good season

Xiao Zhen was stunned. He looked at Zhen Wuduo with a deep gaze, like a cold pond hidden in a valley, bottomless. Zhen Wuduo felt uneasy. His eldest son was good in every way except that he was too thoughtful at such a young age.

You can tell at first glance that he is someone who can achieve great things, like him!
Zhen Wuduo completed his self-comfort in the shortest time possible. Life was good, and it was another day to show off his son.

Xiao Zhen retracted his gaze and called Xu Le over again: "Go find all the human traffickers within a hundred miles and ask them to recall whether there was any family that lost a daughter in April or May ten years ago."

This may sound difficult to find, but in reality, not many families would report their missing daughters to the police or offer a reward for finding them.

After arranging all the people to go out, they returned along the same route and returned to the bamboo forest.

A blind girl of four or five years old, covered with wounds, would not be able to walk far even with the help of wild dogs, not to mention that it was at night.

Loach quickly found two local people, one was a man in his early thirties and the other was an old man in his fifties.

Zhao Shiqing asked: "Excuse me, how many villages are there nearby? Which is the closest one?"

The two were stunned for a moment, but they both looked at Xiao Zhen who was standing next to Zhao Shiqing. The man smiled and asked, "Sir, are you here to collect the cloth?"

Zhao Shiqing rolled her eyes secretly. I asked you politely, but you ignored me and instead looked at Xiao Zhen’s cold face. Aren’t you just looking at me because I’m a little girl?
Sure enough, the two men got what they wanted.

Xiao Zhen said unhappily: "Stop talking nonsense, I'm asking you a question."

The old man hurriedly pulled the man behind him, bent his waist, and said to Xiao Zhen: "My son has never seen the world, so don't argue with him. There are five villages nearby, and the closest one is Huangzhu Village. Go forward along this road, there is a fork in the road, go east over a hillside, and you will reach Huangzhu Village. My ancestors have lived in Huangzhu Village for generations."

Xiao Zhen's voice was so cold that it could freeze someone to death: "Where are the other four villages?"

The old man said hurriedly, "The village closest to ours is Zhuxitang. Although that village is large, half of the people there are from outside. The weavers are all from the local area. There are only a dozen families with looms in Zhuxitang. Therefore, if you want to collect the cloth, you should go to our village."

Xiao Zhen frowned slightly: "Why are half of the families in Zhuxitang from outside?"

The old man explained: "This is far-fetched. In the past, there was no village called Zhuxitang. Half of the land was wasteland, and the other half belonged to our Huangzhu Village.

When I was young, there was one year when heavy rain lasted for a whole month in the eastern part of Wu. Some places were flooded and people had to flee everywhere. The rain here was small and the disaster was not serious. Later, when the flood receded, many people who had fled from other places did not go back and settled down here.

In order to accommodate these refugees, the government office was divided into two parts from Huangzhu Village, and half of the wasteland was added to build the current Zhuxitang.

Therefore, half of the people in Zhuxitang are from Huangzhu Village, and the other half are outsiders who have fled here.”

As soon as the old man finished speaking, Zhen Wuduo came over and asked, "Are you talking about something that happened thirty-four years ago?"

The old man thought for a moment and said, "It was about thirty-four or thirty-five years ago. I was only fourteen or fifteen years old then, and now I am fifty."

Zhen Wuduo asked again: "Did anyone from your five villages flee the disaster back then?"

The old man shook his head. "As far as I know, no. Although it rained here, it was only heavy for a few days. The rest of the time it was light rain. We have mountains here and the terrain is high. I haven't heard of any house being washed away. Although the fields produced less that year, every household wove cloth. Although the cloth was not as easy to sell as it is now, it could be exchanged for food to supplement the family income. Although life was difficult in those two years, it was not to the point of fleeing."

"Besides Zhuxitang, are there any other villages with refugees?" Zhen Wuduo asked.

The old man shook his head again: "There were definitely no outsiders back then. If there are outsiders now, they must have moved here later.

The reason why the government wanted to build a new village was because none of our villages wanted to accept outsiders. It just so happened that the Li family in Huangzhu Village was always looking for trouble, so the government simply built a new village and moved the Li family to Zhuxitang. "

Zhen Wuduo shouted to his followers, "Hurry up, help me get on the horse, and go to Zhuxitang, hurry up!"

