In a dark and low adobe house, Li Mo was lying on the bed in a daze.
He looked at the condition of the house with straight eyes.
The wooden windows are covered with patched rice paper, the blackened clay walls, the lumpy rammed earth floor, and the long black and gray roof beams. The dilapidated and decayed cupboards, the stoves covered with black and gray, are high and low.
Uneven wooden tables and sloping benches.
Nothing is decent!
There is a mixture of unpleasant odors in the nasal cavity, and it is difficult to identify where these odors are coming from.
All this tells Li Mo a fact——
He has traveled through time.
Reborn from 2020 to 1978.
A rural village called "Bandit Ditch" is located in the Linhai Mountain area of Feng Province in Northeast China.
As for why he is lying in bed now - it is not because he slept in, but because he finally caught a prey when he went up the mountain today, but was robbed by his cousin. During the dispute, the original owner was pushed down the cliff. When he woke up again, he was possessed by Li Mo.
Get out of body.
Li Mo stroked his forehead and tried hard to follow the memory of the original owner, when footsteps suddenly came from outside the house.
Li Mo raised his head and saw two figures.
One big and one small.
The eldest is Li Hong, the eldest daughter in the family. She is wearing a coarse floral dress and is covered in dirt. Although she is not well-dressed, she is also one of the most beautiful women in the ten miles and eight villages. Unfortunately, due to family reasons, she has not yet married at the age of twenty.
.
The younger one's name is Li Ran, and she is the youngest daughter. She wears braids and an ill-fitting tattered dress, which makes her look pitiful. Although she is dirty, she can still be seen to be cute.
"Sister? You're back." Li Mo said hello with a smile.
This greeting shocked both the elder and the younger.
Li Mo forgot that the original owner had a hot temper and was a well-known bully in the village. If he could fight, he would never make a fuss, and if he could wait for someone to steal, he would never use his bare hands. Although he was in high school and had good grades, the original owner had only one male in the family.
He's so used to it that he doesn't even have the word politeness in his dictionary.
Because of this, he often went out to get into violent fights, which made the poor family even worse because of his recklessness.
"Xiao Mo? What's wrong with you?"
Seeing Li Mo feeling depressed, Li Hong was a little worried.
He never does this. What happened today?
"Brother, does it still hurt?"
Li Ran looked at him timidly with a pair of big innocent eyes.
In Li Mo's memory, the little girl has liked him the most since she was a child. And Li Ran is also the little sister whom the original owner loves the most. She is the one who listens to Li Mo the most in the family. Whatever delicious food Li Mo has, she will give it to her little sister.
eat.
He shook his head, touched his sister's head and said with a familiar tone in his memory: "Brother, it doesn't hurt."
"Brother, eat some candy."
Li Ran opened the palm of his hand and Li Mo saw a piece of deformed candy that had been grasped. This kind of candy was produced by a local local workshop and cost two pieces a penny. It was blended with crude earthy saccharin. It was sweet and bitter, so put it in your mouth.
There was a strange smell in it. It was unpalatable and unhygienic. Li Mo didn't think it was edible.
But even with this kind of candy that costs two yuan for one cent, Li Ran can only eat a few yuan in a month!
The candies have been squeezed out of shape. I don’t know how long she has been saving them.
"Brother, if you don't want to eat, you can eat it yourself."
Li Ran raised his head, his eyes showing a clear reluctance to give to his brother, but a look of determination on his face.
Li Mo looked amused, picked up the candy from the little thing's hand, peeled off the candy wrapper, and then stuffed the candy into Li Ran's mouth.
"So sweet."
Seeing Li Mo like this, Li Ran covered his mouth and smiled with his eyes like crescent moons. The little silkworm even bent over with laughter.
However, the little sister's extremely easy satisfaction made Li Mo feel inexplicably distressed.
Yes, I am really too poor...
Beyond imagination!
In fact, Banditougou is not a poor village. There are eight villages in every ten miles.
