Chapter 19 Moving to a new home

Chapter 19 Moving to a new home

Early in the morning of the second day after the house was built, Liang Laoer and his family packed up and prepared to move out.

Old Lady Liang gave them some essential daily necessities: the two wooden beds they used to sleep on and the original bedding on the beds, three worn-out chairs, and a broken table that had been in the woodshed for many years. She also gave them a rusty pot, a kitchen knife, three pairs of bowls and chopsticks, 100 grams of salt, a hoe for working in the fields, a bucket, and some other essential daily necessities.

As for the chickens, Mrs. Liang said that the old hens were kept for laying eggs and could not be given. There were only a few roosters, and Wenzhi had worked hard in his studies, so they wanted to kill them to nourish his body when he came back from his holiday. In the end, let alone chickens, she didn't even give him an egg.

Qianhuan was too lazy to waste her time arguing with the old lady over these things.

Because Liu was going to move to a new home, she didn't care about these things anymore. She thought, no matter how hard life was, it would never be as hard as being tortured by her mother-in-law in the old house.

Liang Lao Er wanted to argue a little. He really wanted to give his daughter some chickens to nourish her body, but when the old lady brought up Wen Zhi, he had no choice. After all, Wen Zhi was the only educated person in the family.

Boss Liang pushed the family cart, ready to help deliver all the things to the thatched hut.

Of the original 150 kilograms of food, only about 150 kilograms are left. This is all thanks to Liu who mixed chestnuts into the rice. Otherwise, with more than mouths to feed and two meals a day for ten days, the kilograms of food would have been almost eaten up.

Boss Liang helped pile the remaining food on the cart, and also took down the two bed boards and placed them on top. After all the miscellaneous items were packed up and loaded on, Boss Liang found that it could be pulled over with one cart.

There was a little bit of empty space left, and since Liang Laoer had difficulty walking, Liang Laoda let him sit on the cart and went to their new home together.

They didn't have many clothes to change into, so their winter cotton-padded clothes were packed and piled on the cart. Qianhuan carried a package with her summer clothes. Her mother Liu carried two packages, which contained summer clothes for her and Liang Laoer.

Before leaving, the family of three went to kowtow to Old Man and Old Lady Liang to say goodbye. Old Lady Liang hid in the room and did not come out. She now disliked the second brother's family more and more.

Old Man Liang gave some serious instructions and told Liang Laoer to move out and live a good life.

Zhu didn't come out to see them off. She had no feelings for their family and even hoped they would get out as soon as possible.

She was so happy that they left, so how could she possibly come out to see them off?

Wenzhi went to study at a private school in town, and Wenyong went to the fields to do farm work early in the morning.

Chen came to see them off with her son Wenjie. Chen asked her second sister-in-law to come over and chat when she was free, and Liu agreed. In fact, they both knew that after the division of the family, they would be busy farming and would have no time to chat.

When the construction of Liang Laoer's house started, a wall was built between the west room and the east room of the old house to separate them. Chen and Wenjie lived in the west room.

After bowing, Qianhuan and Liu carried their packages and followed the cart to their new home.

When Qianhuan's family walked out of the courtyard, Old Man Liang stood at the door of the old house and watched them go away, feeling very complicated.

As the head of the family, he still felt a little sorry that the family was separated, but for Wenzhi's future, he had to do it. He could only hope that his second son and his family would live well.

When they arrived at the new house, Liang Lao Da helped unload and sort things out. He unloaded the grain and put it in the kitchen, moved the table and chairs from the cart and placed them in the main room, took down the bed boards and put them together and placed them in the two bedrooms. After helping to put away these large items, Liang Lao Da pushed the cart home.

Liu needed water to cook, but Liang Laoer had difficulty walking, so Liu could only carry the only wooden bucket that Liang Laotai had given them and go to the nearby stream to fetch half a bucket of water.

Fortunately, the stream was very close to their hut, so it was very convenient to fetch water. Otherwise, Liu was a woman and not as strong as a man, so drinking water would become a problem for her family in the future.

After getting the water back, Liu scrubbed the rusty iron pot several times, placed it on the newly dug earthen stove and started to cook porridge in the pot.

Today we got up early to move, and they haven't eaten yet. There is no vegetable growing in the new house, and there are no vegetables at home, so they can only make do with brown rice porridge.

Qianhuan helped to make the beds and organize the clothes. When the two beds and clothes were almost made, Liu's porridge was ready.

The family sat around the shabby table in the main room and began to drink brown rice porridge.

