Mixed in 1980

Chapter 531 Living Cleanly
She was fine when she left home, but after walking around for a while, Ye Ling became uneasy. Her children had never lived in the countryside except for their ancestral home in southern Fujian.

Can you adapt?
This trip took us to a remote mountain village.

After I shared my thoughts, Chen Lao Er scoffed, "Don't worry about it. The environment is much better now. Back in the 1990s, didn't we go to the countryside?"

"The conditions back then were truly terrible."

“We have three mothers who raised the five of us siblings, and we’re doing just fine. It’s time for the children to go and see the impoverished mountain areas.”

Ye Ling had no way to refute this.

Her worries stemmed from maternal instinct, but rationally she also supported the children going to the mountain village to see the hardships they faced, as it would easily lead to them becoming spoiled brats.

But I just can't help thinking about my child.

The children didn't want her to be like that; everything outside was new and exciting to them. Only Zeng Ali was speechless: "Xu Jinqiu, you're really something!"

"Let's broaden the children's horizons." Xu Jinqiu deliberately raised her eyebrows and took her older sister's arm.

Zeng Ali pulled her arm away and pinched her: "Since you're here, take a good look around. The little ones haven't been here before, so they'll get a taste of the hardship."

"Grandma, I don't like bitter food."

Little Confused hugged Zeng Ali tightly, grinning slightly, "I like sweets, what should we eat tonight?"

"You're really absent-minded."

Zeng Ali rubbed the little girl's head vigorously, both amused and exasperated: "Go find your mother and ask her to prepare some good food for you."

The little girl nodded and went to find Chen Yanxi.

Xu Jinqiu asked again, "Why are you still in the county town? I thought you had already gone to the countryside and was planning to go to the rural area to find you tomorrow."

"I'm coordinating with the volunteers today and planning the route. We'll go to the countryside tomorrow," Zeng Ali replied before heading off to look after the children.

Ten of them came at once, and some of them had a headache.

After a flurry of activity, he finally settled the children in. Gritting his teeth, he couldn't resist giving Xu Jinqiu another beating. She was truly cunning.

They can't stand to suffer the slightest loss.

The following day, they split into two groups. Chen Yanxi went to Hanzhong, taking a different route, and was followed by a professional film crew.

Zeng Ali and Zhao Yuanyuan went to a rural area in the Daliang Mountains.

What was originally just three off-road vehicles has now become a massive fleet.

"The changes are truly remarkable."

Xu Jinqiu is no stranger to the Daliang Mountains. He visited several times in the 1980s and 1990s and built many Xinghuo Hope Primary Schools there.

He has also sponsored many impoverished students.

Two thousand years later, with economic development, the Xu Jinqiu Scholarship has transformed, no longer supporting primary and secondary school students, but focusing on supporting impoverished college students.

Returning to the Liangshan Mountains, the landscape is completely different from what I remembered. I never imagined that there would be paved roads in these mountainous areas.

The car was driving on the winding mountain road.

A figure appeared ahead, and the cars slowed down. Zeng Ali looked out and a look of surprise flashed in her eyes.

It turned out to be a little girl.

Judging from his height, he was probably only eleven or twelve years old. His hair was a bit yellowish, and his clothes were slightly dirty and old. In addition to his schoolbag, he also had a large bag on his shoulder.

It's a snakeskin bag for storing fertilizer.

The little girl's steps were somewhat heavy as the bag was filled with many things.

Zeng Ali picked up the walkie-talkie, told the convoy to stop, and the film crew got out of the car. She then got out with Zhao Yuanyuan, asking, "Little sister, where are you going?"

The little girl looked at them awkwardly.

Especially when she saw the camera, her eyes showed some panic and a hint of wariness: "Hello, Auntie, I... I want to go to school."

"Going to school? What are you carrying?" Zeng Ali looked at her snakeskin bag with curiosity.

"Oranges," the little girl said timidly.

"Oranges? What are you carrying oranges for? To eat at school?" Zeng Ali asked in surprise.

The little girl gently shook her head: "No, I'm going to sell it on the street. Grandpa is sick, and I want to sell it to buy him medicine and for my living expenses next week."

Zeng Ali was slightly taken aback.

His gaze then fell on the snakeskin bag, which was about half full and probably weighed around twenty pounds: "Little sister, where are your parents?"

"Daddy died, and Mommy married someone else." The little girl's eyes reddened, tears welled up, and her voice choked with sobs.

Zeng Ali felt a slight pang in her heart.

Just as she was about to comfort the little girl, Zhao Yuanyuan pushed her aside: "Little sister, don't cry. Can Auntie look at your oranges?"

