In front of the courtyard of the Xu family is a row of five spacious and regular but also dilapidated blue brick houses. The pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info shows that the living standard of this family was once considered to be above the well-off, but now it has fallen down.

The same is true of Li Gongfu's home.

At the beginning, Xu Xian's father was in business, and Li Gongfu's father was the head catcher in the Qiantang County Yazhong, and the two families were still rich, so they each bought such a house.

Six years ago, there was a plague in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the old people of the two families died of illness one after another.

At that time, Li Gongfu was twelve years old, Xu Jiaorong was eleven years old, and Xu Xian was only five years old. Two and a half children and a doll who don't understand anything, the difficulties of life can be imagined.

Later, Li Gongfu entrusted his father's relationship before his death and joined the public office as an errand at the age of twelve, while Xu Jiaorong sold his father's shop and did some knitting and embroidery work to earn some household income.

At the beginning, Li Gongfu only worked as a lowest-level servant, although he was taken care of by his father's shadow, but his income was limited after all, and he could only barely support himself.

Xu Jiaorong also has a younger brother to support, and he can't make ends meet every day, and gradually he can only sit and eat. Although Li Gongfu tried his best to help, the days eventually became poorer and poorer.

It wasn't until Li Gongfu became a seventeen-year-old that he did the work of catching heads in three shifts, and his income gradually increased, and the lives of the two families improved slightly.

At this moment, on the sloping roof of the main house, there is a girl in a cloth skirt who is half-squatting and half-kneeling, with a pair of arms exposed by the high sleeves, and the new tiles are arranged on the roof in turn. The sun slanted down, reflecting her wheat-colored skin that had been formed by years of hard work. A drop of sweat runs down her softly curved cheeks to her jaw, crystal clear, and radiant in the sunlight.

"This is a good woman and a woman I am destined to marry back home. ”

Looking at the girl on the roof who was skillfully doing these man's work, Li Gongfu said to himself in his heart.

At this time, Xu Xian was moving out two pieces of roof tiles from the bamboo basket under the eaves, half-hugging and half-sandwiching them to the side of a long wooden ladder leaning against the house and about to climb up.

Seeing this, Li Gongfu hurriedly stepped forward in two steps, grabbed Xu Xian's rear collar and carried him down from the ladder.

"I'll do these things, and you can watch from below. ”

After saying that, he ignored Xu Xian, who hummed and pouted, put down the bag of medicinal herbs with a smile, reached out and gently lifted a bamboo basket tile, and climbed up the roof along the ladder.

"Why did you come back so early today?"

Xu Jiaorong had already heard Li Gongfu talking below, and when she saw him coming up, she asked with some surprise. She knew that although Gongfu Li was young, he had always been the most conscientious in his official affairs, otherwise he would not have been appreciated and appointed by the county magistrate.

Li Gongfu didn't say anything about his injury, but only said that the yamen was idle today, so he took a half-day leave. He immediately took out the tiles from the bamboo basket, but he had never done this kind of work in his previous life or in his life, and he didn't know how to do it for a while.

Xu Jiaorong saw that he didn't know how to place the tiles while holding them, and said with a chuckle: "This tiling work is not so simple, I also asked the masons on the street many times to find some tricks, you can only help me on the side." ”

Li Gongfu's face turned red, and he had to hand the tiles in his hand to Xu Jiaorong: "Why don't you just ask a mason to repair the roof, and you have to work hard yourself?"

Xu Jiaorong took the tile from his hand, glanced at him and said angrily: "Please don't pay the mason?

When passing the tiles, Li Gongfu noticed that Xu Jiaorong's hands were thicker than ordinary women's slender hands, and the palms and fingertips were rough and calloused. When his mind flashed, the bits and pieces of this originally weak and quiet girl who had worked hard to manage the housework on both sides in the past few years flashed in his mind, and a trace of tenderness surged in his heart. He couldn't tell whether this feeling came from his ex's memories or his own mind at the moment, but none of this mattered, because these were all true emotions that belonged to him Li Gongfu.

Tenderness swelled up, and he naturally reached out and grabbed Xu Jiaorong's plastered palm, rubbed her rough palm and fingers with his fingers, and sighed softly: "Jiaorong, you've worked hard all these years!"

