Chapter 2: The Lonely Widow of the Wei Family

  A three-entry courtyard with mountain rocks as walls and sea grass as roof, the main house has three rooms, and the east and west wings each have three rooms. The south side does not have a building, but instead a stone gate tower and a one-zhang high mountain rock wall. On top of the stone gate tower hangs a large wooden plaque with two powerful characters: Li Fu.

  But the peeling paint on the wooden signboard made the two big characters lose their original color. The thatched roof of Li's nine-room house also grew a lot of wild grass swaying in the wind. After decades of wind and rain, this three-entry courtyard revealed everywhere the decline of the owner's family fortunes.

  This is Li Jing's home, a three-entry courtyard with stone walls and seaweed on the roof. The yard is very large, and the rooms are not small either, with many signs showing the prosperity of the Li family in the past. This kind of seaweed house is a unique building style in the coastal areas of Shandong Province, where Wangli Village is located on the edge of the Shandong Peninsula, with heavy rainfall and humidity in summer, and snow and cold in winter. Under such special geographical location and climate conditions, people's dwellings are mainly designed to keep warm in winter and avoid rain and sun in summer. As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, ordinary people had accumulated unique building experiences through long-term living, using thick stones to build walls, and seaweed dried in the sun as materials to cover the roof, building seaweed houses.

  Seaweed thrives in spring and withers in autumn. When it grows to a certain height, it encounters strong winds and waves, and the seawater rolls it into bundles towards the shore. People living along the coast collect seaweed from the beach before building houses. They gather the seaweed, dry and tidy it up, and use it when building houses. Since seaweed growing in the ocean contains a lot of salt and gelatinous substances, using it to thatch thick roofs has the advantages of being resistant to insects, mold, and fire, as well as keeping warm in winter, cool in summer, comfortable to live in, and durable for hundreds of years. This is why coastal residents love this type of architecture.

  Li Jiong's family has a three-entry courtyard house with a history of over 50 years. It is said that when it was first built, more than 50,000 catties of sea grass were used. Not to mention Wang Li Village, but in the entire surrounding area of tens of miles, Li's three-entry courtyard house is also one of the best houses.

  Unfortunately, just over fifty years later, the Li family began to decline. The hundreds of acres of land they had acquired in their early years were now reduced to only fifty acres and ten acres of mulberry fields, barely enough for a single family to make ends meet. In its heyday, the Li family owned 300 acres of good land and three oxen.

  Now, however, the Li family can't even afford the money to repair their house.

  Li Jing and Wan'er walked into the main hall of the house, one in front of the other. Eldest sister-in-law had already prepared all the dishes.

  "Aunty, elder sister-in-law." Li Jing greeted the two elders.

  Li Jing's mother, Han Shi, was only fifty years old, her hair had already turned white, but she combed it neatly, with a bun on top and a wooden pin inserted at an angle. She wore a coarse linen skirt, which had not been patched, but had been washed until it was white.

  Li Cong learned from memory that his mother, Han Shi, was a collateral branch of the large Han family in Qingzhou. In the early years, Han's father and Li Cong's grandfather had arranged a marriage between them when Li Cong's grandfather was an officer under Li Shidao, the military governor of Zhaoyi who controlled Shandong. The two families had been connected by this engagement, but later, before Li Cong's father was born, Li Shidao was attacked and eliminated by the imperial court, and Li Cong's grandfather died in battle. Li Cong's grandmother brought her servants to move to Wenden County, thinking that the engagement with the Han family would be cancelled. However, more than a decade later, the Han family took the initiative to come and fulfill this marriage arrangement.

  The Han family clan, it is said that Mrs. Han followed the young lady of the Han family to study and read books when she was a child, recognizing characters, understanding books and reasoning, and even composing poetry. She married into the Li family before the age of 20 and gave birth to three sons and five daughters for the Li family, none of whom died prematurely and were all raised to adulthood. Mr. Li's father abandoned his martial pursuits and studied literature from a young age, and after marriage, he continued to study and write, with almost all household matters managed by Mrs. Han. Especially later, when he failed in the imperial examinations and became an official, spending many years away from home, the household was even more entrusted to Mrs. Han.

  Thirteen years ago, Li Jing's father passed away. At that time, the eldest son was only thirteen years old, and the other two sons were only seven or eight years old. There were also several daughters who were only two or three years old. At that time, there were several paternal uncles of Li Jing who came to persuade Han Shi to remarry, wanting to take over the Li family's property, but was firmly rejected by Han Shi. Han Shi directly rushed to the wall, wanting to die to show her determination, scaring off the few paternal uncles from having such thoughts again.

  Mrs. Han is kind-hearted and diligent, raising a large family with her own hands, she can be said to be the most traditional and praiseworthy woman of this era.

  "Is your body feeling better, my son? If you're not comfortable anywhere, ask the doctor to come and take a look." Mrs. Han looked at her youngest son with a kind face, feeling relieved and sighing in her heart. This son was different from his older brothers. Although they were filial and hardworking, they only had physical strength but couldn't read books well. But this youngest son was different, not only did he understand things from a young age, but he was also smart in reading. He could grasp the essence of things quickly and had a keen eye for detail. She had always been convinced that her son would definitely pass the imperial examination and become a scholar if it weren't for the court abolishing the xiucai exam earlier. Her son would have been the most outstanding xiucai lang.

