Chapter 182 Burned unconscious

In order to take more good photos, the group walked a distance of about 500 meters for more than ten minutes.

The three adults carrying the things behind didn't urge them on; they all looked at them with doting smiles.

They also occasionally offer suggestions, telling the little girl how to pose for a better look.

We arrived at our destination.

When they arrived at the entrance of the Jiang family's shack, everyone was stunned.

Even Qiao Changdong and Qiao Qiao, who had been there once before, were somewhat taken aback.

Last time they came, it was at night, and the lighting was poor, so they didn't pay attention to the surrounding environment.

Now that I've come during the day, I've realized just how terrible the conditions are in the shack where the three of them live.

In the summer, every household in Qiaojia Village grows some watermelons.

To prevent watermelons from being stolen, each household would use some sturdy wooden sticks and tarpaulin to build a temporary watermelon shed, with a total space of only a few square meters.

The area is very small, only big enough to fit a bamboo bed.

These melon sheds are crude; they might not even be able to withstand a major storm in the summer.

Not to mention the cold winds and snow in winter.

The shack that the Jiang family built was the kind of melon shed that was temporarily erected in Qiaojia Village during the summer.

If one had to find a difference, it would probably be that the area is three or four times larger than the temporary melon sheds built in the summer.

This shack stood all alone in a field where there were no other houses around.

"Why are they building houses in the field?" Mo Wenpei said, frowning as she looked around.

Because this is clearly a vegetable garden, not a proper plot of land for building a house.

It's probably because it's winter; nothing is growing around here now, just some sparse, withered yellow grass.

"This...is this really habitable?" Watching the shack sway gently in the cold wind, as if it were about to collapse at any moment, Yan Liti subconsciously hugged Qiao Qiao beside her.

She looked as if she was terrified that the shack would collapse and hit her precious granddaughter.

She thought that the houses built with mud bricks that she saw in Qiaojia Village last time were already backward and poor enough.

I never imagined there were houses built with just a few pieces of wood and some thin-looking red and black tarpaulins.

Qiao Changdong didn't say anything.

Facing such a terrible environment more clearly during the day than at night made him frown.

After all, just as Yan Liti thought, Hongfeng Town was neither wealthy nor remote.

Even the poorest people can at least have a thatched hut or a mud-brick house to keep out the wind and rain. This is the first time I've seen a shack completely covered with tarpaulin.

Even the tarpaulin doesn't look new; it must have been collected from garbage and layered over a long period of time to form the current shape of the roof.

Qiao Changdong took a deep breath.

He walked to the door first and put down the burlap sack he was carrying.

He noticed occasional sounds coming from inside the house, which sounded like sobbing and comforting. He called out, "Uncle Jiang, are you home?"

The room fell silent for a moment.

Then came a series of clattering sounds.

Immediately, a half-grown figure ran to the door, and a pair of wary eyes peeked out from the crack in the door.

It's Jiang Shengnan.

Jiang Shengnan's eyes were initially wary.

Upon seeing that the person outside was Qiao Changdong, the wariness in her eyes was replaced by surprise, and finally she opened the door.

Before anyone could react.

He ran out of the door and knelt down in front of Qiao Changdong.

"Uncle, please, please, save my grandfather."

As Jiang Shengnan knelt and begged, another sound came from inside the house.

Then they saw another little boy running out of the door, wearing a cotton coat with several patches, the fabric of which was washed white but clean.

He knelt down along with Jiang Shengnan.

Following the example of Jiang Shengnan, he kowtowed repeatedly while pleading.

"Uncle, please, please save my grandpa, please, sob, my grandpa is dying, sob..." He started sobbing as he pleaded.

"What happened?"

Qiao Changdong didn't bother to pull the two up, but went straight into the house.

Last time, Qiao Changdong and Qiao Qiao didn't go inside completely; they just stopped at the door.

This time, since it was daytime, I could see everything in the room clearly.

The phrase "bare walls" is insufficient to describe this house.

Everywhere there was a whistling cold wind, and in many places, broken basins and buckets were used to catch the melting snow that fell from the eaves.

There was no furniture in the room. Near the door was a door that was about two meters long and one meter wide, which looked like a discarded door that had been taken down from somewhere and was being used as a dining table in the kitchen.

There were some very clean pots and pans on top.

The other two unwashed items contained a bowl of untouched boiled sweet potatoes and half a bowl of shredded radish soup without any oil.

Next to the dining table was a wood-burning stove with a kettle of hot water boiling on it.

Behind the dining table was a simple wooden bed made of four tall benches, about two meters long, with two thin-looking quilts on it.

The old man was lying on this extremely simple bed, covered with a quilt, his usual worn-out military overcoat, and some clothes that were clearly children's clothes.

The old man's face, which was already badly injured, was now covered with an abnormal flush, and his forehead was covered with a square towel with several holes.

If you absolutely have to find something valuable in the whole house.

It was probably the sweet potatoes piled up like a small mountain at the very back of the house.

Not only was there a layer of hay as a base, but it was also covered with a relatively new-looking tarpaulin.

The section of the tarpaulin that was touching the floor was carefully tucked in and weighed down with some broken bricks.

It was the only place in the entire house, besides the bed, that didn't leak.

Qiao Changdong quickly scanned the room, then strode over to the old man on the bed and checked him over.

The old man lay on the bed, his forehead burning hot, and he had lost consciousness from the fever.

He immediately told the others, "It's a high fever, we need to get him to the hospital right away."

After a flurry of activity, it was already an hour before the person was finally taken to the hospital.

During their conversation with Jiang Shengnan, the group learned that the elderly woman had developed a high fever in the middle of the night after returning home the day before yesterday.

The injuries on his body were partly the cause, but more likely it was due to what happened before that made the old man, who had been gritting his teeth and persevering, give up, which led to the sudden and severe high fever.

The old man collapsed.

Only a twelve-year-old and an eight-year-old child remained.

Yesterday, Jiang Shengnan used the little money she had left at home to buy fever-reducing medicine for the elderly.

However, after the elderly person took the medicine, their fever subsided during the day, but returned at night.

And this time, he was burned to the point of unconsciousness.