Xu Jiaorong's face turned red, and she looked down a little nervously, and saw that her younger brother was squatting in the yard without looking up, so she hurriedly shook off Li Gongfu's palm, and said in a low voice: "What are you doing, what kind of crazy are you doing for no reason?"

Li Gongfu smiled but did not answer, and then began to help honestly.

Naturally, two people can do things much faster, not to mention the combination of men and women. In a short time, the roof has been repaired completely, but dozens of new tiles have been patched in the middle of the mottled old tiles, which looks quite eye-catching. And whether the repaired roof is tight will have to wait for the rain to verify.

"Okay, let's go down!" Xu Jiaorong patted the plaster on her hand and said.

Li Gongfu smiled slightly, and first put the tools used by Xu Jiaorong in a bamboo basket and threw them down directly, startling Xu Xian, who was squatting in the yard and not knowing what to do. Then he hugged Xu Jiaorong horizontally and jumped off the roof.

Xu Jiaorong let out a short scream, and when she came back to her senses a little, she found that the two had fallen to the ground. Just after eating this fright, her mind was blank and her hands and feet were weak, and she forgot about shyness and struggle. It wasn't until Xu Xian clapped his hands on the side that he woke up like a dream, angrily and ashamedly, punched Li Gongfu in the chest a few times, and shouted in a low voice: "You are really crazy, let me go quickly!"

Li Gongfu knew that although the two parents had made a marriage contract for them before their deaths, after all these years of supporting each other and sharing weal and woe, Xu Jiaorong even decided that she would not marry, but she had always adhered to the law of etiquette, and she would never go beyond the slightest point in getting along on weekdays.

Xu Jiaorong straightened the clothes on her body, first glared at Li Gongfu fiercely, and then turned her head to the coaxing Xu Xian and shouted, "Since I don't need your help, why don't you go to read a book quickly?"

Xu Xian shrunk his neck, raised the thing in his hand and said, "I'm looking at the medicinal materials that Brother Li brought back!"

What he was holding in his hand was the medicine bag that Li Gongfu had just put aside.

Xu Jiaorong forgot to be angry, looked at Li Gongfu a little nervously and asked, "What are you doing when you bring medicinal herbs back?"

Li Gongfu snorted, punched his fist twice in the chest, and said, "Don't you know that I have always been as strong as an ox, where can I get any diseases......?"

Before he could come up with a reasonable excuse, Xu Xian had already rushed to the side and said, "Sister, I guess Brother Li is not sick but injured." I looked at the medicinal herbs in the bag and recognized the two flavored herbs of Panax notoginseng and peach kernel, both of which are wound medicines that invigorate blood and dispel blood stasis. ”

I don't know if it's fate or nature, although Xu Xian, this kid, has both understanding and hard work in reading, but he is always more interested in medicine, and he runs outside the pharmacy to peek and eavesdrop on the door window when he has nothing to do.

"Wounded medicine!Gongfu, are you injured?Where are the injuries?" Xu Jiaorong became even more nervous, no longer caring about the etiquette between men and women, and forgetting that he was full of plaster at the moment, touching everywhere on Li Gongfu's body.

Li Gongfu raised his hands and said: "Don't panic, I just accidentally touched my head, it was Brother Wang Fengshan who made a big fuss as a doctor after he found out, and he insisted that I take some medicine back and decoction." I didn't like to brush off his kindness, so I had to bring the medicine back. Don't you think I'm in a good position now? Actually, I don't need to take that medicine at all. ”

Xu Jiaorong asked him to turn around, and looked at the back of his head that was only a little bruised and not bleeding, and then he was a little relieved. After listening to Li Gongfu's last sentence, he was dumbfounded and said: "The medicinal materials have been taken back, how can I do it if I don't take it? I'll go and decoct the medicine for you right away!"

Xu Xian hurriedly stopped him and said, "Sister, the decoction needs to be taken after meals, you might as well go and boil two eggs first to help Brother Li apply a dress." ”

Xu Jiaorong nodded again and again, asked Li Gongfu to sit down in the house, and hurriedly ran to the kitchen.