After the disaster

After that, Shen Xing went home alone, and there were patrolmen on the road in broad daylight, so he didn't have to worry about robbery.Qiu Chengcheng went to the city center. He already got the real estate certificate and keys of 1506, and now he can start construction according to his own ideas.

Qiu Cheng rode a tricycle to the largest shopping plaza in the city center. When Qiu Cheng was studying, he held up a sign there to find a part-time job. I remember that there were many people holding signs with him at that time. The students just find a tutor or something to do, and there are also some heavy labors, who specialize in helping people move houses and unload goods.

This time he rode a tricycle over there and saw that there were still people holding placards there, and the lineup had grown a lot, but the shopping plaza, which was bustling with people back then, was already closed.

Qiu Cheng glanced around and saw two young people sitting on the steps in front of the shopping plaza, one of them was holding a sign with the words "muddy water, decoration, patching". Tall, and looks a little honest.

"You know muddy water?" Qiu Cheng went over and asked them.

"Yes, yes, yes." The two of them didn't know what else to say, so they kept nodding and said yes.

"I have a rough room, the walls are a bit rough, how can I make it more tidy?" Qiu Cheng asked.

"Concrete wall or brick wall?" said the shorter-looking one.

"Concrete wall." Qiu Cheng replied.

"That depends on whether you plan to scrape white or paste wallpaper, paint or tile."

"It doesn't need to be very detailed, as long as it is flat." Qiu Chengcheng planned to stick mirror stickers on the walls and ceilings.

"Then scrape two layers of putty." The other party said.

Then Qiu Chengcheng told them about the situation in 1506 and asked them to quote a price. The two brothers were honest, they asked for a total of ten cornbread, and Qiu Cheng bought the materials himself.The two of them scraped the putty for this house, and they had to scrape it twice in total. Today, they scraped it first, and when it was almost dry tomorrow, they went to polish it, and then scraped it again.

After negotiating the wages, Qiu Cheng asked them where they sold putty powder. The two introduced him to a place, and then the two of them went home to get tools, and then went directly to Jiayuan Community, where Qiu Cheng bought putty. Fan also went back directly.

The current Xinnan City is not just a morning market and a night market. There are also many shops open for business during the day, most of which are stockpiled goods from the past, and some are collected around after the temporary base was disbanded. , but most of the business is very bleak, because currently in Xinnan City, the vast majority of citizens do not have the spending power.

Relatively speaking, these merchants who buy building materials still have an easier life. Even if they don’t make a fortune when the X virus broke out like Ai Wenhai, at this time when everyone is organizing post-disaster reconstruction, they can more or less With some income, at any rate, they can support their families.

He bought a few more bags of putty powder. Qiu Cheng had almost used up the tortillas he brought out that day. Fortunately, he sold those potatoes last night and earned a lot of tortillas. He still had some at home.

Qiu Cheng rode a tricycle back with a few bags of putty powder. The two plasterers had been waiting under their building just now.

"The place is on the fifteenth floor, and the elevator has stopped. Just bring your tools. I'll move them." Qiu Cheng said, handing over the key to 1506, signaling them to go up first.

The two brothers looked at each other, and there was indeed pressure on the fifteenth floor, so they stopped being polite and took their own tools to climb upstairs.

Qiu Cheng opened the rolling shutter door of the garage, pushed the tricycle in first, then took out several bags of putty powder from the bucket, and followed up with two bags under one arm.

Qiu Cheng remembered that when he was a freshman, the dormitory was on the seventh floor. At that time, he climbed up empty-handed. Sometimes he felt very tired. He was just a weak chicken. Later, the X virus broke out and he was forced to come out. , Now I started to practice again, and my physical fitness is better.

But no matter how good his physical fitness is, it doesn't mean he won't feel tired. A bag of putty powder weighs [-] kilograms, and Qiu Cheng is carrying [-] kilograms of weight while climbing the stairs with his head buried.

Crawling and crawling, two big feet suddenly appeared on the steps in front of him, silently, I don't know when they appeared here, these two feet are actually pretty good, slender and beautiful, recently With the help of Qiu Cheng, the toenails were cut.

"Are you up?" Qiu Cheng asked him.

"Yeah." Ah Chang curled his mouth and narrowed his eyes, his smile was brighter than the sunlight shining in from the window beside him.