No matter how you talk about it, poverty cannot be excluded from this village.
There are only seven people in Li Mo's family.
His father was Li Fuguo and his mother was Zhang Ruyi. They gave birth to four girls and one boy. Although there were only a few boys, it was not like this.
The eldest sister, Li Hong, has to go out to collect work points every day. The work points will be settled by the brigade at the end of each year, and each village will calculate the exchange rate of work points based on its own harvest. After a year in Banditgou, even the smallest family can exchange more than 200 work points.
Yuan, plus the per-capita rations, Li Mo's family would receive at least several hundred kilograms of rations a year.
However, there is a bastard relative in the family...
The original owner's father was the child of his grandmother's remarriage. He had been unpopular since he was a child and was even exploited by his family when he grew up.
After the work points were settled every year, grandma would take two-thirds of everything and share it equally with the whole family. But after Li Fuguo worked hard this year, he could only get one-third. There are seven people in the family, and they are not hungry.
Death is not bad.
But the second uncle's family in the neighboring village does not need to share the rations. He is very lazy and eats rations from the Li Mo family every year.
The Li family's youngest son graduated from a vocational college and worked in a paper mill in the county. Grandma was even more partial to him and would buy him whatever good stuff she had.
Because of him, Li Mo's family often had her grandma and her second uncle come to search.
This is a bottomless pit! It will never be filled up.
But although Li Mo accepted the fact that he had traveled through time in his heart, it did not mean that he could accept the current situation of poverty. What's more, it was for this reason.
Since there is exploitation, we must resist!
But if he really wants to resist, what can he do?
runaway?
Wandering?!
Stop making trouble, in this era where it is difficult to move without a letter of introduction and household registration, where can he go? In those days, it was illegal to beg for food!
Since we can't leave this home, we have to renovate it. We definitely can't stay so poor, Li Mo can't stand it anyway.
"Mom? Are you back?"
Li Mo was watching Li Ran thinking about something when Li Hong's words interrupted Li Mo's thoughts.
Looking up, Li Mo saw a middle-aged woman wearing an apron, covering her mouth with red eyes. The look between her eyebrows revealed desolation and a touch of despair.
Li Mo knew that his mother was crying and very sad. Facing his daughter's greeting, Zhang Ruyi responded.
But when she saw Li Mo wake up, she was able to wipe away her tears and force a smile on Li Mo's face.
"Woke up?"
Sure enough, the preference for boys over girls was a deep-rooted concept in that era, and the gap was too obvious.
Li Mo looked at his mother and asked with concern: "Mom, why are you crying?"
Hearing Li Mo ask himself, Zhang Ruyi even managed to squeeze out a smile...
"Children, don't worry about adults' business."
Zhang Ruyi said nothing and walked to the pot to cook with her head lowered.
Li Mo and Li Hong exchanged glances, and they probably guessed that their mother was crying because of the bride price.
This is the original owner's grandmother taking advantage of the original owner's family again - the original owner's third uncle Li Qinglai is getting married. Originally this was a good thing, but the woman's family is from the county town and requires a dowry of three times and one ring.
The so-called three turns and one sound is probably equivalent to the colorful colors of the 21st century.
"Three turns" refers to sewing machines, watches and bicycles!
"One ring" means "radio".
In that era, these things were all luxury goods. Take a sewing machine as an example. An ordinary brand-name product cost 150 yuan, let alone "Flying Brand" or "Panda Brand". If these four are brand-name products, they will cost 150 yuan.
It can reach eight hundred.
The bride price is 800 yuan. The original owner’s grandmother is planning to ask the original owner’s father for more than 400 yuan!
You know, it's 1978, and workers only earn 30 yuan a month. The original owner's family is just a farmer, and 400 yuan is no less than a flood for this family that is already struggling on the edge of starvation.
Beast!
