Chickens and dogs fly in chaos and rebirth

Chapter 22

Shake head.

"Drink it while it's hot, it won't taste good when it's cold."

Li Changsheng's face was ashen: "Get out."

Shang Lin smiled and said good-naturedly, "It's even colder outside, I'll freeze to death."

He looked at her thick cotton-padded coat, then at his own thin coat with fluffy wafts of cotton, and was certain that he wouldn't freeze to death. But who knew? Girls are always more delicate and harder to raise than boys.

Okay, you can sit here until I leave.

She pressed her advantage: "Hey, if you don't drink the milk, how am I supposed to take the bowl back? And if I don't take the bowl, what am I going to eat for lunch? You're such a weirdo!"

Li Changsheng broke out in a cold sweat. "Do you think I'm strange to have you?"

He has never been good-natured, not even to anyone.

Angry voice: "Get out!"

Shang Lin squinted and pretended to be clueless: "We don't have any eggs. Do you want to eat eggs? I'll tell Aunt Bai we'll have eggs for lunch."

Aunt Bai was their neighbor who cooked for them. She didn't work; she was a housewife.

A punch landed on the cotton wool, but it felt light and unresponsive.

He had never met anyone like this before.

He grew up in Sichuan and speaks with a slight Sichuan accent. His mother was from this city, but eloped to Sichuan with his father many years ago. His father was a good-for-nothing who was never home. His mother only knew how to cling to her husband and never cared about her children. He was raised by the kindness of many families.

In Sichuan, there lived a kind-hearted old man who was all alone, without children. Li Changsheng was practically raised by him. The old man came from a family with a long tradition of martial arts, but had fled to Sichuan during the Cultural Revolution and never returned. The old man had no one to inherit his martial arts skills, so raising Li Changsheng naturally led to Li learning martial arts from him from a young age. Until the old man passed away last year, and with no one to care for him, his devoted parents discovered that their son had become a homeless child on the streets.

Neither of them had experience taking care of children, so they simply sent him back to their hometown to be cared for by his maternal grandfather.

His maternal grandfather's surname was Song. He worked his way up from scratch at the Hongxing Printing Factory to a printing factory in the city. Later, due to personnel changes at the factory, he was forced to return to Hongxing a year before his retirement, and he is now retired.

The old man has no other hobbies but enjoys a drink and a game of cards. He has many friends around here and is almost never home, let alone taking care of his grandson.

Li Changsheng suffered the most; he hadn't even had a hot meal in half a month at Hongxing. Being unfamiliar with the area, he offended quite a few people.

He knew Qiu Shanglin.

Every day, behind the curtains, you can see Qiu Shanglin smiling sweetly and greeting people in the yard; calling her younger brother home for dinner; scolding Qiu Xialin for not studying... Through the door, you can hear the adults in the yard praising the two Qiu children for being sensible.

But he never thought of getting to know her.

He remained as solitary as ever.

It wasn't until he fought Xu Lishui, slapping him hard in the face, that he was surrounded and pursued by Xu and his gang. Li Changsheng wasn't a reckless brute; he had extensive fighting experience. Even a hero can't withstand a barrage of punches, so he fled, hiding himself completely.

Xu Lishui went to the wrong door and blocked the door next door every day, cursing. He was prepared to be betrayed, but no one from next door responded at all, as if no one was in the house at all. After seven or eight days, the tightly closed door finally opened. He saw only two children inside and, worried that they might be taken advantage of, decided to take responsibility for his actions and stepped forward.

Things were beyond his expectations. This little girl seemed unafraid of trouble; on the contrary, she actively took on trouble for herself—didn't she know that Xu Lishui's father was the head of the police station?

Li Changsheng (Part 2)

Shang Lin actually knew who the guy who came today was—one of Lao San Lü Shun's cronies. He had come to the school gate to find Lü Shun, and his arrogant attitude had left a deep impression on Shang Lin.

Even if she knew Xu Lishui's true identity, she would probably just let out a "hmm" and express her slight indignation at the fact that a state civil servant would condone his nephew's tyranny. But as for the police station chief... she would probably think with some difficulty, "I don't think I'm really that scared."

In the rural areas of the 1980s—no, no, in the rural areas of the 21st century—the head of a police station was a very large figure. They possessed far more power than the state granted them, almost to the point of being able to control everything. Just look at the reports from later generations; the abuse of power and disregard for human life were never exaggerations.

But Qiu Shanglin was not afraid.

First, she is not a five-year-old child.

Secondly, psychologically, she is not a rural person.

Third, the popsicle factory's business is booming, and it has become a representative of private enterprises in the town. Zhang Hongwei is frequently...

Please go to the city to share your experience.

Fourthly, it's a bit shameless. Yin Yeyao is here; all you devils, big and small, get out of the way!

She's just bullying people because of her power, so what?

Who told us we had such a strong foundation!

Li Changsheng glanced at the little girl, who was lost in her own thoughts. He also noticed her neatly folded hair hanging by her ears, her red cotton-padded jacket with small floral patterns, her outer coat, and her large, fluffy neck warmer. She was shivering as she hugged the quilt that hadn't been aired in the sun for a long time. Her fingernails, which were sticking out of the quilt, were neatly trimmed. It was clear that she came from a good family, and that her family was harmonious and happy.

The person in front of me suddenly turned into a thorn, small and sharp, abruptly piercing my heart.

Disgusted, I turned my head to look outside the door—a crack had appeared in the window near the door, letting in a gust of wind that made the room even colder.

