In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 223 Finally having some free time, I went to ask Uncle Si for medicine.

When Yu Dawei returned home, it was already 10:30. People in the village go to bed early in winter. He had previously made an appointment with his parents to have a small gathering and drink some wine together on the winter solstice, and then sleep in the backyard that night.

He hadn't expected to be delayed by his third uncle's matter, but it didn't matter; the outcome was better than he had anticipated.

The old lady stopped crying, and the third uncle finally resolved his inner conflict.

However, when Yu Dawei saw his third uncle's old house when he sent him back to Minquan Village, he couldn't help but feel a little sad. The mud-brick house was similar to Yu Dawei's house, and the yard was overgrown with weeds because no one had taken care of it for a long time.

Corn had been planted in the garden before; you could see tiny tips peeking out from under the snow. Those were the parts left when the corn was cut off at the root with a sickle.

The house was very cold because no one had lived there for a long time. Even with a stove, it was hard to warm it up.

Yu Dawei tried to persuade his third uncle that if that didn't work, he should come home with him. The house had been uninhabited for a long time and really felt lifeless.

My third uncle shook his head and refused, saying that sometimes my second sister-in-law from the same village would come to help heat the kang (a heated brick bed), light the stove, and also help look after the yard.

He added that he was the only one who could frequently return to the village, and if he didn't live there either, then the Hou family would truly be without anyone.

It was only then that Yu Dawei realized that his third uncle was the most sentimental of all the uncles he knew in the Hou family.

In the end, Yu Dawei left, presumably because his third uncle didn't want to see his worried expression.

When he returned to the old man's house in Yujiatun, he drove the car into the yard first, and just as he was about to open the door and go inside, he saw that the lights inside the house were on.

After entering the house, neither Mom nor Dad slept much. Dad, in particular, put on a thick cotton-padded coat, got out of the quilt on the kang (a heated brick bed), used the stove hook to open a gap in the stove grate, and put in some thick wooden blocks and a little coal.

No one in the village has a friend in the coal mine like Duan Dahai. Although every household can afford to burn coal now, they have to be careful, just like eating dumplings during the New Year.

The most common fuel for fires is wood. Some elm stumps are the best because they are heat-resistant. Similar woods are also good. They are all collected by the villagers in the autumn and brought back to their yards. However, those dense woods are much more difficult to chop.

"Why are you only just getting back? We thought you were sleeping at your uncle's house." Zhang Yunqin, the mother, sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) wrapped in a quilt, looking at her eldest son with surprise.

Ever since this child started owning a car, his temperament has become too extreme. If he weren't her own son, she would definitely doubt whether he was still her eldest son.

He used to be the type to stay at whichever house he ate at, especially his uncle's house. He never came back on his own initiative, and when he did come back, it was usually because his aunt chased him away.

“My third uncle insists on taking back Minquan, so as his nephew, I have to see him off.” Yu Dawei took off his dog-skin hat, removed his down jacket, and then rubbed his face.

Just now, as I opened the car door and went back into the house, a gust of cold wind blew in and stung my face. I reckon it's going to snow again tomorrow or the day after.

"Are they all asleep?" Yu Dawei glanced at Xiao Muyu, Han Jingfan, Er Yan, and A Gui, who was curled up asleep at the far end of the kang, and couldn't help but smile.

"Don't you even know what time it is? Hurry up and go to sleep." Old Yu stirred the fire in the stove a couple of times before getting up to go back to bed.

Yu Dawei nodded. His mother and Han Jingfan were sitting next to each other, while his own quilt was placed separately next to his grandfather.

Old Yu felt lightheaded and after blowing out the candles, he found it difficult to fall asleep. He then asked about the drinking and dining gathering that day.

He clearly remembered how Hou Wanshan was beaten out of his elder brother's house by his sister-in-law back then.

At the time, my older brother, that coward, didn't dare to break up the fight. It was I who, with my thin frame, went to break it up, and ended up getting a solid blow to the back from my sister-in-law. It was an utterly undeserved disaster.

Many years have passed, but thinking about it now still makes my back ache a little.

After that, Hou Wanshan never came to Yujiatun again. In fact, at the beginning of this year, when Yu Laonian learned that Dawei was getting close to his second uncle Hou Wanqiang, he was already very surprised.

He even thought that he might run into Hou Wanshan, and even wondered if it was possible for Hou Wanshan to reconcile with his sister-in-law.

Yu Laonian, who knew Hou Wanshan and his sister-in-law somewhat, told his wife while eating dumplings that Yu Dawei's meal at his uncle's house this time would definitely not be peaceful.

Then, after listening to Yu Dawei recount what happened during dinner that evening, she couldn't help but chuckle. It's true what they say, like mother, like daughter; they're both stubborn as mules.

