Chapter 1446: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 1446: Female University Student Reduced to Poor Household

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Liu Yumeng, however, grabbed Wang Xiaohua:

"How about I go down to the countryside with you today? It's a Monday, I don't want to work, I want to go to the countryside and soak up some fresh air."

Wang Xiaohua was speechless:

"If a dog chases you then, you better not scream your head off at me."

Liu Yumeng grinned:

"Hehe, then I'll hide behind you, you've got to protect me."

Wang Xiaohua then said:

"Then you'd better hide well, my salary is very low, if you get bitten by a dog, I can't afford to pay for your rabies vaccine!"

Liu Yumeng then said:

"Who asked you to pay? Am I that unreasonable in your mind? If anyone pays, it should be the dog's owner!"

Wang Xiaohua rode a motorcycle, bringing Liu Yumeng along, and set off for Sanlian Village.

"Why go to Sanlian Village, aren't you going to your hometown side?"

On the way, Liu Yumeng, sitting sidesaddle on the back of the motorcycle, asked this question.

Why sit sidesaddle?

Because she was wearing a skirt.

It was inconvenient to swing her leg over and sit astride.

"Sanlian Village has more poor households than Changjiang Village, but Dong Dongdong's visit speed is much faster than Wang Chang's."

Wang Xiaohua said this sentence.

Liu Yumeng immediately realized:

"You suspect Dong Dongdong faked the data?"

Wang Xiaohua chuckled:

"It's just a suspicion, we can't be prejudiced and assume Dong Dongdong has a problem; maybe his work efficiency really is that high?"

Then Wang Xiaohua said again:

"Additionally, the prices on the purchasing list and receipts Dong Dongdong provided don't quite match up, so I must go to the Sanlian Village Committee's rural canteen to take a look."

Actually, this is the main purpose of this visit to Sanlian Village.

However, Wang Xiaohua, bringing Liu Yumeng to Sanlian Village, did not go to the village committee first, but instead, acting as if he didn't care about the rural canteen matter at all, headed straight for a poor household's home.

The purpose of doing this was naturally to avoid alerting the snake.

The rural canteen side should have already gone to purchase today's food ingredients by now.

By the time lunch is served, Wang Xiaohua goes to take a look, and naturally everything will be clear.

Wang Xiaohua brought Liu Yumeng to a poor household's door, then threw a notebook to Liu Yumeng:

"Since you came along, help out a bit. In a bit I'll communicate with the poor household, you help me keep a good record."

Liu Yumeng was a bit bewildered:

"Record what?"

Wang Xiaohua said:

"The front of this notebook has a template, just record according to the content in front."

Liu Yumeng flipped through the previous records, nodded:

"Oh."

Then said again:

"Your handwriting is quite pretty and neat, truly worthy of a top student."

The corner of Wang Xiaohua's mouth twitched slightly:

"Is that the point? Let's cut the nonsense and go in."

The head of this poor household is a woman, named Wu Jihong, a key university graduate, but due to various reasons, she ultimately fell into becoming a poor household.

And the reason she fell into poverty has an inseparable connection to her life choices.

Right after she graduated, she happened to catch society's transition, university graduates went from assigned jobs to needing to find work on their own; she couldn't adapt in time, her stress tolerance was poor, and after hitting walls in job hunting multiple times, she chose to return to the village and marry.

This was the first fork in her life, and also the first major wrong choice in her life.

The most fatal thing was, not long after she married, she got pregnant, not long after giving birth, she got pregnant again, and fell into a vortex of pregnancy and childbirth, giving birth to five children in a row.

The family was already poor, yet they had this many; the result was taking care of the children already occupied almost all her time.

As for her husband, it's not that he was bad, just a traditional honest rural man; he treated Wu Jihong decently enough, but his earning ability was average, went out to work, year in year out it was just that, barely able to support this family.

A turning point that plunged this family into poverty was Wu Jihong's husband's death from illness.

Wu Jihong's husband worked too desperately, usually didn't pay attention to his body, resulting in excessive overdraft; three years ago he worked overtime on a construction site, finished a night shift, returned to his cramped rental house to rest, and never woke up again.

By the time he was discovered, he had already stunk in the rental house, turning into a giant corpse.

Because he passed away during the process of resting off-duty, work injury compensation and such naturally didn't exist.

Moreover, the man died suddenly in someone else's rental house, and the landlord even demanded they pay a sum for cleaning fees and exorcism fees.

Wu Jihong was easy to talk to, and actually gave the landlord this money, still speaking words of apology the whole time.

At that time Wu Jihong was busy handling her husband's funeral, and had never thought she would fall into poverty.

After she had finished handling her husband's funeral affairs and her life gradually returned to calm, she discovered that life was actually becoming more and more difficult; it had already been hard enough before, but now it had to continue sinking deeper.

The most fatal thing was that the eldest of the five children was only in the fifth grade of primary school, and the youngest was only three years old.

Even if she wanted to go out and work, that possibility no longer existed.

Because her parents' side didn't care about her, and her husband's parents had already passed away long ago.

And every day the moment she opened her eyes, it was the three meals a day for the five children.

Although these three meals a day cost little in the rural area, the food expenses for a family of six could not be completely self-sufficient; money was still needed to maintain them.

As a result, Wu Jihong sank into poverty step by step in this kind of consumption, and in the end she couldn't even afford to eat rice; she could only seek help from the government.

After the government learned of her situation, they placed her in the category of poor households, established a poverty file for her family, and then every month they would give her some poverty subsidies.

Although this money was very little, it could barely maintain the three meals a day for her and her five children.

Wang Xiaohua brought Liu Yumeng into Wu Jihong's home; Wang Xiaohua first inquired with concern about Wu Jihong's recent condition, and Wu Jihong replied politely and courteously; from her words and demeanor, one could still see a trace of the scholarly temperament she had retained from back then; she was different from ordinary village women — her speech was soft and gentle, and her words were very clear and logical.

"Sister Wu, have you ever thought about finding a job?"

Wang Xiaohua asked Wu Jihong.

Wu Jihong, however, smiled bitterly:

"If I go find a job, who will take care of these five children at home?"

Liu Yumeng, on the other hand, couldn't help but reproach:

"You really are something; you clearly know you can't raise this many, so why did you give birth to so many? It's a good thing the country's family planning policy has been relaxed now; in the past, if you gave birth this many, you would have become an over-quota blacklisted household long ago, and you wouldn't even be given poverty subsidies!"

Wu Jihong smiled bitterly; she didn't go to explain, only said:

"Thank the country, thank the Party, thank you all, thank you."

Wang Xiaohua said at this time:

"Didn't the village committee set up a rural canteen? You can bring your five children to eat there together; the meal fees are deducted from your poverty subsidies, and the cost is very low."

Wu Jihong, however, smiled bitterly:

"No need; I'll still cook myself. I've planted a lot of vegetables in my vegetable garden, and the hens we've been raising at home have also started laying eggs recently."

At this moment, one of Wu Jihong's children ran in and shouted loudly:

"Never mind that the food at that rural canteen is rancid, the portions are still small — you basically can't eat your fill, okay!"

Hearing this, Wang Xiaohua couldn't help but be stunned.

And Wu Jihong's face was full of panic; she hurriedly covered her child's mouth:

"Don't speak nonsense! We just need to mind our own business! Your mother is already suffering so much and is so exhausted; you mustn't go causing me any more trouble!"

Then she hurriedly said to Wang Xiaohua and Liu Yumeng:

"It's just a child talking nonsense; don't take it to heart!"