The other two rooms are opposite to each other, with a wide corridor in the middle.
How wide is it? There are two windows over a foot high at the end of the corridor, and the width of four stoves side by side is built under the windows.
However, there are currently no pots placed on the stove, only four large holes.
The walls on both sides of the corridor are places where food and vegetables are stored.
Dali asked Xu Youyin: "Do we need to dig a cellar to store vegetables in the new house? Otherwise, it will be troublesome to go back and forth."
Xu Youyin said:
"No, I can't do it, I can't do it at all.
You don’t know that when every family doesn’t have to collect water to block the dam, there are still enough manpower to build houses.
How else were the four big houses in my house built? If you look at the large area built here, it was all the tasks assigned by Uncle Li Zheng before he left. It would be very tiring for everyone to wake up early and work hard at night.
At that time, I didn’t even dare to think about digging a cellar, and it’s even less feasible now. No one could take care of it at all. More than thirty people were flooded, and most of the people were evacuated to block the dam and catch fish. "
Dali nodded: "Actually, it's okay if you don't dig. After all, it's not a separate house. We are all in the same yard. It's easy to make a cellar to store things and it's easy to tell which one belongs to which house. It would be very distressing if something is lost."
Xu Youyin nodded in agreement and said:
"Yes, I also took this into consideration, I'm afraid I can't explain clearly.
My mother said that we can do business together, such as selling grass seed porridge, and we can help the villagers if we can. There is nothing to say, life is not easy for everyone.
When our family was digging the foundation to build the house, all the uncles in the village helped. Even if you haven't seen me, they don't want to be paid and leave after finishing the work, so there is no shortage of help.
So my mother said that if there are some elderly people in the village who don’t know what to sell and don’t have much money to buy, she can help them come up with ideas, or she can give in and lose the money they have. That’s no problem.
But if we do get into a business, my family will tell me from the bottom of my heart that there are some things that need to be clearly distinguished in the future. It is best to close the door and each earn his own money, and not mix things up together.
Just push rice and noodles back and forth, so as not to quarrel and hurt feelings. Anyway, several people will go back to sleep at home every day. "
Xu Youyin thought to himself: By then, he and his third brother will be left in the new house to watch.
Anyway, they are little bachelors.
Besides, compared to my own home, I am now more interested in the big kang here. It is so luxurious here, and it is more refreshing to roll around anywhere than at home.
After Dali entered the house, he found that he could roll around just as Youyin said, but the kang mat had not been laid out yet.
Just looking at the two rooms, the layout and area on both sides are basically the same.
Leave a place at the door to take off your shoes, and then you can get on the kang by stepping on it at palm height.
Rather than saying it is the ground, it is better to say that the kang is laid directly on the ground.
Xu Youyin showed off:
"Don't dare to step on it. It's okay. Just step on it as hard as you can. You should be able to feel the heat, right?
Ten days after the kang was put up, it was still damp. It rained and the roof leaked again, watering the shed.
Don't mention it, in those days I blocked this side and leaked that side. There was a heavy rainstorm and a tornado outside, and it was raining a little inside before I could install the windows. Since my house has many windows, the north and south were open and the wind was whining, just like it was haunted.
People who were on the road in those days were frightened.
The rain has stopped in the past two days, so I burn a new kang twice a day in the morning and evening, and run around to warm up the air, so that I can work faster. "
Dali dared to step hard on the floor kang. It was great. This brick kang was different from his.
Not to mention that you get what you pay for, and the good stuff is indeed worth it.
It’s just that you spent too much money up front. I think so, this is considered a one-time investment, and it will save you worry in the future. Just dig out the accumulated kang ashes every autumn.
Unlike most homes, every one or two years, a piece of the yellow mud kang will collapse, either the top or the head of the kang. If it collapses, it must be rebuilt.
Dali smiled and said: "The more you look at it, the better. If you do this, you can accommodate more people to eat."
Xu Youyin followed Shale and said:
"Isn't it just because of this that I made such an arrangement?
Otherwise, the location of the fire wall and stove must be specially reserved in the house.
This will save a few tables.
It's easy to burn people by the stove, and it's impossible to seat guests, even if there are two or three tables missing.
