"Qiqi, Ruirui, Tiantian! Let uncle take a look!" Gao Baosheng looked at his three nieces wearing shabby clothes. The three children were all thin and their faces were dirty. He suddenly understood why his father was so

I am angry with my elder brother-in-law.

"Uncle!" Qiqi was seven years old. She saw Baosheng calling out sweetly. Ruirui and Tiantian were just playing in the car and ignored Baosheng.

Ruirui is five years old this year, and Tiantian is four. They rarely meet Baosheng. When Baosheng saw this, he took out a snack bag from the back of the car seat, and the children stared at it.

"This is for Qiqi. Ruirui called uncle, and this jelly is for you." Gao Baosheng said deliberately.

With the snacks, the three children quickly got along with Baosheng. In just twenty minutes, everything in the wheat field was watered, but they still had to wait for the water in the wheat field to sink before watering again.

"Mom and Dad, let's go home first! It's almost noon, we will water again in the afternoon. It's good to have a car, otherwise Manliang and I wouldn't be able to finish watering in three days!" Gao Yanni said with a smile as she looked at her parents.

.

"Our family has a car this year, which makes the autumn harvest easier. We have your three uncles at home. We will come to help you when you harvest wheat. You don't know how to wash your children's faces when they are dirty." Gao Guo was still worried in his conscience.

daughter.

"No need, Manliang and I can do it," Gao Yanni said anyway.

Everyone put the tools in the car and climbed into the carriage. Gao Baosheng drove to the door of his eldest sister's house and saw his father and eldest brother-in-law lifting the cow's head.

"Baosheng, what did you buy? You spent money indiscriminately... and you bought them so many snacks." Gao Yanni said embarrassedly when she saw Gao Bao give birth.

"Okay, you three can only eat these today, leave the snacks to mom for later!" Gao Baosheng said and handed the snack bag to the eldest sister.

Entering the yard, although the eldest sister's house has earthen walls, there are only three cave dwellings and a dilapidated woodshed in the yard. Corn is planted in the yard, and the corn has just grown its beards at this time.

"Come in when the food is full!" After entering the hospital, the eldest sister called the eldest brother-in-law into the middle kiln. Baosheng, his parents and their three nieces were in the south kiln, and saw the eldest brother-in-law carrying half a bag of cornmeal out.

"What did the full grain do?" He couldn't help but ask when he saw his daughter coming in to pour water.

"Nothing to do? You finally came here and asked him to change to some white noodles and some fermented noodles!" Gao Yanni said with a smile.

"No need to go to such trouble, just have something for lunch!" Gao Guoliang was about to go out and call Wei Manliang back, but his daughter stopped him.

"Sister, do you have an ax at home? This cow head is difficult to make and it takes a long time. I will make this cow head for you today and let you all have a try." Gao Baosheng asked.

"Wait a minute, I'll go to the neighbor's house to borrow it. The one at home just broke down a few days ago!" Gao Yanni went out to borrow an axe.

"This thing should be difficult to handle, dad will help you!" Gao Guoliang was very satisfied with Gao Baosheng's performance today. Baosheng rarely cared about his three sisters before.

"Dad, go to the yard and light a fire. Mom, go get some water. It's hard to deal with the hair on the cow's head. It needs to be burned." Gao Baosheng stood up and planned to make beef head meat.

He carried it with his father and roasted all the hair on the cow's head. When he saw that the ears were difficult to clean, he cut off the ears with a kitchen knife and cleaned them individually. Then the three of them, each with a stone, scraped the cow's head.

The eldest sister borrowed the ax back, and the four of them worked together, and soon the cow's head was cleaned up. It took a lot of effort for Gao Baosheng and his father to split the cow's head into two parts.

Fortunately, the pots in the countryside are very big, and the big pot in the kitchen can just fit the two halves of the cow head. When the brother-in-law replaced the white flour and went to the village to crush it into glutinous rice and take it home, they had already started cooking the cow head.

"Packed it up so quickly? The smell has already come out!" Wei Manliang swallowed when he smelled the smell of meat.

"Come, the glutinous rice is ready, parents, Baosheng is here for dinner!" Gao Yanni set up the kang table in the cave dwelling, boiled half a pot of soup, put half a bowl of glutinous rice into each person's bowl, and poured the soup over it to make people appetizing.

