The train moves slowly on the track, and the scenery outside the window passes slowly by. Because it is powered by a coal-fired boiler, the train compartment is filled with a strong smell of coal smoke.

The middle-aged woman opposite Gu Qingqing was coaxing a baby who looked less than two years old in her arms. Next to her, by the window, was a little girl about eight or nine years old, with her hands on the table and her head resting on her shoulders, looking out the window.

It should be a family of three.

Gu Qingqing came to a conclusion.

"Sister, thank you for what I did just now." Gu Qingqing thanked the young woman next to her.

The young woman just blushed and waved her hand to indicate that it was nothing.

Gu Qingqing got up early. She heard people walking around and chatting in the carriage. She felt a little sleepy as she listened.

She had just leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes when the conductor and the flight attendant came over to check on her a few minutes later. Their eyes stayed on her for a moment, scanning her surroundings to make sure there were no unsafe factors before continuing to move forward.

The train was moving and it was almost time for lunch.

There is no snack cart on the train, so most passengers bring their own dry food.

Some people who didn't bring any food went to the dining car to eat.

Seeing that there were not many people in the dining car, the attendant pushed a small cart over to sell lunch boxes. The aluminum lunch boxes filled with stir-fried pork with green peppers and stir-fried cabbage were only 98 cents, and the bottom was filled with white rice.

The train meals were large and affordable, so many people bought some. However, Gu Qingqing, the young woman next to her, and the family of three across from her remained unmoved.

The dining car came and went twice before finally stopping, and the crew brought hot water kettles to heat water for the passengers.

Gu Qingqing woke up slowly when she heard the voices shouting “Add hot water, add hot water”.

Seeing the flight attendant approaching her seat, she took out the military green enamel cup that her aunt had brought back from the enamel factory from her bag, held the cup in her hand and extended it with a smile on her face: "Hello, comrade, could you please give me a glass of water?"

Seeing how polite the girl was, and that she was someone the train attendant had asked him to look after, the flight attendant said readily, "Okay."

After adding the water, she reminded him again: "It's a little hot, comrade, drink slowly."

"Thank you, comrade." Gu Qingqing knew the benefits of having a sweet mouth. In Gu's family and Datunzi Village, she could get the food she wanted but couldn't eat by relying on this mouth.

You should be more polite and sweet-spoken when you go out.

Gu Qingqing held the military green enamel cup in her hand and blew slightly at the rim of the cup, and hot steam gradually rose into the air.

The little boy in the arms of the middle-aged woman opposite was probably hungry and started crying loudly. The little girl also pouted and leaned on her mother's arms.

Sun Shufen held her son standing on her lap and coaxed him face to face: "Don't cry, Xiaoxu. Mom will give Xiaoxu something delicious to eat."

"Tuer, help your mother take out the buns from the package." This is calling the little girl.

Yutu uttered an "ah" and quickly rummaged through the package.

The pancakes baked last night were already hard. Yu Tu took a long time to break off a small piece and handed it to her mother.

Sun Shufen let her son sit on her lap again. She took the biscuit, broke it into pieces and fed it to the boy: "Xiaoxu, be good. Eat the biscuit and don't cry."

"Rabbit, you can eat too."

Maybe it was because his teeth had just grown out, and the biscuit was too hard for the little boy to eat, so he started crying again. Sun Shufen had a headache, so she had to put down the biscuit and coax him in a low voice.

"Auntie." A crisp voice interrupted. Sun Shufen looked at the white flour steamed bun in front of her and she raised her head.

Facing a pair of clear eyes with distinct black and white, the girl smiled with two swirls at the corners of her mouth and stuffed the white steamed bun into the middle-aged woman's hand——

"Auntie, give this to my brother."

Sun Shufen was stunned for a moment. The girl had a friendly smile and her big watery eyes were very sincere. Her long and thin eyebrows were curved like willow leaves swaying in the summer wind.

"Auntie?"

She shouted again.

"Hey, my lady, eat it yourself. I have some steamed buns here." Sun Shufen shook her head and wanted to return the steamed bun in her hand.

