A House That Leaked Wind, Light, and Rain

A House That Leaked Wind, Light, and Rain

People in the village had their customs when moving house and making the bed. It could not be done casually; they had to choose an auspicious day. If they did not, they chose either the first or fifteenth day of the lunar month.

So Father Zhou decided to move today.

Zhou Chenglei and Father Zhou took the cleaning tools to clean the old house.

Jiang Xia worried that men would not clean as thoroughly as women. She had fairly high standards for the cleanliness of her home, so she said, "I don't have much to pack anyway. I'll go help clean too. More hands make lighter work."

The original owner had not been married into the family for long and had been ready to divorce at any time, so many of her things were still in the Red White Blue Bags, unopened.

That made moving especially convenient now.

"Fine. Then let your mother stay behind and divide the things with your Eldest Sister-in-Law."

Tian Caihua felt Jiang Xia was shrewd again. Jiang Xia was pretending to be diligent by going off to clean, leaving Mother Zhou behind to divide the things.

That way, would she have the nerve to give her mother-in-law all the old, broken, and undesirable things?

She had really underestimated her!

What a sly little fox! Then she suddenly thought about the entire division of the family property. Jiang Xia had worn the virtuous look of someone who neither fought nor grabbed for anything, making her seem petty, sharp-tongued, mean, and terribly unfilial at every turn. In the end, aside from gaining a slight advantage with the New House, she and her husband had not suffered even the slightest grievance from the two elders.

The more Tian Caihua thought about it, the angrier she became! Pah! She did not believe Jiang Xia truly did not fight or grab for anything, that she wanted nothing at all. What a wolf in sheep's clothing!

She was simply sinister and cunning! The two elders would probably think Zhou Chenglei and Jiang Xia had gotten the short end of the stick by moving into the old house, then secretly take out some private savings to subsidize them.

With that thought, Tian Caihua became unhappy again.

Jealousy made Tian Caihua temporarily forget that Jiang Xia was going to divorce. What would she care about? *The Zhou family lived in Small Fishing Village. They lived off the mountains when near mountains and off the sea when near the sea, so most villagers made their living by going out to fish.

Moreover, this area was mostly flatland with few mountains, broad land and sparse people, so every household owned quite a bit of Farmland.

The villagers' lives were fairly decent; they would not go hungry.

The Zhou family's old house was fairly close to the sea, though it was not actually by the shore, merely closer than most.

Houses near the sea had heavy moisture and were rather damp. Living in them for too long made one prone to rheumatism, and there was also the risk of destruction if a tsunami struck. There was absolutely none of the poetry of "I have a house facing the sea, where spring flowers bloom." That was why villagers never chose the seashore when building homes.

The scenery by the sea might be beautiful, but they saw it every day and did not find it precious.

Only later, as the economy developed, did many houses and hotels get built by the sea to create tourist attractions and selling points.

Jiang Xia examined the long-vacant stone house. Even the courtyard walls were built from stone. It looked sturdy and full of the weight of time.

The courtyard was already overgrown with weeds, but it was very large.

In her previous life, Jiang Xia had been a city girl. After her parents died, their house had been sold to pay off debts. The place she later lived in was a basement room assigned to her Grandmother before retirement, when she worked as a sanitation worker. It was tiny, dark, and windowless. Not even flowers could survive inside.

It was not until she got into university, paid off the medical debts from Grandmother's treatment, and graduated from graduate school for two years that she had enough money to buy a one-bedroom, one-living-room apartment outright in Capital City. What infuriated her was that she had transmigrated here before it was even handed over.

So in this life, she had never lived in a house with a courtyard!

This courtyard was huge, and Jiang Xia liked it at first sight. Once she got divorced in the future, she would buy a house with a courtyard too—flowers in the front, fruit trees in the back.

Using this courtyard as a model, she was already imagining how she would create her own little yard in the future.