Wide open.

Watching the three children eating white flour noodles, Gao Baosheng and his parents found it difficult to swallow. The eldest sister's house was much more bitter than they imagined. Baosheng stopped after eating a bowl.

"Baosheng, eat more! There is still more!" Gao Yanni saw Baosheng stop and urged him to continue eating.

"No, I'm full. I ate too much for breakfast! I'll leave some room for beef head in the afternoon." Gao Baosheng said.

The children ate quickly. They had eaten snacks just now. Now they smelled the beef aroma getting stronger and stronger, so they stopped.

"Not to mention, this tastes really good." Wei Manliang said, scooping some broth from the big pot where the meat was cooked, pouring it into his own bowl and sighing as he ate it.

When the three children saw it, they also poured it for themselves. In the end, they all ate all the rice in their bowls.

"Man Liang!" Gao Guoliang said after eating and looking at Wei Man Liang.

In many places in Yuyang County, the father-in-law and mother-in-law are called uncles and aunts, mainly because the custom of selling daughters in these places is too strong. Although the eldest sister only received 200 yuan as a gift when she married her brother-in-law, she has always been talking to her uncles and aunts in the village.

called.

"Uncle!" Wei Manliang said, touching his bulging belly.

"As I said last time, I asked you to open a clinic in the countryside so that it would be easier for the children to go to school. What do you think?" Gao Guoliang put down his bowl and chopsticks and said.

"Uncle...it's a lot of money to open a clinic in the countryside!" Wei Manliang seemed a little reluctant.

"I can lend you the money first!" Gao Baosheng said.

"This... Baosheng, what should you do if you lose the money you borrowed from your brother-in-law? If I am not here and the land is desolate, what will the whole family eat?" Wei Manliang continued.

"You just don't want to go! There are more than 100 people in our village, you can't treat a few patients every year, and the money you make is not enough to buy medicine in the countryside.

No matter how good you are at treating patients like this, this little pharmacy will become obsolete sooner or later, and Ruirui and Tiantian will have to go to school in two years. Where will the family's expenses come from?" Gao Yanni heard her father lecture her husband, and she also went out together.

vocal tract.

Wei Manliang didn't speak. Everyone loved their family, and everyone was afraid of the uncertainty of the future. Wei Manliang had three sisters, like Baosheng, and he was the only boy in the family. He grew up in poverty and seldom shouldered the burden of the family.

Guoliang has told him many times, but to no avail.

"Qiqi has to go to the countryside to go to school. It's dangerous for her to walk more than 10 miles back and forth every day at such a young age.

I heard that the effect of desertification control in your village has been poor in recent years. Many fields have been swallowed up by the desert, and the food production in this land is getting less and less. What should you do if the situation here gets worse and worse in the future?

At the very least, you have to think of a way out for yourself. If that happens, Yanni, just bring the child back. After your brother is busy, he plans to clean up the yard and build a two-story building. By the way, he will also help your fourth uncle build the yard.

Got it!"

Gao Guoliang said this, on the one hand, he wanted to stimulate his eldest son-in-law. Although the eldest son-in-law was eloquent, his character was too weak. He had the ability to treat doctors. If he gave up, it would be difficult for his eldest daughter's family to get married in the future.

"Uncle, if the wind and sand are too strong in the village, Balasu Township is only five miles away from our village. The township will definitely find a way. If the county moves us all to the south, it will be a good way out." Wei Manliang

said.

Due to the strong wind and sand in the north of Yuyang County, all the fields were covered by wind and sand, and many villages were relocated. Most of them moved to the vicinity of the county seat and merged with other villages, so most villages in Yuyang County hope that their villages can be relocated.

Gao Guoliang said nothing more. Gao Baosheng felt that his eldest brother-in-law's attitude was just to live one day at a time. He had countless reasons to explain to others, but he always stayed in the same place.

After dinner, Liu Fenglan and her daughter were at home looking at the beef head in the pot. Baosheng, his father and brother-in-law went to water the wheat field. Qiqi followed them out, but Ruirui and Tiantian stayed in front of the meat pot.

Don't want to leave.

After irrigating the wheat field and waiting for more than two days to grind it out, Gao Baosheng drove to his family's field with his eldest brother-in-law.

