Literary Heroes of the Republic of China

Just as Mu Qiong was thinking about something, a little girl in a gown put mulberry leaves on both sides of an earthen pot to keep it from scalding, and ran in from the door carrying the pot: "Mother, the meal is ready."

The little girl looked thirteen or fourteen years old, because it was raining outside, her hair was wet, and there were drops of water dripping down her forehead, she looked a bit embarrassed, but even so, her delicate appearance was still eye-catching.

This is the original owner's younger sister, Mu Changyu.

Nowadays, the larger families have genealogy, and they will agree on the descendants in advance.

The so-called character generation refers to the characters used in the name to indicate the family's generation. Generally, some auspicious four-character or five-character poems are selected to express it, and couplets are also used.

The descendants of these generations of the Mu family are "the generations are long, and the family is eternal". The person is from the generation of Chang, the original owner's name is Mu Changqiong, and the original owner's younger sister is called Mu Changyu.

Meeting Mu Qiong's gaze, Mu Changyu was surprised: "Brother? Are you up?"

"Well, I'm much better." Mu Qiong smiled.

Like Zhu Wanwan, Mu Changyu put the earthen jar on the bench, and smiled at Mu Qiong, "It's time to eat! Brother, you must eat more, and you will get better soon!"

"Okay." Mu Qiong agreed, and then couldn't help coughing again.

Seeing this, Mu Changyu was very worried, and looked at Zhu Wanwan: "Mother, Aunt Zhao said that using loquat leaves to boil water, drinking it can relieve coughs, and walking a mile south, there are people planting loquat trees. I'll ask for some of them." Leaves to boil water for brother?"

"You are not allowed to go!" Zhu Wanwan said without thinking, and explained: "When the time comes, mother will ask for it. Changyu, you stay at home and don't go out. It's very chaotic outside."

"Mother, I won't go out." Mu Changyu obediently agreed.

"After dinner, I'll pick some leaves. Changyu, stay with your brother at home." Zhu Wanwan said again, taking a ladle of water from the basin beside her to the door to wash Mu Qiong just now. After washing the medicine bowl, he filled another bowl of batter and handed it to Mu Qiong.

The Mu family has lived in Suzhou for a long time, and the three of them are used to eating rice, but after buying rice, there are always vegetables to accompany the cooking, and it takes a lot of firewood to cook porridge...

If you can burn the fire with all your strength, the firewood bought for one copper dollar will not take a day.Zhu Wanwan wanted to break a copper dollar into two flowers, so she didn't want to waste it like this, so she just bought flour and ate it.

The gray flour that is ground with wheat bran on the market is not expensive, and it is also convenient to make—boil water, put a few spoonfuls of flour in it, stir it, add some salt, and it will be made into edible noodles Goofy, convenient and cheap.

There are no extra pots and pans in their house. The earthen pot was first used to boil medicine for Mu Qiong, and then used to cook batter. Gooey is even more unpalatable.

Mu Qiong had never eaten such unpalatable food in his previous life, but he was in poor health and had to take medicine from time to time, and the taste of those medicines was even worse, but he can bear it now.

The original owner was too hungry, which made the body lose his appetite, and faintly vomited when eating... But for the sake of his own body, Mu Qiong still forced himself to finish the batter slowly.

Mu Qiong didn't like to eat this batter, but Zhu Wanwan and Mu Changyu, mother and daughter, ate it with great relish.

They didn't have bowls, so they ate directly from crock pots with wooden spoons.Every time Mu Changyu had to wait for Zhu Wanwan to eat a spoonful before agreeing to take another.

After eating, the two of them poured some water in, cleaned the earthen pot, and drank the water in it separately.

The Mu family used to live in Suzhou, and their life was not extravagant, but they ate eggs, white rice, and chicken, duck, and fish every day. It's hard to be full.

Mu Qiong's throat was itchy and his body was weak. After eating the batter, he lay down again.

And Zhu Wanwan and Mu Changyu didn't go outside again, they moved a stool and sat at the door of the room, mending their clothes with the light coming in from outside the room.

Zhu Wanwan, a woman who seldom went out before and dared not speak to outsiders, in order to support her children, has changed her way of finding work these days.

She didn't dare to leave her children to go to work, so she could only take jobs and go home, but she couldn't get a good job of helping people embroider and sew ribbons. In the end, she only took the job of helping people wash and mend clothes.

There is a port near here, and many sand boats are parked, and most of the people who work on the sand boats are young men who come to Shanghai from other places to make a living.

The sand boat factory includes food and housing, and there is a monthly salary ranging from four to five yuan to as much as seven or eight yuan.

Many of the middle-aged women in the neighborhood would take on this job and earn a few copper dollars as private money or to subsidize their family. Zhu Wanwan has been doing this job for the past month.

She brought back a lot of torn clothes two days ago, and she is mending them now. She plans to wash them and dry them before sending them to the crew when the rain stops.

