Joyful Motherhood in a Rural Family

Chapter 243: 241: Allocation of Housing and Nitration of Leather Material

Night! It’s getting colder and colder!

Liu Sisi silently rolls up the elderly Mr. Di’s clothes, packs the bedding and blankets, tidies up his belongings, and under Ms. Wang’s watchful eye, she doesn’t take a single extra thing, then quickly walks out of the room.

At the main entrance, YingEr’s father stands quietly in the cold wind, silently listening to Ms. Zhao’s wailing, not even stepping into the room.

His back is old and desolate, but carries an inexplicable fierceness!

With a face void of any expression, he silently gazes at the pitch-black void.

Seeing Liu Sisi carrying a stack of items from the room, he immediately turns around and, leaning on his crutch, walks away from the Di family step by step.

“Old man!——”

In the old house, only Ms. Zhao’s loud crying can still be heard from afar.

“Old man! You heartless thing! You really abandoned me! Old man…”

Having walked far away, Liu Sisi quickly catches up, places all the items in her left hand to free the right hand and tries to help Elderly Mr. Di: “Father…”

“Don’t! …I can walk myself!”

Elderly Mr. Di pushes away Liu Sisi’s help, moves forward slowly, and the two figures gradually merge into the darkness, one following the other.

When they arrive at the Di Family, Di Xuan had already prepared hot water under Liu Sisi’s orders.

Ah-Huang and Ah-Hua, upon seeing the two return, chase them playfully, hopping before and after them, incredibly happy.

“Father! It’s really cold today, please sit down and warm your hands and feet! Don’t let them freeze.”

Liu Sisi touches her face, which is completely numb and has almost no sensation.

After considering, Liu Sisi moves the bamboo bed out of the room temporarily and places it in a corner of the hall. She adds a thick grass mat from the head of the bed and then starts laying the bedding.

“Father! The bed is ready. Please make do for a couple of days; when Ye Lei returns, we will find you a more comfortable spot.”

Elderly Mr. Di silently washes his face, warms his feet, changes into clean clothes, and then climbs onto the bamboo bed, covering himself with a quilt and curling up his body to sleep.

Everyone was truly exhausted after a whole day of turmoil.

Liu Sisi rolls around restlessly, unable to sleep. After making such a major decision today on her own, she wonders if Ye Lei will think she didn’t handle it well when he finds out.

In her restlessness, she eventually drifts off to sleep, not knowing when.

In a daze, it seems like she hears the low whines of Ah-Huang and Ah-Hua, followed by the sound of the door opening. Liu Sisi wakes up immediately. Sitting up, she hears faint voices coming from the hall.

It’s Di Yelei who has returned!

Liu Sisi hurriedly tidies herself up and walks out of the room, and indeed, outside is still dim, and the day hasn’t even broken yet, but Di Yelei is already back.

In the hall, Elderly Mr. Di is tucked into a corner where the light doesn’t shine, and his face is obscured. He seems to be saying something but stops when he sees Liu Sisi coming out.

“Ye Lei, you’re back,” Liu Sisi whispers.

“Dad! It’s still early, you get some more sleep. I’ll take care of this game first.”

Di Yelei glances at Liu Sisi and then takes the game into the kitchen.

“Go ahead…”

Elderly Mr. Di speaks softly.

Without disturbing the old man, Liu Sisi tiptoes in after Di Yelei into the kitchen.

“Sisi, what’s going on here?”

Di Yelei casually picked up a piece of game and began skinning it.

“Ah! What else could it be, we’ve just broken up.”

Liu Sisi opened the stove door, quickly adding some firewood in; with firewood, the house would be warmer. She casually recounted the events that had happened in the past few days.

By the end of it, both of them had fallen silent.

“I never thought Zhao would choose this path in the end, leaving Dad for Ah-Bao! Hmph!”

Di Yelei forcefully threw the skin he had just removed to the ground and angrily began gutting the game.

“Didn’t she use to say that she couldn’t live without my Dad? How many years has it been and she’s already regretting her choice?”

He was filled with hatred! If it wasn’t for Zhao intervening back then, his mother wouldn’t have died early, and there wouldn’t have been a series of dirty business after Zhao’s arrival. His childhood wouldn’t have been void of laughter.

“I don’t think she regrets it, maybe someone influenced her? I could see that she was genuinely heartbroken when Dad left.”

Liu Sisi sighed deeply.

“She deserves it! This is what she should endure!”

Di Yelei violently threw the small knife in his hand. The knife flew out of his grip, making a whoosh sound, directly piercing the mud wall in front of them, leaving only the handle exposed.

Liu Sisi was startled!

“What are you doing? Stop throwing knives, this is our home, not your hunting ground!”

Liu Sisi was angry!

“Sisi, I’m sorry, I lost control of my emotions.”

It wasn’t until a while later that Di Yelei softly spoke, picking up the small knife on the ground and silently continuing what he was doing.

“Dad sleeping in the hall isn’t right, why don’t I move the bamboo bed to Xuan’er’s room, and have Dad and Xuan’er live together temporarily?”

“That would be good!” Liu Sisi nodded her head.

“I’ve thought about it too, but Xuan’er’s room is full of books, and I’m worried his late-night reading will disturb Dad’s sleep. I thought to wait for you to come back and decide.”

Di Yelei nodded and then thought further, “How about I clear out a corner of the kitchen for Dad to stay? It’s warm there, and he wouldn’t get cold.”

“Absolutely not! The kitchen may be warm, but how can Dad sleep with all the constant smoke? Why don’t we do as you said, have Dad stay in Xuan’er’s room, and Xuan’er move to YingEr’s room, we could put YingEr in the bamboo bed next to our big bed. This way, we don’t have to worry about YingEr getting cold.”

After Di Yelei thought about it for a moment, he provided a compromise.

“No way! YingEr is already five years old, and she’ll be betrothed soon. She can’t stay in the same room as us. I’ll go talk to Zhang Peng later and see if there are any other good ideas.”

He quickly cut a piece of hind leg meat and handed it to Liu Sisi.

“What good ideas could Brother Zhang have? Even if we built another room, it wouldn’t be suitable for living in that quickly, right? Why don’t we temporarily partition YingEr’s room, and wait until next spring to build a new one?”

Liu Sisi suddenly came up with a solution. While she took the hind leg meat, she opened the lid of the pot with steaming hot water. She scooped out half a basin of hot water and began washing. After washing the meat, she started preparing breakfast.

“That works too! This is the best solution we have. I’ll go and ask Zhang Peng for help later to see how it can be set up better.”

By the time Liu Sisi had finished cooking breakfast, Di Yelei had already skinned all the game pieces, hung them up one by one, and soaked the removed fur in the water. He also took off the previously dried animal skins from the roof and put them in a large basin to soak.

“What are you doing?” Liu Sisi curiously asked.

“Tanning hides! In the past, there weren’t many animal skins, and their price was low in summer, so I would tan them in bulk around the Start of Winter to sell them at the best price.”