In the early autumn of the twenty-third year of Taihe, the sun rises in the early morning, shining in the lush forest, and from a distance it looks like a piece of green with a little gold, a good autumn scenery.

But when you're in it, the feeling is different. When the sun shines, the water vapor in the forest is steaming, the clothes are sticky to the body, there is no wind, and the humus of fallen leaves is between the nose, which is very annoying.

Li Xiaohan straightened up, pulled the cheesecloth shirt attached to his body, and beat his sour waist.

After working for more than an hour, I was not very tired, but I was hungry, and the empty bowl of rice bran porridge I drank in the morning had almost been digested.

Reaching out to wipe the sweat from his forehead, suddenly, a faint cry came from his ears, and he listened attentively, as if it had come down from the top of the mountain.

That's terrifying, and on the top of the mountain is the ancestral tomb of the Li family.

"Mother, mother, listen, is there anyone crying on the mountain?" Although she is only a thirteen-year-old girl, Li Xiaohan is naturally bold, and her words are a little scared, but more curious and gossipy.

Unexpectedly, after not waiting for his mother-in-law Wang's reply for a long time, Li Xiaohan turned his head to search, only to see Wang staring at the top of the mountain in a daze.

"Mother, what are you looking at?"

"Xiaohan, come up and take a look, is there a person in front of your grandmother's grave on the top of the mountain?" Wang's lips were pale, and his voice trembled as he asked his daughter for confirmation.

Li Xiaohan has never seen her own grandmother, and it is said that her father died when he was seven years old and buried in the mountains. Later, my grandfather married my step-grandmother Chen and gave birth to two more sons, who in turn married and had children.

Therefore, Li Xiaohan's father and mother took her, and they were all begging for a living in the hands of their stepgrandmother Chen.

Li Xiaohan is short, and her vision is not as wide as Wang's, but she climbed up the tree with a grunt, stood on the branch and raised her hand to look up, her heart slowly fell, "Mother, look at the clothes and body shape, it should be my father." ”

"That's your father, something must have happened, something must have happened!" Li Xiaohan didn't dare to be sure, but Wang seemed to have obtained corroboration, his voice was terrible, and he ran up the mountain as he spoke.

Xiao Han hurriedly slid down the tree and ran to the top of the mountain.

The more they ran up, the more real the suppressed cry became, the two of them became anxious, they didn't care to look at the road, they fell several times in a row, climbed up and ran up.

When I ran to the top of the mountain, I saw Li Xiaohan and her father Li Xiandong, a dark and silent thirty-seven-year-old peasant man, the backbone of this small family, kneeling on the ground with his legs and half lying in front of the grave and crying hoarsely.

Li Xiaohan's tears flowed down.

"Daddy, Daddy, what's wrong with you?".

Xu was holding his head and crying too depressed and sad, Li Xiandong didn't notice the approach of his wife and daughter, and he didn't raise his head until Li Xiaohan called.

His eyes were bloody and red, and his tears and snot flowed together, like a cage trapped beast.

"Dad, Dad, what's going on, you tell us, let's figure it out together." Li Xiaohan's heart was beating fast and fast, and all kinds of conjectures came to mind.

“……”

Li Xiandong's pale lips opened and closed several times, but he couldn't make a sound, and finally made a rough voice like grit grinding blood, "Your grandfather, your grandfather said that he wanted to split up."

Splitting up, just splitting up, Li Xiaohan breathed a sigh of relief, she thought something had happened to her father.

"Baby, her father...... Dad said how to divide it. Wang, who had not spoken up, did not breathe a sigh of relief like Li Xiaohan, but asked tremblingly.

"Dad said, dad said, divide us, in the future, he will live with the second and third brothers, give us two acres of paddy fields and three acres of dry land, and then give us five hangers to build a house, and let us go out and build a house by ourselves."

Xu felt that he couldn't face his wife and daughter as a result of this separation, Li Xiandong covered his face with his hands, and his voice was dull and hoarse from his fingers.

"What about our family?" Wang was originally weak, and when he heard this, his body was weak, and he sat on the ground and cried bitterly.

Li Xiaohan also had weak legs, and he was busy holding on to the tombstone on the side before standing slightly.

Looking around, I was at a loss.

The Li family in Pingshan Village is said to be a scholarly family for a hundred years.

Many years ago, their clan fled to this place, but they still did not forget the lessons of their ancestors, and held their own famous family: if the family is divided, the eldest son gets the most family property and is responsible for supporting the elderly, and the rest of the sons share the other meager shares.