  It's a pity that the Li family has suffered many disasters and misfortunes. Now, the burden of the whole family is on this child's shoulders, but it has delayed his future.

  Inside the house, a dim bean oil lamp was lit, and the light wasn't very good. Li Yu vaguely saw his mother's eyes moisten, and he couldn't help but say: "Mother, I'm completely fine."

  "That's good, that's good." Mr. Han patted his son's palm lightly.

  "Where's Big Sister and Second Sister?"

  The elder sister-in-law arranged meals for everyone in the family and said: "Your second sister-in-law is reciting sutras for your second brother in the house, eh."

  Second Brother's 49th day memorial has just passed, and Second Sister-in-law is still in mourning. Li Jing sighed inwardly, thinking that his second brother was only one year older than him, and had married Wang Shi for less than half a year before passing away, leaving Second Sister-in-law to suffer. He had met Second Sister-in-law a few times, who was only 16 years old, still a thin and immature young girl. Now, she has become a widow.

  Li Jiong turned his head and looked at his elder sister-in-law, who was also in a similar situation. She had been widowed for four years and was now only 21 years old. What made him sigh even more was that neither of the two widows had any children to rely on, and they were still young, yet they had to live as widows without any support. This fate was truly bitter and sorrowful.

  "Eldest sister, if there's a suitable one, you should marry into a good family again!" Li Jing couldn't bear the thought of such a young woman having to live as a widow for the rest of her life, and spoke out.

  As soon as he finished speaking, the room fell silent, with a pin-drop silence.

  Fourth sister and fifth sister had just come out of the house, when they heard this shocking remark. Fourth sister hastily said: "Brother, what are you saying? You should apologize to your elder brother's wife immediately. How can you say such a thing, uncle is marrying his sister-in-law, and you're still a learned person?"

  Eldest Sister-in-law Zhang was silent with her head bowed and tears falling, the whole family fell silent for a moment.

  "Eldest sister, I don't have any other intentions. You're still young and it's a pity to waste your life like this. You also don't have any children, and our family has already fallen on hard times. Staying here would only mean suffering. Why not find a good family to marry into? You still have half your life ahead of you."

  Sister-in-law wiped away her tears, looked up and said: "I know you're kind, but I'm a farmer's daughter, I also know what chastity is. The person I admire most in my life is my mother-in-law, who raised all of you uncles and aunts by herself. Uncle, don't say such things again, I was born into the Li family, I'll die as a ghost of the Li family, this lifetime I will never remarry."

  Mr. Han sat there, wanting to speak but hesitating, and in the end he didn't say anything.

  "Come on and eat, I cooked bok choy tonight and added two eggs, everyone hurry up and eat, it won't taste good if it gets cold." The elder sister-in-law said with a forced smile.

  Everyone stopped talking, the Li family was strict, not speaking while eating or sleeping was a rule. The Li family ate in separate seats, with two dishes and a bowl of rice in front of each person. Two dishes were one was Chinese cabbage stewed with eggs, and the other was salted mustard tuber, and the rice was millet porridge. Chinese cabbage is actually just what later generations called napa cabbage, but at this time the big white cabbage was still somewhat different from later generations. Li Jiong ate a few mouthfuls, the boiled Chinese cabbage had no seasoning, only a little oil and salt, light and tasteless. The millet porridge was made with crushed millet bran including shells, not only was there bran in the porridge, but it was also very thin like soup, basically without any grains of rice inside.

  He looked up and saw that the two eggs his sister-in-law had mentioned were all in his bowl, and compared to the porridge in his bowl, the women's bowls were even thinner, almost like soup.

  "What's wrong, Sanlang? Is this porridge not enough to fill you up?" Mrs. Han asked as she saw Li Xuan put down his chopsticks and turned to ask Zhang Shi, "Old lady, we still have two pieces of woven fabric at home, let's exchange them for some rice flour tomorrow. Sanlang has just recovered from a serious illness, how can he recover well without any food?"

  "Alright, alright grandma."

  "What's the price of grain per dou now, Mother?" Li Jing asked.

  "Two hundred coins for a dou of rice, millet also costs one hundred and sixty coins, wheat also costs one hundred and eighty coins. Just a few years ago, a dou of rice only cost twenty coins, now it's all increased tenfold. If this continues, what can we do? Mother thinks that if the grain prices rise again, we'll take all the paddy from home to Wenden to exchange for high millet, and then mix in some bran and wild vegetables, this year should be able to get by."

  Hearing this, Li Jing's heart felt extremely heavy. Looking at the family of six or seven people, each with a pale and malnourished complexion, they still insisted on giving him both eggs to eat and even added more dry food to his porridge.

  A surge of anger rose in his chest, how could a big man like him let a family of women go hungry? He was also a descendant of the ancestors, after all, and couldn't just be supported by a family of women. It seemed that the most pressing matter at hand, the most important thing to do, was to solve the problem of feeding his family. But how exactly was he going to solve this food problem?

  P.S: Strongly begging for recommendation votes!