Chapter Thirty-One: He's Rented Land

  Lin Er Niu's worries were indeed correct, although Lin Da Jiang's family had passed this hurdle, Qing Shan was fine, but what about the days when there was nothing at home?

  "Old Big Brother, now that things are like this at home, what do you plan to do?"

  Lin Dajiang was also worried, and after a while, he raised his head and said, "The town is definitely not livable, the shop has been rented to someone else, and tomorrow we will have to move out after collecting our things. I think I'll still go back to the village to live, and rent some fields to farm when spring comes. There's no other way."

  Hei's eyes rolled around and said, "Second Uncle, didn't your family buy eight mu of good land recently? Your family has little labor power, and they are all young children who can't do much farm work. Why don't you rent a few mu of land to us for farming?"

  The two oxen were naturally unwilling, but they couldn't directly refuse, so they just dryly laughed and said, "Sister-in-law, our family's fields aren't many, we can manage them at home, besides those fields were only bought from someone this year, I don't know if the fields are good or not, I still want to raise them for a year or two to see."

  He thought of renting the field from Er Niu's family, after all, Er Niu was her husband's younger brother. Moreover, Er Niu was a good talker. Now that something big had happened at home and they had lost everything, Er Niu's family was living a pretty good life.

  It's said to be renting a field, when the time comes to pay rent, whether you pay or not, or pay less, after all, it's still your own family, it's better than going to the landlord's house to rent and cultivate. He Shi is not particularly clever, but this kind of sharp and petty calculation is done more loudly than anyone else.

  Lin Laojie knew that his eldest daughter-in-law was up to something, and he also felt that she was being too excessive. The other family had just lent them a large sum of money, and now they were already calculating their next move. So he spoke up, "Eldest son, if you want to rent land to farm, go to Xia Dizhu's house to rent it. You can rent as much as you want, I'll accompany you there tomorrow. As for the second son's family, they only have a few hectares of newly purchased land, and there are still many things to be done. Even if they want to rent, it will have to wait another year or two."

  He heard, naturally not very convinced in his heart, feeling that his father-in-law was biased towards the Er Niu family. He continued to say, "Dad, we rent the land from Er Niu and pay the same rent as Xia Dizhu's family collects. We won't let Second Uncle suffer a loss. I'm also thinking of helping Second Uncle's family because they have less labor."

  Lin Lao Die glanced at her, but didn't say a word. Lin Er Niu spoke up instead, "Eldest Sister-in-law, I know you mean well, but our family's fields still need to be taken care of for a while, it's really not possible to rent them out. Why don't you go rent from Xia Dizhu's place first? They have many good fields that are just the same."

  He didn't ask any more, and everyone fell silent again. After a while, Zhao spoke up, "Old lady, you're planning to move back home, but tomorrow you'll have to go to the clan leader's house to make some rounds. It looks like winter is coming, and you've sold or pawned all your belongings. Even if you rent land now, it won't yield a harvest until next year. How do you plan to get by for so long?"

  He and his wife, Dahe, had not expected things to turn out this way. Since hearing from Qing Shan that they were being detained, he had been worried about the money issue, but he hadn't thought it would be so serious. Now that he thinks back on it, He's family was indeed a bit scared, all the usable money at home had been taken out, and even his mother-in-law had given her own private savings to help out. His sister-in-law was also quite formidable, and he was afraid that if they wanted to borrow more money in the future, they wouldn't be able to. After all, they still had to live their lives.

  Mr. He had no choice but to say "I don't know either, let's take it one step at a time and see if there are any places with work, and go to the Yangtze River to do some work."

  The Yangtze River also nodded silently, what else can be done now, it can only be like this, taking one step at a time.

  After chatting for a while, Er Niu also left. Da Jiang and He Shi rested in Zhao's courtyard, without saying much.

  Lin Er Niu returned home, and the family was silent for a while. Even Xiao Bao, who usually chattered happily, didn't say much this time. He just sat quietly with Chen Er on a low stool in the courtyard. Children are sensitive, although they don't know what happened at home, they can feel the bad atmosphere.

  The whole family didn't even have dinner at night and went to bed early. On the other side, Lin Er Niu and Huang Shi were chatting intermittently.

  "How's your elder brother doing? Have you given them the money?"

  "They've all been told that they'll go and bring Qing Shan back early tomorrow morning. Alas, this is really worrisome. Something like this has happened out of the blue, and from now on, life will be even more difficult."

  "Yes, with a family of one blind and two weak members, it's really hard to make ends meet. Last time my daughter bought some grain back home, I'll send some over tomorrow, the adults may not eat, but the children need to eat."

  Lin Erniu squeezed his wife's hand and responded, thinking that his own wife was still the best, and that his sister-in-law was a good person, their family had sent so much silver, but his wife hadn't said anything, now she was even thinking of sending them grain.

  If it were the other way around, their family would be the one needing money today. It's probably impossible for Eldest Brother's wife to lend out even five taels of silver. I was right to insist on marrying this daughter-in-law in the first place.

  So many years have passed, and he has been suffering silently all along, without complaining even half a sentence. Even when he was wronged by his mother-in-law or elder sister-in-law, he would not come back to cry about it. He endured it all quietly. As he thought about this, Lin Er Niu also fell asleep.

  The next day, Huang's family got up early and gathered some things from home, planning to send them over when her uncle's family returned. There wasn't much white flour left at home, but there was still some black rice and corn flour, as well as some coarse rice, so they decided to send some of those over too. They also sent two catties of white flour. Last time when they built the house, they had also made some cured meat, so they sent a few catties of that over as well.

  The family had originally planned to buy some cotton and make some quilts after a few days, but now they can't even do that. The family's quilts were already insufficient, so they could only send some food instead, letting them get by for the time being.

  These two days, Mr. Mu took a break and Lin He and the others didn't go to school either. They all stayed at home. Lin He saw Huang Shi collecting things over there and thought to herself that from now on, their family life might not be as peaceful as before. Lin He had been here for several months already, and when she first arrived, although they were poor, but there was no noise from the three aunts and six grannies, and the whole family lived in harmony.

  In modern times, Lin He was an orphan with no relatives and little experience in getting along with people. However, the relatives on her mother's side were all good and generally wouldn't come into contact with each other often, but every time they came, they would bring some gifts over. The three mothers-in-law, Zhou Shi, were also self-aware and got along well. Although there were some gossiping mouths in the courtyard, they still got along harmoniously.

  Now Mrs. He is back, and it seems that there will be more trouble in the future. This Mrs. He is a troublemaker, and with Grandma also returning, it looks like Lin He really needs to learn how to deal with these people.