This family rule is like the rising sun and the setting of the moon, which is justified.

However, Li Xiaohan's grandfather Li Shengli divided the eldest son of Li Xiaohan's father, Li Xiandong, which means that the father thinks that the eldest son is not filial and does not want to live with this son.

This is pointing at Li Xiandong's backbone and scolding, and it is a complete denial of the first half of his eldest son's life.

Moreover, Li Shengli's division of the family is particularly harsh, although the majority of the family children are divided, but as a father, he will always consider his children, in addition to the ancestral family style, he must let the rest of his sons survive after the separation.

Li Xiaohan made a quick calculation in his heart, the Li family now has twenty-four acres of paddy fields, growing rice; There are 35 acres of dry land, of which 10 acres are planted with wheat and 25 acres are planted with cotton, but only 2 acres of paddy fields and 3 acres of dry fields are allocated to them. According to the current grain production and tax payment, about two acres of land can support an adult man, and the number of women and children is halved.

Grandfather's sharing of this bit of land really just made their family of three starve to death.

As for money, don't think about it, the step-grandmother Chen is in charge of the family, and several cousins go to school together, which is crying out for poverty every year. It is estimated that it is just a few dollars to build a thatched house.

But Wang injured his body when he gave birth many years ago, and then he never gave birth again, and he has been taking medicine intermittently for all these years.

Although this pair of medicine of dozens of dollars is often cut off due to this reason and the money is not in hand, and a pair of medicine can be boiled from rich soup to clear as water when it can be bought, but after all, it is the hope of Wang and Li Xiandong.

And this separation, starvation and death are all extravagant hopes, and naturally there is no money for medicine.

Li Xiaohan is willing to split the family, the step-grandmother in the family is eccentric, they do the most and heaviest work in this room, but the food is the worst, she is not willing to stay in the old house to support others.

She also believes that with her family's hard work, she can live a better life than the old house.

However, this is a fair division of the family, even if it is more generous, so that they can turn around a little, it will not be just starving to death.

Li Xiaohan's heart was cold, she was a spicy and assertive little girl, seeing that her father and mother only cared about the pain and did not move, Li Xiaohan had to remind her parents loudly, "Dad, mother, let's make this matter bigger, grandfather loves face, Brother Cai Rong wants to be famous for studying, we are reasonable, and the clan has to look towards us!" ”

"That's right! Right! Let's find the patriarch to administer justice. Wang wiped a handful of tears and nodded anxiously.

"It's useless." Li Xiandong's voice carried deep sadness and despair, "Dad said that Evergreen was accepted as a disciple by Zhu Xiucai next door, and he was given the word Zhiyuan. Dad said that Evergreen has a future, he and his mother have to help, and in the future, he and his mother will follow the second brother to this room. ”

Scholar, a scholar who was officially accepted as an apprentice, no wonder her father was almost swept out of the house by her grandfather.

Li Xiaohan knew that the clan had come up with a scholar who wanted to go crazy.

The Li family has a century-old inheritance, but in the past ten years, there has not even been a single Xiucai, the farmers are busy fighting for water and farming, and there is no talent in the clan who can stand up to the scene, and the Li patriarch can't speak to the chief.

If the cousin can be accepted as a disciple by Zhu Xiucai, the clan must have strongly supported this scholar seed.

No wonder his father was almost swept out of the house, but he could only secretly run to his mother's grave and cry bitterly.

The world is like this, everywhere is doomed, and there is nowhere to escape.

No matter how spicy and assertive she is, Li Xiaohan is just a thirteen-year-old girl. She held on to her grandmother's tombstone and slowly fell, the rough stone tablet rubbed her hand painfully, but it was not as painful as the whole head jumping.

There was another howl from the Wang family, "Dad, why are you so ruthless." Mother, you died early. Baby, her father, blame me for dragging you down. ”

The words of his father Li Xiandong are constantly replaying and roaring, "Evergreen was accepted as a disciple by Zhu Xiucai next door, and he was given the word Zhiyuan, and the word Zhiyuan was given ......"

Li Zhiyuan.

Li Zhiyuan.

Li Changrong, the word Zhiyuan!

Like a hammer, it struck heavily into the depths of Li Xiaohan's skull.

The white light exploded in front of Li Xiaohan's eyes, and the inextricable strands of force in his brain were pulling, and suddenly, everything was remembered.

She's wearing a book.