If we build a one-and-a-half-foot-high Kang and pestle like we do at home, we all know that there is not much space on the Kang and it would be enough to support six small round tables.
Didn’t you just think that there were enough tables for what you could do? Making money is no joke, and caravans don't come every day. Each one leaves and one is missing. We must find ways to earn as much as we can. We simply dig the flue deep into the ground and build as many kangs as the ground allows. "
Xu Youyin gestured at the table setting and the size of the people: "If we just put a few long tables like this, the east and west rooms combined can accommodate a hundred people. It won't be a problem. My second brother doesn't need to make wooden stools. He can sit down with his legs crossed. It’s still warm down there.”
"Is the table finished?"
"I haven't finished it yet. I can't do it at all. My second brother is almost exhausted. The legs of the table are not fixed, and the tabletop has not been polished."
While Xu Youyin was speaking, he bent down and opened a wooden lid like a show off, and continued: "Brother Dali, look where our stove is hidden? It's a fire under the ground, and it's boiling dumplings and steamed buns, and the steaming skills are so good, The entire kang is fully heated. Think about whether our house will be warm in winter, it is probably warmer than the big house where we entertain distinguished guests."
Dali followed and took a closer look. To put it bluntly, it was like digging a cellar in the house. Inside the cellar was a stove for burning fires. There were six stove pits in total. Some firewood was stored there, and the six pots above were level with the floor kang.
Anyway, just don’t use this design with children, as children can easily fall asleep and roll into the pot.
Xu Youyin smiled and said that it was impossible to have children.
Looking at his second brother, he doesn't look like he's going to have a child anytime soon.
"Ah, Brother Dali, don't get me wrong. What I mean is not your sister or my sister-in-law's fault. Everyone in our family knows this. My mother once said it herself, she would not give birth to a baby. If you have the ability, just give birth. If you don't, then give birth. If you don't have the ability, it's all down to my brother."
His mother also said that if you are really in a hurry, you can go and have a look tomorrow if you have some spare money.
Because Guan'er Alopecia does not specialize in this area, and the level of men's and gynecology's delivery is not good, they will just give people medicine.
As for having a boy or a girl, I don’t even have to choose.
Can peppers be grown from eggplant seeds? I will never rely on my daughter-in-law not to have a son. Just by looking at her treatment of Tian Xin, you can tell that boys and girls are the same in her eyes. It's not like there's a lot of wealth to inherit, but there's more than seventy taels of famine.
But Xu Youyin could only think about the following words in his heart. He couldn't explain them clearly because he was his brother-in-law.
Dali: "..." I was not comforted at all.
And this is true that the emperor is not in a hurry and the eunuch is.
His mother was very anxious that his sister would not have a baby. Every year she would burn paper for his father and grandparents and say a few words to bless her for having a baby. Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law didn't urge her at all.
As for the village, which is several miles away from the shop, children will not be allowed to cause trouble here, so there will be no problem of children falling into the pot. It is quite embarrassing to say the least.
Xu Youyin hurriedly changed the subject and said: "Currently, the east and west houses combined have a total of twelve stoves, but... there are no pots."
Dali: I understand.
It can be seen that Mrs. Xu's statement "It's not that our family can't afford a pot" is a lie. She just can't afford it and is trying to be brave. She just wants to go out and make money and then think about it slowly.
At this time, Dali's face was also full of joy. Although it was stressful to owe money, he really looked at what was better.
I have never seen such a neat house, and I feel like it is easy to look at the houses built by other houses in the village.
However, there was one problem. Da Li said vaguely: "It just stinks. No wonder you have so many windows in these rooms."
Xu Youyin nodded: One of his feet can make his niece frown, and it is conceivable that more than a hundred people are walking to carry goods.
To put it bluntly, in terms of the internal layout of the shops opened by his Xu family, in my mother's words, they are still people-oriented.
I thought it would be really cold in the Northland in winter, and if I walked on the road for so many days, I would be freezing.
You can't think about whether it smells bad or not. Just open the windows to let out the smell after each group of people leave. Everything should be done to keep the guests warm.
It would be better if it was so hot that he would lie on the kang in his house and not want to walk.
When the time comes, the long tables will be removed, and a sheet will be set up on the floor to sleep at night. Even if you don't pay for accommodation, you can still earn money for breakfast the next day.
