After a while, Xinghua suddenly felt that Erhu had grown up and was sensible, and was no longer the naughty little gangster, two red clouds flew on her face, stroked her hair, and said: "You are talking nonsense, this is Xinghua's home, Xinghua is the Zhang family, and death is the ghost of the Zhang family, and she will serve our mother for the rest of her life." ”

With that, she ran out of the house to find her mother. When his father married her to Erhu's brother as a child daughter-in-law, she was still an ignorant child, and of course she couldn't experience what it was like to be a daughter-in-law. When she grew up, she often saw the joyful scenes of sisters her age getting married in the village. However, although she is called a child daughter-in-law, she has never thought about remarrying. Besides, at that time, it was the custom in the countryside to absolutely forbid a woman who had died of her husband to remarry. But she was still a girl after all, a girl in her early twenties, and her face turned even redder when she thought of this.

After Xinghua left, Erhu led the jujube red horse into the stable, returned to the hut in his own east wing, sat on the edge of the kang, and suddenly remembered the sad past that his father and mother often told him about his sister Xinghua.

It turned out that this sister of his was not his own sister, but his child daughter-in-law and sister-in-law. More than ten years ago, when Erhu was four years old and his brother Dahu was six years old, his father Zheng Xiaotian went to the prairie to hunt.

This family surnamed Gao is Xinghua's hometown. At that time, Xinghua was only seven years old, her family was too poor, and she had no mother since she was a child. She also has two younger sisters, one aged five and the other three. As soon as Zheng Xiaotian entered the two small earthen houses of the Gao family, he saw that the three children had no clothes to wear, and they were lying on the kang with a broken quilt.

Xinghua's father, Lao Gao, hurriedly let Zheng Xiaotian on the kang, and said with a red face: "This eldest brother, let you laugh, my family is so poor that the three children don't have a single piece of clothing to wear." ”

Zheng Xiaotian glanced at the three little girls in the quilt on the kang and said, "It's nothing, our poor families are almost the same, how can we tell jokes? ”

"Hey......" Lao Gao sighed and said, "Brother Zheng, you sit, I'll get you something to eat." ”

Zheng Xiaotian said gratefully: "Don't bother, just have ready-made ones to fill your stomach." ”

"I'm not afraid of your jokes, I don't have food at home. He wanted to entertain Zheng Xiaotian well, but he couldn't get anything delicious, so he had to go to the kitchen and cook a big pot of potatoes. Two middle-aged men chatted while boiling the pot.

"Hey ......" Lao Gao sighed again, and said sadly: "Brother, let you laugh, our family is poor, and there are many children, this day is not easy, so I have to take potatoes to entertain you." ”

Zheng Xiaotian persuaded: "Hey, brother, look at what you said, in this chaotic world, every family will have a hard time! ”

Lao Gao said: "But right now, this day is sad, this girl is young and can still deal with it, but when they grow up, if they still have no clothes to wear, they lie on the kang all day long and are covered with a broken quilt, where will my old face go!"

At this time, one of the three children on the kang showed her little brain, stretched her neck and said to her father: "Dad, I have grown up, I want to wear clothes!"

"Dad, I'm grown up too, and I'm going to get dressed too!" another little girl got out of the bed.

"Dad, I'm grown up too, and I'm going to get dressed too!" the youngest girl also came out, she had just learned to speak, and she knew that she wanted clothes to wear.

"The children are so pitiful, I have a piece of cloth here, which I bought when I was hunting in the bazaar, so I will make a dress for these three girls. Zheng Xiaotian saw that the three girls were too pitiful, so he took out a gray coarse cloth from his bag and handed it to Lao Gao with both hands.

Lao Gao shook his head and refused to accept anything. Zheng Xiaotian said: "We are all poor, two bitter gourds on a seedling, what are you polite? The two younger ones are better, the eldest girl should be seven or eight years old, right?

In fact, Zheng Xiaotian was reluctant to buy this piece of fabric, which was bought for his two sons, for this piece of fabric, he sold three wolf skins, and he gritted his teeth to buy it.

