Therefore, the main room also had a noodle jar and a water jar, which were full of stuff, quite similar to Lin Lan’s current house.
Even though it was noon, the wooden windows of the house were small. Since they were still window lattices as well, the interior was not very bright.
Lin Lan took out the candies that she brought and gave one to each child.
She could be angry with adults, but she still needed to coax children.
Wang Lianying whispered, “I heard that the children’s father is back, are you alright?”
The family heard about Lin Lan drinking pesticides, but they didn’t know it very well. According to the usual practice, after the original owner tried to scare people, she usually succeeded in ordering something and would bring it back to her mother’s house to show off. After repeating it countless times, no one bothered to care anymore.
Lin Lan smiled and said, “He came back a few days ago. We just split our family, so one person gets about half a catty of food per day…”
“Aiya, half a catty of food is not enough to eat. You are going to starve,” Wang Lianying said after calculating, “You have to get some private plots and vegetable plots. You can also demand a variety of carrots and potatoes and eat them as meals. There are still some dried sweet potatoes and sorghum rice back at my place. I’ll discuss it with my parents later, so don’t worry about it…”
“Eldest sister-in-law, I am grateful for your words. If there is no food at home, their father will find a way,” Lin Lan declined as no family ever had enough food.
“Look at you, you’re my family; if you’re suffering, do you think I’m going to stand aside and watch my nephew go hungry?”
Eldest sister Lin and second sister Lin also asked Lin Lan about the separation of the family. They inquired about what she got and what she lacked. They all said that they didn’t have time to burn the kang after work. Hence, they would just help out with something or send some items back to Lin Lan’s in-laws’ place for her to collect it.
They obviously felt that their fourth sister had changed. It seemed like the children’s father returning home was a change for the better.
Old Lady Lin snorted and glared at Lin Lan, “Hmph, you didn’t even have enough for yourself and yet you got me something. You don’t have cotton at home, either. These children can’t just face the winter without proper clothing. As sisters, try to get her two catties of cotton clumps.”
Cotton clumps were cotton that had been rolled for too long and was not warm. When there was a shortage of cotton, the clumps could be used as a substitute albeit a much lesser quality.
Eldest sister Lin and the second sister have been married for a long time and they are both in charge of their families. No matter how tightly stretched they were, they could still get by.
Eldest sister Lin also gave Lin Lan a cotton ticket that was meant as a dowry for her eldest daughter, asking Lin Lan to pay it back in the coming year. Lin Lan declined, insisting that she could make do with cotton clumps.
The second sister said that there was a torn cotton-padded jacket at home, so she went back to take it apart and washed it before bringing the cotton over for Lin Lan.
Tang Hehua didn’t want to join in the fun. Even if she had anything to spare, she wasn’t going to give it up.
Wang Lianying was able to come up with half a catty of new cotton. It was from the New Year’s holiday so she could never bring herself to use it. She said that she was initially going to use them up to sew a new coat for her husband.