Traveling through 1942 with space

Chapter 189: Warmth in the Storm

People are honest these days, and after two full meals, the well diggers regained a lot of strength. They actually dug ten meters deep today.

After work ended and dinner was served in the evening, everyone took out their food containers.

From this we can see the family conditions. My eldest cousin's two uncles' families are supported by my eldest uncle's family, and they all use burlap bags.

The other five people were holding a few bamboo tubes, which looked really shabby.

Hou Xiaoge didn't have the kindness to give the cloth bag to others. After all, a cloth bag containing ten kilograms of noodles only cost one or two cents.

He carried a sack of bran out of the cave and asked his cheap mother to get the scale.

In those days, wooden beam scales were used and weights were used for weighing.

Fortunately, Hou Xiaoge had learned how to recognize a scale rod from his grandfather in his previous life, so he only needed a little adaptation to learn it in this era.

Because there was no food given yesterday, the adults gave 7.5 kilograms and the children gave 1.5 kilograms. After paying their wages, only half of the bran was left in the big bag.

"Okay, boss. We'll leave first." Several people bowed to Hou Xiaoge with smiles on their faces while holding the food.

"These guys are good at their job. Every afternoon after work, they sweep the yard clean.

The cost of digging the well is too high. I only eat about 20 kilograms of food a day, and I have to pay 40 kilograms of food as compensation." Wang Maimiao looked at the remaining half of the sack and said with some distress.

"Mom, people dig wells at risk of their lives, and this amount of food is really not much." Hou Xiaoge explained with a wry smile.

"I know, it just hurts!"

"Whoa!"

.........

The helpers from outside the village were all relatives and friends of Nanjiagou Village. Although they had enough food from their work yesterday, they did not bring back any food.

Today, each of us carried nearly eight kilograms of food. After a day of hard work, our bodies did not feel tired at all and we walked very quickly.

After leaving the village, they looked at each other, agreed to meet outside the village tomorrow, and walked towards their own shacks.

Hou Yanzi was a married girl from Nanjiagou. In early December, her family of four fled to Qin Province. When she heard the familiar name of Nanjiagou Hou Family, she dragged her husband and two children to the vicinity of Nanjiagou Village.

Seeing the tall village wall of Nanjiagou, Hou Yanzi was shocked and delighted. She hoped that this was her mother's home so that her family could benefit from it.

After knocking on the village gate, Hou Yanzi recognized at a glance that the person who opened the door was a lame man from her mother's family, whom she called her uncle.

Hou Yanzi received the unfortunate news from this cousin that all her family members had died when they fled to the Central Plains, and now she had no support.

Moreover, Nanjiagou Village would not accept refugees other than the Hou family, and if it did, it would only accept relatives with the surname Hou.

Hou Yanzi's parents and younger brother had died in the Central Plains. The villagers were all cousins who were not very close to her. They were already in financial difficulties themselves, so naturally they were unwilling to take her family in.

After all, she was a woman from the Hou family, so the clan still provided the couple with tools for digging a cave and some wheat straw, and sent them five kilograms of relief food, so that they could dig a cave and live in it on the slope outside the village.

He also promised the young couple that once they saved up three dollars, he would allocate a piece of land for them in the village.

After the snowfall some time ago, the laborers in Nanjiagou Village had little work to do and life became difficult. They could barely get enough food and drink. Hou Yanzi took her two children out to beg for slop and rotten vegetable leaves.

Her husband went to work near the train station, but life was really hard and they often only had one meal every two days.

A few days ago, something extraordinary seemed to have happened in Nanjiagou Village. The craft of making candied haws became known and a workshop was set up in the village.

Hou Yanzi thought she could still hold on, but her two children were so skinny that she was afraid they wouldn't make it through the winter, so she often asked the clan elder, Uncle Wu, to help her family.

God rewards those who work hard. Yesterday, the old man said that the richest man in the village who makes stewed pork needed people to do a few days of work. Digging wells is hard work and dangerous.

But the treatment was very good, the meals were provided and they were also given five kilograms of bran a day.