Although she lived in the most rudimentary thatched hut, Liu felt freer and more relaxed than ever before. Because she was in a good mood, she felt that the simple porridge became particularly sweet, and even drank half a bowl more.

Liang Laoer felt his wife's joy, and his appetite became better.

Ever since Qianhuan fell into the water and her engagement was broken off, the family has been in a gloomy mood. The couple had not been in the mood to have a full meal. Today, they drank porridge to their heart's content.

Only Qianhuan felt that the brown rice porridge was too hard to swallow. During the days when his family was building the house, they at least had vegetables and chestnut brown rice, but now there are no vegetables at all.

But she still forced herself to drink it. There was no other way. If she didn't drink it, she would starve.

This family is so poor that they have more than 70 kilograms of brown rice for two meals a day. Even if they cook it into porridge and eat it sparingly, it can only last for two or three months.

But the problem is that she doesn't want to drink porridge every day. She wants to eat fragrant white rice, meat, and she wants to eat three meals a day.

The matter of making money is urgent, as there are too many things missing at home.

After breakfast, Liu took a hoe and went to the backyard to turn the soil. She had to turn the soil over quickly so that she could plant vegetables.

Liang Laoer, on crutches, went to Zhang Laodi's house next door and asked Zhang Laodi to help him cut some wood and bamboo from the mountain.

He borrowed the hatchet from Zhang's family and planned to use the wood to make a wooden spatula for cooking and three bamboo cups for drinking water. When the family was divided, Mrs. Liang did not give them spatulas and cups.

Although Liang Laoer has a disability, he is very skillful. For example, he can weave bamboo baskets and bamboo baskets. He can make these simple gadgets just by sitting on a stool.

This brother lives more than a hundred meters away from his house and is their closest neighbor.

The house they built was near the end of the village and next to the mountain. The residents were not densely populated, with one household every fifty to one hundred meters. Some households were even half a mile apart.

Qianhuan actually likes this point very much. This way, when she tinkers with something at home in the future, she doesn’t have to worry about being easily seen by outsiders.

Zhang Laodi's parents have passed away, and his three older sisters are all married. There are only him, his wife Cui, and his son Zhang Hu at home. They originally had a daughter named Zhang Fang, who happened to marry to another village in the first half of the year.

Brother Zhang's wife, Cui, is a kind-hearted person. Knowing that they had just moved in and had not yet planted vegetables in the fields, she went to her backyard and picked a basket of seasonal vegetables and sent them over, including radishes, lettuce, and some greens. Qianhuan's family was very grateful for this.

"Dad, you are so skillful, you should be able to make a wooden bathtub. I want a big wooden bathtub for bathing. Can you make one for me?"

Qianhua saw that her father could even make a spatula and a cup, so she thought that he could also make a wooden bathtub. Before, she always used a towel to take a bath and then change clothes in the old house. As a modern person with mysophobia, she really couldn't stand the days when she couldn't take a bath.

"With my dad's skills, he can only make these little gadgets. If I ask him to make a wooden bathtub, it will definitely leak. We have to ask a professional carpenter to make a wooden bathtub." Liang Laoer explained while he was busy.

"Which carpenter in the village has better skills?" Qianhuan continued to ask.

"As for craftsmanship, Carpenter Sun's craftsmanship is the best and his price is fair."

Qianhuan thought that she still had the one or two taels of silver she had asked Jiang Lin for, so she asked Carpenter Sun for his address and went to his house to ask him to make a wooden bathtub for her. For her, taking a bath was a big deal.

Seeing that his family was in financial difficulty, Carpenter Sun did not ask for a price, but only charged 5 wen, 3 wen for the labor, 1 wen for the wood, and 1 wen for the tung oil, because the bathtub needed to be coated with a layer of tung oil to achieve a waterproof effect.

One tael of silver is equivalent to one thousand copper coins. In addition to the five copper coins she spent on the bathtub, Qianhuan also paid five copper coins to Old Man Wang from the same village for renting an ox cart. Now Qianhuan has 5 copper coins left.

On the first day of traveling through time, cousin Wen Yong went to the county town to buy medicine for her and owed Old Man Wang for the ox cart fare. Her father said at the time that he would pay her back double in the future.

Originally, it cost 2 cents per person to take a ox cart to the county town, and 4 cents for a round trip. Qianhuan gave Old Man Wang 8 cents. Old Man Wang also knew her family's current situation and refused to charge double the price. In the end, he only charged 5 cents.

Carpenter Sun made the wooden bathtub for her that same day and delivered it to her in the evening.