"Help me get two bags." Qiu Cheng said as he moved the two bags of putty powder under his left arm towards him, motioning for him to take them, because he didn't have to worry about the other party rejecting his request, which made Qiu Cheng Cheng felt very at ease.

"Give it to me." Ah Chang took the two bags of putty powder, patted Qiu Cheng's right arm, and motioned him to give him the other two bags.

In this way, Ah Chang walked ahead with four bags of putty powder in his arms, and Qiu Cheng followed behind empty-handed, feeling very relaxed and happy.

When they went to 1506, the two masters had already tidied up the wall with stainless steel plaster knives. Seeing Qiu Cheng coming in, they asked him, "Is there any stepping?"

"Yes." Qiu Cheng responded, and went downstairs to get things. Ah Chang put the putty powder on the ground and followed suit. I went up to the wooden basket to step up for the two masters, and dragged out the ladder under the bed that had not been used for many years.

After finishing all this, it was almost eleven o'clock. Qiu Cheng had been busy for a long time, and he was already very hungry. Ah Chang always wanted to eat when he got up at this time every day.

There were still some cornmeal tortillas in their house, and the few Chinese cabbage on the terrace were basically ripe, so he took a knife and chopped one into the house, cut seven or eight Chinese cabbage leaves and boiled them in the pot. Sprinkle some chopped dried chili powder in it, add some salt.

When the cabbage was boiled, he broke three more corn tortillas and cooked them together. In the end, he filled four bowls in total, and sprinkled a handful of green onion in each bowl. Qiu Cheng and Ah Chang each had a bowl, and the other two Send the bowl to the fifteenth floor.

Cabbage soup boiled tortillas, this stuff used to be a bit out of hand, but now it is already very good, red, green, yellow, white, hot, filled a big bowl, the two chefs sat Snoring and eating on the upside-down wooden basket, I felt my stomach was full and warm, my energy was full, and I worked harder.

"Qiu Cheng! Qiu Cheng!" At around one o'clock in the afternoon, someone downstairs called Qiu Cheng's name.

"Hey! Here we come!" Qiu Cheng ran to the balcony to answer, and then went downstairs quickly. This is the wood sent by Wang Chengliang's elder brother.

Wang Chengliang's elder brother looks a bit older, about 50 to 1.7 years old, with gray hair, much shorter than his younger brother Wang Chengliang, about [-] meters tall, also very thin, maybe because of perennial fatigue , the back is a little bent.

There was also an elderly man who came with him. He was also thin, with a stooped back and white hair all over his head.There are also two young men in their twenties, who seem to be quite strong.

These four people pushed over the leftovers from two large carts. These leftovers looked neat, and Qiu Cheng knew that they had picked them up and delivered them to him.

"Just leave it here." Qiu Cheng scratched his hair in embarrassment. He didn't know if he would look a little awkward if he started to make friends with them now, and if he behaved too coldly, would he It looked a little cold again.

"Shall I move it up for you?" Wang Chengliang's elder brother said.He heard from his younger brother that Qiu Cheng lived on the fourteenth floor, and the elevator in this building stopped. When did he move by himself?

Just put it outside like this, maybe after one night, there will be no wood left tomorrow. Just now when he pulled the cart in, he saw someone upstairs poking around.

"No, no, I'm not in a hurry to use these timbers, just unload them here first." Qiu Cheng waved his hands again and again, there was an old man among them, he was really embarrassed.

"It's okay. Dad, you just watch things down there, and I'll just take Afeng and Alei up." Boss Wang couldn't help but say.

"Go." Father Wang waved his hand, he knew himself, so he didn't try to be brave at this time, so he sat down on the edge of the flower bed not far away, untied the water bottle from his waist, opened the lid and took a sip slowly water.

Seeing them like this, Qiu Cheng stopped insisting, and took the lead in lifting a few boards to lead the way, while Mr. Wang, father and son, each moved some wood and followed behind.

Qiu Cheng has good physical strength. Although he feels hard work, he can still bear it. Wang Chengliang's elder brother is also very strong. His two sons are more tender.

"If you are tired, just find a place to put the wood, go downstairs slowly, rest, and then move when you have strength, move the floor to which floor you can move, and put it there first if you can't move it." Qiu Cheng worried that the two brothers were exhausted, so he said aloud.

"It's okay." The man named Wang Feng still wanted to grit his teeth and insist.