"Sigh, your third uncle probably realized that your aunt is getting old and is afraid that he might really upset her." Old Yu said softly, using the lowest possible voice so as not to disturb the others sleeping on the kang. "But your aunt did the right thing. When Hou Wanshan gets angry, he can do anything. If this continues, he will definitely have a hard time in his later years."

Yu Dawei didn't know what to say. He felt that his third uncle's temper had changed a lot since he was a child. However, he didn't dwell on this matter. Instead, he thought of his fourth uncle's medicine and began to ask about the Yu family's generations of taking medicine to have children.

Yu Laonian clearly knew something, but it was too late, so he fell asleep after chatting for a while.

Yu Dawei was also a bit tired, so he went to bed first. He didn't have time to visit his fourth uncle Yu Huai's house tonight, but he would go tomorrow. Anyway, he could stay in the village for another two days, so he had plenty of time.

The next morning, Yu Dawei finished washing up and eating breakfast, and it was already past nine o'clock.

In Northeast China during winter, most families eat only two meals a day. It gets light late in the morning and dark early at night, which means that people tend to get up a little later in the morning.

However, people in the countryside don't get up at seven or eight o'clock at night. They usually get up around five o'clock and start checking if the fire in the stove is out. If it isn't, they add some more wood and corn cobs.

If the fire goes out, scoop out the ashes from under the stove, put them in a winnowing basket, and then carry the basket to dump them into the ditch outside the courtyard gate.

Few stove flames last until the next morning, so the first thing most people do every morning is "clean the stove."

Not only the stove, but also the hearth, and the ashes under the stove under the cooking platform all need to be removed, otherwise, once they accumulate, it will be impossible to continue burning firewood.

After cleaning the stove, they would relight it. Once the stove was burning, they would empty the dirty water bucket and start cooking for the chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, and pigs. They would feed the chickens first before cooking for the family.

Busy with work, the sky brightened before we knew it. By the time we finished eating, the golden sun had already shone on every yard in the village.

Yu Dawei put on a dark green down jacket and a dog-skin hat and went to Uncle Yu Huai's house.

He had come here today because he needed something from the old man, and before he left, he specially brought some oranges from the old man's house.

I brought the oranges back from town a few days ago. I gave some to my parents, but I only took a small amount. I'll take some more from my own box when I have time.

Yujiatun is not big. It takes at most ten minutes to walk from one end to the other. If a child is fast, he can probably run a lap in three to five minutes.

Yu Dawei arrived at the door of the Fourth Uncle's house. His door was a neat wooden door, and there were two tree stumps on both sides of the gate.

These were two old willow trees, at least forty or fifty years old, but they were cut down by Uncle Yu Huai, leaving only two large tree stumps at the entrance.

It wasn't that Uncle Si didn't want to dig them out, but the tree roots underneath were so tangled and difficult to dig, so he could only leave them there for many years.

The fall of these two old willow trees was actually related to his father.

The Fourth Uncle's branch of the family has always been a single line of succession, and now he only has one son, Yu Dachuan, who is about one or two years younger than Yu Dawei.

This child was born prematurely and has been weak and sickly since he was little. Even with his great-uncle around, the child couldn't stand the constant illnesses.

The people in the village were much more superstitious back then than they are now. Uncle Si himself was a fan of metaphysics and consulted many people, but in the end, it was all in vain.

At that time, my grandfather had only read a few books on divination, and few people in the village knew that Yu Laonian could do divination. He usually just did it at home.

If you're sure you've got it, you'll be happy for most of the day; if you're not, just take it as a joke.

As it turns out, some unreliable member of the Yu family told their fourth uncle, Yu Huai, about his father's fortune-telling abilities.

Yu Dawei once suspected that it was his twelfth uncle, who had a very good relationship with the old man, who had told him the secret, since he was the only one who couldn't keep a secret.

He knew his own father's capabilities best; when he was a child, he was often the guinea pig, making more mistakes than correct calculations.

He would occasionally flip through books on feng shui and divination, and he liked to read all sorts of books, mostly just for fun.

As a result, I was suddenly forced into this situation.

What puzzled Yu Dawei even more was that the old man actually figured something out that day. After cutting down the two old willow trees at the door and burying two gold coins in the ground, Yu Dachuan's weak and sickly condition really did get better.

He's no longer the little brat who can't eat or sleep.

This story was widely circulated in the village back then, and Yu Laonian gained another identity: the village's chief diviner!

Unfortunately, the old man rarely performed divination after that, and he would avoid people who came to him.

I once asked him why, and he said frankly, "I want to live two more years."

(End of this chapter)