Li Ping'an quickened his pace and returned home. He quickly took off his raincoat under the eaves and hung it on the wall. As soon as he entered the main room, he saw Ruyi sitting on a small bench with her little face raised and her mouth open, crying.
I cried terribly. After crying for a while, I shook my shoulders and took a breath before continuing to cry. The tears were like raindrops outside.
"What's wrong? Who is bullying our little Ruyi?" Li Ping'an said as he walked over and picked up the little girl.
When Xiao Ru saw her eldest brother who loved her the most, she immediately stopped crying and hugged his neck tightly. Her breathing was twitching and her body trembled every time he twitched.
Li Ping'an felt extremely distressed, but also found it funny. One second she was crying so hard, and the next second her crying stopped abruptly. As expected, the child's face changed at the drop of a hat. He looked at his hands. They were dirty on the mountain and had been washed away by the rain just now. However, after thinking about it for a moment, he still didn't wipe the tears of his little sister. Instead, he looked at Fugui beside him.
"Fugui, tell me, what's going on? Why is my little sister crying so miserably?"
"Let me tell you!" The speaker was Ji Xiang. She pointed to the southeast corner of the house with a smile. "My little sister was kicked from behind by a big rooster. She fell and she cried."
Brothers Fugui and Xinglong also nodded in agreement, indicating that what Jixiang said was true.
Only then did Li Ping'an realize that there were chickens in the house. A quick look revealed that almost all the chickens at home were here. They were crowded together and surrounded by bamboo fences.
He asked in confusion: "Why do you keep chickens in the house?"
"When the chicken coop leaked, my mother caught all the chickens and brought them into the house." Fugui replied.
Xinglong continued: "The rooster kicked the little girl and knocked her down, so my mother used a fence to surround the chicken."
Li Ping'an understood that his mother must have been worried that the chickens would get sick if they were exposed to the rain, so she didn't dare to keep them in the chicken coop. She didn't even dare to put them in the stone mill shed outside, so she had to put them in the house.
"Where's mom? Where's dad?" Li Ping'an asked again.
Fugui said: "Dad went to my uncle's house, and mother went to my grandpa's house."
"Okay." Li Ping'an looked at little Ruyi in his arms. The little girl's eyes were red and her eyelashes were moist. "Little sister, which rooster kicked you? Tell your elder brother and he will help you take revenge."
Little Ruyi pouted and turned to look at the corner, looking between the three big roosters again and again, then pointed at one of them, turned her head and looked straight at Li Ping'an.
Fugui Jixiang Xinglong also stared at Li Ping'an, their eyes full of curiosity. They wanted to know how the elder brother would avenge the younger sister.
"That's it. Come on, Fugui, go boil some water. Let's eat chicken today!"
"???"
The reactions of Fugui, Jixiang and Xinglong were surprisingly unanimous. After hearing this, they all looked forward and their eyes widened. Li Ping'an almost laughed out loud.
Although Xiao Ruyi didn't see the funny actions of her brothers and sisters, she was also very happy. She clapped her hands and let out a clear laugh, "Yes, yes, yes, eat chicken, eat big chicken legs!"
"Okay, I'll give Little Ruyi the big chicken leg to eat. Whichever leg the rooster uses to kick Little Ruyi's, Little Ruyi will eat the chicken leg." Hearing the innocent and pure laughter of the little girl, Li Ping'an also had a smile in his tone. He immediately urged Fugui, "Fugui, what are you doing standing still? Hurry up and boil water."
"No, brother, do we really want to kill the chicken?" Fugui glanced at the door with a worried look on his face, "Why don't you wait until your parents come back and ask your parents if they let you kill them?"
Li Ping'an rolled his eyes. According to the current prices in the Jing Dynasty, a rooster can be sold for at least 70 yuan, and a hen that can lay eggs can be sold for 90 to 100 yuan. The family has three roosters and eight hens. The chickens are almost worth a lot of money in total. I usually treat them like treasures, but on a rainy day when the chicken coop leaked, I caught all the chickens and put them in the house.
Wait until your parents come back and ask them if they can kill the chicken. I'm afraid they won't even be able to pull off a single feather.
Forget it, this guy only listens to his parents. If you want to eat chicken, you can't rely on him. Li Ping'an didn't force him anymore, let go of Ruyi and went to the kitchen by himself.
Ji Xiang's eyes rolled around, he glanced at his third brother, then at the door, and quickly ran out to catch up with Li Ping'an, "Brother, I'll help you light the fire!"
Li Ping'an said without hesitation, "I'll give you the other chicken leg!"
"Brother, I don't want to eat the chicken legs, I'll leave them to my little brother." Ji Xiang chuckled and rubbed his hands, "Brother, I want to eat sweets!"
"Then I'll give it to you later!" Li Ping'an touched Jixiang's head. He was proactive and proactive. In his spare time, he would also think about finding something from nature to sell in the county. He couldn't make big money, but he could still make small money. A little bit. He did not tell or hand over the money to his parents, but secretly kept it for himself.
He often used his own money to buy some candies, snacks and the like for his younger brothers and sisters to eat. Don't expect parents to spend money to satisfy their children's appetites. Even if the family has increased their income from selling tofu and bean cakes in the past few years, and they have eleven or two dollars a year, they still can't wait for a penny. Break in half and use.
Li Pingan told his father more than once that he would buy donkeys for grinding and cattle for plowing, but his father and mother refused to agree.
Under such circumstances, Li Ping'an couldn't help himself without saving some private money.
But fortunately, the parents are not harsh on their children. Once they have money, the family can occasionally eat meat, and they will buy cloth to make new clothes for the children during the Chinese New Year. Therefore, their five brothers and sisters, especially Xinglong and Ruyi who were born later, , I haven’t worn patched clothes in the past few years.
Of course, there are still some patched clothes, and their family's conditions are not so good that they need to replace their clothes with new ones when they are torn.
After adding water to the iron pot, Li Ping'an lit the fire and told Jixiang to be careful not to get burned. He hurriedly returned to the main room and grabbed a rooster at random. As for whether it was the one that attacked Xiao Ruyi, that's not a big problem. I guess Xiao Ruyi didn't recognize it right just now. If he made a mistake, the one he caught happened to be the right one.
As he raised the knife and dropped it, the big rooster paid with his life for its wrong behavior. Li Fugui also accepted the fact. After the water boiled, he squatted under the eaves at the door of the kitchen, watching anxiously. At the entrance of the yard, he kept swallowing his saliva and diligently plucking chicken feathers.
"Brother, will your parents scold us when they see us when they come back?" Fugui asked worriedly.
"I'm the one who said I wanted to kill the chicken, and I'm the one who killed the chicken with the knife. If my parents want to scold me, they're scolding me. It's none of your business. Just put your heart back in your stomach." Li Ping'an stood up and stretched out his hand to pick it up. The rainwater flowing down the eaves washed the chicken feathers on his hands, "You can pluck the remaining ones yourself, and I'll get you some candies."
When Ji Xiang Xinglong and Xiao Ruyi, who were squatting and watching, heard that there was candy, they stood up and jumped up and down, shouting and shouting. Li Ping'an smiled and shook his head and returned to the room.
The lighting in the room itself was not good, not to mention it was still a rainy day, so the room was very dim. After fumbling to light the oil lamp, he took out a key from under the bed board and opened a wooden box placed at the end of the bed.
This wooden box was bought with his personal money. It is not very big, 50 cm long, 40 cm wide and 30 cm high. There are not many things in it. Apart from his personal money and some snacks, it is just a stack of charcoal writing. Paper that has been drawn on.
The main function of this small box is to lock up these papers.