Xu Youyin has been trained by Mrs. Xu in recent days, and he has gradually become accustomed to using his brain to think about problems. He also wondered: Who said it, why did the mutual trade suddenly happen in winter. We, the people at the bottom, don’t understand what the people above us mean.
If this is the summer market, why bother spending so much money?
In the summer, we can set up a big shed outside to do food stalls like my mother said. My niece said that if she bought a teppanyaki in the summer, he would like to eat it.
Above, I have seen the four large rooms of the Xu family.
Xu Youyin took Dali's arm and went to the back. At one moment he pointed enthusiastically at the livestock shed behind the house, and at the next he pointed out the stone house to Dali and said, "That's the water well in the village. Our house is in the middle, and the well is closest to our house."
"Come on, I'll take you to see the huts again. There are a lot of holes dug, divided into male and female ones in the north and south. Do you have any now? You can go and squat. Next year if your land doesn't have enough manure, you can come here to pick out the manure."
I didn’t look at the huts, and I didn’t even have time to take a look at the houses built by others. I stopped doing it now. This has wasted a lot of time. I will say later: "I don’t have it, and I won’t look at it either. Brother-in-law, When will we go up the mountain?"
When Xu Lao Er took his brother-in-law and Yu Qiniang away, Xu Lao Si looked full of regret.
To be honest, he didn't show off enough to introduce a cup of tea.
He didn't want to feel proud, but it was the first time he came home and his relatives could talk about it in detail.
Xu Youyin climbed the ladder and continued to lay tiles on the roof silently.
Xu Youyin is the one who is least afraid of fighting with his grandma. As long as his grandma dares to come to the house to make trouble and bully his mother, he will come.
To quote the third brother’s exact words when he couldn’t quarrel with his grandmother: “Let the fourth brother go!”
Among his three brothers, the second brother is the most kind and easy to be soft-hearted.
A few days ago, the two brothers and the second sister-in-law were the only ones left at home.
His second brother suddenly said:
"It's raining heavily and windy, but our family is still guarding the river.
Logically speaking, grandma is a person. Even if she is angry, she will come to see her as usual.
Besides, there were so many relatives in the village who got into trouble with each other, and quite a few of them clamored to sever ties, but things were still the same after that. From now on, just don’t bring your eldest aunt to our house to take advantage.
She is an old man. If she really comes to visit, can we kick her out? When it's time to go inside and eat, just eat. Whatever we eat, she eats.
So I was wondering about such a big thing as building a house for our family. If I didn’t believe it, I didn’t hear about it, so why didn’t I come? "
At that time Xu Youyin said:
"It would be better if you don't come. If you treat it as a surprise, coming will only cause chaos.
This kind of relative will worry less if he doesn't move around. Don't make trouble for your mother. It's important to be filial to your mother. It's important to be filial to your mother.
What's more, if our family keeps in touch with the nurse diligently, we will inevitably have many quarrels with the big house.
Who made her dislike our brothers in the first place because they didn't have a father and were not strong-minded? She insisted on relying on her son, saying that we couldn't count on our grandchildren.
Just hope that side, I hope she will always be reliable. She just didn't want to come because she couldn't help it. Who told her to live in a big house and be short-tongued? "
But afterward, Xu Youyin couldn't help but wonder: Could it be that his mother was sick?
On second thought, I groaned angrily and turned over to think: No matter what happened, don't expect him to run to the old house and take the initiative to ask, unless that person comes to deliver a message to them.
His family has so much work to do, who can take the initiative to help his family?
Xu Youyin thought again, this time his family must be a bit ugly. If something went wrong in the market, the first person to be laughed at would be Dafang's family. His grandma might also make sarcastic remarks and scold him. My mother is just messing around.
Thinking of this, my heart hardened again and I stopped worrying blindly. If you have some free time, you might as well think about where your family has gone and whether they have suffered any misfortune outside.
However, it can also be seen from this incident that the two Xu brothers' true thoughts were that they had been looking forward to having a real relative come to visit them.
Especially since most of the strong labor force has been evacuated from the village and returned to rescue operations.
When each family's house and dam were flooded, many relatives from other families came to help build houses.
