This year for New Year’s, their family didn’t have any fancy food, just the usual meals, because they were all focused on fixing up the house, so they didn’t even buy meat. Luckily, they had three old hens at home. When the previous owner left, they wanted to kill and take them with them, but it was Zheng Kai who decided to keep them. Not just that, even the crops in the field fetched them over 60 yuan in total. It was precisely because Zheng Kai was generous in this aspect, hardly bargaining, that the former owners were so willing to give them the furniture as well.
The old hens laid three eggs each day, just enough for one per person.
Niuniu was already seven or eight months old, usually fed with formula, while her supplementary food was egg yolk and rice porridge, with the occasional addition of some vegetable puree.
Now, Zheng Kai took care of his little sister with competence; as long as he was at home, he would undoubtedly be the one looking after her. Zheng Long, usually at home, cooked and did the laundry—essentially taking on the role of Mom.
Although the family of three had no wife or mother, they lived a carefree and comfortable life.
Luohu Village not only had a lake but nearby mountains as well. Chongqing, dubbed Mountain City, was called so for a reason and was particularly abundant in bamboo, making the air very fresh.
Zheng Long chose this place for recovery, and it was indeed an excellent choice.
After normal work resumed on the sixth day of the New Year, Zheng Long asked the villagers to help find some plasterers. They bought putty and white paint, focusing first on refurbishing the three rooms in the main house and also rewiring the place.
In the rural areas of that era, well water was still in use, without a centralized water supply system. Fortunately, it wasn’t as cold in Chongqing as in the North, so for bathing, it was enough to heat some water. For this, he specially built a bathhouse with concrete, where they would bathe and wash clothes. The water would flow directly through the pipes into the vegetable garden in the yard, without any waste. As for toilets, they were all dry toilets in every household; he couldn’t afford to be fastidious about that.
They only plastered the three rooms they were living in, the kitchen, and the newly built bathhouse—a total of five rooms. The storage room and the other two rooms weren’t touched because the main house had to dry after plastering, and no one could stay there. Therefore, they temporarily moved to the west wing room and didn’t plan to plaster it; it wasn’t practical since it wasn’t regularly inhabited.
Besides that, they also waterproofed the roof. After all these improvements, Zheng Kai started school again.
From where they lived, it took three to four hours by bus to reach the school. In the future, a car could probably make the trip in an hour, but because the bus stopped frequently and moved slowly, it felt like a long journey.
But compared to the hassle of traveling by train back and forth, it was much better.
After sending Zheng Kai off, Zheng Long’s daily life fell into a routine: carrying the baby to the fields to weed. When someone was irrigating their fields, he’d quickly ask to borrow their hose. Of course, he didn’t use it for free; he’d give a little money.
Niuniu was easy to take care of and cheerful. She wasn’t shy with strangers. Carrying her out often turned heads—after all, it was rare to see a man taking care of a child at home in those days.
The people here didn’t know the situation of their family, so he told others that his wife had passed away.
If the child fell asleep, he’d place her in the "space" and then go to work in the fields. He didn’t leave her at the end of the field like other villagers because he was worried about snakes, insects, rats, ants, and the like crawling on her. Although this might sound exaggerated, with the "space" available, why not use it? Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn novel·fiɾe·net