"Listen to your uncle." Boss Wang felt sorry for his son, and besides, he also felt that what Qiu Cheng said made sense. If his two sons could just move the timber downstairs to the upper level, he would be able to save money. Climbing a few floors is also a lot easier.

To be honest, Qiu Cheng was not much older than the two brothers, but he was Wang Chengliang's classmate, and Wang Chengliang was their uncle, so it was right for the two brothers to call him uncle.

Wang Feng and Wang Lei listened to their father's words, put down the wood on their shoulders, and leaned on the platform at the corner between the eighth and ninth floors, and then the two brothers went downstairs one after the other.

Qiu Cheng and the boss of the Wang family continued to walk upstairs. At this time, Ah Chang had already gone out to catch sparrows, so this time there was no help from him.

After climbing up to the fifteenth floor, Qiu Chengcheng unloaded the wood under the wall outside 1506. Seeing him put it there, Mr. Wang also piled up the wood on his shoulders.

"Is this moving wood? Is there any more downstairs?" A master in the room came out when he heard the movement.

"It's okay, let's do your work." Qiu Cheng waved his hand.

"Hey, scraping the putty is very fast. This room is small, so I can definitely finish it today." The master turned his head and shouted into the room, "Huang An, they want to move things, so let's help."

"Here we come." The master in the room responded, and quickly put down the work at hand.

Together, the six of them were not slow in moving the timber. It didn't take long before they moved the two carts of timber to the side of the aisle on the fifteenth floor and piled them up. If they couldn't pile up in front of their house, they piled them to the side first. Anyway. There is no one living on the fifteenth floor, and his wood has not been stored here for a long time.

On the last trip, Qiu Cheng didn't go down. He went home and packed twelve tortillas in a clean cloth bag. After thinking about it, he took four more tomatoes that had just been picked today.

The wages in Xinnan City are like this now. When Qiu Cheng was working as an electrician, he used to pay four corn cakes a day. It is very difficult to find such a good job after making great efforts to carry out post-disaster reconstruction work and giving relatively generous treatment.

The members of the Wang family, except for Wang Chengliang's eldest brother, the other three are not very important. Qiu Cheng gave them three corn cakes each, which is already quite kind. The four tomatoes were given because of his friendship with Wang Chengliang's classmates.

At around three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun shone warmly on this gray and depressed town after the disaster, but it was full of vitality, and the oncoming spring breeze carried the smell of damp soil.

The four members of the Wang family pulled two carts and walked west along the main road in front of Xinnan University. After walking for about 20 minutes, they turned on a narrow concrete road on the left and passed a bridge hole. There are large fields, some of which have been overturned, and some are still covered with weeds.

"Dad, let me see what he gave?" Wang Lei, who was a little bigger than his brother, saw that there were no people left and right, so he moved closer to his father in a few steps.

"Look." Boss Wang handed the cloth bag to his youngest son with an unchanged expression, with a smile in his eyes. He had already opened it to look at it just now. few.

"Let's see, let's see." Wang Feng dragged the cart and ran to his brother in a few steps.

"Wow! So many tortillas! There are also tomatoes!" At this time, Wang Lei had already opened the cloth bag, and when he saw what was inside, he screamed.

"What are you yelling for?" Father Wang said to his grandson.When the world is bad, there is no peace everywhere, and some people will do all kinds of immoral things just for a bite to eat.

"Dad, shall we have a tomato?" Although the four tomatoes were given per head, the two brothers had no intention of eating one each.

"Let's go home first." Boss Wang didn't let go.

"Just give me one!" The youngest son is always good at acting like a baby, even though he is not young at this age, he is bigger than his father.

"Just give them one." Father Wang also said.Although the family has a large population, the old man still believes that those who work a lot have to eat a lot. These two grandsons really put in a lot of effort today.

In the end, the boss of the Wang family took out a tomato and cut it in half, and divided half between his two sons. Father Wang also took the cart from the eldest grandson, and the two brothers gave up, but both father and grandfather They said they would not eat them, so they bit the tomatoes, walked forward with their shoulders crossed, laughing and chatting as they walked.

The boss of the Wang family and Father Wang dragged an empty scooter and walked behind with smiles on their faces. Twelve corn tortillas, cooked with wild vegetables, were enough for their family to eat for several days. And those bright red tomatoes, the women and children at home must be happy to see them.