As he spoke, he helped put the snakeskin bag down.

The little girl opened the snakeskin bag and took out two oranges: "Auntie, please have some."

"Thank you, little sister." Zhao Yuanyuan accepted it.

He picked up the burlap sack again, weighed it in his hand, and said, "Little sister, how about we sell the oranges? You can calculate how much it will cost in total?"

"I didn't weigh myself," the little girl shook her head slightly.

Normally, when she sells them on the street, she borrows someone else's scale. Zhao Yuanyuan didn't pay much attention to it, just weighed it roughly, and took out the cash she had specially prepared from her bag.

They didn't give me any more than two hundred yuan.

The little girl didn't dare to reach out and took it, shaking her head vigorously: "My grandpa said I can't take too much money from other people, Auntie, just give me a few dozen yuan."

"That's all, just as your aunt says."

Zhao Yuanyuan patted the little girl's head: "Tell Auntie, what illness does Grandpa have?"

"He fell and broke one of his hands."

Did you go to the hospital?

The little girl shook her head, and Zhao Yuanyuan realized what she meant: "How about this, we go to your house together and take your grandpa to see a doctor, okay?"

Seeing that the little girl seemed interested but also hesitant, Zhao Yuanyuan added, "Auntie is doing a TV show, so how about letting the production team pay for it?"

The little girl lowered her head and hummed in agreement.

Zhao Yuanyuan helped the little girl into the car: "Little sister, what's your name again?"

"Azi."

"My name is Zhao Yuanyuan, you can call me Aunt Zhao. Please give the driver directions."

According to the directions Azi gave, it wasn't far from her home; it was only a ten-minute drive, but walking would take at least an hour.

This is a small village.

Judging from the arrangement of the houses, there should be more than twenty households. Many of the houses had their doors tightly closed, and no one could be seen. It's possible that the whole family was outside.

This is very common in rural areas.

Most of those who remain are elderly people and children. Those who are more capable will send their children to school outside the village, as education in rural areas is indeed lacking.

When they arrived at Azi's house, the situation was worse than they had imagined.

The old house was dilapidated and lacked any decent furniture. The ten children in the family always found the house quite peculiar.

There is more than one child in the family, Azi.

There were also two boys, the older one was six or seven years old and the younger one was three or four years old. Their clothes were tattered and their hair was messy.

Besides that, there was only one old man, whose left hand was wrapped in gauze.

He was no longer able to take care of his three children.

"Grandpa, how old are you this year?"

Zhao Yuanyuan went up to chat with the old man, who replied, "Fifty-nine, I'll be sixty next year."

puff...

Zeng Ali couldn't help but laugh and said to the old man, "Hello, brother, you're even younger than us. She's already sixty-one, haha... Zhao Yuanyuan, you're hilarious!" Zhao Yuanyuan was speechless.

The old woman did look old, with a weathered face, and was in worse condition than her own in-laws. She didn't look fifty-nine at all; she looked more like seventy or eighty.

Zhao Yuanyuan glared at the older woman and then asked the old man, "Young man, what happened to your hand?"

"I fell and my bones are cracked."

"Didn't you go to the hospital?"

"There's a clinic in town. The doctor said I can't work and need to rest. I'll be fine in a while."

"That's good."

Zhao Yuanyuan nodded slightly and then asked, "Is it just you and your three children at home?"

“All three children are my eldest son’s. I also have a daughter who worked away from home years ago and later married and moved to Hangzhou.” The old woman’s eyes reddened as she spoke of her daughter.

Zhao Yuanyuan asked, "Does your daughter come back often?"

"I only come back once every two years. It's too far, and it costs a lot of money to go back and forth." The old man shook his head, grinned, and sighed.

Do you miss your daughter?

"How could I not want to? Marrying someone too far away is unavoidable. It's better to marry out than to stay in my hometown." The old man smiled slightly.

Zhao Yuanyuan was somewhat moved.

That's how parents are; they always hope their children will be successful.

It's not good to reopen old wounds, so Zhao Yuanyuan quickly changed the subject: "I ran into your granddaughter on the way here. Isn't there a school in the village?"

“The village is too small and there is no school. In the past, several villages were combined to form a Xinghuo Hope Primary School, but later the number of students decreased and it was closed down, and they all went to the primary school in the town.”

"Isn't that quite far?"

"There's no other way. I live far away, so I have to stay in hotels and can only come back on weekends."

Are there many children going to town?

"How should I put it? It's not a lot. In our village, there are only about ten children left at home, and five or six of them have started primary school."

