by. If I'm embarrassed, I won't say anything, but the problem is that I have plenty of money, and I can't let me eat meat and watch you eat wild vegetables pitifully? Haizhu said through the horn, and finally asked, "Are you right?" ”

Qi Laosan stuffed a bun into his mouth, and his eyes turned red as he chewed.

"Isn't it? Crying again? Don't embarrass me. Haizhu put on a disgusted face, "You can be a father, and you shed tears at every turn, you are really promising." ”

"I'm choking." Qi Laosan had a hard mouth, and slapped his eldest niece twice, "It's not big or small, it talks like my mother." ”

Haizhu was caught between her head and couldn't break free, she didn't move after two "sighs", tilted her head and peeked at this third uncle who was not a few years older than her, the current life is a little harder, and there are many difficulties, but there are a few united and harmonious relatives to accompany her, this kind of day is really not sad.

She is the eldest sister who cares about her younger sister and younger brother, the eldest granddaughter who needs to worry about her grandmother, and the eldest niece who is taken care of by her uncle.

"Silly, isn't it? What to laugh at? It's quite bluffing. Qi Laosan pushed the stupid girl away and jumped up full of energy, "Okay, I'll listen to you once." ”

Haizhu was also full of energy, she trotted up and down to follow, stood still and found that this action was quite childish, thinking that the more she lived, the smaller she became.

After cleaning the wound and applying medicine, Second Uncle Qi had no fishy smell on his body, and he was much more comfortable walking on the street after being carried out of the gate of the medical hall. Haizhu inquired about the yellow carpenter's shop all the way, and when she saw that there were oranges for sale, she bought a bag, peeled the skin and said: "Second uncle, when the wheelchair is ready, you will watch the tide and wind at home, I will bring my milk and winter pearls, we will go upstream along the river, and we will also go to pick fruits." ”

"The money spent on me is enough for you to buy fruit for decades."

Haizhu: "...... Even if we eat fairy fruits, it is not as happy as you are alive. ”

Second Uncle Qi stopped talking.

Qi Laosan threw a praising look at Haizhu.

Haizhu Niu became angry, walked in front of the road with shaking shoulders, and went first when he arrived at the yellow carpenter's shop.

“…… The bed board should be as long as my second uncle's body, and the two halves can be folded and fixed, and it can't be straight and upright when it is erected, and it can be half lying. There was no pen, no paper, no ink, Haizhu could only dictate, and if she couldn't understand it, she drew on the ground with her fingers, "The chair and the bed board can not be embedded together, but the chair must have a wheel, like a car wheel, can it be done?" ”

"I'll have to think about it." The yellow carpenter pondered for a moment, nodded and agreed to try, "I haven't done this kind of thing, and there are a lot of waste wood, so I can't ask for a low price, you see?" ”

"How much silver?" Qi Laosan asked.

"The manual cost is five taels, and the wood is calculated separately. In this way, you will pay for the handwork first, and the amount of wood will be paid when it is finished. ”

"Don't." Second Uncle Qi began to retreat again, he craned his neck to look out, and asked the third child to carry him away, "I don't want any chairs and beds, let's go back." ”

Haizhu didn't listen to him, bargained with the carpenter, cut half a tael of silver, and designated that the bad wood would also belong to her. After paying the deposit, she personally took the cloth ruler to measure the size of Second Uncle Qi, taking into account the corners and corners, and looked at the people with gloomy faces from time to time.

When she went out, she joked: "Fortunately, my second uncle was not moved to cry by me, if he cried, it would make people see a joke." ”

Qi Laosan is still very protective of his brother's face outside, and said: "Your second uncle is a tough guy with an iron heart, even if you spend fifty taels on him, he won't shed a single tear." ”

Haizhu: "I thought the men of our Qi family were all the same. ”

Qi Laosan: ......

Walking around on foot is very time-consuming, it has been past the day when he returns to the dock, Haizhu turned the dirty mattress over and laid it on the boat, Qi Laosan put down the person on his back and turned it over for him to lie on his stomach, he gasped and sat on the reef and said to rest for a while before leaving.

"I'm going to buy something to eat." Haizhu looked at the dock, "My second uncle hasn't eaten in the morning. ”

"I'm not hungry."

"Don't buy it, there's meat buns."

The brothers stopped one after the other, Qi Laosan dragged Haizhu to prevent her from moving, and spent nearly ten taels of silver in the town in the morning, even if the wind blew, it was distressing. He handed her the cold buns, "I'm not hungry, you eat first when you're hungry." ”

Although the weather was hot, the meat was fishy when it was cold, and Haizhu said, "I see that there is a seller of oysters, why don't I buy one for three cents?" ”

"Sanwen money is also money, you want to eat oyster meat, and the third uncle will smash it for you." There are oysters on the reef under the buttocks, and Qi Laosan is about to smash them when he picks up a stone.

