Chapter 149 Beggar
The boy blew on the hot, fluffy bun, took a quick bite, and chewed it. The bun was broken into pieces in his mouth, melted by his saliva, and the sweet taste spread in his mouth.
In China, not only can people eat white rice at every meal, but they may also add sugar to their white flour buns. There is no shortage of sugar in China.
He saw the aunt in the canteen making cakes, grinding the refined rice into fine powder, and adding sugar to the rice powder to make rice cakes. When they were just out of the pot, the fragrance filled the canteen. But the food he bought every day was white flour buns. There were more than ten mouths to feed, and he had to save money to pay the rent. There were no beggars in Qingshui City, and there were no dilapidated houses or temples to live in inside or outside the city.
He and his brothers and sisters felt like they were dreaming that they could have clean, freshly cooked white steamed buns to eat every day. They were very satisfied, they had a place to work and earn money, a clean place to live, food to eat, and a school to go to, and no one bullied them.
The wealth of the country was beyond his imagination. He could go to school for free, and was given pens and notebooks. If he did well in his studies, he could get money. The food in the cafeteria included refined rice, white flour, vegetables, meat, and various cakes with sugar. The prices were very cheap. Even if he only worked half a day, it was enough to eat and drink.
The school cafeteria provides three meals a day. Most students only go to school half-day, so most of them eat breakfast and lunch at school. The cafeteria also prepares dinner, because teachers, children in the kindergarten, and people who work in the cafeteria eat dinner at school. There are fewer people eating dinner at school, so the amount prepared is much smaller than that of breakfast and lunch.
Most people like to eat at school because it is cheaper than outside food stores, and the food is delicious, affordable, and large in quantity. Many people will buy a few more meals to eat at night after having lunch at school.
People in this era used to eat two meals a day, but after coming to the Republic of China, people got used to eating three meals a day. Because there is good and cheap food here, there is work to do every day, and you can earn money every day. Going to school and working every day, busy and coming and going, the consumption is very large, and the body cannot bear it if you don't eat enough.
The boy was a beggar, born and raised without a name, and he named himself Dashu. He lived in a big city in the Dahuan Dynasty, and had been hanging out on the streets since he could remember. He hung out in teahouses, restaurants, brothels, and gambling houses every day, and what he could eat every day depended on what the customers left. Of course, he had to snatch it to eat.
After a while, he was surrounded by a group of beggars. He was a little older, so his brothers and sisters called him "big brother" and followed him to beg for food on the street.
Beggars often go to those low-class places, doing odd jobs and running errands in exchange for food. If they are lucky, they can get clean food and pick up some copper coins and silver coins.
One day, while working as a handyman in a brothel, Damao heard a male guest in the room tell a girl in the brothel that he wanted her to go with him. The Dahuan Dynasty was at war everywhere and he could not stay there any longer. He read in the newspaper that the south was peaceful and he followed him to the south.
When Da Mao first heard the word newspaper, he was confused and didn't know what it was. Unexpectedly, he soon found out. He picked up a newspaper that had fallen next to a flower pot in the yard.
Damao was illiterate and didn't know what a newspaper was. He only knew that paper was expensive and books could be sold. He opened the newspaper. It was such a large piece of paper, folded into several layers. It was the first time he had seen such a book. He folded it and stuffed it into his arms, then walked towards the dilapidated temple outside the city with the leftovers.
The beggars worked as errand boys, ran errands, and begged for food in the city during the day. They left the city before the city gates closed and gathered in the dilapidated temple to share the food they had gotten that day. Most of the time, they poured all the food into the pot and cooked it into a pot of paste. Each person had a bowl, just to fill their stomachs. As long as they could remember, they didn't care whether it tasted good or not, or whether it was clean or not, as long as they could survive.
Until Hei Dou, who was wandering in the teahouse, saw the storyteller holding a newspaper and telling stories from the newspaper. He heard the conversations between the guests drinking tea, and they were about to be attacked, about making peace with the country, going south, and escaping, so he went back and told what he heard.
Soon I saw many families in the city driving away with their families.
A group of beggars discussed that they could beg for food anywhere. If a war really broke out, not only would they have nowhere to beg in the city, but they would also lose their lives.
