After a simple rebirth

The next morning, the noise from the next room woke Fu Ying up. Fu Ying looked over and found that her mother was no longer beside the bed. She probably got up after hearing the noise of the relatives coming over.

Fu Ying also got up, opened her own package, and found her toothbrush and face towel. She didn't have time to pack the rest for now, so she washed up first.

Passing by the next room, there were indeed four or five women of about the same age as Fu's mother sitting on a bench chatting. Fu Ying didn't know what to call them. She had some impression of several of them, but she was afraid of calling the wrong one, so she simply didn't go into the room and brushed her teeth outside.

Fu Ying squatted under the faucet in the back yard. Several relatives were chatting loudly in the room behind her. Fu Ying felt that the neighbors next door could hear them clearly.

Fu Ying looked at the backyard, thinking about her own affairs.

The Fu family's house consists of three rooms connected together. There are two rooms deep on the left side, two rooms deep on the right side, a main room and a room in the middle, and a total of six rooms in the front yard.

There is a large open space in front of the door. The custom here is that every household has a large open space in front of the door, and there is no wall around it. It is open. In the past, it was used to dry corn or something, and later it was basically used for parking.

There is a small open space in the backyard, where vegetables were grown before, but now it is paved with cement and used to dry clothes. There are three houses in the back, a toilet, a utility room, and a corn drying room, which can also be understood as a granary.

The two rooms on the left are rented out, and it seems to be only 500 yuan a year. The tenant has several children in junior high school, and the young people have gone out to work, so the old man rents here with his grandchildren.

The open space in the front is the main room, which is used to worship ancestors and is not suitable for people to live in. The room at the back is where Fu Ma and her relatives chat. We bought a sheet metal stove to make a fire, which can be considered a kitchen + living room.

The two rooms on the right are where Fu Ma and Fu Ying live in one, and Fu Zhe lives in the outer one.

The two rooms on the right actually did not belong to their family before, but to her uncle.

Fu's father has a younger brother, whom Fu Ying calls uncle.

This uncle ran away from home when he was young and we have never been in contact with him, especially during the crackdown. I heard that he was imprisoned for a few years, and we can no longer contact him. When this house was being renovated, Grandma Fu was still there. I don’t know if Grandma Fu missed her youngest son and asked Dad Fu to renovate Uncle Fu’s house together and make it better.

So the houses on both sides are actually different. The most direct example is Fu Ying’s house, where the ground is only paved with cement, but the ground on my uncle’s side is paved with tiles.

Then it seems that it was in the past two years. My uncle came back on his own, but Grandma Fu had passed away for several years.

My uncle's wife and children are all in the capital of Yunnan Province, and he will not return to his hometown to settle down, so after discussing with Fu's father, he sold the title deed of this house together with his other farmland to Fu's father. I heard that he spent a total of 10 yuan.

The Fu family had always been relatively poor. According to Fu's mother, when she first married, Grandpa Fu was disabled and Grandma Fu was not in good health. Fu's father and mother followed their second aunt's family to do odd jobs everywhere, and usually relied on farming, so they had no long-term stable income.

After Grandpa Fu passed away, Fu's father and mother wanted to go out to work, but Grandma Fu didn't want Fu's father to go, fearing that he would lose contact with him like Uncle Fu.

Grandma Fu is very old. Her eldest son died before her. The youngest is Uncle Fu. The old lady has a traditional mindset. She is worried about the fact that she only has one son left. Second Aunt also advised Father Fu not to work outside, and let him stay at home to farm and feed two pigs every year.

But the people in the mountains only earn very little from farming. The crops here are just potatoes and corn, and there is no export. What they grow is either for their own consumption or to feed pigs.

The Fu family is located close to the town and is classified as a residential household. But I heard that before the Fu family built a brick house, it was a wooden house. Fu's mother said that she was afraid that the house would be blown down by a strong wind. When the wind was strong, the whole family dared not stay in the room, but had to go out, fearing that the house would collapse and people would be crushed inside. Therefore, in the surrounding villages, the Fu family is also a well-known poor family.

Later, Fu's mother made up her mind to go out to work. She worked alone in Guangdong Province, saving money, collecting money, and borrowing money from everywhere to build the current house. After Fu's grandmother passed away, both adults went out to work to pay off the debt for the house renovation. The children were also studying with them in the past two years, so the Fu family has always been quite compact.

Fu Ying was brushing her teeth while recalling things at home.

Suddenly, a little girl came out from the side. She should be from the family that rented the room. The little girl was shy and didn't dare to speak to the stranger. Fu Ying didn't know if she wanted to get some water. The little girl looked at her for a while and ran back.

After a while, she came out behind an old lady. When Fu Ying saw that it was an old lady, she nodded and quickly made way.

Fu Ying remembered that her family seemed to have lived here for two years.

The old lady left a deep impression on Fu Ying, because she was old but kind, and looked a lot like her grandmother in her memory. Fu Ying's grandmother passed away when she was in the third grade of elementary school, and was about the same age as this old lady. My memory of her grandmother is really vague, but I remember that she was very thin, but very fierce, and would curse people when she was angry.

Another thing is that this old man is a typical minority in Yunnan Province. I heard that he is Miao or Yi? I haven't confirmed it with them.

She has very, very long hair, which she always braids, wraps around her head, and then wraps her forehead with a solid-colored cloth. Her daily clothing also has some ethnic minority characteristics, mostly navy blue and dark blue, a very traditional style.

Fu Ying heard that her great-grandmother seemed to be Miao, but her descendants gradually assimilated into Han culture. Anyway, their ID cards now say they are Han, and their lifestyle and diet are also Han customs. So she is still a little curious about this very different ethnic minority.

Later, the family moved out for unknown reasons, and it was unknown whether it was because Fu Ma stopped renting the house due to renovations. However, Fu Ying felt that it was more likely that her family moved out on their own, because they moved out before the end of the year, and Fu Ma was not the type to kick someone out before the end of the lease.

In other words, will they move out in a few months? Fu Ying wasn't sure, and she didn't ask.

Moreover, the seniority system in their family is also very strange. It is not known how the seniority is calculated. Fu Ying has to call the old lady "sister", so Fu Ying feels very awkward and doesn't call her that easily, otherwise it would seem disrespectful to the old lady.

While I was thinking about this and that, the old man spoke up, "Sister, did you just get up?"

"Yes, I came back late last night and got up late too. I hope I didn't disturb you guys?" Fu Ying quickly rinsed her mouth and answered her.

"It's okay, we all slept well. Is your mother back too?" the old man asked again.

Fu Ying nodded, "Yes, my mom, my brother and I are the three of us back. My mom is inside. Please come in and sit for a while, old lady." Pointing to the kitchen, Fu Ying quickly washed her face and went back to the house to put things away.