Zhao Shiqing looked at Xiao Zhen: "Are we going too?"

Xiao Zhen: "Don't worry about him, let's go to the nearest village first."

The old man was overjoyed. Until now, he still regarded these people as foreign merchants who came to collect cloth.

Huangzhutang Village is not big. There are more than 50 households in the village, more than 40 of which are surnamed Huang, and the other ten households have three different surnames.

The old man and his son also had the surname Huang. The Huang family is still proud of the fact that they drove the Li family out of Huangzhu Village.

Old Man Huang and his son took Xiao Zhen and Zhao Shiqing around the village and finally brought them to their home.

Old Man Huang has four looms at home. His wife, daughter-in-law, and two daughters are the family's breadwinners.

Zhao Shiqing said she wanted to see the loom, so Old Man Huang quickly called his little daughter and asked her to accompany Zhao Shiqing to see the loom and cloth at home.

Zhao Shiqing was stunned when she saw Old Man Huang's youngest daughter. She originally thought that the girl, who was not yet married and the youngest in the family, would be only in her teens. However, she never expected that the girl in front of her already had fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

She asked quietly, "How old is your sister this year?"

Miss Huang whispered, "Thirty."

Zhao Shiqing was stunned. Second Miss Huang was thirty, then what about First Miss Huang?

Miss Huang is thirty-four years old!

She took Lingbo to the two girls' room to see the looms, and only then did she realize that there were several other girls in Huangzhu Village who were in their thirties and had not yet married like them. They were the breadwinners of their families, and their parents and brothers had promised to provide for them in their old age, and when they were a hundred years old, their nephews would make banners for them.

Miss Huang told Zhao Shiqing: "Last year my father bought a piece of land for the two of us, right next to my family's ancestral grave. We two sisters can be buried there in the future."

Zhao Shiqing took a long time to calm herself down. She asked, "The girls here are so capable, so there shouldn't be any cases of selling your daughters, right?"

Miss Huang smiled and said, "Of course not. Every girl is a treasure."

"Then do you remember whether there was any family in the village who lost a daughter ten years ago?"

The two thought about it, and Miss Huang Er said, "Then it can only be Old Liu's family."

Miss Huang took over the conversation: "No, Liu Erhua is not missing. She ran away with her cousin. The Liu family said she was lost in order to cover up the shame."

Miss Huang Er said, "Then there is no more." Zhao Shiqing said, "If she can run with her cousin, she must not be a little girl. The child I'm talking about is only four or five years old."

Miss Huang said, "That's even more impossible. Here, little girls aged four or five have already learned to weave from their parents. Although they are young, they can do a lot of work and can even help their mothers take care of their younger brothers. If a little girl gets lost, her family will definitely look for her."

Miss Huang Er asked, "Miss, are you sure that the lost child is from our Huangzhu Village?"

Zhao Shiqing said: "I'm not sure, but it should be from this area. Oh, and that little girl is blind."

The second Miss Huang's eyes lit up, and she said to the first Miss Huang: "Sister, do you still remember the sister-in-law who used to come to our village? What was her last name? Wasn't her daughter blind? I remember that my mother often said that her family members were mentally ill, and that instead of seeking medical treatment for the little blind girl, it would be better to find a folk remedy to give birth to a son."

Miss Huang nodded and said, "I remember her, Sister Fu. Her family was from outside the village and moved here later. She also helped her husband collect cloth in our village. However, the villagers knew that her family was from Zhuxitang and refused to sell cloth to her. However, she always went to Uncle Wu's house to buy meat. Aunt Wu said that she was a very good person."

"Her surname is Fu? Is this her surname or her husband's surname?" Zhao Shiqing asked.

The two sisters shook their heads together: "We don't know about that. We still listen to Aunt Wu calling her Sister Fu."

Zhao Shiqing asked again: "Is there anyone with the surname Shi around here? The Shi in time."

She knew the origin of her name. Although the tattered clothes with the word "Shi" embroidered on it had disappeared long ago, her father had told her about it since she regained her memory. Girls rarely used this word as their names, so she always suspected that "Shi" was her surname.

The two shook their heads again: "There is definitely none in our village."

"Is the Mrs. Fu you are talking about still coming to the village to buy meat?" Zhao Shiqing asked.