They mixed in with the refugees, walked south together, and drifted with the flow. The hardships and dangers along the way made them want to cry. More than 30 brothers and sisters died of illness, starvation, and accidents. In the end, only more than a dozen children were left. Among the more than a dozen children, several children joined them on the way.
Fortunately, they met the team from Nanlin Village. They saw the large team resting on the roadside from a distance and were really envious! They had cars, livestock, food, and many people. It was great!
The newspaper that Da Mao picked up accidentally saved everyone's life. Da Shu never thought that a group of children like them would meet a kind-hearted adult in the refugee group. He let them follow the group and looked after them from time to time.
Not long after, they finally arrived at the country mentioned in the newspaper. Their bet was right.
They followed me to temporary residence, followed me to school, followed me to work to earn money, and followed me to rent a yard outside the city.
They worked for a few days, and more than a dozen children saved money and finally rented a small yard for 300 yuan a month. The yard was not big, with three rooms, and more than a dozen half-grown children lived in it, but they were all very happy. This was the first time they could remember that they lived in a proper house with a yard.
The room in the middle was originally the main room, and the staff of the housing center added beds, cabinets, tables and chairs for them. The square table and benches in the main room were moved to the kitchen for use, and they thanked them again and again.
When they came to Qingshui City, they felt kindness. They were not treated differently just because they were children and easy to bully.
There is a children's home in Qingshui City. Children under ten years old can go there. Food, accommodation and schooling are provided. When they first entered Qingshui City, a staff member looked after them as a group of children, and no adult asked them any questions.
Their four youngest brothers and sisters refused to go. The staff looked at this group of children, the oldest was 4 years old and the youngest was 14 years old, and submitted a written application to the government, which agreed to waive all their fees on the ship and the fees for the bathing center outside the city.
The staff did not give them any special treatment. It was clearly stipulated that many welfare policies had been formulated for local and foreign children without relatives.
Children under ten years old can live in a children's home, but children over ten years old have to pay for temporary housing and rent out of their own pockets. The government provides many jobs specifically for children to work for themselves.
The four younger brothers and sisters go to the nursery class of Qingshui School every day. They eat three meals a day at school. They don't need to worry about them. The older children can just pick them up after work. This makes the older children feel at ease and relaxed. Dashu sometimes thinks, it would be great if the brothers and sisters who died on the road could come to Heguo alive.
After school, there were huge crowds of people in front of the school notice board. Many people didn’t even come to check their grades. They went to the cafeteria to eat lunch and then hurried off to work.
Dashu, Damao, Heidou... A group of children were chewing steamed buns and went to check their grades. There were not many people left in front of the notice board. They stood in front of the notice board, looking directly from behind, checking one by one. The grades of the group of children were all terrible.
Damao: "Wow! Lin Dashu's family is so awesome!"
Da Shu: "How do you know?"
"Just now, when I was queuing up to buy steamed buns in the cafeteria, I heard the people in the same class talking about it!" Damao pointed to the results on the first piece of paper, "This is the word 'Lin', I know it! The horizontal stroke is the word 'Yi', and the name at the front is the same as what they said! Uncle Lin, Aunt Lan, Sister Zisu, and Brother Xianwen, all four of them scored 4 points, a perfect score! All four of them got first place, and each of them received a scholarship of 100 yuan!"
"I heard that they went to the intermediate class today and have graduated from the beginner class." Hei Dou said after swallowing the steamed bun, his eyes full of envy.
Dashu finished eating the steamed buns and looked at everyone's scores. "How about we buy a few bags of cakes and go to Uncle Lin's house and study with him in the evening?"
Da Mao: "Uncle Lin and his friends asked us to study when they had class at night! Didn't we go there before?"
Dashu tapped Damao's head gently and said, "Whether we go to study or not, we should thank you for taking care of us along the way. It's just that we don't have money, and we just came here not long ago, so we have many places to spend money."
Hei Dou: "Well, let's get up earlier tomorrow, cut a few more bundles of grass, and send them to Uncle Lin's house. If we can graduate from the beginner class, our wages will be much higher!"
"Let's go. It's getting late. Let's go to work." Dashu called everyone to go out.