I hate winter, I hate the north, I hate my neighbors!

He emphasized, repeating, "Get lost!"

Shanglin followed his gaze, ignoring his harsh tone, and exclaimed to himself, "No wonder the room is so cold." With that, he jumped off the bed and ran outside.

Li Changsheng breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced at the milk on the table and was about to call her back when he saw her run to the door, open a crack, and shout at the top of her lungs, "Xia Lin, Qiu Xia Lin, the Robin Hood-like Qiu Xia Lin, hero, help me!"

The door next door was kicked open with a bang, and Xia Lin ran out, carrying a rolling pin upside down and without even putting on her shoes, looking around in bewilderment: "What, what, who dares to bully my sister?"

Shanglin chuckled for a while before waving to his younger brother: "Go, get a large sheet of paper that I usually write on and some glue from the bookshelf!"

A moment later, Lin ran back into the house and shouted again, "Put on your shoes!"

Thick sheets of paper and glue were brought over, and Shanglin directed his younger brother to patch up the cracks in the window.

Qiu Xialin would occasionally steal glances at Li Changsheng, who was frozen in the room like a black wooden stake, and then accidentally got a sharp rap on the head from his sister, yelping in pain.

Shanglin retorted irritably, "What are you yelling about? It's stuck on crookedly!"

She took two steps back, looked at it carefully, and was a little dissatisfied, but that was all she could do. Anyway, she couldn't use it often, so she decided to wait until tomorrow and find someone to replace the glass, she thought.

Looking at the weather through the glass, he directed Lin, "Go, take the blankets out of the house and air them out."

Seeing him scurrying off to his own home, he sighed and said, "Inside the house!" He gestured with his chin to indicate the space behind him.

Xia Lin looked behind him in fear and shook his head.

"You good-for-nothing!" Frustrated, he ran into the room, quickly gathered the blanket into a ball, and seeing the furious man frozen in place, he ordered him rudely, "You, take the blanket out!"

The fierce-looking man nearly bulged his eyes out, but couldn't regain his dignity. Because the other person calmly sat back down cross-legged, lowering his eyes and saying:

“My poor brother is frightened by people every day and can’t eat dinner properly every night.”

No response?

Keep going: "The day before yesterday, I was eating when someone suddenly started cursing my family's ancestral graves. I was so scared that I dropped three plates. Tell me, what did my family's ancestral graves do to deserve this? They were cursed for no reason."

Li Changsheng lowered his head, looked at the ground so dirty that its original color was unrecognizable, and cursed under his breath, "Damn it."

Reluctantly, he picked up the quilt like a chick, his face darkening: "Where do I put it?"

Shanglin chuckled and called out, "Hero Qiu, help your brother Changsheng hang the quilt out to dry!"

As he walked out, she muttered, "Don't think I don't understand Sichuan dialect. You're the one who's cursing me, cursing your whole family!"

In the courtyard, drying racks were strung up in the open spaces, specifically for everyone to hang clothes and air out their quilts. Under Qiu Xialin's direction, Li Changsheng hung out his quilt and laid it flat. He glanced at the trembling Qiu Xialin and wanted to tell him that he didn't hit children, but he remained silent out of habit.

When he returned to his room, he almost thought he had gone to the wrong room.

Qiu Shanglin transformed into a spinning top, bending over and climbing, fumbling for a broom and searching for a rag. She called Xia Lin to go home and get some handy cleaning tools, continuing to be her spinning top. She ignored Li Changsheng, who was standing in the middle of the room, as if he were just a tree or a stump growing in the center, and it didn't matter whether he was there or not.

Everything in the house was put back in its place, dirty clothes were piled up, pots and pans were placed in the sink, the table was wiped clean, and the cabinet doors were wide open, with items being taken out and put back in one by one.

Is this my own home?

Did I not go to the wrong room?

Qiu Xialin took back the cleaning tools and paused for a moment. Then, his sister's well-trained nerves kicked in, and he unconsciously picked up a broom to sweep the floor, wipe the tables and benches—all familiar household chores within his capabilities.

She never wanted to spoil a good-for-nothing son who didn't do any productive work. Although Zhang Hongwei delegated many household chores to their neighbor, Aunt Bai, Shanglin felt that housework was effective in cultivating her son's independence and helped him develop a sense of belonging to the family.

With the two working together, the house quickly began to take shape. She circled the wooden stake once more, tilted her head to examine the heavy square table, and called out:

"Hey, you there, Brother Li, come lend a hand. Look at the table you put here, it's in the worst possible spot! Aren't you afraid you'll bump into it when you get up in the middle of the night?"

While Li Changsheng was moving the table, he wondered, "Even if I got up in the middle of the night, even if I bumped into something, it's me who bumped into something and it's me who felt the pain. What does it have to do with you, little girl?"

Furthermore, this is my home. What right do you, little girl, have to do whatever you want in my house?

When he finally understood, he looked around at his spotless home, which had never been so tidy before. He suddenly thought, "I can't scold her, and I can't hit her. What should I do with her?"

After thinking for a moment, he went over, grabbed Qiu Shanglin by the collar, ignoring her cries of pain, and then grabbed the round, ball-like Qiu Xialin in the other hand, and threw the two of them out the door.

"A dog trying to catch a mouse!"

As soon as Qiu Xialin regained his freedom, he immediately went ballistic, jumping up and yelling, "You're the one who bites the hand that feeds you! I'll hit you, I'll hit you, I'll smash your windows!"

After arguing for a while, I still didn't dare to say I would hit him.