The eldest sister's land is 6 acres, used to grow wheat, and there are more than ten acres of land to grow corn and potatoes. Logically speaking, the situation here is much better than that in Gaojiawan, but because the sandy soil is too large, the wheat here grows very thin.

"The growth of your wheat is too poor. You can't even produce two hundred kilograms from one acre of land. When the time comes, you can barely pay enough for the basic rations from a thousand kilograms harvest." Liu Fenglan frowned.

On average, each person in Gaojiawan only has three-thirds of ponded land, but because it is irrigated land, the yield per mu of land is more than 600 kilograms. Gao Baosheng's family only has more than one mu of ponded land, which is not the same as Wei Manliang's family's six-acre wheat farm.

The quantity is not much different. And the more land there is, the more public grain will be paid. In the end, the eldest sister’s family may not have as much wheat left as theirs.

"This will probably take more than four days. It will take you two more than five days to cut six acres of land. When our wheat harvest is finished, I will ask your three uncles to come together and finish it for you in one day."

Guoliang also didn't want his daughter to suffer.

"No need!" Wei Manliang said sheepishly.

"Your parents are gone and you don't have any brothers, so we don't have to help you any more. You still have the final say in your family's affairs. No matter how much we say, we can only give you some suggestions. If your child has trouble going to school, send him to our home."

, there is a school in our village.

Now Baosheng can also work, and his family will get better and better. If you want to open a clinic in the countryside, we can also help you." Gao Guoliang now has the confidence to speak.

In the past, when Baosheng was in school, he had to save money for Baosheng to get a wife. Now his son no longer needs his help at all, and he can speak confidently.

"Dad, I'm done with my busy work these days. I'm planning to engage in fish farming. If that doesn't work, I'll ask my brother-in-law and eldest sister to move to our village together. Helping me is better than farming. The eldest brother-in-law has the ability to treat doctors. The village

Others will not disagree." Gao Baosheng interrupted at this time.

The eldest brother-in-law had no one to help him in their village, and everything would be better in their village than here. Gao Guoliang did not express his acquiescence, and Wei Manliang did not say anything. He moved to his wife's village. This decision was not easy to make.

Seeing that his brother-in-law was silent, Baosheng continued: "When the time comes, I will build a house for my fourth uncle and a courtyard for you. This year, our village has planted a lot of anti-sand grass, and I will basically pull the saplings myself. The environment in the village will definitely improve.

The better comes!”

Hearing what Gao Baosheng said, Wei Manliang also knew that Baosheng really wanted them to move there. His father-in-law was the head of Gaojiawan Village and his brother-in-law was so capable. It was a good choice to join them, but he still shook his head:

"Let's talk about it later!"

Gao Guoliang and Gao Baosheng stopped talking about it. The three of them drove back home. It was already four o'clock in the afternoon.

The smell of meat in the yard became stronger and stronger. Qiqi got out of the car and ran to the kitchen to stare at the pot of meat and drooled. Her two younger sisters were also guarding here.

"We're back! Baosheng, this meat should be almost ready. I just pricked it with chopsticks and it's already cooked!" Liu Fenglan said when she saw the three people coming back.

"It's been more than four hours, it's almost over! Brother-in-law washed his hands and came to help!"

Gao Baosheng took the beef head out of the pot, put it on the chopping board and tore off all the meat. After four hours, the beef head had not reached the state of being completely boneless as Gao Baosheng imagined, but it was already ready to eat.

A large cow head weighs more than 60 kilograms, and the cooked meat weighs less than 20 kilograms. The eldest sister made a bowl for everyone to dip in and eat. Gao Baosheng couldn't help but nod after taking a bite.

"This beef head meat is so delicious. I have never eaten it before!" Gao Guoliang was full of praise after taking a big bite.

The three little guys ate without looking up. When Gao Baosheng saw the eldest sister eating very slowly, he said: "Sister, there is a lot of meat today, please eat more!"

Gao Yanni smiled and nodded. There seemed to be tears in her eyes, but in the end she held back the tears.

Gao Baosheng felt a little distressed in his eyes. The eldest sister who had taken care of him since childhood was now even more difficult to get married than before at home.
To be continued...