After a simple rebirth

I didn’t get up too early in the morning. I slept late last night and didn’t get up until nine o’clock today.

After getting up and cooking noodles, Fu's mother, carrying a small basket on her back, called out to the door, and Second Aunt Fu also went out. Fu Ying didn't expect Second Aunt to go with her, but it made sense, as First Aunt Fu's home was far away and she didn't come often, so the younger brothers and sisters would only visit her when they were free, or during festivals.

Aunt Fu's house is a 10-minute drive or an hour's walk away from Fu Ying's house.

It took 10 minutes to drive, which was calculated after the cement road was built. But at that time, there was still a dirt road below Aunt Fu's house, and there were not many cars passing by, so we had to walk. It took an hour to walk, because we had to climb the slope, the road was up and down, and the speed was very slow.

If Fu Ying's home is in a small basin on the plateau, then Fu Dagu's home is on a high mountain on the plateau, and the temperature there is several degrees colder than Fu Ying's home.

The group of four set off north, also in the direction of the middle school, but much farther away than the middle school.

After walking a little further past the Xinhua Bookstore, it started to climb uphill. Fu Ying admired the students who took this route to and from school every day, some were thin, some had muscular legs.

The slope is 35 degrees, and I am not exaggerating. Walking this road is not walking, it is pure climbing. If it is a pure straight slope, it would be fine, but it is like a comma with turns, so it is actually more dangerous. Every time Fu Ying walks on this slope, she is afraid of being hit, so she reminds her family to be careful.

In fact, Fu Ying didn't quite understand. There was a long flat road 50 meters to the left, so why did they have to build a road on this slope?

After climbing up the slope, there is a flat area, just like a platform on the top of a mountain. This is where you wait for buses to distant places. Fu Ying used to get on the bus here when she went to the neighboring city to take a long-distance bus to Guangdong Province.

We continued walking northwards, and the road was slightly uphill. It was not shaky, but tiring. Fu Ergu and Fu Ma were both in good health at the moment, and walked faster than Fu Ying and Fu Zhe. The group of people kept walking.

When we arrived at the entrance to the village of Aunt Fu's house, half an hour had passed and we were only halfway there. Aunt Fu bought a box of yogurt at a convenience store at the intersection and carried a bag of rice on her back. When visiting relatives, you always have to bring something with you. There were not many people living in that village and they were scattered. There were no small shops along the way, so we could only buy things and carry them inside.

Fu Ying took the yogurt, and her mother said she would carry it all, but Fu Ying refused. Fu's mother was already carrying 10kg of rice, and the whole box of yogurt had handles, so she could carry it and hold it, which would lighten Fu's mother's burden. Fu Zhe also helped Fu Ergu hold the yogurt.

We were walking on a cement road just now, but now it is a small path. You can tell that it is a path made by someone, because it is not fixed by man, but just passes through the farmland. It is all corn now, and you can't see people if you don't follow them into the woods. Fortunately, the people walking in front of us folded all the corn leaves along the way, and they wore coats, so they didn't get cut too much.

Climb a section of farmland, then cross a small grassland, and walk through the farmland again, you will meet a gravel road. Walk along the gravel road for another section, and you will arrive at Aunt Fu's house.

The two separate houses with blue tarpaulins on the roofs were Aunt Fu's. Her house was down the road, so they had to cross someone's land and go through Aunt Fu's back door before they could actually get to her house.

This journey is full of mountains and rivers, and the only thing left is wading.

It’s not entirely accurate to say it’s Aunt Fu’s house.

Aunt Fu has two sons and two daughters. The eldest son got married early, while the youngest son got married late, but he also got married, so the family has been separated. Aunt Fu now lives with her youngest son in the old house, which is the two old houses covered with blue tarpaulins. Fu Ying and the others came to the newly renovated house of her eldest cousin Fu.

Because the foundation was large enough, his family built a typical Yunnan-style building. The rural area is not surrounded by walls, and looking down from a high altitude, it looks like a concave shape.

The empty space in the middle of the word "ao" is a cement yard, which is called "changba" in the local area. People dry things, wash clothes and enjoy the breeze at night.

On the left side of the concave shape, that is, on the left side of the field, is a small house divided into two rooms, one is a pig pen and the other is a cow pen. My eldest cousin raised a cow and would take it out for a walk when he was plowing the land.

On the right side of the field is the stove, where people cook, eat and chat. Fu Ying's granary is a separate room, while the one of my cousin's is a combination of two. A bamboo layer is built above the stove, and the corn and peppers harvested from the fields are placed on top, and are baked by the heat of the stove for a long time to keep them dry. So it feels a bit depressing when you enter the door. The normal three-meter height is reduced to only two meters, and the space is also small.

The bottom of the concave shape is a row of three rooms, with the center always being the main room, where ancestral tablets, statues of the god of wealth, and portraits of direct elders are placed. During festivals, people worship their ancestors here, placing offerings in front of the shrine and kneeling down to worship the gods and ancestors. You can put some things here, but you can't live here.

On both sides of the main hall are ordinary rooms. The ones closest to the stove are where the elders of the family live. On the one hand, the temperature is higher near the stove, which makes it more comfortable in winter; on the other hand, it is convenient for the elderly to get up and go to bed early.

Aunt Fu lived in an old house next door. The two houses had no yard. Later, Aunt Fu's youngest son chose a new piece of land a little higher up and built a house similar to his eldest brother's, but a little smaller and without a large yard.

Thinking of the foundation, Fu Ying also thought of the vigorous real estate movement and the action to strictly control homesteads in later generations.

For those who have divided their property in rural areas, it is a blessing to be able to choose a piece of land as a residential plot to build a house. Apart from the construction costs, they do not have to invest a large amount of money extra, so they can have their own place to live.

But it is true that this can easily encroach on farmland. For example, the middle school expropriated a large piece of land from Fu Ying's family and sold two small pieces, leaving only one large piece and one small piece of land.

Her family is like this, and so are many other villages. There are more and more houses near her home, and less and less arable land. She wants to be a farmer, but she has no land left. However, she has to sell her land to survive.

But at the same time, for those who are about to split up, it is even more difficult to simply build a place to live. If a small piece of land in a remote area could be bought for 10,000 yuan before, with the ban on homestead review, it is possible to buy it for hundreds of thousands of yuan. It is more difficult to build a house by yourself than to save money to buy a house in the city. After all, buying a house in the city depends on money, but applying for homestead not only depends on money, but also on whether you have connections and whether it can be approved.

Fu Ying asked her father, and he said that after the ban was issued, no residential land would be approved in the Gumang area, and new houses would not be allowed to be built, and adding to the houses would not be allowed.

Back to the present, Fu Ying and her friends walked into the yard of their eldest cousin's wife's house. Their eldest cousin's wife, who was washing clothes, was the first to notice them. She was surprised and asked them to come in and sit down. She also asked her eldest son to call Aunt Fu over.

Before they entered the house, Aunt Fu came out of the old house with a smile on her face, holding a five or six-month-old baby in her arms. The child looked at them with big eyes.