Haizhu hurriedly waved his hand, "Let's go, go back, I'll shake the oar." ”

……

Qi Laosan stayed at home for three days before leaving, and before leaving, he explained to his mother the decision to come back and go to sea, "Mother, you are a little tired, and you will be relaxed when I come back." ”

"You haven't been out to sea, if something happens to you...... How can you let me live? Grandma Qi was in a dilemma, she didn't want her second son to die, and she wanted her younger son to live a stable life, "You just continue to work in Yanting, you don't care about the family's affairs, I'll go to your uncles and brothers for help." ”

"It's so easy to have an accident, okay, you don't have to worry about it, I'll be back next month." The boat was waiting, Qi Laosan no longer rubbed, he patted the old lady's shoulder, and shouted to the back room: "Second brother, I'm leaving, you wait for me to come back next month." ”

There was no movement in the back room, and Qi Laosan waited for a while and left the house quickly.

It was cloudy and windy, and the sea breeze brought the suppressed cry into the house, and the people on the bed had green tendons on their foreheads, and they couldn't move even if they tried their best.

*

Haizhu waited for the boat to leave before she rowed the boat away from home and went to sea. Today the sea was windy, it was a small tide day, and there were few people on the beach, so she adjusted the sails and went east, leaving people's sight and going to the deep sea. After casting the net, he put away the sail, Haizhu lowered the rope from the boat, tied the net and fell straight into the sea.

Ignoring the colorful sea fish, Haizhu has a clear goal of rummaging for shrimp, crabs and octopuses on the reef and sandy bottom of the seabed, not the small ones, and the big ones, so as not to be eye-catching.

She went back to cook and eat on time at noon, and in the evening she sold shrimp and crabs in scattered pieces before the fishing boat came back, and brought back a small half-bucket of half-dead sea fish at night, which did not arouse the suspicion of others.

After another three days, it was almost the middle of the month, and there was a typhoon on the sea in time for the tide, and no one dared to go to sea again, and the boats on the river were gone, and they were all dragged home and hidden in stone houses.

Chapter 14

It's raining.

The wind swept the fierce rain into the house, the wooden door was blown to the rattle, Haizhu saw that the water leaking from the crack in the door made the ground wet, worried that the wooden box in the house would be damp and moldy, she turned out a few white-washed children's clothes and stuffed them into the crack of the door.

There were no windows in the stone house, the cracks in the doors were blocked, and there was no light at all, and the room was so dim that only human figures could be seen. Dongzhu put down the flower rope, hung his hand and said: "The little brother must have forgotten us, and I don't know if he can walk, Chaoping will call sister, he should be able to speak." ”

At the mention of this, Feng Ping, who was somersaulting on the bed, instantly lost his spirit, he choked up and said that he missed his mother, "My mother doesn't want me, and she doesn't come back to see me." ”

Haizhu sighed, the wind and rain were howling outside, and the house was crying, she walked to the bedside and lit the oil candle, the orange fire lit up half of the room, she took out the new clothes in the suitcase and threw them on the bed, and said: "Don't cry, when the typhoon stops, you put on new clothes and I will take you to Yongning Wharf." ”

The two tearful children looked up in surprise, "Really? Sister, are you going to take us to find our mother? ”

Haizhu nodded, "But I can't guarantee that I will see her, she may be left in her hometown by her husband who remarried." ”

Dongzhu and Fengping couldn't listen to this, the two had hope, and immediately began to try on new shirts excitedly, muttering that they wanted to give their mother and little brother dried dried shrimp and abalone.

Haizhu sat against the wall with a chair, her body hidden in the half-dark and half-bright light, she smiled and crossed her legs to look at the two children in the new clothes and smelly beauty, thinking that it would be better to take people over for a walk, and she kept thinking that it was more torturous than throwing yourself into the air.

The hurricane at sea has moved to the shore, the huge waves crashing on the reef, countless fish and shrimp mixed with the sparsely chopped seaweed fell on the reef beach like rain, countless shrimp and crabs piled up like fallen leaves, the pincers were broken, the big fish with long legs were torn apart, a wave rushed up, and a thick layer of bones floated on the sea.

The hurricane swept into the sea, the water surface of the river rose instantly, the green aquatic plants were flooded in the blink of an eye, the fish at the bottom of the water were lifted out of the sea, and after the storm, the big fish and the small fish turned their stomachs together and floated on the water.

Haizhu was just thinking about making lunch, when she heard a sharp exclamation from next door, and then there was a popping sound on the wall, and the rubble and sand smashed against the stone wall. Staying in the house is like being locked in a clay pot, and there are countless hammers beating outside, making people dizzy and distended to be so distended that they can't hear what they say when they are close to their ears.

Feng Ping was scared, Dong Zhu hugged him and lifted the quilt to roll the person, Hai Zhu pushed the tables and benches in the house to the door against the crumbling wooden door, she stared at the roof worriedly, for fear that the hurricane would lift the grass cover away.

I don't know how long it took, the sound outside the house gradually disappeared, Haizhu stepped in the water and listened to the dripping rain, there was a kind of peace that the world had been rebuilt, and the power of nature was irresistible to manpower. She removed the table, chair and bench, and the moment she opened the door, she was stabbed and squinted, and the clouds rolled in the sky, and the yard was in shambles, and the ground was lifted, and there was mud everywhere, mixed with grass clippings and leaves, and there were a few pools of fishy surimi under the base of the wall. The door was torn off by the wind, and the door panels were stretched horizontally and vertically, and looking out through the door panels, there was a sea of water outside.

