In the book, I was fed by my sister

On this quiet afternoon, Wu Dongmei's grief-stricken cry broke the tranquility of Lihua Village.

She collapsed to the ground, her tears soaking the originally dry soil in front of her. Her sobs drowned out the cries of the cuckoo.

The big man in the lead looked at Wu Dongmei lying on the ground, couldn't help but sigh, and said: "Dongmei, do you want to recognize her again? We have to bury her today."

When Wu Dongmei heard this, she cried even harder.

In Lihua Village, funerals require the invitation of a Taoist priest to determine the time for burial. During this time, the Taoist priest will recite the person's past and perform rituals to help the deceased reach the nirvana. Only after all this is done will the body be buried.

Now they were in a hurry to bury the body, and everyone knew that the body must have been rotten.

The big man lifted a corner of the white cloth, and under the cloth was a white, swollen object, probably in the shape of a hand.

Li Zi couldn't help being curious when she saw the white cloth covering the wooden board, so she pulled Song Li into the crowd.

When he saw the big man lifting the white cloth, he became even more curious and wanted to move forward to take a look at the man's face.

However, before they could get close, Song Ran, who had rushed over, covered their eyes and pulled them out of the crowd. "Be careful of nightmares," the elder sister gently reprimanded them.

Wu Dongmei was followed by three half-grown girls, the youngest of whom was holding the hand of an even younger boy. These children were all born to Wu Dongmei, the girls were in tears, and the little boy also cried without knowing what was going on.

When the white cloth was lifted, the oldest girl saw the face under the cloth and subconsciously retched.

The retching sound interrupted Wu Dongmei's sobbing. She turned around and glared at her eldest daughter, saying excitedly: "This is your father! Why are you so delicate!" After that, she slapped the girl.

In Lihua Village, the father died and needed his eldest son to shroud him. This dry retching brought Wu Dongmei back to reality. Li Sanwan was dead! She had no one to rely on.

She glanced at her youngest son and glared at the third girl beside her: "You vicious person, if your brother cries and can't sleep at night, wait and see how I will deal with you!"

"Okay, okay, why scold the child?" Li Wanshu came out and presided over the meeting: "Now hurry up and inform Sanwan's cousins. We need to take care of the funeral as soon as possible."

Wu Dongmei listened to the village chief's words, wiped away her tears, and nodded to the village chief: "This etiquette is still necessary. After my family has set the time, I will trouble the village chief to inform everyone."

Li Sanwan was lying in a thin coffin, and there were still those four big men, waving shovels, and soon a small bag appeared on the ground.

The master who wrote the stele asked Wu Dongmei what she wanted to write.

Wu Dongmei spoke for a long time, and the inscription master finally picked out two sentences and inserted the written wooden plaque in front of Xiaobao. Wu Dongmei suddenly burst into tears, hugged the wooden plaque and said, "How can these be enough?"

This small earthen bag belongs to Li Sanwan, although he has no name, only a piece of wood with his name written on it and two sentences covering his life story. As long as his descendants remember his name, this small bag belongs to Li Sanwan.

Only Song Li enjoyed the boiled fish in the evening with relish.

"Oh, children are still the best." Song Ran sighed.

I heard that a lot of Song Sanwan's flesh was eaten by the fish. Song Ran and Grandma Gu lost their appetite when they saw the fish in the pot.

The same situation occurred in the homes of the other three families who bought fish today.

"Hey, head of the household, eat less." The woman looked at the large bowl of fish in front of her with no appetite, and reminded her husband who was busy eating.

"Isn't human flesh also meat? Human flesh is more nutritious! Rong'er, eat more." The man gnawed on the fish head carelessly and put a piece of fish belly into his daughter Li Rongrong's bowl.

*

After Li Sanwan was buried, the funeral reached its climax.

Li Wanshu notified the time for the banquet.

Song Li watched all this with curiosity, she had never experienced such "excitement" before. She couldn't help but sigh: it turns out that corpses can be buried in the ground, and people can have a meal to "celebrate" after death.

Song Li felt that this was a celebration. Wu Dongmei had no more tears. She greeted the guests with a smile and white flowers, "I don't have any good dishes to treat you all."

But the crowd responded enthusiastically: “We can’t finish all of them.”

Song Songli looked down at the food in her bowl. The thin layer of bacon could not cover the vegetable leaves underneath. This scene reminded her of what Grandma Gu once said: that bowl of chicken soup without oil or water.

At night, the hustle and bustle fades away, and the chirping of insects and frogs drowns out the human voices.

Wu Dongmei poured the copper coins onto the table and strung a hundred of them together with a hemp rope.

