Zhou Xiufang's sudden death is definitely a big event in the village!
That night, the "masters" of Zhou Xiufang's natal family arrived.
The so-called master refers to the immediate family members such as the brothers and nephews of the female deceased. The reason why they are called "master" means to support and call the shots.
According to local customs, after a married woman dies, she must wait until her "masters" arrive before she can be buried.
On the one hand, it is to let the relatives see the remains of the deceased!
On the other hand, it is to let the deceased’s family see that the deceased died normally and was not assassinated by her in-laws or husband.
It can be seen that some customs still have practical significance.
Zhou Xiufang's natal family is also in this village, but her parents have passed away long ago, leaving only one brother, Zhou Xiufeng, who is two years older than her.
In fact, Zhou Xiufeng also knew that his sister was dying, so in addition to going to work these days, he spent most of his time at his sister's bedside. He wanted to see his sister off on her last journey.
But today my wife was going back to her parents' house, and she wanted to send some food to her father-in-law's family. She asked him to drive there, so he went, and due to time constraints, he stayed at his father-in-law's house that night.
What I didn't expect was that on this night, Zhou Xiufang couldn't hold on anymore and left!
In order for Zhou Xiufang to be buried as soon as possible, Zhou Yang personally drove to the next village to pick Zhou Xiufeng back.
Zhou Xiufeng also knew what kind of person his brother-in-law Feng Liujin was, and he also knew that his sister's physical condition was really due to exhaustion, rather than death due to harsh treatment by her brother-in-law.
Therefore, after saying the final farewell to my sister, I agreed to be buried.
After the burial, except for the helpers who stayed, the rest went back and waited for Zhou Xiufang's family members to come to announce the funeral.
After dawn, Feng Liujin took his eldest son Feng Dajun to report the funeral to his relatives and friends in the village.
The reason for such a hurry is that the temperature is not very low yet, and the body of the deceased cannot be kept in a coffin for a long time.
On the other hand, because Zhou Xiufang had just turned forty, it would not be an exaggeration to say that she died young. This is different from the "happy mourning" of seventy-year-olds and eighty-year-olds.
Both relatives and friends hope that she will be buried as soon as possible.
When Feng Liujin and his son reported the funeral, Feng Qi took several young people from the village to the woods outside the village to dig his sister-in-law's grave, which they called "breaking the ground to build the mausoleum."
Others stayed at the Feng family to help make mourning clothes, mourning hats, rub hemp, build stoves, etc.!
For a time, the Feng family became the focus of the entire Babaoliang Village!
It's just that no one wants such a spotlight...
Zhou Xiufang's funeral lasted for a full week, which was relatively short in the village. Under normal circumstances, it would take at least half a month from the death of the deceased to the burial, and it might take three or four months.
Since the two brothers Feng Liujin and Feng Qi had always been kind to others and rarely had quarrels with others, they were very popular. Therefore, during Zhou Xiufang's funeral, everyone in the village who had time came to help.
Therefore, the funeral went smoothly overall, and she completed the last journey with dignity!
Zhou Xiufang's death deeply touched Zhou Yang, not because she and her father-in-law were relatives, but because it was the first time he had seriously witnessed the entire process from death to burial of local people.
Counting this year, it has been almost 7 years since Zhou Yang came to Babaoliang Village. During these 7 years, many elderly people have "left" in the village.
But due to his own reasons, he always stayed away from this kind of thing in the past years. It had nothing to do with him, so he had no thoughts or touches.
However, this time he participated in almost the entire funeral of Zhou Xiufang.
He saw the fragility of life, and saw with his own eyes the grief of the Feng family. He also saw the unity and kindness in the village that "when one family has trouble, the whole village helps"...
Through this funeral, Zhou Yang gained a deeper understanding of the land beneath his feet and the people on this land.
At the same time, it also allowed him to silently decide on some hesitant things...
.......
Although Zhou Xiufang's sudden death had little impact on other people in the village except the Feng family.
