Not daring to disturb them, the two old men bowed and kowtowed.
It wasn't until the old men finished praying that Li Bu and others dared to step forward and help the two old men up from the ground.
After the two old men Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua were helped up by Li Bu and the others, they shouted directly to the village: "Xiongdan, I'm back. My black dog and second-rate son are back. We'll come back to see you."
"It's been seventy years. I thought you all died outside and didn't know you were back." Not long after Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua finished speaking, Li Xiaomu and Li Xiaoye escorted a kind old man from left to right.
He walked slowly out of the village.
Seeing that his former friend had aged like this, Li Zhongguo felt very unhappy and said, "Yes, it's been seventy years. It's been seventy years since we left. I thought we would never come back this time."
I can’t see my acquaintances anymore, thank you for being alive, my old friend.”
"Why are you thanking me? I wasn't very nice to you when I was a kid. My brothers bullied you two brothers all day long. Why are you thanking me in the end??
But you are really cruel. It's been seventy years since you left, and you didn't even come back to attend your grandparents' funerals.
But in that era, information was closed, and you were not in the country, so I can’t blame you. If I were to blame, just blame us for being born in a bad era..." Li Zhaohua spoke very slowly, and maybe he looked away because of his age.
His mind and body are a bit unable to keep up, so he can't see too much emotion on his face at this time.
Faced with Li Zhaohua's lukewarm words, Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua instantly lost their previous excitement and said with displeasure, "Old man, we were childhood playmates. We haven't seen each other for seventy years. Let's meet again."
We, shouldn't you be excited?"
"Hey, you all said we haven't seen each other for seventy years. How can I still remember so much about you after not seeing each other for so long?
If they hadn't been patriotic and said just now that the people who came back were my former neighbors, I wouldn't even know who you are now.
Besides, I'm an old man in his eighties, so how can I get excited anymore? I'm still waiting to see my great-grandson in the future. I don't want to see you two bad old men and leave early in excitement.
"Li Zhaohua's tone of voice is still very slow. He is the kind of person who can make others anxious to death, but he himself doesn't care at all.
Hearing Li Zhaohua's words, Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua no longer had the excitement and joy they had when they heard Hakka. At this time, they felt like "I must be sick, and I came all the way back to be angry!!".
As if seeing the two people's displeasure, Li Zhaohua showed a rare smile and said, "As people get older, they look away, so there is no excitement anymore.
In addition, my hands and feet are no longer convenient, and I can no longer run all over the mountains and plains with you, so I asked you why you didn't know to come back earlier? You have to wait until we are too old to move before you come back, is that interesting?"
"We also wanted to come back, but it was an important period for our career to start. Where could we go and where would we have time to cross the ocean and come back here?
And when we finish our careers, raise our children, and inherit our company, we will be what we are now.
Hey, one's life really goes by in the blink of an eye as soon as one opens and closes one's eyes..." Hearing that Li Zhaohua disliked them for not coming back sooner, Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua immediately explained bitterly.
.
Facing what the two people said, Li Zhaohua didn't understand anything at all, and his brain was not that easy to use as he was old, so he simply waved his hands and said, "Let's go, you're back, then go home."
Take a look, the old site of your home has now been converted into a B&B..."
"We all know the rules of Lijia Village. Children who leave Lijia Village will have their land taken back, so we understand. At the same time, we won't mind if our former home is converted into a B&B..." He nodded to Li Zhaohua to express his understanding.
After that, Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua broke away from Li Bu and the others' support and walked slowly toward the village with Li Zhaohua.
"It's changed, it's changed, it's all changed, but it's getting better. If it doesn't change, the inheritance of our Lijiacun will be cut off. It's getting better. You younger generations who stayed behind in Lijiacun have worked hard."
"This is what we should do. As the descendants of Lijiacun, we must protect the inheritance of the village. As my father-in-law said, it is not easy for Lijiacun to be passed down to this day. We cannot let it be passed down to us.
This generation is over."
"This is a good saying. The inheritance of our Lijia Village must be passed down forever. The ancestors have been here for generations. We must not let it be lost in our generation. Grandpa is old, and it will depend on you young people in the future.
"
Maybe it’s because old people who have returned home tend to talk more.
Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua walked around the village with Li Zhaohua, and also chatted with Li Bu and Li Aiguo.
They chattered about a lot of things, some of them were about the difficult days they had at home, some were about how they smuggled out, how they worked hard to work hard, get married and have children, etc.
If you haven't seen the people of that era, you will never understand the suffering of that era.
At that time, a pot of white rice porridge for ten people would actually contain only a handful of rice, not even a tael.
Then, in order to be full or to trick their stomachs, people in the past would throw in a little bit of sweet potato, cassava, or yam, boil it down and eat it.
But even so, almost none of the ten people can have enough to eat, and you may not believe it, but this is a meal that only people with a little wealth can afford.
Those who have no family, what is their food?
Basically, their food consists of sneaking out to the mountains to pick some wild vegetables, mushrooms, fungus, and the like, and making wild vegetable soup at home. There is no oil, no seasonings, and sometimes even no salt can be added to the soup.
Of course, if they really can't stand it anymore, they will go to the mountains to catch mountain mice and birds, or go to the river to catch some fish or mussels and put them back into wild vegetables to make soup.
And, this is what people of that era called rice.
The situation in Lijiacun was that Li Zhaohua and his family were the kind of people who could put rice in their meals, while Li Zhongguo was the kind of people who ate wild vegetables, and Li Tianhua's family was even worse.
They can't even join the super poor households.
And this is why, at that time, Li Zhaohua chose to stay in the village, while Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua left Lijiacun without hesitation.
To be honest, it was not that Li Zhongguo and the others wanted to leave Lijiacun, but that they had reached the point where they would starve to death if they did not leave Lijiacun, so they had to leave at that time...
After leaving Lijiacun, the lives of the Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua families were not good at first, and their lives were even worse than when they were in Lijiacun.
Although they are poor in Lijia Village, they have a home and a place to pick wild vegetables, but outside they sleep on the street and live a life similar to that of beggars.
Later, the two families began to disperse, and then Li Tianhua and Li Zhongguo went to Malaysia, where they worked hard to make a living and work hard for their future.
In addition, after traveling to Malaysia, although the two of them had enough to eat, their lives were still at the bottom of society. Therefore, the two of them stayed busy until they were over 40. After their lives improved, they dared to
Get married and have children...
On this day, Li Zhongguo and Li Tianhua talked a lot about their past, while Li Bu, Li Aiguo, and Li Zhaohua were on the sidelines, listening to them quietly...