CHAPTER 214: CHAPTER 214: IF I DIE, LET IT BE ON MY OWN KANG BED

Yu Xiaolian looked at Granny Sun, "Grandma, they’ve been over there for almost three months now, and we don’t even know what the situation is like there.

If... if something bad happens to them, you need to be mentally prepared."

Granny Sun had lived through years of famine, she knew how difficult it was to survive them.

She was nearly sixty years old and had experienced several major droughts and floods. Her parents had given her all the food they had during those disaster years, and starved to death because of it.

Although Fifth Grandpa Sun and her deceased husband were just cousins, they were closer than brothers.

After her husband died, whenever Xu Shi bullied her, Fifth Grandpa Sun would always come to support her immediately.

Some people in the village said that Fifth Grandpa Sun was a widower, and she was a widow, insinuating an unclear relationship between them.

But Granny Sun understood in her heart that Fifth Grandpa Sun was looking after his brother’s widow for the sake of his late brother.

Yu Xiaolian pushed open the door and went out to find Aunt Gao, "Aunt Gao, from now on, the cooking duties at our house will be handed over to you.

We don’t care if it’s tasty or not.

With such a big house and just the two of you working, it’s a bit short on hands. You don’t need to tidy up the uninhabited rooms every day.

When I find a suitable woman, I’ll buy a few more back. In the meantime, it’s going to be hard on just the two of you.

As for the initial mention of six hundred ’wen’ monthly salary, I’ll raise it to one ’liang’, two ’liang’ a month for you two, does that work for you?"

After breakfast, Aunt Gao was washing dishes in the back kitchen. Her daughter Xiaoqiao came running over, panicked, saying that Liang auntie was taken away, possibly sold.

Aunt Gao was so startled she dropped a bowl. It had been over half a month, and she was already sold?

When Yu Xiaolian mentioned selling Liang auntie, Xiaoqiao was sweeping the yard, so she heard the whole story and explained it to her mother, scaring Aunt Gao into a cold sweat.

This Xiaolian girl certainly seemed nice, but she was not averse to using tough methods.

Actually, Aunt Gao noticed Liang auntie’s poor character from the first day.

That day, the young lady gave Liang auntie one liang of silver. Liang auntie only bought six plain buns and pocketed the rest of the money.

After eating two buns each, Aunt Gao and her daughter started fetching water to clean, while Liang auntie just lay down like nothing happened.

However, in the following days, Liang auntie’s cooking was much liked by the household, so much so that the household even raised her monthly salary above that of Aunt Gao and her daughter. Though Xiaoqiao felt a bit uncomfortable about it, Aunt Gao told her daughter to keep her head down and work without meddling in other matters.

They thought since Liang auntie was favored by the household, she would overshadow them completely, but who would have thought this ’favored’ auntie would be sold just like that in no time.

It can only be said that Yu Xiaolian’s act of selling Liang auntie served as a warning to others. Aunt Gao now only wanted to settle down in Luocheng with her daughter.

If they offended Yu Xiaolian and got sold off, who knows where they’d end up, and if they left Luocheng, they might never see her son again.

Staying with the Yu Family, staying in Luocheng, at least there was still hope, right?

Although the house is large, the work is just as much. The old lady and the madam are both easy to get along with, plus Yu Xiaolian raised the monthly salary so much all at once, what complaints could she have?

Aunt Gao had never earned such a high monthly salary before. Two liang a month, she thought she could save enough money for her son’s marriage in a few years.

Thinking of her son, Aunt Gao couldn’t help but feel depressed. It was uncertain whether her son could come back alive. Even if he did, his indenture was still with the original family!

Thinking of this, Aunt Gao moved her lips but swallowed the words back down.

Better to get to know the young lady better first, and then ask for her help. If she asked now, the lady probably wouldn’t agree.

Yu Xiaolian asked, "Is there any leftover from lunch? If there is, heat it up and bring a little into the room."

Aunt Gao was initially confused for a moment, then quickly nodded, "There is, I’ll heat it up and bring it over right away."

Yu Xiaolian returned to Sun’s room and asked Sun Manjiao, "Are you hungry? I’ve had some food prepared for you.

Come, big sister Xiaolian will take you to wash your face and hands."

Sun Manjiao was nine this year, the eldest daughter of Sun Erji.

The Sun Erji family also had a seven-year-old son named Sun Manzhi, who had demanded to switch to having Sun Shi as his mother after having a nice meal.

After being abducted by Wu Er, Sun Manjiao hadn’t starved. At least she ate better than when outside Bohai City.

Though Wu Er gave them buns and water mixed with drugs, she wasn’t constantly hungry.

Sun Manjiao said that among the abducted girls, one had even pleaded with Wu Er to abduct her sister as well, saying her sister would starve to death otherwise, but Wu Er came back after scouting around and said the girl’s sister was too ugly, not worth abducting as she’d just waste food.

Other girls took some comfort from this, feeling it was a skill to be abducted for having a pretty face.

But Sun Manjiao felt differently. She would rather starve to death than be separated from her family.

On the journey, she had seen many cases of selling children. Even their village had cases of girls being sold to travelers for a piece of dry food to become servants.

But her family hadn’t done so. They didn’t even think about selling their children. Her grandpa had said that if anyone dared sell a child, their legs would be broken.

Her grandpa had even stopped her Fourth Grandpa’s family from selling granddaughter Manyu.

To prevent her Uncle’s family from selling Manyu, her grandpa even brought Sun Manyu to live with them.

After getting enough to eat, Sun Manjiao began chatting endlessly, "My grandpa said that besides sister Manyu, all in Fourth Grandpa’s family are sons.

Fourth Grandpa couldn’t bear to sell his grandsons and told us just to keep an eye on sister Manyu."

Sun then poked Sun Manjiao’s forehead, "And you were supposed to watch over your sister Manyu, but you got abducted instead."

Sun Manjiao pouted, "I was starving and fainted at the time. I won’t be fooled next time."

Sun asked Sun Manjiao, "When you were in Bohai City, how often did the government give porridge to the refugees?"

Sun Manjiao replied, "Only once a day, and it was too thin, nobody could get full from it."

"That’s to make sure you don’t starve to death, how could they fill you up?" Sun sighed.

Yu Xiaolian asked Sun Manjiao, "When you all left home, didn’t you bring any food or silver?"

Sun Manjiao replied, "We brought some, but my grandpa said there wasn’t much food left, so we had to save it.

As long as the government was still giving out porridge, we should avoid eating our food.

Otherwise, if the government stopped, we’d have nothing to eat.

After we left home, we didn’t spend a single coin. My grandpa probably has some silver coins.

But I think grandpa doesn’t have much money. Anyway, grandpa said it’s not enough for our family to enter the city.

Grandpa said that if it gets cold and we’re still not allowed in, he’ll take us back."

Sun asked, "Go back for what?"

Sun Manjiao started tearing up again, "Grandpa said, even if we die, we should die on our own kang bed."

Sun suddenly felt sorrowful and pulled Sun Manjiao into her arms, worriedly, "I wonder if your grandpa and the others are still in Bohai City."

Sun Manjiao wasn’t sure either. Over fifty days had passed since she was abducted, maybe her grandpa already led the family back home.