Ye Qingshui's family is very simple. Grandpa Ye and Grandma Ye gave birth to two sons. Both sons joined the army. The eldest son died gloriously, and the younger son is still in the army. Grandpa passed away a few years ago, and now there are only three women in the family. Although they are orphans and widows, they are at least a glorious military family and have some reputation in the entire brigade.

Ye Qingshui chopped the garlic and lavishly added a few drops of lard to fry a sweet potato leaf vegetable, which was green and juicy. Not long after she set the table, Grandma Ye and Ye Ma came to the woodshed to eat. At the same time, Ye Ma said eagerly, "Shui'er, set one more bowl."

"Xiao Xie's friend is staying at our house for dinner today."

Fortunately, this Ye Qingshui was a traveler from forty years later, and he had long since gotten rid of the habit of cooking according to the number of people and the amount of food he ate, otherwise it would be embarrassing. But then again, in this day and age, it is not very kind to leave food for the host in the countryside without informing him in advance.

Before Ye Qingshui could figure out which friend of Xie Tingyu would be the visitor, his voice arrived before the person himself.

"Brother Yu, can you please excuse me?" The man's loud voice revealed a hint of enthusiasm and frivolity.

"Yeah." Xie Tingyu responded briefly.

Ye Qingshui raised her head and plunged into the man's scrutiny. This... was Shen Weimin. He had a good relationship with Xie Tingyu and was also from the capital of the motherland. In Ye Qingshui's impression, most of the educated youth from the capital had their eyes on their foreheads and looked down on country people.

I don't know if tonight's meal can entertain such a well-off "young master". Ye Qingshui silently complained.

She personally made a bowl of rice for Shen Weimin, with more rice and less sweet potatoes, showing her sincerity.

After Xie Tingyu sat down, he unscrewed the bottle of wine. Ye Qingshui glanced at it. She recognized the brand: Zhuyeqing, a Shanxi product. It tasted soft and lasting. Shanxi people are good at making vinegar and wine. A bottle costs 3.5 yuan. In Hongqi Commune, one centimeter is worth 1.3 cents. A strong laborer in the brigade can earn eight centimeters a day. In her previous life, she was ignorant and fearless. At this moment, Ye Qingshui just thought Xie Tingyu was quite generous.

The pale green wine bottle was held by Xie Tingyu, and the clear wine slowly poured into the Ye family's rough pottery bowl. This quiet demeanor made the irritable Shen Weimin silent for three minutes, and then he raised his head and stared coldly at Ye Qingshui for three full seconds.

It was as if he wanted to take a good look at the scheming woman who had tricked Xie Tingyu into marrying him.

He seemed to be standing up for his brother.

Shen Weimin had a lot to say. He picked up a piece of braised pork and put it in the bowl. “Can I call you Comrade Ye?”

"Comrade Ye, even though our brother Yu enjoys eating everything now and is not picky about anything, he was disliked when he was a child. He didn't like fatty meat and only liked lean meat. Oh, too lean meat was not good either. He liked pork belly the most. His mother was so worried about him when he was a child that she wanted to throw him away. He couldn't swallow rice and didn't like noodles. He never even looked at the milk powder that our uncle asked someone to buy for him. From now on..."

He said lazily, "I'll have to trouble you to take care of me."

What are the conditions of the Ye family? They live in a shabby tent house, and they don't even light a kerosene lamp for meals. The walls of the woodshed are blackened by the smoke of firewood ash. On the wedding day, Shen Weimin came and saw it, and felt that his eyes were dark. He didn't know how Xie Tingyu would explain it to his parents when he returned to Beijing. It's just that these rural women are too scheming, one is more fierce than the other, and even men are afraid of them.

Shen Weimin suspected that this woman was so poor that she wanted to rely on his brother Yu.

These cultured people curse without using a single dirty word. Ye Qingshui couldn't help but curse inwardly when he heard this. If it weren't for the time when the whole family was eating together, Ye Qingshui could teach Shen Weimin to be a good person who could speak.

Fortunately, Grandma Ye and Mother Ye were very broad-minded. They were eating the braised pork very seriously and didn't even look up at him.

The meat smells so good and tastes so good! The two women could no longer hear any other sounds and only focused on eating.

Taking advantage of the fact that Xie Tingyu didn't like to eat fatty meat, Ye Qingshui tried his best to pick up a few more pieces of meat for grandma and Ye's mother, and stopped when there were only a few pieces left in the bowl.

She still said warmly, "Plum blossom meat? A pig has no more than ten kilograms of plum blossom meat. However, plum blossom meat just tastes not greasy, it's nothing special. Why don't you try this bowl of Dongpo pork?"

