When Yang Ruoqing mentioned that time, Daqiu grinned and nodded in agreement from time to time.
"My aunt has such a good memory. Several years have passed and she still remembers it so clearly." Da Qiu said.
Yang Ruoqing sighed with emotion: "Seven years have passed since then. You have already started a family, your ambitions have grown up, and we are getting old."
Daqiu said: "My aunt is not old at all. She was just as stupid as she was seven years ago, and she has not changed at all!"
Yang Ruoqing smiled. She was seventeen years old seven years ago. She was sixteen years old in the flower season and seventeen years old in the rainy season.
Now she is twenty-four, and her children are eight years old. No matter how well she takes care of herself, no one can escape the traces of time on their bodies.
It's just deeper or shallower, faster or slower.
"It doesn't matter whether you're old or not, this question doesn't matter," Yang Ruoqing smiled and waved her hand.
"Let's get down to business, Big Ball. We gave you enough money back then and entrusted the fishermen in your village to help you escort your father's ashes back to your hometown in Yangzhou."
"Is the road going smoothly? Nothing has changed, right?" she asked.
Da Qiu said: "When you mention the matter of escorting my father's ashes back to his hometown in the countryside of Yangzhou, I get so angry!"
Yang Ruoqing and Zuo Junmo looked at each other in surprise. Yang Ruoqing raised her hand: "Speak slowly and start from the beginning."
Big fairway: "After we set off back then, we headed east along the waterway. Originally, aunt and uncle, you paid enough for the freight for the uncles in the same village."
"But after only walking a third of the waterway, they started to cause trouble. They deliberately delayed it by saying that the boat was broken, the people had no strength, and they couldn't walk."
"My mother had no choice but to give them more money, and then she continued to leave."
"But they hadn't traveled on the waterway for a day or two, and they deliberately refused to go. Especially when they encountered a slightly larger market town pier, they deliberately parked the boat at the pier."
"My mother had to give them money again, and they took the money and ran to the market town on the shore to buy roast chicken, buy strong liquor, and eat and drink."
"Sometimes they have to escort prostitutes. If the escorts are caught by their wives, those wives don't dare to do anything to their own men, so they will come to my boat to seek bad luck on my mother."
"I blame my mother for not giving them money and letting them become evil when they have money. Moreover, there are some people who see that we are all orphans and widowers on board, and want to come over and steal money and take advantage of my mother..."
"On this journey eastward, I don't know how much my mother cried, how many times she knelt down for them, how many times she kowtowed and how many good words she said!"
"As for us brothers and sisters, we were all afraid of the journey. We walked on the waterway for nearly more than a month in the dark. We guarded my father's urn every day, and our brothers and sisters hugged each other and cried."
"After staying up like this for more than a month, we finally got ashore. The resettlement money that my aunt and uncle gave my mother was less than five taels left, hey!"
After listening to Daqiu's narration, Yang Ruoqing was so angry that she slapped her palm on the table.
"It's too much, it's too greedy, it's just too much to satisfy!" Yang Ruoqing was so angry that she said the word 'too' twice in one breath.
Zuo Junmo's face also darkened a bit. As for Dazhi, who had been standing quietly beside him, his face was pale and his brows were furrowed.
The hand held by his side subconsciously clenched into a fist.
Here, Yang Ruoqing then asked Daqiu: "What happened next? How were your orphans and widowed mothers settled?"
Daqiu said: "Because my father died in a foreign land, and he did not die at the end of his life. According to the custom in my hometown, I have to invite monks and Taoists to come back and do a land and water dojo for three days and three nights."
"If you don't do that, the soul of the deceased will not be able to rest in peace. He will not leave even after the first seven days. He will come back every once in a while and make a lot of noise at home."
"I won't be buried in the mountains behind the village until these two rituals are completed. My mother has no choice but to do it."
"When my father is laid to rest, my mother's hands will be broken and she will have only one tael of silver left." Da Qiu said.
"One tael of silver? How will you ladies live?" Yang Ruoqing then asked.
Daqiu sighed, "It's very painful, it's hard to put it into words, hey!"
Yang Ruoqing also sighed, "No matter how hard it is, at least your mother has brought you up and married you a daughter-in-law. It can be considered a blessing after all."
"Where's your mother? Did she send you two over to visit Dazhi this time? Why didn't your mother come by herself? How is she doing?"
Hearing Yang Ruoqing's question, Daqiu said, "Auntie, let my wife Shui Lian do the talking about this matter."
"I don't have a good voice. If I talk too much at one time, I feel uncomfortable. I want to cough, cough, cough, cough..."
The big ball really ushered in a huge cough.
His daughter-in-law Zhang Shuilian, who was sitting next to him, quickly handed over a bowl of tea, "Hurry up and drink the tea to suppress it. Don't spit it out. Don't soil the floor of my aunt's house..."
Daqiu covered his mouth, waved his hand towards Zhang Shuilian, rushed out of the main room and went to the yard outside to cough.
Zhang Shuilian wanted to follow him out, but was stopped by Dazhi.
"Sister-in-law, please give me the tea. I will give it to my elder brother. Sister-in-law will talk to my mother." He said, and quickly took the tea to the door of the house.
Zhang Shuilian had no choice but to sit back again.
"My mother took Daqiu and several other brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, sold several acres of property at home, and collected nearly two taels of silver to rent two houses in a nearby town."
Zhang Shuilian then talked about what happened next,
"There are so many people living in one room, and there is another room used as a breakfast shop, fried dough sticks, steamed buns, steamed buns, and flower rolls,"
"I was able to support a large family of children with just a penny each. My mother's family sells vegetables near the tile market in the town, and that's how the marriage ended."
"My mother's health is a bit worse than before, but she didn't come here this time not because her health was bad and she couldn't walk, but because she wanted to stay at home and take care of her grandson," Zhang Shuilian said.
Yang Ruoqing smiled: "What, you guys have a baby?"
Zhang Shuilian nodded a little sheepishly: "Well, I just gave birth to a boy last year. He is just over eight months old now."
Yang Ruoqing smiled, "That's pretty good. Life flies by so fast. Your mother is now a grandmother."
"Auntie is coming soon. Uncle Dazhi and brother Chen'er are already over eight years old. They will be almost there in about ten years." Zhang Shuilian said with a smile.
Yang Ruoqing smiled so hard that her eyes turned into two crescent moons.
It's really different in ancient times. An eighteen-year-old niece and her twenty-four-year-old aunt are sitting here talking about having a grandson.
If this were left in modern times, I would still be in my senior year of high school at the age of eighteen.
As for the age of twenty-four, when you have just graduated from graduate school or just started working, it is the time to let yourself go and let your youth go.