The old man sighed and said, "Some are still young. When they get a little older, their parents may take them to study outside the home, instead of necessarily studying at home."

“There are quite a lot of children from other villages combined.”

“Some villages are quite large and have schools, so children from several villages come together.”

That's just how it is. Those who have the ability all flock to the cities, but not everyone has the ability to do so. There are still many people living in the mountains.

Scattered and disorganized.

Zhao Yuanyuan then asked about the old man's income. He said that the old man relied on farming and growing oranges to barely support his three children, and that was all he could earn.

The older folks say things were better before.

His son and daughter-in-law worked outside and were able to save some money, but his son died in an accident and his daughter-in-law remarried, so the burden fell entirely on his shoulders.

Injuring my hand this year only made things worse.

After understanding the situation, Zhao Yuanyuan and Zeng Ali began to discuss the assistance plan. The purpose of the "Li Yuanyuan Hand in Hand" initiative is to provide one-on-one, precise and effective assistance.

The first thing to address is the injuries.

We'll allocate a vehicle to take the elderly person to the hospital for treatment. Other assistance plans need to be discussed to see how to help this family out of their predicament.

Meeting Ah Zi was an unexpected turn of events.

After settling the elderly person in, we proceeded to another village as planned. A volunteer, a man in his thirties, was already waiting at the village entrance.

The convoy stopped at the village entrance.

Led by volunteers, we walked into the village: "This village is not small, with more than 300 households. There is a Xinghuo Hope Primary School in the village, and children from nearby villages come here to study."

"There are a lot of left-behind children in the village."

“This situation is very common in the Liangshan mountain area. The family we are going to visit today only has five children left.”

"No adults?" Zeng Ali asked in surprise.

The volunteer shook his head: "No, the situation is more complicated. The man in charge of the family was working on the construction site when he fell from the steel frame and died."

"The woman ran away with the compensation money."

“There used to be a grandmother in the family who could take care of the children to some extent, but she fell to her death while working on the mountain last year, and the village helped with the funeral.”

"How old are the children?" Zeng Ali frowned.

The volunteer smiled wryly: "The two older ones are in junior high school and have already dropped out, while the three younger ones are still in elementary school. The village helps them out occasionally, so they won't starve."

"These kids are unlucky too."

“My father died and my mother ran away, so I couldn’t be recognized as an orphan and couldn’t receive orphan subsidies. Fortunately, the local officials did some practical work and gave me some subsidies.”

Zeng Ali's brows furrowed instantly.

When we arrived at the child's house, it was quite large, but it was very dilapidated and messy, and there wasn't a single clean spot.

The oldest child is only in the second year of junior high school.

It was a girl, quite pretty, but her skin was a bit dark, her clothes looked dirty and old, and her hair was messy.

They weren't as refined as city kids.

Do you want to go back to school?

In response to Zeng Ali's question, the girl shook her head. She wanted to go out and work, just like the uncles and elders in the village. Only by going out and working could she find a way out.

But she was too young, and the villagers dared not take her out, nor could they afford the travel expenses.

Do you miss your mom?

The girl said she missed her, but also hated her, saying that her mother had never come back to see them and had almost disappeared from their world in an instant.

There was no news at all.

The five children, as if forgotten by the world, had no one to rely on but to huddle together for warmth and struggle to survive.

After understanding the situation, Zeng Ali didn't say anything else, but simply took out some of the purchased supplies and ate lunch there.

Everyone pitched in to prepare a delicious lunch for the children.

After lunch, everyone went back.

After returning to the county town, Zeng Ali and Zhao Yuanyuan purchased a lot of supplies, almost everything they needed for daily life.

The next day, I returned here.

Zeng Ali and her children did a thorough cleaning of the five children's home, cleaning it from top to bottom.

All the furniture, appliances, bed sheets, and bedding were replaced with new ones.

Then the children were given a bath and changed into new clothes. When they came out, everyone was clean and tidy.

Zeng Ali held the older child's hand: "Girl, do you know what's most important in life?"

"It's basically just clean."

"Whether at home or on your body, you must be clean so that you won't be looked down upon and can be respected by others."

As he spoke, he cupped the little girl's face in his hands and said, "Look how pretty you are after you've washed yourself. You'll definitely marry a good husband in the future."

The girl grinned, then started sobbing again.

"Why are you crying?"

After coaxing her for a while, Zeng Ali pulled the girl aside and talked about how she should live and take care of her younger siblings.

The lack of maternal love meant that many things were not taught by elders.

Since I have some time, I'll finish this one.

(End of this chapter)