"You look down on fat meat when you haven't even eaten it yet. Don't you scholars always like to be pragmatic? Why don't you try a piece? Since Brother Yu doesn't like it, I'll give Grandma and Auntie some more."

As she said this, she also enthusiastically picked up a piece of meat and put it into Shen Weimin’s bowl.

Xie Tingyu, who had been silent like air, found that the meat on the table had been divided up. He silently moved the wine poured for Shen Weiguo back and finally spoke: "Eat well, this bowl of meat can't stop your mouth?"

Shen Weimin knew that he was unhappy, so he stopped talking. He came here specifically to defend his brother, but he was not even allowed to drink a bowl of wine. As for the meat that Ye Qingshui cooked himself, he was too lazy to eat even one more piece. However, Shen Weimin soon became speechless...

The red glaze-like meat touched the tongue, and the plump body rubbed out fragrant oil in Shen Weimin's mouth softly. The sweet and mellow taste slowly spread and invaded all of Shen Weimin's senses.

His taste buds seemed to explode, and the saliva quickly coated the piece of meat. When he bit his teeth, the fat spread out smoothly, and the lean meat was flexible and unyielding, but it was soon bitten off by his teeth cleanly, filling his mouth with sweetness and deliciousness.

Ye Qingshui took in Shen Weimin’s expression, smiling on his face, but in his heart… well.

She took a piece and threw it into her mouth with great regret, saying with a look of pity: "Let's leave the last few pieces to Brother Yu."

"It seems that you don't like the Dongpo pork I made."

Shen Weimin actually still liked it, but he wanted to save face, so he couldn't speak.

Xie Tingyu's lips slightly flattened, his eyes flashed, and finally he smiled. He picked up a piece to taste, and it tasted really good.

Shen Weimin frowned and watched his brother Yu eat piece after piece until he finished it all.

After dinner, Ye's mother diligently took the initiative to take on the work and sent Ye Qingshui out.

"You young people should talk more. Comrade Shen graduated from high school and has a lot of knowledge. Shui'er, you need to learn more from him about how to talk and do things."

Ye's mother was a typical honest person, simple and straightforward. She treated students with great respect and respected cultural knowledge. She was reluctant to throw away any paper with words on it, and kept them all carefully. With her strong consciousness, Ye Qingshui only finished high school, which was her biggest worry.

Ye Qingshui pursed her lips and couldn't help laughing after hearing this. She completely believed that her mother had no crooked intentions, but Shen Weimin's expression was a little subtle after hearing this.

When Shen Weimin left, he no longer had to hide his disgust for Ye Qingshui. He looked down on such a scheming woman. What a terrible woman!

Her head was full of backward ideas, stupid and uneducated. Shen Weimin shook his head when he thought that she would be like the fierce and barbaric women in the team in the future, full of vulgar words and asking Brother Yu for money as soon as she opened her mouth.

He looked at Ye Qingshui and said, "You were able to marry Brother Yu because of his soft heart. Don't be complacent, because you will have to pay it back in the future."

Ye Qingshui was stunned after hearing this, and stood at the door watching Shen Weimin leave, and was reluctant to go back to the house until his figure completely disappeared.

He was right. Many years later, weren't all of these returned to us?

Does Ye Qingshui regret it?

She felt a little regretful.

…

There is no use thinking too much.

Ye Qingshui drew well water and used willow branches dipped in salt to rinse his teeth. Many farmers in the mountain valleys had never seen the world in their lives, and industrial products were gradually introduced in recent years. Ye Qingshui was once despised by Xie Tingyu, but then he learned to brush his teeth with a toothbrush and toothpaste, learned to wear clean clothes, learned to wipe his face with a Pechoin, learned cultural knowledge, and learned a lot...

She walked into her room and lit the oil lamp with a match. The wick was not long enough, so she picked it up.

The simple house was brightened up, but to describe it as simple was too harsh. Ye Qingshui's uncle would send thirty yuan back every month, so the Ye family could afford to live in a tiled house. The best room had been given to her by her uncle a long time ago, and it was more than enough to store Xie Tingyu's belongings.

She wiped her hair with a towel and scanned the house that she had seen countless times in her dreams, staring at Xie Tingyu's clock hanging on the wall, the dusty flute, and the cabinet that must have been filled with his manuscripts.

Ye Qingshui touched it with his thumb, and Xie Tingyu's voice came to his ears.

He said, "Comrade Ye, is it convenient for us to talk?"