The crew's dirty clothes had a foul smell mixed with sea water. Zhu Wanwan felt like vomiting when she smelled them. She used to wash them before mending them, but even after several days of rain, she couldn't dry them after washing. I can only endure the strange smell and work hard with my daughter.

Mu Qiong didn't know this, and fell asleep again in a daze.

When he woke up again, it was mid-afternoon, the rain had stopped, and only Mu Changyu was at the door.

But not long after, Zhu Wanwan came back with some loquat leaves.

That night, Mu Qiong did not take medicine.He drank the water boiled with loquat leaves, and ate a bowl of batter that tasted like loquat leaves, and the first day of time travel passed.

Shanghai now has electricity and lights, but the price of lights and electricity is not cheap, and most people can’t afford it. In the area where Mu’s rented house lives, there is no one connected to electricity. Everyone still uses oil lamps. Or candles.

And their house didn't even have oil lamps and candles, so when it got dark, they couldn't do anything.

When it was completely dark, Zhu Wanwan arranged the two stools next to Mu Qiong's bed in the dark, put a broken door on them, and put a mattress on it to make a simple bed.

As soon as the bed was made, she and Mu Changyu hugged each other and lay down on it, covered themselves with their gowns and got ready to sleep.

The broken door was only two meters long and only a little over one meter wide. Although the two of them were petite, they were crowded even when they were lying down.

But Mu Qiong slept in the same bed made out like this, which was also narrow, so it would be useless to exchange it.If two door panels... no, two beds next to each other, maybe three people can sleep more spaciously, but the original owner is already 16 years old, and can marry a wife and have children in this age, even if he is willing, Zhu Wanwan's mother and daughter will definitely I don't want to either.

Mu Qiong sighed secretly again.

The mother and daughter fell asleep quickly, snoring softly, but Mu Qiong slept a lot during the day, but now he didn't feel sleepy, just had time to think about things.

From today onwards, he is Mu Changqiong living in the Republic of China... no, Mu Qiong.

Now that the Mu family has driven the three of them away, there is no need for the descendants of the Mu family to be included in his name, and he can still be called Mu Qiong in the future.

Mu Qiong confirmed the reality and thought about the future.

Their family is now empty, and it is imminent to find a way to make money.

In his previous life, he made money with his pen. In this era, he can resume his old business. After all, literati are very popular and profitable at this time. Some people can even get hundreds of thousands of silver dollars in manuscript fees for a book.

It's just... According to Mu Changqiong's memory, it is very slow to earn money for writing manuscripts. From submitting manuscripts to receiving manuscript fees, it takes more than a month at least, and many newspapers and magazines have special appointments to write manuscripts. People, if you rush to contribute, people may not accept it.

Therefore, he had better find a job first, and then slowly think about other things.

In a daze, Mu Qiong also fell asleep.

When he woke up the next day, Mu Qiong still had some cough, but it was not as serious as the day before, and he didn't know whether it was the loquat leaves yesterday that had an effect, or he had traveled through time, his mind was open, and his body relaxed.

There was an old bamboo box next to his bed, which contained a full set of clothes, shoes and socks.

His family is in a bad situation now, and the valuable clothes have been sold long ago, but the few sets of clothes he has left are still decent.

Mu Qiong took a bamboo cloth gown to wear.

Bamboo cloth is usually used to make summer clothes, and it was a bit cold to wear at this time, so he added two white cotton inner clothes inside.

After getting dressed, Mu Qiong opened the door and went out, and saw a red sun hanging in the east, revealing thousands of rays of light.

It hasn't rained since the rain stopped yesterday, and today is a sunny day, which makes people feel at ease.

The house they rented was dilapidated and old. After going out, Mu Qiong saw a large courtyard with very high walls.

On the south side of the courtyard, there are four large houses with attics, and two huts on the left and right sides. Under the southernmost courtyard wall, two sheds are built next to the gate.

Mu Qiong saw at a glance that Mu Changyu was lighting a fire and cooking under one of the built sheds. Besides Mu Changyu, there were other people also lighting a fire and cooking, presumably it was used as a kitchen.

The ground in this courtyard is paved with stone slabs.The stone slabs were wet, and rainwater still accumulated in the small pits above.

There was a wooden basin on the ground next to the porch, and a baby who was probably less than one year old sat in the basin. He was the first to see Mu Qiong, and after seeing Mu Qiong, he started babbling.

A young daughter-in-law who was in her twenties who was cooking turned her head to look at the child. When she saw Mu Qiong, she greeted her, "Brother Mu is alright?"

When Mu Changyu heard the voice, he raised his eyes and saw Mu Qiong standing at the door, his face was full of surprise: "Brother!"

"Changyu, are you cooking?" Mu Qiong asked, walking towards the simple kitchen that was built.

"No, bro, I'm cooking some leaves!" Mu Changyu said, "I did my laundry in the morning and just lit the fire."

Mu Qiong approached, and sure enough, he saw Mu Changyu boiling the torn dark green loquat leaves in the crock.