When everyone talks about this, they just feel a little regretful, or they think that Zhou Xiufang is relieved. Death is not necessarily a bad thing for people who have been ill for a long time and cannot take care of themselves.
All in all, everyone’s life soon returned to its previous state!
However, it is different for those matchmakers who are almost crazy.
Since everyone was busy helping the Feng family with the funeral arrangements during this period, these matchmakers finally calmed down a bit!
After all, there was a funeral happening here, and they were too embarrassed to go to the village every day to arrange marriage arrangements for others!
Furthermore, I don’t know who spread the news that the village will distribute hundreds of thousands of dividends to the members this year.
After the money is divided, the status of everyone in the village will be more valuable, and maybe even the girls in the county will ask to marry in the village.
Therefore, many people have the idea of waiting for a price, and the older girls and younger students who were originally interesting began to shirk, which really poured cold water on the matchmakers.
The "marriage market" in Babaoliang Village that was quite popular a few days ago has cooled down strangely!
There is no doubt that Zhou Yang secretly let people out the news.
There is no way, those matchmakers are really crazy during this period.
If they were really allowed to be this high, the village would definitely be in a state of chaos and would not be able to live in peace.
Taking this opportunity, Zhou Yang immediately convened a short meeting with the village cadres to briefly discuss the marriage of educated youths among the village members.
Soon, the brigade headquarters issued an urgent notice regarding the marriages of commune members and educated youths.
According to this notice, the village does not prohibit anyone from getting married normally, and after marriage, the spouse's household registration can be moved to Babaoliang Village, and the spouse can also receive the same welfare benefits as the educated youth members of the village.
This is the keynote, but the premise is that everyone must report to the village and apply before getting married.
In addition to writing down the basic information about your spouse and family, you also need to wait for approval from the village.
In addition, given the special situation of educated youth and the living conditions in the village, it would take a year to marry local young men and women.
The village will use this year to do its best to solve the housing problem of some permanent residents!
Also announced at the same time was another decision made by the village, which was that the village planned to conduct a new round of job competition after the Chinese New Year, and announced all the positions and number of people competing for it at once.
Once these two notices were released, they instantly aroused heated discussions in the entire Babaoliang Village!
Most people in the village support this decision, including those men and women who are eager to get married.
No matter how anxious everyone is, the real problem of housing is there.
Although it is not necessary to have a self-built house to get married now, as long as the parents can provide a suitable residence, it is still necessary to have a place to live.
However, the educated youth are all immigrants and live in collective dormitories, the kind where seven or eight people live in a large dormitory.
How to get married in this situation? You can't let your partner live in the dormitory with you after getting married, right?
Even if they agree, other people in the dormitory do not agree, and the villagers disagree even more, it is offensive!
What's more, the village didn't prevent them from getting married, it just asked them to push back the time of marriage to give the village a buffer time.
All in all, the matter of marriage is settled.
After dealing with these trivial matters, the time has entered mid-November, and there are less than three days left before leaving for Qingcheng.
However, just when Zhou Yang planned to spend a few days with his wife and baby at home, and then go out to do errands, Xiao Wenhui brought him some bad news, which suddenly disrupted Zhou Yang's plan!
(Book recommendation!)
PS: When I was reading book reviews yesterday, I found that many readers had disputes about grain production in the first few chapters. Some friends felt that it was completely impossible for a family to produce tens of thousands of kilograms of grain, but Lao Cang was not talking nonsense.
Lao Cang's family is also from a rural area. Let me talk about my family's own situation. It is located in Ulanqab City, central Inner Mongolia. The average person in the village is allocated 30 acres of land, of which 20 acres are registered and the remaining 10 acres are unregistered. (I didn’t register before to pay less agricultural tax, but now there is no subsidy for this part of the land, which complements each other!) Lao Cang’s family owns land for four people, totaling 120 acres.
Although dry fields have more water and less irrigated land, tens of thousands of kilograms of grain are produced every year, not counting potatoes, sugar beets and other cash crops.
Therefore, most of the grain output in the book is not Lao Cang's nonsense and can withstand scrutiny!