"My son's eldest uncle, second uncle, and third uncle, count again to see if I'm counting correctly. There are thirty strings in total plus fifty-three coins."

The three men standing nearby took over and counted them one by one.

"The count is correct. Zhang Dade, the butcher, gives him five skewers, Qing Chao, who delivers the dishes, gives him two skewers, and the kitchen helper, the coffin keeper..." the man, smoking a pipe, said as he picked at the money on the table. In the end, most of the money on the table had to be divided among them.

"Sister-in-law, keep the remaining money. Jinbao will need to spend it later."

When the man said this, Wu Dongmei suddenly felt that her future life would be difficult and she sighed deeply.

"As long as you don't remarry, you will be my sister-in-law and their sister-in-law forever. The three of us brothers will not touch these houses and lands. They will all belong to Jinbao in the future," said Li Dawan.

"We should help with the farm work, and the three nieces can also work in the fields. The eldest niece will be getting married in two years, and her life will be better after she gets the bride price. Don't think about taking advantage of the younger nieces unless it's absolutely necessary." Li Erwan said. This sister-in-law is just a lazy bone. When his brothers were around, he relied on secret skills to support their family.

Now that his second brother is dead, this woman wants to marry his niece to the family at the entrance of the village as a child bride. His niece is the best looking among the young people in their family, and maybe she can marry a rich man in the future.

The girl who was altering clothes under the lamp was stunned for a moment when she heard the words of the people around the table, and then continued to embroider her work numbly.

"Alas, the remaining money totals only a little over one or two taels of silver. I have to save it for two years." Wu Dongmei sighed. She invited people from her village and neighboring villages who were related to Sanwan to a banquet. She thought she could receive a lot of gifts, but after deducting the expenses, she only had a little over one or two taels of silver left, which was not even as much as the mushrooms picked up for free by the cheap girls from the Song family.

"You tell me, why am I so miserable? If I hadn't slipped when I left the mountain that day, the three taels might have been mine. There was no need for me to sneak to the Song family in the middle of the night for the thirty thousand."

"Sister-in-law, don't you think there's something strange about your brother's death?" said the thin man with slanted eyes.

Wu Dongmei went to look for Li Sanwan before dawn that day. The owners of the casinos and brothels that Li Sanwan often went to all said that they did not see Sanwan that night.

That night, the moon was exceptionally bright, so bright that even the grasshoppers in the grass could be seen. Li Sanwan did not drink. A sober man, he actually walked into the river far away from the main path.

"The child's uncle, are you saying..." Wu Dongmei thought about it and felt it was impossible: "How old is she, how can she be so cruel?"

"No matter how cruel she is, I know there are lawyers in the city who specialize in litigation. There is no one in the Song family. If something serious happens, who will go to court for her? Then she will be asked to sell her land and house to pay the money." Li Wuwan said this, his eyes were full of greed. The three big blue-tiled houses of the Song family and the land that Song Shiqiao had saved before, there were countless people in the village who were jealous.

"Is it okay without evidence?" Wu Dongmei still couldn't believe it.

"I have inquired about it. There are several people in the neighboring villages who have done this. As long as there is suspicion, it will be easy to deal with after the money is divided." They learned these things at the poker table. They privately thought about it and planned to do a few more like this. If they succeeded, they would have to work for several years. In the past half month, they had targeted several families, but they didn't expect that their brother would get into trouble.

Wu Dongmei frowned. People like them who had their backs to the earth were naturally afraid of people with knives on their waists, and they were afraid that they would be hit by the Eaton board.

Seeing Wu Dongmei was hesitant, Li Wuwan asked Li Dawan, "Brother, what do you think? We will listen to you."

In fact, they had discussed it long before they came. He knew that his sister-in-law was at a loss and must be considering his eldest brother as her backbone.

"I have also heard that the lawyer has a good relationship with San Wan at the card table, and he has a nine-tenth chance of winning the case. But it is up to you to bring the matter up, and it all depends on your ideas. If it is done, Jin Bao will be able to go to school, and the only child in our family must have a good future."

Wu Dongmei covered her chest and said after a long while, "Then I will listen to my child's uncle."

"You need money to get the job done, not much..." Li Wuwan made a "one" gesture with his fingers.

"This..." When it comes to money, Wu Dongmei hesitated again.

"Since my sister-in-law is reluctant to part with the money, I can take it out. As for the profit sharing later, it depends on how much everyone contributes."

"Brother, I take 20%."

"Brother, I also take 20%."

"Then, I also get 30%?" Wu Dongmei finally said.

"Okay, that's it."