Chapter 56 New foothold
Li Changlin apologized and explained the family's decision.
Bai Ziqian was silent for a moment, and when he was about to turn around and leave, Li Changlin stopped him and reminded him: "Go to the family on the high slope and ask.
That's my sister-in-law Shuiqing. She is a very nice person. I'm afraid her family is the only one in our village who would hire people."
Bai Ziqian paused.
Then he shook his head and left.
He had just come out of Aunt Shuiqing's house, and she didn't say a word to keep him. If he went back now, he would be looked down upon even more.
He didn't believe that in such a big village, people living in brick and tile houses were not as good as those living in thatched houses!
Li Changlin frowned as he watched the young man walk towards the brick and tile house of Mr. Fan, but he could do nothing about it.
The gate of Sun Jinhua's yard was not closed. In the past, there were more than a dozen old hens, and the gate of the yard was often closed. Now that the old hens are gone and the ducks have gone into the water, there is no valuable thing in the yard, so there is no need to close the gate.
"What do you want?" She squinted at the young man who came into the yard, her eyes full of vigilance.
Bai Ziqian bowed and saluted, repeating the same words he had said to Shuiqing before.
"Tsk tsk, the fabric of your clothes is good, and you came out just because your parents chased you away. Did you steal the clothes and money of the master's family and were chased out?"
"You are a child, you have no strength and you are at the age of eating. Whoever feeds you will suffer!"
"You know how to choose a day. Now is not the busy farming season, and the farmers naturally have nothing to do. Isn't it a waste of food to feed you in vain?"
......
Sun Jinhua spoke in a burst of words, belittling Bai Ziqian.
He has been praised by everyone since he was a child, and even the always picky and difficult grandmother is kind to him.
When he goes out, others see that he is the only son of the Bai family, and they are even more afraid that he will get hurt, so they do everything according to his wishes.
I thought that working hard every day for Aunt Shuiqing was extremely hard, but compared with this sharp-browed and rat-eyed woman in front of me, Aunt Shuiqing's silence was the greatest respect for him!
Seeing that the boy lowered his head because of her criticism, Sun Jinhua glanced at the fine cloth clothes on his body, rolled her eyes, and sighed: "Okay, you are pitiful, stay for now."
Bai Ziqian suddenly raised his head, thinking he had heard it wrong.
"What? You don't want to eat? I told you, our Shanshui Village is very poor, I'm afraid there is no family willing to provide food to support an idle person." Sun Jinhua curled her lips, her tone full of disdain and complacency towards the boy.
Bai Ziqian nodded hurriedly.
All he needs now is a place to stay and food.
Sun Jinhua looked at him and asked, "What kind of work can you do?"
The second time he heard the same question, unlike the first time when he was at a loss, Bai Ziqian straightened his chest and answered more confidently: "Washing clothes, cleaning dishes, weeding the vegetable garden, pulling the soil, digging holes..."
"Okay, okay, what kind of work is this? Everyone can do it." Sun Jinhua interrupted impatiently.
She changed her mind and shouted to the house, "Sanzhu, go get a set of your clothes."
Then she said to Bai Ziqian in the yard, "Heizi, right? How can you work with your clothes on? That would ruin your clothes.
Go change, and go to make compost with your master and second master in the afternoon."
"Master, second master?" Bai Ziqian asked again in a daze.
Sun Jinhua complained with dissatisfaction: "Why are you so stupid?! Our family feeds you and supports you, so aren't we your master?
Isn't my son your master? Go, change your clothes quickly, it's time for lunch, eat well so you can work!"
Fan Sanzhu didn't have many sets of clothes to begin with, and now he has one less set of clothes for no reason, his mouth is so swollen that it can hang an oil bottle.
He didn't dare to get angry at Sun Jinhua, but he dared to get angry at the people who wore his clothes.
He muttered unhappily: "Let's go, master! You need others to urge you to leave before you know to go."
Bai Ziqian's face turned blue and red, and his hands holding his clothes were so tight that they turned white.
When it was time for lunch, the faces of the whole family facing the extra Bai Ziqian were not good.
Fan's mother knew that her eldest daughter-in-law was looking for good clothes for the young man, but she was still unhappy when she thought about the food she had to share. She gave him alms, saying, "Here, take it and eat it."
Bai Ziqian felt that the old woman's voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it before.
He was about to think about it carefully when he was stunned by the food being distributed in front of him.
"What, are you hungry? Hahaha." Fan Dazhu laughed.
"You only eat this? Nothing else?" Bai Ziqian asked with difficulty, facing the black paste in the bowl with a few vegetable leaves floating on it.
"We don't just eat this, we also have black flour steamed buns!" Fan Erzhu proudly announced with his neck raised.
"No rice, meat and eggs...?"
"What do you want? It's not a festival, who eats meat and rice?"
"I want to eat, but I have to see if there is any."
"You can ask around the village. Apart from the old village chief's family who eats brown rice and coarse grains, which other family can be as good as mine!"
"Our family has a lot of good land, so we can still eat dry food when it's not busy. If it were another family, they would not want to support you, a freeloader."
"What else can you complain about? Don't you look at your weak appearance? Do you deserve the food you eat?"
The whole family was mocking each other, and Bai Ziqian's hand holding the bowl was so hard that his knuckles turned white.
Fan Qian threw the chopsticks and scolded them sternly: "Enough! Eating can't stop you from talking.
Eat quickly, so you can go to the fields to work after you finish eating. "It was so hard to find someone who could work, and he was the one who did the work after he was driven away.
Everyone stopped talking, rolled their eyes at Bai Ziqian, and started eating.
The Fan family also didn't have a table - the previous one was split in half by Hu Shuiqing, and it couldn't be repaired.
They didn't have extra money to buy one, and now they didn't care whether they ate at the table or not.
The whole family held coarse pottery bowls and black flour buns in their hands, squatted down and ate at random.
Bai Ziqian was used to squatting to eat, but when he drank the black flour porridge that irritated his throat, he couldn't get used to it anyway.
It was so disgusting!
It felt like there were countless gravels grinding in his throat, and it hurt finely;
Sometimes he would hit a shell that was not ground very finely, like swallowing a sword.
"Eldest son, how did you do that thing? "Mother Fan asked while smacking her lips as she drank the black noodle porridge.
Fan Qian confidently replied: "Don't worry, mother. My cousin has already talked to the classmate that my second brother mentioned. We will be able to expose him in two days!"
Mother Fan hummed with satisfaction and smacked her lips and said: "Okay, that Hu Shuiqing is simply rebellious. Such good branfu was actually fed to chickens.
She also gave branfu to me. I think her good days are over. Wait, son, you must teach them a lesson!"
Hearing Shuiqing's name, Bai Ziqian finally became clear-headed and remembered where he heard the old woman's voice!
On the first day he was rescued, he was lying on the cart, and when his head was dizzy, he heard Aunt Shuiqing's voice.
In other words, the new family he came to was the home of Aunt Shuiqing's mother-in-law and eldest uncle...