Zhu Guocheng squatted in the corner of the room with his head in his hands, his face facing inward and his hair disheveled.

Ocang Niang got angry when she rushed in: "Guocheng, you can still squat down. Where did your wife go? Why don't you quickly find her?"

Zhu Guocheng seemed to curl up tighter and said nothing.

Okura Niang pushed him and said, "You are deaf. Didn't you know that your wife walked out on a rope?"

Zhu Guocheng said in a muffled voice: "She just gives up her life and not her wealth to scare people, so leave her alone."

"I know there are people who like to scare people, but your wife doesn't have that problem. You and she are a couple and you still don't understand her!"

"It's not like I used to spoil her. She did everything she wanted. So why do you need to scare me?"

"What if it's not a bluff? Have you ever seen this man unable to do anything if he is angry and narrow-minded?"

"It's a good idea to die!" Zhu Guocheng became furious. "Over the years, she has been traveling from home to home, and she has not done anything serious. I even said a few words and even turned against me. Anyway, I have had enough."

Okura-chan pushed his disheveled hair several times angrily:

"Guocheng, why are you so confused? She is really going to die and you can't live a good life. How can you find a mother for your two children?"

The two children started to cry louder.

Okura Niang tore Zhu Guocheng's clothes and dragged him up angrily:

"Stop pretending to be dead here. Think about where she might be and go find her quickly!"

Only then did Zhu Guocheng become nervous.

In fact, he was suppressing the uneasiness in his heart just now, but he was just trying to maintain his dignity as a man and didn't want to show it.

"I see she's heading east—"

Okura Madam waved her hand: "Quick, quick, hurry up and go east to look for her."

At this time, some neighbors came over to see what was going on and started shouting.

Dozens of people ran out in an instant, and followed them running eastward.

Okura Madam shouted again: "Oh, don't all go east together. Some go south, and a few people go to the north."

As soon as everyone heard that they were right, Hong immediately divided into three waves and went to look for them separately.

Before they could disperse completely, a woman shouted at the top of her voice at the entrance of the alley:

"It's not that she went there. Just now I saw her turning back and heading west."

Everyone ran westward again.

I ran to the head of the village to get the exact news. Someone saw Matchmaker Liu heading towards Shu Maozi in the west of the village.

She still felt strange. It was already dark. Why was she going there alone?

Because it was already dark, I didn't notice whether Matchmaker Liu was holding a rope in her hand.

Now everyone was even more panicked and ran faster.

After entering the patch of trees, everyone dispersed automatically, just like catching a monkey in the summer, and the scattered light beams of the flashlights swayed everywhere.

Matchmaker Liu's two sons cried at the top of their lungs: "Mother—mother—"

The so-called shumaozi is a piece of low bushes. The area is not very large, it looks like dozens of acres of land, and there are also some sparse big trees dotting it.

Not far after entering Shumaozi, I heard a sharp scream: "Found it -"

"Save people quickly -" more people shouted.

Matchmaker Liu was hanging under a big tree with her tongue half out.

Those who were close quickly went up to hug her legs and pushed them up. Someone quickly climbed up the branch of the tree with quick hands and feet and untied the rope.

Lay her flat on the ground, first stuff her tongue back, then some shake her arms, some pick up her legs and bend them back and forth, just to soften her stiff body.

Her two children cried so much that there was no sound, and Zhu Guocheng hunched over and froze.

Liang Jincang pushed him: "Do artificial respiration."

Only then did he wake up as if from a dream. He knelt on the ground, hugged his wife's head and desperately performed artificial respiration.

After struggling for a while, Matchmaker Liu finally came around.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Using local materials, a stretcher was hastily tied with branches and tree slivers, and Matchmaker Liu was put on it and carried.

As soon as I took a step forward, I heard Okura Mother shouting: "Eiko, Eiko, what's wrong with you?"

They saw Yingzi curled up in a ball and squatting on the ground, clutching the cloth shoes on her feet with both hands, her eyes unable to move, like a wood carving and clay sculpture.

Okura Madam and several women pulled her up and helped her walk a few steps. They found that her legs were not working at all and she was basically dragging her along.

Everyone knew that she was frightened and her legs were weak.

Okura Madam asked others to support her. She turned to her daughter and squatted down, trying to carry her back.

Unexpectedly, Yingzi didn't really soften. She struggled fiercely and refused to lie on her mother's back.

Everyone is very surprised, what is going on? Are they scared to death?

She pursed her lips tightly and said nothing, and her eyes were full of tears, but she refused to roll down.

Liang Jincang gently pulled his mother away and took over from others to support his sister: "I will carry her on my back."

"You——" The mother stopped talking.

After all, the children are older, so it would be inappropriate for siblings to carry them on their backs.

Unexpectedly, Yingzi cooperated this time and took the initiative to raise his hand and grab his elder brother's shoulder.

Okura-niang sighed: "Go back."

Everyone just cheered and walked back.

Liang Jincang deliberately walked slower and fell at the end of the crowd, and even kept a little distance.

There was a burning sensation on his right shoulder.

Because once Yingzi lay on her elder brother's back, her tears were like a flood.

"Yingzi, if you want to cry, just cry loudly." Liang Jincang whispered.

Yingzi remained silent.

He opened his mouth and bit his elder brother's shoulder hard, and his tears flowed more quickly.

Liang Jincang's tears also flowed in two straight lines.

But he held his sister's thighs with both hands, unable to wipe away his tears, so he just let them flow freely.

Seeing the hanging man, his sister was frightened, but Liang Jincang knew that the fright would not make her become like this.

The bigger reason is that my sister's parents are buried in the hair of this tree.

The big tree was not far from her parents' graves.

The scene he saw nine years ago, just like what happened just a second ago, clearly appeared in Liang Jincang's mind.

That winter was very cold, with heavy snowfall and light snowfall one after another, but the snow on the ground never melted.

It was dark when the family of three was found, and the northwest wind was blowing loudly, sending out its last remaining force before dark.

Yingzi's parents had been dead for who knows how long, and her body had already become stiff. She was only six years old at the time, and maybe she didn't understand life and death. She was just crying loudly, pushing her parents and crying to get them up.

In the end, the Okura family paid for the carpenters in the village to build two thin coffins overnight and buried the poor couple on the spot.

From then on, every time it was a festival or a day to visit the grave, Ocang Niang would make dumplings and send the eldest brother and younger siblings to visit the grave in Shumaozi.

In the first few years, it was the eldest brother who carried Yingzi home, who was in tears.

When she got home, she always had tears on her face and slept soundly on her elder brother's back.
Chapter completed!