When the pears are green

Chapter 246 I admit I am not a good person

Jiang Xiaoniu's wife stared blankly at the peddler who came from Jiangjia Village. A look of pain appeared on her sallow face. Her ears were buzzing and she could not hear clearly the voices of the peddler and the neighbors talking.

The peddler kept talking about the scene when the two children were dug out, and the men, women, old and young who were gathered around were all crying for the two children who had hugged each other tightly until their death.

Jiang Xiaoniu's wife reached out and touched her face. There was not a single tear in her eyes. She just felt that the sun in early spring was very cold, even colder than a snowy day in the coldest days of winter.

Several women talked to the peddler about the miserable life of Jiang Xiaoniu's wife.

"Alas, Boss Liu was the best to her, but unfortunately he drowned in the river last fall."

"Yes, I remember she was pregnant at the time, but she lost the baby. If the baby could be born, it would be considered leaving a descendant for Boss Liu."

"Look at what you said. How do you know it was Boss Liu?"

"Of course I know that she spends a lot of time with Boss Liu, and I also know..."

The thin woman who was speaking paused, glanced at Jiang Xiaoniu's wife, and lowered her voice and said, "The baby she was pregnant with last year was aborted by Liu Laoer, who used the medicine he bought from Old Man Wang. Half the bed was covered with blood. Tsk, tsk, it was so tragic."

"This Liu Lao Er can..."

"What am I, sister-in-law?" A deep male voice came from behind the crowd.

The woman in the blue jacket quickly replied, "I was saying that something happened at your wife's home, and you are back."

The crowd automatically split into two groups, and the young man holding the branch walked up to the woman in the blue jacket and asked jokingly, "Really? I thought my sister-in-law was scolding me."

The woman in the blue jacket walked out of the crowd and replied, "Why would I scold you? The second child would just say something nonsense. I have something else to do at home, so I'll leave first."

The young man ignored Jiang Xiaoniu's wife, whose eyes were dull, and turned his head to glance at the strange peddler, who wiped his forehead nervously.

A tall man at the side stepped aside to make way for the peddler. The peddler smiled gratefully at the man and hurriedly carried his load of goods away from this troubled place.

A man who was familiar with Liu Laoer grabbed the branch in Liu Laoer's arms and said, "Laoer, something bad happened to your woman, you should comfort her. The dead cannot be resurrected, so take it easy."

Liu Lao Er turned around and asked the man, "Is the man over there gone?"

The man swallowed and answered, "The two children over there are gone. The snow collapsed the roof and they were buried."

"Oh."

Liu Laoer continued walking into the yard, as if he didn't hear the man's words.

The crowd of onlookers could no longer stay and dispersed in twos and threes. After a while, only Jiang Xiaoniu's wife was left standing blankly at the door.

Liu Laoer roughly dragged Jiang Xiaoniu's wife into the yard, then took out a hemp rope and a sickle and threw them at Jiang Xiaoniu's wife's feet and said, "Wu Qiushuang, I think you don't want to live anymore. Choose one, so you won't be bullied by the Jiangs again in a year and a half. Choose one, and you can go to accompany your three children and your eldest brother who loves you so much."

Wu Qiu Shuang slowly squatted down, picked up the hemp rope in one hand and the sickle in the other, and burst into tears.

Liu Laoer breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. It was better to cry out than to keep it in his heart. Then he moved a stool and sat aside to watch Wu Qiushuang cry.

Wu Qiu Shuang gradually became tired of crying and buried her head in her knees, sobbing quietly.

Liu Laoer was annoyed by what he saw and rudely pulled up Wu Qiushuang who was squatting on the ground.

Wu Qiushuang wiped her tears and muttered softly, "I thought I still remembered what Niuniu and Gou Wa looked like, but when I heard Brother Chunsheng talk about this, I realized that I couldn't remember them anymore. Brother Chunsheng said that Jiang Xiaoniu buried the two children over in the reed marsh. It's very desolate there, and the two children must have been scared."

"Okay, okay, don't worry about them too much, so as not to disturb their path of reincarnation." Liu Laoer said as he raised his hand and wanted to pat Wu Qiushuang on the back. When his palm was about to touch the gray cotton coat on Wu Qiushuang, he withdrew it in annoyance.

Wu Qiushuang raised her sleeves to wipe the tears from her face, then looked up and asked Liu Laoer, who was a head taller than her: "Can I go back to see them?"

Liu Lao Er turned his head away from looking at the pitiful Wu Qiu Shuang and replied with a straight face, "No."

Wu Qiushuang's tears came out again, and she asked with a sniff, "Why?"

"There's no reason. Why didn't you speak for me when they said bad things about me? You knew it was the eldest brother who fell into the river by himself. What I gave you to drink was pregnancy-maintaining medicine, not abortion medicine. You don't care about my reputation, so why should I be a good person to let you go back?" After saying this, Liu Laoer let go of Wu Qiushuang's hand and started to build a rabbit nest with mud bricks that had been dried in the winter.

When the weather gets warmer, you can go to fields, riverbanks and other places to catch rabbits at night and raise them until winter to exchange for some copper coins.

Wu Qiu Shuang bit her lip, looked at Liu Laoer's busy back, patted her face and went to help with the work.

For several days, Wu Qiu Shuang endured the grief in her heart and tried her best to please Liu Laoer, hoping that Liu Laoer would be kind enough to let her go back and see him.

Five days later, in the early morning, Liu Laoer woke up Wu Qiushuang who was sleeping soundly. Wu Qiushuang rubbed her eyes and looked out the window at the night and asked, "The work in the field has been completed. Why did you get up so early?"

Liu Laoer tucked Wu Qiushuang's exposed shoulders into the quilt and replied, "I'm going out for a while. I may be back tonight or tomorrow morning. When I'm not at home, don't go out. Don't open the door if someone knocks, or you might get bullied without knowing it."

Wu Qiushuang understood where Liu Laoer was going, and excitedly grabbed Liu Laoer's thin arm and said, "Can you take me there? I really want to see them."

Liu Lao Er shook his head and patiently told Wu Qiu Shuang: "Don't go. You may not be able to go back and forth for a hundred miles. I will give you the key to the kitchen later."

Wu Qiushuang curled up in the quilt and nodded.

After getting up, Liu Laoer took out a key from the cabinet and handed it to Wu Qiushuang, then stroked Wu Qiushuang's fingers and said, "When I come back, don't be angry with me anymore. I know you blame me, blame me for not going into the water to save the eldest brother, blame me for not calling a doctor in time to save the child. Qiushuang, I am a person, and I am selfish. My family is poor, and we only have these things. I can raise the eldest brother's child, but I can't raise my child. I am indeed not a good person, but the eldest brother is not as good as you think."

Wu Qiushuang stared at Liu Laoer's dark face, opened her mouth, turned her head away and stopped looking at Liu Laoer.

Liu Laoer sighed, turned around, pushed open the door, and disappeared into the dark night.

Two days later, a major event happened in Jiangjia Village.

Jiang Xiaoniu's legs were broken, and the bodies of the two children buried in the reeds disappeared, leaving only traces of a fire at the scene.

The villagers were all discussing this matter secretly, and many people said that Jiang Xiaoniu deserved it. When the roof collapsed, Jiang Xiaoniu was only concerned about running away and did not consider the safety of his two children at all.

When Wu Qiushuang was here, the two children wore clean clothes even though they were worn out. Since Wu Qiushuang left Jiangjia Village, the two children have never been clean since then.

As the weather gradually warmed up, Song Li and Jiang Qingzhou bought two pairs of wild rabbits from the village and put them in the rabbit hive, raising them together with the existing rabbits.