Chapter 93

Yang Xuhe is just a small person, but because of the coincidence, he can occupy so many pages in the newspaper.

Zhu Yanshu flipped through the newspaper and tsked: “Now I can see his name on the front page, I really should congratulate him for finally becoming famous, and becoming a great writer.”

After Yang Xuhe’s accident, the Zhu family suddenly had one more expense every day: buying newspapers.

Although Yang Yucan kept the accounts every day and was often shocked by the increasing numbers, she didn’t say anything about the increased expenses.

Even the illiterate Zhang Ma liked to have Yang Yuyan read the newspapers for her.

After breakfast, when everyone had left the house, Zhang Ma took the newspapers that everyone had read to Yang Yuyan and asked her to read them to her.

However, there was not much content in the newspapers these days, as many newspapers had closed down, and many of their editors and chief editors had been thrown into the gendarmerie’s prison, waiting to be released.

But Yang Yuyan loved to read the current newspaper because it was full of advertisements.

The advertisements of the Republic of China. There were a lot of advertisements that amazed her that she saw in the newspaper.

For example, the matches, this is now called foreign fire, she thought that since it is called foreign fire, it must be imported from foreign countries, but unexpectedly, there are already advertisements of domestic foreign fire in the newspaper, a peony flower is printed on the small page, which is the trademark painting of domestic foreign fire. The price is also quite cheap, and it has already pushed the foreign fireworks out of business.

This kind of thing in this foreign adults walking the streets, more than government officials cowhide era, you dare to believe?

Yang Yuyan used to not dare to believe, but the newspaper ads told her that many domestic products have been squeezed out of foreign products.

For example, flower water, which is also a foreign product first, but now all the department stores sell domestic flower water.

And cosmetics in the rouge, that is, her era and resurrected the lips and cheeks of liquid blush, also foreign goods: Mies Buddha production. But nowadays, domestic blushes are sold all over the streets and advertisements are posted everywhere. Mies Buddha’s blush? I don’t know.

The cookies that Zhang Ma bought for her, the bread that Yang Yucan used to eat every morning, this also has domestic products, foreigners open cake houses are opened in places where foreigners gather, and snack stores are opened in vegetable markets and alleys where there are a lot of people, they are also very tasty, and the taste is not that different, or even a little bit more tasty.

Now that Yang Yucan had stopped eating bread, Zhang Ma bought her cookies from the confectionery store instead, which was cheap, came in large packages, and allowed her to tell outsiders about the family’s recent shortage of money.

There were advertisements for everything in the newspaper, as long as there was money to buy the ads. So there were ads for brothels, and prostitutes who paid for their own ads.

There were also advertisements for theater ticket sellers, and for lesser-known Kunmin and Peking opera singers who came to perform and advertised for ticket holders to come.

The rest are personal announcements, especially for red and white events. Newspapers are careful to put red and white events on two pages to avoid upsetting readers.

After Yang Yuyan finished reading the advertisement for canned meat, she turned the page to find people, marriages, engagements and other such advertisements. She asked Mrs. Zhang, “Do you want to read about finding people?”

Mrs. Zhang liked to listen to advertisements for finding people. Her parents were dead, her sisters and brothers were nowhere to be found, and she didn’t know if they were still alive, so maybe she was looking forward to someone looking for her in the newspaper.

Zhang Ma nodded and approached her, “Read it.”

Yang Yuyan read all the advertisements, sighing as she did so.

There were a lot of advertisements looking for girls, seventeen or eighteen, seven or eight years old, but most of them could only let out a sigh.

There were also several advertisements for husbands, almost every day. She often read the same name, and when it no longer appeared, she wondered: had the husband come home? Or has the woman who put it in the paper run out of money?

In addition to those looking for husbands, there are also those looking for sons, old fathers and mothers, who put up newspapers looking for their sons. This is also very sad.

There are more postings looking for grown men than for young children, and often in recent years it’s the military that can be found. The relatives would write out when and where the man joined the army, what number, and ask anyone with information to come and contact him quickly, and so on.

She was puzzled at first, and then Zhu Yanshu told her that it could all be that the person had been killed in action, but the relatives didn’t believe it.

They may not have gotten the news, or they may have been notified but still held out a glimmer of hope. They had no other way but to search for them in the newspapers of the big cities, hoping that perhaps there would be a glimmer of possibility that their loved one was not dead, that he was still alive. Maybe they could find one or two people who knew where his bones were so that they could search for them.

A lot of liars also should be born, with yellowed old so-called soldiers list to cajole people, cheated to the money on the run, but even if the relatives were cheated once, twice …… cheated a lot of times, the next time someone said that he had news, they will still fall for it, because they always look forward to this time may be true.

After reading the search announcement, then read the marriage announcement to make people happy. She read it in a higher, lighter voice.

“To our friends and relatives, today there is Mr. Chen, taboo Feng Sheng, Miss Wu, taboo Sijuan, married, love and common, white hair together.” She read softly, and next to her, Zhang Ma wiped away her tears and nodded with a smile, “Congratulations to them.”

After reading the marriage announcements, there were also births in the back, the births of women would all be published in a newspaper, saving the trouble of notifying them one by one, this was also to tell distant relatives and friends. Many people are separated from their relatives by thousands of miles, years or decades, and now it is difficult to communicate with them, so it is much more elegant to publish a newspaper and send it back than to write a letter.

Both Yang Yuyan and Yang Yucan were published in the newspaper when they were born. Zhu Yanshu collected all the newspapers and showed them to Yang Yuyan. She felt that this way of publishing the newspaper is really many times more brilliant than calling and texting and sending a circle of friends, and it is also more meaningful to commemorate. She used to be popular in her school to look for the old newspaper of the day she was born, if the newspaper still has the information of her birth on it, then it is really called a souvenir, the kind that can be kept for a lifetime, and can be shown to the future generations in the future.