…
Zhang Ruyi pinched the wowotou and put it into the pot. Footsteps came from outside the door again. Before anyone could enter, he heard a very high-pitched girl's voice coming in.
"Mom! I got top ten in today's exam."
From the sound of the voice, one could tell that this was the fourth sister, Li Yue. She and the third youngest, Li Xin, were twins. They were deeply loved by their grandma, but they were estranged from the family. They were also the two sisters that the original owner hated the most.
Zhang Ruyi lowered her head and continued to squeeze the dough without saying a word.
The two sisters entered the house one after another. Li Yue, who entered the house first, was very fair. Although her clothes were not that good, she was very clean. She had two hemp braids on her head, which were dark and thick.
"Mom! Why don't you speak?"
After entering the room, Li Yue saw that Zhang Ruyi ignored her and continued to ask questions without knowing the meaning.
Zhang Ruyi pinched the dough and didn't even look at Li Yue: "There are a total of eighteen people in your class. Why are you so happy about being in the top ten in the exam? How has your brother not been in the top three?"
Li Yue was obviously shocked, her face turned red and she retorted to her mother.
"Can he compare with me? All the students in his class have poor grades."
"Okay, mom is feeling uncomfortable, didn't you see?" Li Hong couldn't stand it any longer, so she stared at her mother and taught her sister a lesson.
Li Hong is the eldest in the family. His temperament is more like that of his mother, and he is willing to work. Therefore, he is deeply liked by his mother. When he teaches his sister, Zhang Ruyi has always acquiesced. As long as Li Mo doesn't move, anything will do.
Li Yue rolled her eyes at Li Hong, but didn't dare to talk back.
But after pressing the gourd and raising the gourd, Li Yue stopped talking, while Li Xin questioned her mother without knowing whether to live or die.
"Mom, how did I hear that you had a quarrel with my grandma? How could you do this? Grandma is the elder!"
Li Xin is liked the most by the old lady of the Li family. In her heart, Li Xin basically sides with her grandma, not with the family.
"Go away! Go with your grandma! I never gave birth to you!"
When Zhang Ruyi heard her daughter's words, it was like a ignited gunpowder keg exploding. She picked up the small bench and threw it out. The small bench hit Li Xin, who was so frightened that Li Xin ran outside the house. Such a situation was at home.
It's very common. The original owner is not surprised, and so is Li Mo.
But the furious Zhang Ruyi frightened Li Ran so much that his face turned pale and his body was shaking. Li Mo quickly pulled Li Ran into his arms to comfort him.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, just be good. Brother is here!"
Li Hong also pointed at the twins angrily: "Didn't you hear what mom said? Just go do what you have to do, don't be annoying here.".
During the quarrel at home, there was a noise outside the door, as if someone pushed the door open and came in.
"Dad is back! Look at Mom, she's beating me with a bench." When she saw the person coming in from outside the door, Li Xin quickly ran over to complain.
But Li Fuguo ignored her when he entered the courtyard. How could he not know his daughter's virtues?
When Li Hong saw his father, he said hello. Li Fuguo lowered his head and entered the room without answering. He sat down with an ugly expression.
Li Fuguo looked at Li Mo sitting, then took a deep breath and asked: "Are you awake?"
Li Mo nodded and said nothing. The atmosphere in the room became a little solemn, and none of the children dared to speak. But Zhang Ruyi didn't even bother to look at Li Fuguo, which made Li Fuguo's face full of embarrassment.
Li Hong saw that the atmosphere was too embarrassing, so she asked: "Dad, what did you say?"
"They didn't even borrow money. Who would dare to lend us money like this? The captain also suffered a lot. Today, I almost lost all my face..."
Li Xin interrupted at this time: "Then...what if grandma comes?"
"Okay, stop talking. Which pot won't be opened?"
Li Fuguo let out a long sigh, his tone full of helplessness. He looked at the children, and they all looked at him.
Li Fuguo waved his hand: "Okay! See what I do! Let's eat first."