Ye Qingshui nodded, Xie Tingyu closed the door, looked out the window, and sealed the window with both hands. The thin figure with his back to Ye Qingshui, with his shoulder blades slightly protruding, looked like a butterfly flapping its wings in the last rays of the setting sun.

It was because the dacron shirt he wore after taking a shower was so clean and shiny white.

Xie Tingyu sat upright and spoke slowly: "I want to ask you, what do you think of our marriage?"

He said: "I saved you, not because I wanted you to marry me, you know that, right?"

"I am willing to marry you, not because I am afraid of rumors or being accused of hooliganism."

His thick eyebrows slightly raised, and he said in a gentle and persuasive tone: "So I saved you and helped you, so please don't do things that bother me again, okay?"

"I don't have that kind of feeling towards you. In my heart, you are just a little girl who hasn't grown up yet. You are about the same age as my sister. Can we get along like friends?"

Seeing that she didn't say a word, he didn't embarrass her any more. Instead, he took out a harmonica from the drawer and handed it to her, then changed the subject in a relaxed tone:

"Don't jump into the river out of anger next time. A life is much more precious than this dead thing."

The shell of the Soviet-made harmonica is made of steel, and the reeds are golden, reflecting the silver light, making the man's broad palms look even more rosy.

Ye Qingshui caught the harmonica that fell from his palm. It felt heavy. This was something that had never happened in her previous life. She was in a trance for a moment and asked unconsciously:

"Why give it to me?"

She regretted asking this question, and Xie Tingyu would never be able to give the answer in this life.

All the conspiracies and schemes back then were caused by this harmonica.

Xie Tingyu had a beloved harmonica, which he would play beautiful songs with. After the educated youth finished their work, they had no entertainment activities, so they often listened to Xie Tingyu's music to relieve their boredom. However, she took a bite of the harmonica, and Xie Tingyu threw it away in disgust. What she coveted was what he avoided. She jumped into the river to pick it up in anger.

After scooping it up into her arms, Ye Qingshui thought silently: If she drowned, would Xie Tingyu regret coming to save her? In the end, he really came to save her. In fact, she was good at water, but that moment of deep malice made her cowardly in front of Xie Tingyu for most of her life.

When Xie Tingyu heard Ye Qingshui's question, he was stunned for a moment. Obviously, he didn't expect her to ask such an obvious question.

He smiled and said self-deprecatingly: "Don't think too much, isn't this what you wanted? Maybe I should have given it to you earlier!"

At this time, Xie Tingyu really looked like a piece of warm jade, which made people yearn for him. However, Ye Qingshui had seen his ruthless side, so he had no extra thoughts.

Ye Qingshui touched the cold metal shell of the harmonica, her eyes gradually cleared, and she said firmly: "Don't worry, I won't embarrass you."

For the first time, she bowed earnestly and apologized to Xie Tingyu: "I'm sorry."

After apologizing, Ye Qingshui felt much more relaxed. She said, "If you want a divorce, tell me. I won't hold you back. If you feel unhappy, I will do my best to compensate you when I am able to do so."

Xie Tingyu hid the surprise in his eyes. The thing he wanted came too suddenly, making him dare not believe it.

The girl in front of him lost her timidity and became cheerful and bright. Her clear eyes and eyebrows contained a faint smile, and she bowed 90 degrees, catching Xie Tingyu off guard. He didn't even understand Ye Qingshui's plan.

However, he still showed his white teeth and smiled warmly: "Well, I believe you."

Ye Qingshui breathed a sigh of relief and was completely satisfied.

She left the room and said to Xie Tingyu, "You read a book. I'll be out for a while."

She held the heavy harmonica in her arms, walked to the deserted back hill, lifted it up and began to play it gently. The cheerful ticking sound was noisy and insulting to such an elegant object as the harmonica.

Ye Qingshui smiled, and then played a gentle and peaceful tune.

The so-called vulgarity and elegance cannot be achieved at the same time. She used to pursue the lofty white moonlight, but she was indeed a vulgar person. The unsuitable person will never be suitable. Ye Qingshui thought about this for half a lifetime and figured it out.

This relationship was let go...

The girl's soft black hair fluttered in the wind, her eyes were sparkling and clear, the ethereal and beautiful melody rippled with the wild grass in the wind, and the stream reflected the sparkling light of the setting sun.

The author has something to say:

Small Theater

Brother Yu: I have to remind myself from time to time that I can’t be so nice to this village girl. What if she falls in love with me?

A long time later...

I have no other feelings for you

——Snap

I treat you as my sister.

——Snap

Can we be good friends?

——Snap

The sound of slapping faces came one after another

And...it smells really good