The old house and courtyard walls have all been demolished. All that's left is to clean up the broken bricks and tiles and keep the ones that are intact and usable. The decayed beams and window lattice are used as firewood, and the mud, ash, slag, etc. are picked out in baskets and dumped.

After the earthen wall was removed, the earthen wall was left to be crushed, used to raise the yard, and after the foundation was laid, it was used to repair the courtyard dam.

After all, there is strength in numbers. A large group of people worked vigorously, and the backyard was almost tidied up in just half a day.

"Susu, come out quickly. I asked you to dig out the heirlooms of the old Chen family. Come out quickly and see what treasures there are."

Wang Xiuhua shouted loudly with the loud voice unique to her female squad leader.

This caused everyone in the front yard to run out in droves.

"Heirloom? What heirloom? Let me see it quickly."

"What?"

"Isn't this just a grain bag, or just a few strings of money? I thought it was some rare thing."

"It's not this, it's a jar. The jar is old and heavy. There must be something good in it."

Outside the hospital, Wang Xiuhua was holding a dirty black jar, and Chen Jiang's wife next to her was holding a faded red cloth bag.

Everyone knows that red cloth bags are either grain bags or money bags.

The older generation is particular about building houses.

Grains packed in grain bags, placed on beams, can ward off evil spirits and control the house.

Or drill holes in the beams and stuff some copper coins, silver dollars or the like inside. Most of the copper coins have special words, such as "Shunzhi", "Taiping" and the like, which are auspicious and convenient for future generations to use when they are in trouble. This is

Liang money.

I heard that rich people would hide gold inside, which is called hiding gold on the beams.

But Chen Ling's family definitely doesn't have any gold.

He didn't believe it himself, so he shook his head and said to everyone: "My family is a poor farmer for three generations and I am not a landlord. What good things can I get?"

"What's wrong with the poor peasants? Do they have no treasure? That's not necessarily the case."

A woman murmured in a low voice.

It’s true that Chen Ling’s family were poor farmers, but his educated youth mother was not. Who knows if she left behind any valuable treasures.

"Open it, Susu, open it and take a look."

At this time, Wang Xiuhua had handed the jar to Wang Susu and asked her to open it.

Others also followed suit and urged.

Wang Susu glanced at Chen Ling, and with everyone watching, she carefully opened the jar. When she looked inside, she saw a dark iron lock tied with a thick chain that had become rusty.

"What is this? It's not a longevity lock, is it?"

"It should be, there are words on it."

Wang Susu took out the iron lock, and when people took a look, it was engraved with the birth date, and the three more conspicuous characters were the words "Chen Juncai".

"I know, this is Uncle Juncai's longevity lock."

"Fugui, you'd better put it away."

"Either bury it again, or take it to Uncle Juncai's grave this year."

Chen Ling took it in his hand and looked at it. It was indeed his father's longevity lock. He nodded, then silently put the iron lock into the jar and sealed it again.

"Fugui, when I visit Uncle Juncai's grave this year, will Aunt Junying come?"

"I don't know. I guess I can't come. It's too far."

"That's right. My mother also said that she had a dream about Aunt Junying a few days ago. She and I were close friends back then. The team sent people to Kinmen Village to borrow livestock, and they always went together."

"It's just that we are far away now, so it's not easy to meet."

"Who says it's not the case? It's better for my daughter to marry closer to her. It's hard to go back to her parents' home even if she doesn't want to."

When the village talks about Chen Ling's father Chen Juncai, they will never forget to mention his aunt Chen Junying.

There is no way, without Chen Junying, there would be no Chen Juncai.

At that time, because Chen Ling's grandmother could not feed her children, she either suffered frequent miscarriages or died when she was one or two years old. Later, she went to see a goddess who examined her and told her that she had suffered from fetal evil and that she had to adopt a female baby to overcome the evil.

The evil spirit of the fetus becomes the god of the fetus, and only then can a healthy child be born.

It was not difficult to adopt a female doll in those days.

Furthermore, Chen Ling's grandparents originally had the intention of adopting a baby from another family if they were unable to have a baby, so they brought one back from the neighboring Kuliu County without much effort.

But the miraculous thing is that within two years, Chen Ling's grandmother actually gave birth to a healthy boy.

At that time, this incident was also spread around.

People have been talking about it for many years, and even now many elderly people tell it as a story.

However, although this matter is a bit legendary, after the two siblings got married, the relationship between Chen Ling's father and his eldest sister was not very good. Outsiders said that it was Chen Ling's mother who caused the trouble.