"Oh, it seems like I haven't seen her for many years. It may also be that people in our village are unwilling to sell cloth to people from Zhuxitang, so they don't come. Besides, Uncle Wu is not the only butcher in this area." Miss Huang said.

When leaving Huang's house, Zhao Shiqing bought some cloth. She whispered to the two sisters, "You may not like what I said, so just treat it as nonsense. If you can, save more private money. It's better to rely on yourself than on anyone else. The money is earned by you, so it's yours. I won't give it to anyone else."

The two sisters lowered their heads in silence. Zhao Shiqing sighed silently in her heart. No one was a fool. The two sisters should have thought of what she thought of, but there were too many things in life that were beyond one's control.

After leaving Old Huang's house, Xiao Zhen said, "Where are we going now?"

Zhao Shiqing said: "Let's go to Zhuxitang!"

Huangzhu Village is not far from Zhuxitang, and the two villages are closely connected. But as Old Man Huang said, Zhuxitang is very large, and there is a bamboo forest as soon as you enter the village. You have to walk a long way before you can see people.

When we walked to the door of a house, the door was half open and we could see two kids chasing and playing in the yard. A woman yelled at them in a loud voice, "Can't you guys just stop making noise from morning till night without stopping for a moment!"

Loach shrank his neck and asked with a brave face, "Aunt, let me ask you something."

Hearing someone talking, the woman and the two children looked over, and the woman asked, "What are you asking?"

Zhao Shiqing walked to Niuqiu and said to the woman, "Aunt, is there a family with the surname Shi in our village? Shi means time."

The woman didn't even think about it: "There is no surname."

"What about those with the surname Fu? My cousin married here a few years ago and her family surname is Fu." Zhao Shiqing asked again.

"No, I have never heard of anyone with the last name Shi or Fu. Both of you, get into the house. The clean clothes I just changed into this morning have gotten dirty again!"

The woman ignored Zhao Shiqing and Niu Qiu and went to take her own child.

Zhao Shiqing sighed, and Niu Qiu said hurriedly: "Second Miss, why don't you close your eyes and try again, maybe you can find the feeling."

Zhao Shiqing said: "Since we are here, let's ask a few more people."

The few of them continued to move forward, unaware that the woman had just returned to the house with two mud-like children. Her mother-in-law asked while weaving, "Who were you talking to in the yard just now?"

The woman said, "I'm here to look for someone. What's the surname Shi or Fu? There's no one with that surname in our village."

Her mother-in-law thought about it and said, "Could it be that they are here to visit Mrs. Shi's family?"

The woman was curious: "Which old woman? Why don't I remember this person?"

Her mother-in-law rolled her eyes at her and said, "It's strange that you can remember. When you got married, Mrs. Shi's family had already moved away."

The woman asked, "Moved away?"

Her mother-in-law said, "It's the courtyard at the west end of the village that Li Laosi has always been thinking about. That's where Granny Shi lives."

The woman remembered: "Didn't Li Laosi say that the family died in another place? Why do you say that they moved away?"

Her mother-in-law snorted coldly, "Don't listen to Li Laosi's nonsense. He just wants to get a yard for free because he sees that the family hasn't come back. He just wants to take advantage of others because his surname is Li. The head of the village doesn't tolerate him. Although the old Shi family fled here, Shi Pozi's son is educated and knows how to do business. Although his family has no land, they are well-off. Their house is the best built in our village, otherwise why would Li Laosi target them?

Li Laosi said that the family died in another place, and that the family had no descendants, that the family should be returned to the village if all the people died. Bah, what a shameless person, he would bully outsiders like us. "

At this time, there was a sound of broken porcelain outside, and a child shouted, "Mom, Shuanzi broke the bowl."

The woman was furious and rushed out shouting, "Little Shuanzi, I'm going to skin you alive!"

Her mother-in-law put down her work and chased after him: "Take it easy, the baby's flesh is tender, don't beat him to death."

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were busy dealing with the naughty child, but they didn't know that Li Laosi, who had just been called shameless by them, was frowning and looking up and down at the people standing at his door.

"Are you looking for the surname?"

Seeing that the man was a sturdy guy, Niu Qiu quickly blocked Zhao Shiqing behind him and said, "Yes, uncle, is there a family with the surname Shi in our village?"

Li Laosi shook his head: "No, why are you asking about my surname?" (End of this chapter)