Qili Village became lively the next day. Many people in the village went to Lao Zhou's house to help with cooking, which was basically women's work.
The men gathered together, and the old man of the Zhou family decided to open the ancestral hall. A group of elderly people took Zhou Lixue and a few educated people to look through the genealogy in the ancestral hall, and offered freshly stewed chicken and duck to the ancestors. The queen of sheep put Zhou Yin and his wife back on the genealogy, and recorded Zhou Yin's life on the genealogy.
Qili Village is remote and has lived here for generations. Except for the refugee army rushing in during the chaos of Jin Dynasty, only natural disasters can destroy their village.
But such disasters are rare, because Qili Village is in the mountains, there is no food, there are wild vegetables, weeds, and bark, and there will always be roots left behind.
And a family, a village, as long as a few people survive, it can become a village again after a few years, but it just changes from a hundred households to dozens of households, and from dozens of households to a few households.
The eleven-year drought in Dade was a test of disaster for the villagers of Qili Village.
At that time, many people in the village had already packed their bags and prepared to go out to escape the disaster. They had privately agreed to go north, all the way to the capital, even if they were begging along the way, as long as they could survive until the drought ended. .
However, people are far away from home, so I hope so. In the end, no one knows how many people will survive on the road. Didn’t the first batch of people who left the village come back? on the road.
Those who went out were all young and strong, and they didn't have such a big loss, let alone the village chief who planned to lead his family.
Just when they were hesitating, Zhou Yin brought back a bag of grain. Apart from saving some for his own family, he also gave some to some orphans and widows in the village who had not been able to cook for several days.
Then he took the young men from the village together and took them to the county town together, nodding and bowing their heads, and found them a job carrying bags.
It is very tiring and bitter, but I can survive, and the food I get can squeeze the old and young in the family.
Thanks to the job introduced by Zhou Yin, Qili Village did not go out to escape the disaster in the end, and most of the people survived.
The owner of the firm liked Zhou Yin very much, so he left the steward to deal with the property in Luojiang County, while he and the caravan took Zhou Yin away.
Everyone in Qili Village knew that Zhou Yin had sold himself as a slave. According to the rules, selling himself as a slave should be crossed out from the family tree, but no one in the family wanted to cross out Zhou Yin's name at that time.
The life of the old Zhou's family is still difficult, and the life of the whole Qili Village is not very easy. When the times are good, they can live frugally for a year.
When the times are bad, I can get through it by tightening my belt.
So in spare time, everyone will sit under the big banyan tree at the entrance of the village and discuss, saying that Zhou Yin's cleverness and ability, and the value of him by the owner of the business company, maybe he is eating hot and spicy food at this time, and it won't be long. Will post back.
But the old Zhou's family and the villagers of Qili Village waited for a year, and another year, and there was still no news from Zhou Yin.
The old Zhou family even asked people to go and deal with passing merchants, but the news that came back was not very good. It was said that the owner of the firm encountered refugee troops and bandits on the road, the caravan was robbed, and everyone was killed...
It is also said that there is no such business name at all, people must have been tricked into digging deep in the mountains, and there is no need to think about finding people after entering the mine, there will not even be bones...
So year after year, people in Qili Village didn't mention Zhou Yin anymore, even the old Zhou family didn't mention it any more, thinking that it wouldn't be bad if there was no news, maybe it was because they had traveled far away with the merchant and couldn't send him off for a while. Reply, after all, I am a servant, I can't help myself...
Until the third year of Dazhen, Zhou Yin suddenly drove a mule cart back to Qili Village happily with his wife and daughter, and the whole village became lively.
For example, although Mrs. Zhang has a lot of opinions on Mrs. Qian and has been fighting tit-for-tat for half her life, she has no complaints about Mr. Zhou Yin, so she also joins in the fun.
Not to mention other families who have a good relationship with the old Zhou family.
Zhou Hu and others who played with Zhou Yin back then also got married and started a business. They thought that when Zhou Yin came back, they would set up a dozen tables anyway, and everyone would have a good time.
Zhou Yin didn't object either, and patted his chest, expressing that he would have a banquet when he came back from the county to pick up the things he entrusted the business to bring.
As a result, the couple never came back.
If Zhou Yin was a bandit, even the villagers in Qili Village would not believe it, so how could Zhou Yin be a bandit
He was almost the one who was killed by the bandits!
Because of this, when the officials came to question with Zhou Yin's blurred portrait, all the men were questioned one by one at the entrance of the village, and the women covered the couple's corpses with straw mats, and then dragged them to the grass together in the rain. In order not to let a trace of blood flow out, they held up the oilcloth to block the rain all the way...
Afterwards, a few more buckets of water were poured on the ground, and the officials who came to search simply fell to the ground after the incident, and dealt with them.
After that, no one dared to say anything. After nightfall, the young and strong men in the village dug a big pit in the cemetery of the old Zhou's family. There was no coffin, so they could only cover the two corpses with a quilt, and then covered them with straw mats to bury them. Already...
Later, the official sent two more times, and the head of the village looked on with trepidation. Finally, the old people of the Zhou family quietly opened the ancestral hall and drew a line on Zhou Yin's name, pretending that he would never die after selling himself as a slave. I have been back, and it has been crossed out by the family tree.
The matter gradually calmed down, and no one came to ask Zhou Yin again. The matter seemed to have passed, and the villagers seemed to have forgotten it, but after all these years, everyone was not without doubts.
What did Zhou Yin do outside, how did he die, and how did he provoke these officials.
Not only the villagers didn't know, even the old Zhou's family didn't know.
They didn't know what happened twelve years ago until they shouted that the king of Yizhou was rebelling, there was a fight outside, deserters were everywhere, and then Man Bao's letter went back to Qili Village.
Only then did they know that the little girl they had grown up with had grown up and could sue for her biological father.
When the old people recited these things and let the young people write them down, they felt a little emotional. How time flies.
Then the village head looked at the pen left by his grandson, thought for a while and asked the old Zhou, "Uncle Jin, do you want Man Bao to be recorded in the name of Uncle Xiao Yin? She is an only daughter, and she is capable, so she can be included in the genealogy."
Old Zhou thought for a while and said, "Remember."
The village head asked, "Is that remembering our Zhou family, or Xia's family?"
"What do you remember about the Xia family? Of course I remember the Zhou family. Zhou Man, the name I gave was agreed by the second child back then, and I followed Dalang and the others."
"But isn't Uncle Xiao Yin talking about Xia Man? After all, he is married..."
Old Zhou was not happy, and immediately grabbed the pen and said: "Who, who said it, Zhou Man! It's been more than ten years, and she has been called this name. If you want to change her surname, don't remember it."
The village chief nodded in a kind manner, and the old man on the side was not happy, and said vaguely with his toothless mouth: "You must keep your word, you must keep your word..."
Old Zhou Tou pretended not to hear.