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Chapter 11: The Leaky House
Chapter 11: The Leaky House
In the village, moving and setting up a new bed had to be done on an auspicious day. If no such day was available, the first or fifteenth day of the month was chosen.
Therefore, Zhou’s father decided to move today.
Zhou Chenglei and his father took cleaning tools to tidy up the old house.
Jiang Xia was worried that men wouldn’t clean as thoroughly as women. She had high standards for household hygiene, so she said, “I don’t have much to pack, and I can help clean. More hands make light work.”
The original Jiang Xia had only been married for a short time and was always prepared to divorce, so many of her things were still in red, white, and blue bags, untouched.
This made the move easier.
“Alright, then let your mother stay behind and help your sister-in-law sort things out.”
Tian Caihua thought Jiang Xia was clever. By offering to clean, she was making Zhou’s mother stay behind to sort things out.
Would she really have the nerve to give the old, broken, and bad things to her mother-in-law?
What a cunning little thing!
Suddenly, Tian Caihua remembered the entire process of dividing the household. Jiang Xia had acted so virtuous and uninterested, making her seem petty and mean-spirited, even ungrateful. In the end, she had only gained a new house, while the two elders got nothing.
Tian Caihua grew angrier the more she thought about it!
Bah, she didn’t believe Jiang Xia was really so uninterested and unambitious. What a sly fox!
How devious and cunning!
Tian Caihua suspected the elders would feel sorry for Zhou Chenglei and Jiang Xia moving into the old house and secretly give them some extra money to help them out.
Thinking this, Tian Caihua felt even more upset.
Jealousy made her temporarily forget that Jiang Xia wanted a divorce. Why would she care about anything?
The Zhou family lived in a small fishing village, where they relied on the mountains and the sea for sustenance. Most villagers made a living by fishing.
The area was mostly flat, with few mountains, and the land was vast and sparsely populated, so each household had plenty of farmland.
Villagers lived a relatively comfortable life, never going hungry.
The Zhou family’s old house was close to the sea, but not right on the beach. It was just relatively near.
Houses near the sea were damp due to the heavy moisture, and living there for a long time could lead to rheumatism. If a tsunami hit, they could be destroyed. There was no poetic charm of “a house by the sea, where spring blossoms and flowers bloom.” So, villagers never chose to build houses by the sea.
While the sea view was beautiful, they saw it every day and didn’t find it special.
However, with economic development, many houses and hotels were built by the sea to attract tourists.
Jiang Xia surveyed the long-abandoned stone house. The walls were also made of stone, looking sturdy and ancient.
The yard was overgrown with grass but was quite large.
In her previous life, Jiang Xia was from the city. After her parents passed away, she sold their house to pay off debts. Later, she lived in a small, dark basement that her grandmother, a retired sanitation worker, had been allocated. It was so small and dim that even flowers couldn’t survive there.
She only managed to buy a one-bedroom apartment in the capital city after paying off her grandmother’s medical bills and finishing her master’s degree. Unfortunately, she was transported to this world before she could move in.
So, in this life, she had never lived in a house with a yard!
This yard was spacious, and Jiang Xia felt an immediate fondness for it. Even after her divorce, she planned to buy a house with a yard, where she could plant flowers in front and fruit trees in the back.
She already had a vision of how she would transform this yard into her own little haven.
Currently, the yard was overgrown with weeds, and the old house, built decades ago, had been unoccupied for a couple of years. It was in disrepair, with many tiles missing from the roof. Standing inside, she could see light seeping through the gaps in the tiles.
If there's a crack in the roof, it will naturally let in rain.
Zhou Father frowned. "We need to buy some tiles to patch up the roof. Otherwise, when it rains or there’s a typhoon, it’ll be a real hassle."
Zhou Chenglei replied, "I’ll go buy them tomorrow."
Jiang Xia glanced up at the sky. It was a clear, deep blue, not at all like it was going to rain. However, Jiang Xia couldn’t help but think about the plot of the book.
In the story, a super typhoon was about to make landfall in this coastal area. After the typhoon, the beach would be littered with fish and shrimp. The female lead would come to collect them and sell them to earn money for living expenses and school fees, as September was the start of the school year. She was too daring, chasing after a fish and running too far, only to be swept into the sea by a wave. The male lead saved her.
According to the book, the original protagonist and the male lead would divorce today, and the female lead would make her appearance!
But when would that super typhoon arrive?
Feeling a bit anxious, she said, "August is the season for typhoons. We don’t know when it might rain. It’s still early; why don’t we buy some tiles now and fix the roof?"
Zhou Father replied, "This year, we have weather forecasts. The radio station will announce if there’s a typhoon and tell everyone not to go out to sea."
Jiang Xia felt a little more at ease but couldn’t help but ask, "Are the weather forecasts accurate?"
"Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t."
Jiang Xia was speechless.
Zhou Father continued, "The weather forecast covers the entire city, and there are many counties under the city."
Seeing her worry, Zhou Chenglei said, "Dad, I’ll go check if there are any tiles for sale. If I buy them, I can fix the roof in the afternoon."
Zhou Father didn’t want to spend too much time alone with his daughter-in-law, so he said, "I’ll go! You two stay here and clean."
There was a brick kiln in the neighboring village that would deliver the tiles, so Zhou Chenglei didn’t insist on going.
Zhou Father left, and Zhou Chenglei looked at the weeds in the yard. Clearing them would be a bit strenuous, so he said, "You go clean the house, and I’ll clear the weeds in the yard."
Most of the furniture had been moved out, leaving the house empty. It had been cleaned when they moved, so it wasn’t too messy, just dusty. Cleaning it wouldn’t be too tiring for her.
Jiang Xia had no objections. She tied a headscarf, covered her mouth and nose with a cloth, and then, with a sense of determination, began to inspect her "new home."
The house had four rooms, with a living room in the middle and two bedrooms on either side.
The living room was long and deep, but the layout wasn’t ideal.
On either side of the main house were two smaller, lower buildings. The one on the left was the kitchen, with two large stoves and two smaller ones next to them.
The one on the right was a storage room for farm tools.
Next to the kitchen was a small, low, and narrow room that served as a bathroom.
The bathroom floor was made of red bricks, while the kitchen and storage room had no tiles, and the main house had square old tiles.
Jiang Xia remembered her college roommate mentioning that her hometown still had mud-brick houses from the 1950s and 1960s, with floors that were just hardened mud, now blackened.
The house also had a large backyard with a pigsty, a cattle shed, and a chicken coop, though they were all in poor condition.
After her tour, Jiang Xia felt that the house was better than she had imagined. She decided to start cleaning the bedrooms.
The old house was wired for electricity, and there were lights installed. Jiang Xia pulled the rope on the wall by the door, and the tungsten light bulb lit up.
She took a long broom and decided to start by cleaning the spider webs from the walls and the ceiling beams.
After sweeping the four walls, she raised the broom to clean the ceiling beams. Suddenly, she found herself face-to-face with two snakes on the beam.
"Ah!" Jiang Xia screamed, dropped the broom, and ran out like the wind, her face veil flying off in the breeze.
(End of Chapter)
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