They were almost dying, so why would they care about such a little danger? Hou Yanzi naturally agreed.

Last night, Hou Yanzi saw her husband coming back with a big belly, but because he didn't bring any food, she could only pay him the next day.

Looking at her man burping from overeating and smelling the oily fragrance around his lips, Hou Yanzi felt both happy and annoyed.

What makes me happy is that my husband has a good body only when he is well fed, and my mother and I have a strong support.

What annoyed her was that she didn't put a bamboo tube or something on her man. What if the employer didn't want him tomorrow, wouldn't more than two kilograms of food be gone?

Today I took my two children out to beg for food, and we came back empty-handed again.

The good thing is that the villagers have hot water to drink at my cousin's stall. Today, I took my two children to drink hot water and also had a bite of the slop.

Although the dishwashing water didn't taste very good, Sister Cuihua added some salt to it and it still tasted very good.

In fact, when she took her two children to ask for hot water for the first time, her cousin Minyou asked her sister-in-law to serve them a bowl of spicy soup.

Although most of the spicy soup was given to her two children, she also had a sip. The taste was the second best she had ever had in her life. The best was the pig-killing dish served at the village entrance last time.

Three days later, when she went there for the second time, Sister Cuihua's face looked unhappy. Fortunately, she only asked for boiled water, otherwise she thought Sister Cuihua would chase her away, so she couldn't go there often.

The same goes for the braised pork stall on the other side. She would go there with her two children every five days. Every time she went there, her cousin Cuiping would give the two children some meat.

That's how their family is. They survive by getting a little here today and a little there tomorrow.

But the swill today was really little, and the two children finished it in two bites each. She herself hadn't eaten for almost two days and was really starving.

So at night, after the two children returned to the shack to sleep, Hou Cuiping curled up at the door of the shack waiting for her husband.

"Big Dog, is that you, Big Dog?" Hou Cuiping said as she looked at the figure approaching from a distance in the dark night.

"Mother, it's me. Why are you outside so cold at night?" Big Dog came to his wife in a hurry, hugging his arms.

"I'm a little worried because you haven't come back yet even after dark." Hou Yanzi looked at her man and heard him speak with full energy. He should have had a good day today.

"Let's go home and talk." The uncle touched his wife's hand, which was icy cold, and pulled her into the shack with some heartache.

"Mother of my child, you must be hungry! Look, I have received my wages for yesterday and today, which is more than seven kilograms of food." Li Dagou took out two large bamboo tubes from his left and right arms and handed them to Hou Yanzi, saying with joy.

Hou Yanzi quickly took the bamboo tube and carefully opened the child on it, only to see two bamboo tubes full of yellow-white bran inside.

"Boss, this is a lot of food." Hou Yanzi smiled happily.

But just as I finished speaking, my stomach started to growl very loudly.

"Mother of my child, close your eyes." Li Gouzi said with some heartache as he looked at his wife with sunken cheeks.

"What's wrong with you?" Hou Yanzi rolled her eyes at her man and then closed her eyes obediently.

"Open your mouth!"

"what!"

Seeing his wife's mouth open, Li Dagou carefully took out an oil-paper bag from the inner pocket of his cotton-padded jacket.

The oil paper package naturally contained chicken. When eating the big plate of chicken today, the men ate part of it, and asked Hou Xiaoge for help to pack up the remaining part.

Because of the body warmth, the chicken that had been frozen in the afternoon had softened by now.

Li Dagou turned around and gently opened the oil paper bag, then took out the oiliest chicken butt that he had specially reserved, and quickly stuffed it into his wife's mouth.

"What, is this meat?" Hou Yanzi felt the greasy taste of meat in her mouth and her eyes widened instantly.

"hey-hey!"

"Eat! Eat quickly, I have more." Li Dagou handed the oil paper bag to his wife and said proudly.

Hou Yanzi was chewing the greasy chicken butt in her mouth, and at this moment she felt that she was the happiest woman in the world.

"Master, you are so kind."