"Hey, we're used to being poor, we don't pay attention to this, and no one laughs at them. "The old man raised his head and blushed, because he was poor, he had to use words and excuses. His face was wrinkled, out of proportion to his age.

Zheng Xiaotian resolutely insisted on leaving this piece of fabric, Lao Gao Cheng was terrified, and said vigorously that he wanted to give money, but how could he have half a copper coin at home?

Zheng Xiaotian saw that Lao Gao couldn't help it, so he had to say, "This cloth is just my accommodation fee, right?"

Lao Gao hurriedly said, "No, no." Eat a few potatoes and get some sleep, what's the point? ”

"Yo, it's scorched, it's scorched!" Zheng Xiaotian didn't want to argue any longer, so he quickly changed the topic.

Lao Gao hurriedly lifted the lid of the pot, and the aroma of ripe potatoes immediately filled the small earthen house. The two young girls were shy and shy, got out of the bed, surrounded the pot with bare stomachs, and rushed to eat potatoes. Seven-year-old Xinghua saw that there were living people, and she didn't dare to come out when she was lying in the bed.

Lao Gao took out some pickles, and a few people gathered around the stove to eat.

Lao Gao said while eating potatoes: "Brother Zheng, Xinghua and her mother went early, I really can't pull it anymore." You are well-informed, show the girls a way to live. ”

"Hey, it's not easy to feed the children these days, or ......" Zheng Xiaotian pondered for a while, and said tentatively: "I have two sons, one is four years old and the other is six years old, and now it is fashionable to marry my son as a child daughter-in-law, if you agree, let your eldest girl Xinghua be a child daughter-in-law for my eldest son, right? When they grow up, let them get married?

After hearing this, Lao Gao was silent for a while, nodded, and a wry smile appeared on his face, and then he coughed, gasped a few times, and immediately agreed, saying, "Hey, I'm having asthma, I'm going to do it again." Brother, you stay at my house for a while, and I'll be back as soon as I go out to do some errands. ”

As he spoke, he walked out of the house with tears in his eyes, and came back after a while, borrowed a set of shabby clothes from a neighbor's house, let Xinghua put them on, and prepared to let her follow the good Samaritan in front of him the next day to be a child daughter-in-law for his son.

Seeing that Lao Gao and Xinghua were reluctant to give up, Zheng Xiaotian said again: "Brother, although my family is not too rich, it is better than your family, please rest assured, his aunt and I will take good care of her as a daughter." His aunt has done a good needlework, and I will go to the market tomorrow to buy a good piece of cloth and make a few new clothes for Xinghua. ”

Zheng Xiaotian also gave the Gao family the three oceans he earned from hunting in the last few days, which was considered a dowry. So the next day, Xinghua married into the old Zheng family in Xiaogushan, and became a child daughter-in-law to Erhu's six-year-old brother Dahu. Since Xinghua and Dahu were still young, the Zheng family raised Xinghua as their daughter, and she also felt the warmth of home in the Zheng family.

However, there are unforeseen circumstances in the sky, and people have good and bad luck. A year later, when Dahu was seven years old, he suddenly got a strange serious illness, and soon died and passed away, and poor Xinghua became a child daughter-in-law without a little husband.

Now, the apricot blossom has grown into an adult, and she has become a flower girl in her twenties who is as beautiful as a fairy. Since her parents-in-law were often away from home, she took on the burden of housework and farming.

According to local custom, a woman cannot remarry after her husband dies. Therefore, Xinghua can only stay in the Zheng family, and she has regarded this place as her home, and gradually became close to the Zheng family, treating Erhu's parents as her biological father and mother, and Erhu as her own brother, and Erhu also called her "sister".

"Steward Ma, what are you doing? My second tiger is tired of hunting, and he doesn't want to see you!" Suddenly, Xinghua's sharp and cold shout came from outside, interrupting Erhu's thoughts. His heart moved, and he didn't know what was going on outside the road, and he hurriedly walked out of the house......