"This ghost weather, the old lady will move away from this ghost place sooner or later." The woman next door scolded, accompanied by the thudding of pots and pans.

Haizhu ran out of the door with her cloak on her coat to see that the roof of the neighbor's stove house had been torn off, the roof of the bedroom had been lifted in half, and the grass cover hung diagonally from the wall.

"Haizhu go home and don't come out, I don't know when the typhoon will come again, you sisters and brothers will go out of the house separately." Wei Jinhua stood at the door of her house and shouted.

"I'll go to my grandmother's house and I'll be back soon." Haizhu glanced at the river, turned around and made a detour from the back of the house, every family had losses, two or three walls had fallen, taking advantage of the wind and rain to stop, everyone was busy repairing the house, and the fish and shrimp that rushed to the door of the house had no time to take care of.

Haizhu picked up two flat fish that were still swinging their tails in the mud and carried them, and ran all the way to her second uncle's house, seeing that the wall was undamaged and the door of the house was closed, she stood outside and shouted: "Milk? It's all good, right? ”

"Haizhu? What are you doing here, girl? There are a lot of things blocked behind the door, and Grandma Qi didn't open the door, she asked her eldest granddaughter to go back quickly, "In the summer, your father and your second uncle reinforced the roof, no matter how big the typhoon is, it will be fine, don't worry about us, go back quickly, hide in the house, obedient, I will discount your legs if you run around outside." ”

Haizhu stuck out her tongue, her mouth was full of promises, and she ran home quickly after confirming that it was okay here. At this time, someone came out to pick up the fish and shrimp that washed ashore, picked a few still alive and squatted at the water's edge to scrape the fish scales, scraped the fish scales and carried them back to the pot after they were directly soaked in the water.

On a rainy day, the temperature is still high, and the fish and shrimp are rotten and smelly when they go back, Haizhu regretfully stares at the fish and shrimp rolling in the mud, and the pie falls from the sky, but he can't catch it.

When the people living by the river saw Haizhu kicking the colorless fish into the river one by one, they all stopped her and told her to go home, "If you can't live, there will be another typhoon later, and they will still be swept up." ”

The wind suddenly rose on the river, Haizhu looked at the sea, and the huge waves that rushed to the sky suddenly rose, like the open mouth of a giant python, she shouted, pulled out her legs and ran home. For a while, those who scraped fish, cooked rice, shoveled mud and dug ditches for drainage stopped their movements and ran home, and got into the stone house.

Haizhu threw the two fish she picked up into the yard, and she was not in the mood to eat fish at this time, so she went into the house and closed the door and put the table, chair and bench behind the door, took off her shoes and sat on the table against the door.

Dongzhu and Fengping fell asleep, and were awakened by the sound of a typhoon passing by, this battle is not uncommon for children living by the sea, but they can't get used to it, and the fear from the bottom of their hearts can't be suppressed.

"Sister, you said that if you don't live by the sea, there will be no typhoon? Didn't my mother live by the sea? Dongzhu asked.

"It should be, people who are far away from the sea make a living from farming, they also watch the sky to eat, and when the drought and flood are flooded, the crops are lost, and they also have to go hungry." People who live by the sea will drown and die of disease, but they will not starve to death, and Haizhu still prefers to live by the sea.

It took three days for the typhoon to move from the sea to the land, and the wind and rain continued, and the fishermen did not dare to go out to sea, so they relied on picking fresh fish, shrimp and crabs from the sea and rivers to survive.

The rotting dead fish and shrimp were all dug and buried, but the faint smell could not be removed, and the seaside also stinked, and Haizhu didn't even dare to eat the oysters on the reef when she came to catch the sea, and she smelled that the cracks in the rocks on the reef were smelly.

"Haizhu, come and give me a hand." Grandma Qi shouted, "This stone has just been washed ashore, and there is something down there." ”

Haizhu trotted over, and the grandparents and grandchildren worked together to lift the bluestone slab, and the crabs below saw the light and waved their long pliers in unison.

"Are the sores on my second uncle's body better?" She asked.

Grandma Qi shook her head, "It's humid on a rainy day, and it will get better when the weather clears." ”

"After two days, the sea receded, and I called my Uncle Mutang to go to the town to bring back the chair and bed." Haizhu picked up the last crab, and saw that there were still two big abalone on the slate, she hurriedly took a shovel and pry it off, and continued: "Milk, when the day is good, I will take Dongzhu and Fengping to Yongning Wharf to find my mother." ”

"Can you find it?"

"I always have to go and see, Fengping is calling his mother in his dreams."

No one can stop the child from looking for her mother, Grandma Qi only told her to choose a good day to go out, take care of her two younger siblings on the way, and don't lose people.

"Old aunt, go back quickly, your second boy is biting his tongue."

Grandma Qi turned her head suddenly, her sunken eyes widened, her cloudy eyes were frighteningly bright, and her voice, which was still calm just now, instantly became hoarse, "But my family?" ”

The messenger couldn't bear to look at it, but nodded slowly.