The entire courtyard was now full of weeds. And because the house had stood for decades, with no one living in it for two or three years, it had fallen into disrepair and lost all human warmth. Quite a few roof tiles had fallen away. Standing inside and looking up, one could see light streaming through the gaps between the tiles.

If it leaked light, it naturally leaked rain too.

Father Zhou frowned. "We need to buy some tiles and patch the roof. Otherwise, it'll be troublesome when it rains or a typhoon comes."

Zhou Chenglei said, "I'll go buy them tomorrow."

Jiang Xia glanced up. The sky was a clear, water-washed blue, with no sign of rain, but she thought of the plot in the book.

In the book, a super typhoon made landfall along this stretch of coast. After the typhoon, there were many fish and shrimp by the shore. The female lead came to gather them and sell them for living expenses and tuition, since school would start in September. But she was too bold. Chasing after a fish, she ran too far out and was swept into the sea by the waves. The male lead saved her.

According to the book's plot, the original owner and the male lead should have divorced and gone their separate ways today. The female lead should be appearing!

Who knew when that super typhoon would arrive?

Growing a little anxious, she said, "August is typhoon season. We don't know when it might rain. It's still early—can we go buy some tiles now and patch the roof?"

Father Zhou said, "Weather forecasts started this year. If there's a typhoon, the radio station will broadcast warnings telling everyone not to go out to sea."

Jiang Xia felt a tiny bit relieved, but she could not help asking suspiciously, "Are the weather forecasts accurate?"

"Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't."

Jiang Xia: "..."

Father Zhou said, "Weather forecasts cover the whole city, and there are so many counties under the city."

Seeing her concern, Zhou Chenglei said, "Dad, I'll go see whether there are any tiles for sale now. If I bring them back, we should still be able to repair the roof in one afternoon."

Father Zhou did not want to be alone with his daughter-in-law for too long, so he said, "I'll go! You two stay here and clean."

There was a Tile Kiln in the Neighboring Village. They would deliver the tiles after purchase, so there was no need to haul them back themselves. Zhou Chenglei did not insist on going.

After saying that, Father Zhou went out.

Looking at the weeds in the courtyard, Zhou Chenglei knew weeding would take more effort, so he said, "You clean inside. I'll clear the weeds from the courtyard."

Most of the furniture inside had already been moved away. The house was empty, and it had been cleaned during the move, so it would not be messy—only dusty. Cleaning it would not be too tiring for her.

Jiang Xia had no objection. She tied up her headscarf, covered her nose and mouth with a cloth, then took up a broom and proudly inspected her "new home."

The house had four rooms in total, with the Living Room in the middle and rooms on either side.

The Living Room was long and deep, and its layout was not very good.

On the left and right sides of the main house stood two lower rooms. The one on the left was the kitchen, with two large stoves and two smaller, lower stoves beside them.

The one on the right was the Storage Room, used to keep farm tools and the like.

Beside the kitchen was another low, narrow little room. That was the Shower Room, the bathroom.

The bathroom floor was paved with red bricks. The kitchen and Storage Room had no brick paving, while the rooms were laid with square old floor tiles, which was considered quite good.

Jiang Xia had heard a university roommate say that her hometown still had mud-brick houses from the 1950s and 1960s. Their floors had not even been paved with bricks; people walked on hardened dirt, and the ground had turned black.

The house also had a back courtyard, which was quite large. Stone pigsties, a cowshed, and a chicken coop had been built there too, though they were all dilapidated.

After looking around, Jiang Xia found it much better than she had imagined. She decided to start cleaning with the rooms.

The old house had electricity and light fixtures as well. Jiang Xia pulled the cord on the wall beside the door, and the tungsten-filament bulb lit up.

Holding a long broom, she decided to sweep away the cobwebs from the walls and beams first.

After sweeping all four walls, she raised the broom to sweep the roof beam—then suddenly met the six eyes of two snakes on the beam.

"Ah!" Jiang Xia threw down the broom in fright and ran out like the wind, even the cloth over her face blown away.