Unparalleled Concubine

   Chapter 2 Digging a Pit

   After three days of heavy snow, the sun finally emerged from the thick clouds.

   At the foot of Beishan Mountain in the northeast of the capital, there is a simple wooden house with a thatched roof, surrounded by a fence made of some branches.

  A young man who was not particularly thickly dressed was at the back of the hut perseveringly waving a **** in his hand and digging a hole in the ground.

   This boy, this is Li Xin who has traveled to this world.

He was originally an ordinary office worker in another world. After seven or eight years of hard work in the workplace, he has climbed to the position of deputy manager in a small and medium-sized company, and was promoted to manager not long ago. Then I went to the bar with my subordinates to celebrate, and then... no more!

   Drinking and drinking to death is a shameful way to die...

   But now he has no time to think about his past life, because he has to face the reality, that is, he must live in this world.

Now, three days have passed since he traveled here, and he was in a state of drowsiness for two of them. During this drowsiness, the memory of this unfortunate child who was pierced by his own soul was like watching a movie. He looked it over.

   After reading this "Li Xin" memory, Li Xin had only one thought.

   This is really a bad boy...

   Therefore, when he woke up from his coma and managed to recover some physical strength, he went to the ruined temple, carried his uncle back, and wanted to dig a pit to bury the old man who was frozen to death.

Although the sun is out at this time, the weather is still extremely cold. Because of the cold, the surface layer of the earth is frozen soil, which is extremely difficult to dig. Fortunately, the weather here is not that kind of extremely cold weather, so only a little of the surface layer is frozen. After digging up the frozen soil on the surface, it soon became soft. It was not until noon that Li Xin dug a hole of about half a meter. He gestured and felt that it was almost deep enough, so he was ready to My uncle put it in.

   "Go deeper."

An old voice came from the side. Li Xin looked back and found that the old carbon seller who had rescued him was sitting on a stone beside him with a half-worn straw mat in his hand. Holding a yellow-skinned gourd, he raised his head and drank a few glasses of wine from time to time. Depending on the situation, he had watched himself dig a hole for quite some time.

  The old man raised his head and took a sip of wine and continued.

   "Your uncle has no children. According to the rules, you have to dig three feet nine, and then dig deeper."

When    woke up, Li Xin probably told the old man who sold carbon about his own situation, and he also shared his uncle's situation along the way, so the old man knew that his uncle had no son.

   Li Xin was helpless, so he could only wipe his sweat and pick up his **** to continue digging.

  The old man took a sip of wine, stood up from the stone, and wrapped Li Xin's uncle from the straw mat in his hand.

After a person dies, it is absolutely forbidden to touch the soil directly. This is a big taboo. In ancient times, even if you were poor, you would try to get yourself a coffin. , this is already the most "economical" way to die and can't be saved anymore.

  In the eyes of people of this era, if the corpse touches the soil, it is only slightly stronger than the exposing the corpse wilderness.

   That's it, Li Xin was digging the pit, and the charcoal seller was pointing beside him. It was only at noon that the tomb was barely dug. The old man looked around the tomb and nodded with satisfaction.

   "The baby is not bad. When I woke up, I didn't forget to collect the body for your uncle. It's a filial baby. The old man didn't save you in vain."

   Li Xin slumped on the ground, gasping for breath.

Three feet nine, that is, more than one meter deep, and under the guidance of this old man, the length and width are all important. This is a lot of work. Li Xin is still small after all, and he hasn’t eaten much for several days. The whole person collapsed to the ground.

  The old man walked around the tomb a few times, and was even more satisfied. He turned back and smiled at Li Xin who was sitting on the ground, and then said, "The old man saved your life, you have to repay the old man."

Li Xin sat on the ground and took a deep breath. The little girl was very sensible. She trotted forward a few steps and handed Li Xin the bamboo tube hanging around her waist. Li Xin took a few sips of water and then recovered. With some strength, he raised his head to face the charcoal seller and smiled reluctantly: "The old man saved the boy's life, whatever conditions you have, just say, if you can do it, the boy is bound to do it."

  Although he is a modern person, he has completely taken over the memory of this unfortunate child, so he naturally knows how to speak in this era, or the world, so there is no problem in dialogue.

The charcoal seller smiled kindly: "In the future, when the old man is gone, you have to dig a tomb for the old man to live in. Remember, the old man has a son, and the tomb should be four feet and three deep, so don't make a mistake. "

  Li Xin was stunned for a moment, and then saw the ravines on the face of the charcoal seller, and the hair on his head had turned white, and he immediately understood the meaning of the old man.

  He got up from the ground, his face was serious, and he said to the old man, "Don't worry, old man, this kid has accepted this matter. The old man saved Li Xin's life, and later Li Xin will give the old man the care of him."

  The charcoal seller lowered his head and coughed, and then muttered: "It's okay to send it to the end, but you don't need to give it to old people. You have no money on your body, and you were almost frozen to death. Why do you want to give the old man a long-term care?"

   While talking, the old man and Li Xin placed the body of his uncle into the grave, and then sat on the big rock next to him, instructing Li Xin to start burying the soil.

Compared with digging a pit, burying the soil is obviously easier. Under the guidance of the old man, Li Xin built a beautiful mound in about an hour. After kowtowing a few times in front of the mound, he followed the old man. Back to their wooden house.

  In this wooden house, there are two rooms and two beds, but the two beds are in one room, and the other room is a clay stove with a wooden bellows beside the stove.

  The charcoal seller skillfully sat in front of the bellows and threw pieces of wood into the stove, ready to start the fire.

   Burning charcoal is actually a technical activity.

   Simply igniting the wood does not produce charcoal, only soot.

   The trick is to close the furnace door when it is half-burned, so that the charcoal inside cannot continue to burn, and then slowly carbonize.

  In ancient books, this is called wood burning.

The old man sat on the edge of the bellows, while he was pulling the bellows, he coughed and said, "It's cold this year, and there are many people buying charcoal in the city. The old man can't be busy by himself. Seeing that you have nowhere to go for the time being, you stay here. Help a bunch of old men, this year's work is okay, if you help burn some more charcoal, you can get an extra pair of chopsticks."

  This charcoal seller is obviously a very kind person. In this era, no poor family would allow one more person to eat.

Li Xin really has nowhere to go now, his uncle is gone, his mother also died of illness, he can't go back to his hometown in Yongzhou for the time being, and the "scumbag" in the capital is even more unreliable. After thinking about it, he can only stay here temporarily. , helped the old man burn charcoal together.

   Moreover, he doesn't have any thick clothes now, and he doesn't even have a cent on his body. If he walks out from here, he will easily freeze to death like his uncle.

   So he nodded to the old man and smiled: "Thank you, old man, for giving the boy a bite to eat."

   The old man raised his eyebrows.

   "From tomorrow, you go to the city in the morning to sell charcoal, go up the mountain in the afternoon to chop wood, and come back to burn charcoal in the evening."

  “….”

   This old guy is exploiting child labor...!

   (end of this chapter)