Fortunately, Dali came, and the villagers slowly returned to help after they finished collecting water.
Although they are not the same surname, they are almost like real relatives. Uncle Guan may have noticed what Uncle Guan said. When he came to deliver the thatched roof that day, he said, "Don't look at others. Your Xu family has more than a hundred relatives in our village."
This is true.
The addition of Yu Dali made Xu Laoer even more powerful.
The brother-in-law and brother-in-law each carried a thick piece of wood on their shoulders, and tied a lot of horsetail grass around their waists. The wood polished with this grass will become smooth, and they went down the mountain in a mighty way.
When the old and young men in the village saw it, they all threw their hands at the water ladle and all started to help.
Xu Laoer came to Liu Laozhu's house and wrote a lumber IOU to Pepper. The wood he bought before to build a house only had leftovers, which was not enough to do anything. Now he would buy two more logs to cause famine.
Pepper was so distressed that she patted her thigh and said, "Why is your nose bleeding? Wipe it quickly."
The man who carried the wood accidentally hit his nose with a stick. Xu Laoer was not as strong as his brother-in-law.
Pepper took the IOU and cursed: "We are guarding so many woods, but there are always some IOUs who come to check our beams, tables and chairs. Otherwise, if we can cut wood secretly, what money will we have to pay? Then Auntie, I'll give it to you too. Xiaogen."
Xu Laoer thought to himself: If no one checked, his wife would make him tired from going up the mountain to cut trees every day. His family alone could cut down half of the forest.
Pepper specifically called out to Xu Youliang, who was in a hurry to leave: "Boy, wait a minute, you can take these eggs back. In fact, my brother-in-law and his family didn't eat much when they came to work, so they only saved a dozen eggs in total." Don’t take it personally.”
"Auntie, this is not okay!"
"How long has it been since your brother-in-law came over? Why did your aunt bring you some food? Don't do that rude thing. Get up from the dock and treat yourself to a good meal. Otherwise, it will easily embarrass your mother. She will scold you when she comes home. Your mother That’s a lot of shame.”
"Auntie, I'll take note of that." When I finish my work at home, I might use scraps to add some stools to Uncle Li Zheng's house.
Xu Youliang didn't expect that when he left Uncle Li Zheng's house, he would be stopped by Mrs. Wan's family again.
Aunt Wan's wife gave her four pieces of soybean curd and said, "I have relatives here who are helping with the work at the new house and can't eat. I just happened to grind a few extra pieces. You can take them home quickly."
He glared again: "You can grind your own beans cheaply here. If you dare to ask your wife to give you copper coins, I'll beat you up."
Xu Youliang: I will use the leftover materials to make some stools for Wanjia.
"Second brother!" Hao Yinhua next door stopped again.
Hao Yinhua heard that Yu Qinniang asked her if she had any extra coarse salt and said she wanted to buy some.
Yu Qinniang wanted to exchange loaches for salt, but they had no choice but to take advantage of the fish. If you really do things like that, it's like talking about asking for salt from the next door, and you're not particular about it.
Yu Qinniang didn't dare to tell her neighbor that all she had left was fine salt. At least that was what her mother-in-law left for her.
Using fine salt to make the loaches vomit mud made Yu Qinniang feel very distressed just thinking about it. Isn't that a waste of money? .net
While she was buying some coarse salt with Hao Yinhua next door, when Yu Qinniang was asked what she was doing for dinner, she casually said that her brother was here and wanted to fry some peanuts. Her brother-in-law and her husband also clamored to eat some.
Hao Yinhua thought to herself: Salt is not our own product, so we really have to take salt money from my nephew-in-law. Because she also has to use cash to buy outside. But the peanuts are grown at home, so if she calls her aunt, she can still afford a handful of peanuts.
In this way, Xu Youliang gathered four dishes for himself, and his wife didn't hurry up to cook without spending money.
No time.
The Xu family was busy until nine o'clock in the evening modern time that day.
Dali helped his brother-in-law break all the wood, then ran to the new house to finish all the windows with his sister, and laid all the tiles with Xu Laosi while carrying back a lot of firewood before these four dishes were served.
Tomorrow, Dali will help his sister harvest autumn cabbage and green onions from two acres of land.
