Uncle Pei was the first to introduce himself: "Girl, my last name is Pei, and I am the eldest in my family. They all call me Uncle Pei."
"Some of these people are my relatives, some are my neighbors, and this one is my old lady. My son and daughter-in-law are gone, and I only have a little grandson left."
The rest of the people also talked a lot about their family situations.
None of them are complete, either they are missing a father or a mother. Even though there are only thirty or so of them, there are eight families in total, and there is also a woman named Xiaoshuang, who is in her twenties and single.
Liu Qiaoer also introduced herself: "My last name is Liu, my given name is Qiaoer, and this is Zhang Lingzhi, a doctor from the Imperial Hospital in the capital. He actually came here with the disaster relief team. I am here to look for my relatives. Who would have thought that Liangzhou is in such a state of chaos and disorder? It is fate that brought us together."
When they heard that they were all from the capital and that Zhang Lingzhi was a doctor in the imperial palace, everyone looked at him with even more respect.
Liu Qiaoer glanced at them and said, "Okay, if you trust me, I will reluctantly join you. We need to rebuild our home, and our first priority is to follow your orders."
Uncle Pei nodded first: "Girl, we will do whatever you tell us to do and do it the way you want us to do it. We will listen to you."
Liu Qiaoer glanced at the others. In fact, no one had any opinion. They nodded and said, "Miss Liu, I will listen to you."
Liu Qiaoer nodded: "Okay, in this case, we will be a big family from now on. I will assign the tasks first."
Everyone was actually very tired. After walking on the mountain road for a whole day, they were all exhausted. Some children had already fallen asleep in their family members' arms.
Liu Qiaoer quickly assigned rooms and tasks.
"Our temple is not big, and there are only two warm beds. Let's take care of the children and the elderly first, and I'll divide them up."
There were people in their twenties and thirties and two old ladies who were taking care of the children. They took their children to the warm kang first.
The remaining nine older women, including Liu Qiaoer, could squeeze five or six people on each kang. Liu Qiaoer asked them to squeeze into the west wing.
Finally, only Liu Qiaoer and Xiao Shuang were left with nowhere to squeeze in. Xiao Shuang said, "Girl, you sleep over there and I'll sleep with you."
Liu Qiaoer nodded: "The only warm place left is the kitchen. Let's go to the kitchen and make a bed to stay there."
Xiao Shuang pointed at the child in her arms and said, "Are you sleeping in the kitchen with the child?"
Someone said, "You go sleep on the head of the kang. I'll move out and sleep with Xiao Shuang."
Of course Liu Qiaoer disagreed. She had a space and was planning to take food from it to feed her child.
He waved his hands and said, "No, no, the child can just follow me. The rest of the men, you can go to the main room. There is only one bed in there. I suggest you put the stools and table together to make a bed, and light some charcoal fire in the room to keep warm."
There are only eight men and old men in total, and including Zhang Lingzhi, there are only nine people. There are a lot of people, but the main room is large.
They rubbed their hands together and said, "It's okay, we can do it ourselves."
Liu Qiaoer nodded: "There are two rooms to live in. We will temporarily divide them into men's and women's quarters. The children will live with the women."
Everyone agreed with this allocation.
"Now let's start assigning tasks. You two men and two women, go downstairs and fetch some water. Let's wipe the furniture and beds first."
"You guys, follow me to the vegetable garden at the back to dig up the sweet potatoes. We need to fill our stomachs first before we think about other things. These are our future food. I don't know how many days they will last, but we have to get them out first and see."
The people who were carrying water left first, and the people who were digging sweet potatoes also left. The remaining people, some went to clean up, and some went to gather together the usable firewood around.
Liu Qiaoer originally wanted to hand the child to Xiaoshuang and clean the vat herself.
Who knew Xiao Shuang didn't answer: "Girl, I can tell from your hands that you have never done rough work, let me do it."
Xiaoshuang first pushed the jar over, and then cleaned the inside with straw. After a while, when the water carrier came back, she cleaned the jar carefully again and it was ready to store water.
It was getting dark, and after they had finished eating the sweet potatoes, the children had all gone to sleep, and the women who were used to taking care of the children came out to help.
There is strength in numbers. The key is that the place is really small. In less than two hours, the backyard was clean and tidy.
A big bag of sweet potatoes was thrown away. It looked like a lot, but actually, if you divide it, there are not many.
Liu Qiaoer thought for a moment and said, "Starting tomorrow, we will have two meals a day, one in the morning at 9:00 p.m. and one in the afternoon at 5:00 p.m. If we boil the sweet potatoes into soup, we can eat it over a longer period of time."
"Everyone is tired now, let's go to bed first, and we'll redistribute the work tomorrow morning."
There was a cold wind outside. Grandpa Pei looked at the sky worriedly and sighed, "It's going to snow heavily tonight. Once it snows, we won't be able to find anything to eat."
Liu Qiaoer also glanced at the sky and said, "It doesn't matter. We live by the mountains and we eat by the water. There are also small animals that starve in winter. How can we know if we don't try our luck?"
At worst, she still has room.
The windows and doors were repaired, firewood was available, and everyone returned to the tall man's room to rest.
Liu Qiaoer took out needles and thread from the space and handed them to everyone: "I am not good at sewing, you see who is good at sewing and mend the clothes. I have some scraps of cloth here."
The needle and thread were given to everyone, and Liu Qiaoer and Xiaoshuang came to the kitchen. The kitchen was empty, and the only bag of sweet potatoes was sent to the main room for the men to keep an eye on for safety.
Liu Qiaoer originally wanted to take out the sleeping bag, but it was inconvenient with Xiaoshuang around.
I saw Xiao Shuang had already spread straw on the ground: "It's still relatively warm behind the straw."
Liu Qiaoer thought about it and decided to pretend to go down the mountain tomorrow and bring back some things, otherwise she wouldn’t even have a quilt to use.
"Okay, that's it."
Everyone came empty-handed, without bedding. They only had cotton-padded jackets, and they wanted to get all the cotton in the bedding on themselves.
There's nothing I can do, I'm poor.
Xiaoshuang was very tired and fell asleep as soon as she fell to the ground. Liu Qiaoer was also tired, but the child had to eat, so she entered the space and rummaged for a long time before finally finding a box of biscuits.
The child cannot eat during the day and can only drink breast milk. Where can she get breast milk now? There is not even formula milk in her space.
But she had milk, biscuits, and eggs. Zhang Lingzhi said that children cannot eat the whole egg for fear of being laughed at, so they can only eat a little bit.
In the space, Liu Qiaoer soaked a piece of biscuit in boiling water, boiled an egg, made half an egg yolk, mixed it with the biscuit and water into a paste, and fed it to the child little by little with a spoon.
Fortunately, the child is not picky about food, and probably has no right to be picky about food. He was full after a few bites, pooped and peed once, and fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
I have to say, this child is really easy to raise.
Although there was no formula milk or breast milk, he was very satisfied as long as he was fed a small amount of biscuits, which reminded Liu Qiaoer of her own childhood.
Her mother took great care in raising her. She is already eight months old and is still being breastfed. She was also very picky about food when she was little. It was really annoying.
It turns out that when people are in trouble, even babies can adapt to the environment, let alone adults, who are not so pretentious.