When Zhu Yanshu was born, it wasn’t popular to publish newspapers, and every time I think about it, I regret that I didn’t publish it at that time. However, when she got married, she did publish the newspaper and collected it.

But it was said to have been given to Mrs. Zhang as firewood to light the stove.

After reading about the birth of a child, the next page is the white matter.

Yang Yuyan also read them one by one, thinking that Zhang Ma might be worried about hearing about her siblings from the top, right? However, even if she was afraid of hearing, she didn’t dare not to read it, in case she missed it, it would be even more regrettable.

After reading the newspaper, Zhang Ma pressed her knees and stood up: ”Okay, I’m going to buy food. You have a drink of water, reading for so half a day, it’s really tiring our Yan Yan.”

Yang Yuyan put down the newspaper and said, “Zhang Ma, I’ll pay for it, why don’t you also publish one, maybe we can find the rest of the Zhang family?”

Zhang Ma waved her hand, ‘What are you looking for? No looking.”

Yang Yuyan followed her to the kitchen and tried to persuade, but Zhang Ma said, “The Zhu family hasn’t moved, they can find me if they want to.”

So that’s how it is. Yang Yuyan said, “Maybe they are out of town, and when they come here in the future, they will come to see you.”

Zhang Ma smiled and sighed, “What are you looking at? It’s better not to look.” She leaned on the stove with one hand, and said on the other side, “Many of my sisters and sisters …… have been sold to dirty places.”

Yang Yuyan was horrified, and her mouth was mute.

Zhang Ma patted her arm: “Scared you, right? Alas, in the past, you were too young to let you know for fear of scaring you.”

Yang Yuyan stammered, “Why? Didn’t they make maids?”

Zhang Ma shook her head and sighed, “I don’t know, I guessed this one myself.”

Zhang Ma suddenly wanted to say something to someone today. It could be because Yang Yuyan was getting older, it could be because she was about to get engaged and she was worried that this child didn’t know that people’s hearts were treacherous and saw everyone as a good person.

It could also be that she treated Yang Yuyan like her own child, and couldn’t help but want to tell her what was in her heart.

She pulled Yang Yuyan to sit down and said, “We sisters were sold to the village matchmaker.”

They said they were matchmakers, but in fact they did everything. Delivering babies, dancing and collecting gods, and also collecting and selling people and helping them find work.

The Zhang family was a farming family, and when the boys and girls were raised, they were sent to the matchmakers to find work. The boys are not sold, but most of the girls are sold directly to the matchmakers, who then sell them. Only after the matchmaker sells them will they give the money to the Zhang family.

And it all depends on the matchmaker as to where they are sold.

Zhang Ma said: “I was lucky, when it was my turn, the matchmaker said that they don’t allow people to buy and sell anymore, so they can only sign the body contract. My father and mother hesitated for a while, because they couldn’t collect much money that way, and if the main family didn’t want me, I wouldn’t be able to make any money.”

Yang Yuyan: “And then?”

Zhang Ma: “Then I went around as an underling. They said I was good-looking, and some people were willing to take me.” Her parents also said that she was the best-looking one among the sisters in the family, with white skin, thin eyebrows, a straight nose and eyes, and good-looking hands.

Zhang Ma touched her joints, which had become thick from long hours of labor, and said, “I saved up money after I arrived at the Zhu family, so I wanted to seek out my sister, who had been sold out before.” She was doing well in the Zhu family, and had grown up and felt capable, so she wanted to ask where her sisters who had been sold before were, and if they were not doing well in that family, she could help them redeem themselves.

But the matchmaker, who had always been very nice to her, refused to tell her. First, she said she didn’t remember, and after Zhang Ma sent the money, she said that her sisters had followed the main family out of town and were not here.

But it doesn’t seem like all the sisters who sold out went out of town with the main family, right? Were all the other sisters from the same village out of town?

It was only after she had sent gifts back and forth many times that the matchmaker told her the truth.

Zhang Ma closed her eyes and couldn’t stop her tears from flowing out even now as she thought about it.

Yang Yuyan couldn’t help but go forward and hug her, “Zhang Ma, don’t be sad, there’s still me, I’ll help you look for them, I’m sure I’ll find them.”

Zhang Ma held her and shook her head, “I am fifty years old, I am afraid they are long gone. That kind of place …… people can t live long.”

She didn’t go home for a few years because she hated her parents. As a result, her sister was actually sold as well, and it was already too late when she got the news and rushed back.

Zhang Ma: “She was sold as a daughter-in-law, and then she didn’t give birth to a child, and the person was gone.”

Because of this, Zhang Ma never wanted to go home and get married. What good man could they find for her? The Zhu family would definitely let her go, but she would rather stay in the Zhu family and serve people for the rest of her life than go back and marry!

Zhang Ma held Yang Yuyan’s hand and said, “It’s better in the city, people are reasonable. Your mom is not doing well, but she still has a place to be reasonable. If you’re looking for a husband in the future, you’ll have to find a reasonable man. I think Mr. Su is very reasonable, he’ll do.”

Yang Yuyan got goosebumps from hearing this, “Mrs. Zhang, why are you telling me this? Mr. Su and I are in a relationship right now.”

Zhang Ma finished expressing her feelings, wiped her tears and stood up, “I’m just saying he’s nice. Alright, I’m going to buy groceries, you read.”

Yang Yuyan sent Zhang Ma out the door, sat down with a book, read half a day, full of Zhang Ma said the tragic past, the more you think the more ambitious, ready to join the construction of a new China, vowed to clean up these feudal remnants!

Brain complement exuberant, empty thought outburst, the book in the hand did not read a word.