When rural people encounter a daughter who refuses to return to her parents' home, most of them blame the sister-in-law for being unkind.

In fact, my eldest sister has a good heart, but she has an honest personality and no independent opinions. After marrying a husband who loves to take advantage of others and is petty, she always listens to her husband in everything. When she goes back to her parents' home, she always likes to cry about her poverty and think that she is poor.

Get some things back, Chen Ling's mother is not a good person, so she won't agree to it. If this goes on for a long time, there will naturally be a lot of conflicts.

There are fewer and fewer contacts.

In recent years, I have visited twice, including Chen Ling's marriage and the death of Chen Ling's father.

Other times, unless it is time to give up some of your money, you will definitely not come to the door easily.

As for now, her father has passed away, and this aunt's impression of Chen Ling is still the same dead and worthless look as before, so I'm afraid she can't avoid it.

It's like a complete cessation of contact.

To Chen Ling, it was the same whether he had this aunt or not. It was just that when outsiders talked about him, they always liked to mention him in passing.

In particular, "A handsome man is a handsome man. How can a handsome man come without handsome men?" is a sentence that people in the village always like to say when talking about his father.

He doesn't care either.

…

"The beams have been lifted out. There is no rush to clean up the rest. Let's take a rest first and drink some water to cool off."

Chen Ling put the jar into his home and said hello.

At this time, Wang Susu had already filled several tables in the courtyard with herbal tea. She also washed the grapes and peaches grown in the courtyard and put them out for everyone to enjoy while enjoying the coolness.

"This guy comes to work in a wealthy family and the treatment is good."

"That's right. I have food, drink, and enough meat. How comfortable it is."

"Get some rest later. Fugui, come with me to the outside of the village and pick out some big beams."

"Are you looking for some big beams? I've already gone to see them this morning. The ones outside the village are not very good. I plan to go to the city tomorrow to pick a few. I happen to know someone there."

Chen Ling shook his head. The beams placed outside the village were all pulled from the lumber factory and allowed the villagers to use them as they pleased. This resulted in every household trying to pick the right ones for use. For more than half a month, you picked and I picked.

The rest are less satisfying.

It would be better to go to Dongtian to pick up some good wood. For him, cutting down the trees doesn't take much effort. After being processed by Dongtian, it can be used directly.

The wood used for beams and columns is usually air-dried or shade-dried. It is easy to crack when exposed to the sun. It is often covered with straw mats and the like. However, it must be ventilated frequently, otherwise some wood will become moldy.

Chen Ling has a cave in his body, so these are not problems.

"That's okay. Will the servant go with you tomorrow?"

"No, I can do it alone. I just have to get up early and can't make breakfast for everyone."

"Hahaha, your son is so honest. Do you really want to control our three meals a day? It's like the time when we had a big pot of rice."

"What I'm talking about is that the government now provides materials for building houses, which is no different from when the production brigades were still there. At that time, the brigades provided homesteads free of charge to those who were approved to build houses, as well as farmland for cutting adobe bricks, and even purlins.

The pine trees used for rafters, doors and windows can also be cut down at will.”

"The labor involved in building a house was allocated by the production team and given work points. At that time, the homeowners really had to take care of three meals a day."

"But it was hard back then. It's not like it is now. After a disaster, materials are taken out of the village and used at will."

"We didn't produce lime here back then, and the quality of the lime sold in Huangni Town was not good and the price was too expensive. We had to go to the Wangbacheng Kiln Factory 40 miles away to pick it up on a load. The quality and price there were high, but the mountain road was difficult to walk.

, there are only narrow paths, and we have to climb mountains and ridges.”

"We rushed there after dinner at night, and the next morning each person carried back a hundred kilograms of lime. The soles of his feet were bruised with blood blisters. A family of four or five wanted to build a house, and they had to travel more than half a mile back and forth.

Months and more than a dozen trips back and forth can wear someone to death."

"Not to mention, people at that time worked hard to build new houses. No one was afraid of wolves when walking on the mountain road at night. If there was a tree nearby, they would not climb up. They would pick up a pole and go to fight with the wolves. It was so poor.

Poor."

"Brother Dazhi, do you still dare to ask you to fight a wolf now?"

"It's not possible now. I no longer have the courage. I'm getting older. It would be nice if I didn't tremble when I saw a wolf's legs."

Everyone sat under the shade of the trees, drinking herbal tea, eating grapes and peaches, and chatting.
To be continued...