bookrebus Chapter 599: Paths Cross Everywhere in Life
Chapter 599: Paths Cross Everywhere in Life
The whole family was bustling about in Tong Huaqiong’s melon field.
Gu Taohua was very satisfied with everyone’s reaction and continued to read the letter: "The Mighty General is very kind, warmly called me nephew, carefully asked about my mother’s situation, and asked me to send his regards to her."
Clicking her tongue, Gu Taohua looked up at Tong Huaqiong, feeling pity for herself.
If only she had almost become the general’s daughter.
All because of her grandfather and uncle, who stubbornly lowered her starting point.
Mrs. Hong became excited and said to Tong Huaqiong, "Sister Tong, did you hear that? Han Niu is actually the Mighty General."
Tong Huaqiong thought, Min Han Niu’s childhood sweetheart wasn’t her, it was Tong Dajiao.
But Gu Dashi was lucky enough to meet Tong Dajiao’s best friend at the border, surely he will achieve great things.
After all, the allure of a white moonlight is terrifying, and as Min Han Niu’s white moonlight, everything around Tong Dajiao would shine in Min Han Niu’s eyes.
Tong Huaqiong roughly understood that Su Chengmin was Min Han Niu’s actual nephew.
No wonder he was so familiar with the border, no wonder he could immediately enter the army upon reaching the border.
After reading the letter, besides feeling comforted by the news of Gu Dashi and others being safe at the border, everyone was most interested in the identity of the Mighty General.
After all, in Dasheng, from top to bottom, everyone knew about the Mighty General.
In teahouses, storytellers would tell tales of the Mighty General’s journey from a cowherd boy to a great general, and during holidays, the theater troupe would perform the legend of the Mighty General taking an enemy general’s head single-handedly when he was still a colonel...
But no one knew that the cowherd boy who escaped from Black Dragon Pond back then was the Mighty General.
This news was simply earth-shattering.
What was even more earth-shattering for the Gu Family was that the Mighty General and Tong Dajiao were childhood sweethearts.
Truly, life is full of unexpected meetings.
"Did your second brother mention in the letter when he might return?" Liu Yueer asked.
Gu Taohua refocused on the part of the letter she hadn’t read yet.
Gu Dashi mentioned that the war at the border was unusually intense, and it was not clear when it would end, so he and He Chao couldn’t return to Ning City anytime soon.
Liu Yueer’s worry was mixed with disappointment.
Gu Dashi finally mentioned that Nie Xiaofeng met Tian Chunwang in the military camp.
Tian Chunwang was quite resourceful; originally, he was too young to join the army, but he used silver in Ning City to assume someone else’s identity and successfully enlisted.
It was only upon reaching the border that he realized the brutality of war.
In one battle, when his superior had exhausted himself in repelling the enemy, Tian planned to attack him from behind to claim the military credit alone, but a comrade caught him, cutting off one of his arms, and he was later dealt with by military law.
"How could that boy be so evil? At such a young age, repeatedly harming others. What grudge did his superior have with him that he wanted to take his life from behind?" Chen Sufen cursed, grinding her teeth.
"Well deserved. If Chunwang hadn’t been dealt with, he might have betrayed the country. That boy truly had a bit of skill," Liu Yueer remarked.
Tong Huaqiong, suddenly learning of Chunwang’s fate, also couldn’t help but sigh; the boy indeed had some guts to dare to go to war at such a young age.
However, he was raised wrong from a young age, to the point where he could devise a scheme to kill his superior and steal credit.
Liu Yueer was right; a person like Chunwang might betray the country.
Being dealt with by military law was just his due, Tong Huaqiong felt not an ounce of sympathy.
Yet, who knows how Granny Luo would feel learning her eldest grandson was dealt with by military law.
Even though the time for Gu Dashi and He Chao to return seemed distant, the news of their safety still provided some comfort to the family.
Mr. Su, who hadn’t spoken all this time, said, "We’re bound to win this fight with Mo Bei, and Dashi will be back in less than two years."
Even though Mr. Su was just a village school teacher, everyone still believed his words.
But isn’t two years a bit too long?
Tong Huaqiong hoped the war would end sooner, so not only Gu Dashi and He Chao could return earlier, but also so her border business could proceed smoothly.
Ever since the war between the two countries began, the people around Ning City had been anxious, fearing the border might fall, allowing the Mo Bei people to charge in unimpeded, and then it would be the unarmed civilians who suffered.
Such a tragic scenario was not unheard of in history.
Mr. Su’s conclusion made everyone’s New Year’s Eve dinner a bit tastier.
Plate by plate, dumplings were served on the table, and Tong Huaqiong allowed the maids and grannies to join in for food and drink.
The house was warm, while outside, the wind was piercing cold.
This winter was indeed the coldest in Tong Huaqiong’s life, spanning two generations.
But it would soon be over.
Snowflakes began to fall again outside, quickly turning from salt grains to heavy snow.
Gu Dahuan stared at the snow outside, muttering, "I wonder how long this cold weather will last? I’ve heard it might last until May."
The one most worried about the weather was Gu Dahuan.
Gu Dahuan was in charge of the family’s lands; farmers couldn’t tolerate abnormal weather.
Lately, Gu Dahuan had been worrying every day that if the cold weather persisted and delayed spring plowing, the year’s crops would be wasted.
Tong Huaqiong said, "The talk of cold weather lasting until May is just false information spread by the Zheng Family to sell coal at high prices."
County Magistrate Liu caught those spreading the rumors and punished them.
Yet, the belief that extreme cold would last until summer remained deeply embedded in people’s minds.
It’s said that spreading rumors is easy; dispelling them requires running till exhaustion.
In Tong Dajiao’s memory, this wave of extreme cold weather came and went swiftly.
After the spring arrived, heavy snow would fall again, with no signs of warming.
When everyone was engulfed in panic, the weather gradually warmed.
It was precisely because of the sudden warmth that bodies frozen and buried under snow during the extreme cold were exposed, and once the spring breeze blew, they decayed, quickly plunging all of Ning City into a plague.
The disaster brought by the plague was even more terrifying.
More people died in this plague than those frozen to death in the extreme cold.
Every village carried corpses outside daily, and many defied warnings, fleeing in all directions; some villages were soon left empty with the dead or those who fled.
The entire Ning City was shrouded in panic; the plague affected the spring planting, leading to rising food prices, and hunger ensued.
This wave of extreme cold weather was resolved by Tong Huaqiong in collaboration with the Lu and Huang Families.
After spring, there would be no more plague, nor would there be the tragic scenes of spring planting with nobody around.
Tong Pandi, a reborn person, after swallowing her dumpling, said to Gu Dahuan, "Big Brother Dahuan, don’t worry; not long after spring arrives, the weather will warm up."
Tong Pandi witnessed firsthand how Tong Huaqiong dealt with the extreme cold and couldn’t help but admire her.
Her aunt wasn’t someone who was reborn, yet the coal she stored in the summer accidentally saved so many people.
As a reborn person, the most she could do was influence those around her to store more coal and wear more cotton clothes; there was little else she could do.
She couldn’t change the skyrocketing coal prices or the plague that followed the spring.
And all of these were mitigated by her aunt’s coal reserves.