It was obvious at first glance that this girl was a child in the village who was well protected by her family. It was not easy to have a meal of white flour steamed buns in the countryside these days, and most of them were the food that her family saved for her.

Sun Shufen glanced at her son who was reaching out to grab the steamed bun from her arms, slapped his hand away cruelly, and insisted on returning the steamed bun.

"Auntie, please take it. My brother is crying because of hunger. I have more here." As she said this, she took out another white flour steamed bun and gave it to the girl named Tu'er.

Gu Qingqing took a look at Tu'er's appearance and couldn't help herself.

Tu'er had her hair tied in a ponytail, her little face was as red as an apple, and she stared eagerly at the white flour steamed bun in her hand.

The child in her arms was crying so hard that Sun Shufen sighed and said to her daughter, "Take it."

Hearing her mother's words, Yu Tu's rosy little face lit up with a smile. She carefully took the steamed bun and said cheerfully, "Thank you, sister!"

"You're welcome~" Gu Qingqing then realized that the little rabbit had few teeth in its grinning mouth and some of them had fallen out.

It's obviously the tooth replacement period.

Noticing that the pretty sister was looking at her teeth, Xiaotu quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

Gu Qingqing couldn't help it and smiled.

"My dear," Sun Shufen broke up the steamed buns and gave them to her son. Seeing that Gu Qingqing hadn't eaten anything, she said, "Did you give us all the food? You silly boy, do you want some steamed buns?"

Gu Qingqing was stunned for a moment. She hadn't recognized the accent before, but now she felt that this aunt was similar to her second aunt.

"No, I have more here." As she said that, she took out two corn cobs from her bag and handed one to the short-haired young woman who was keeping her head down and silent beside her.

"Sister?" The young woman looked up in surprise.

"My grandma and mom brought me a lot. I can't finish it all. Sister, please help me share some."

The young woman took it and thanked him shyly.

I know in my heart that these days no one would complain about having too much food. He was just looking at her because she had nothing to eat.

"Sister, thank you." The young woman's voice was as soft as a mosquito's, forming a sharp contrast with the loud voice of the aunt opposite her.

Gu Qingqing smiled softly and she also held the corn cob and chewed it slowly.

Gradually, lunch time passed and the carriage became lively. The little son in Sun Shufen's arms stopped crying after eating. He bit his fingers and lay on his mother's shoulder to watch the performance in the carriage.

The train carriage was unusually lively, with noises, storytelling, and clapper talk. The crew knew that there was a performing arts troupe from the countryside, and they organized them to put on a show for the passengers.

Seeing her son behaved well, Sun Shufen relaxed a little and started chatting with Gu Qingqing.

"My dear, where are you from?"

"Datunzi Village, Yancheng." Gu Qingqing thought for a moment about what her mother had told her not to reveal her home address to others, and then she put it out of her mind.

"Oh, my family is from Hanjiagou, Yucheng, Annan Province." Sun Shufen teased the little son in her arms and said sincerely, "Thank you, my daughter, otherwise the child would have a lot of trouble."

Gu Qingqing blinked, "Auntie, does your Hanjiagou have an advanced production team?"

"Yes." Sun Shufen's face lit up: "My dear, how did you know?"

What a wonderful fate!

Gu Qingqing felt a little amused: "Auntie, my second aunt's family is from the Progressive Production Team."

"Oh my goodness!" Sun Shufen slapped her thigh excitedly, "What's your aunt's name? Look and see if you recognize her!"

"My second aunt is Han Lianxin." Gu Qingqing replied softly.

"Oh! Isn't this the eldest daughter of the old Han family at the entrance of the village? I saw her yesterday, bringing her son to her parents' home to give her gifts."

"That's right, Gu Xiong is my elder brother." Gu Qingqing frowned, "Auntie, where are you going?"

"My husband is in the cooking squad of the Construction Corps, and I am going to follow the army."

Gu Qingqing: “!!!”

"My dear, are you going?"

"I'm going to the Construction Corps too! My second elder brother is serving in the army there, so I'm bringing him some things." Gu Qingqing finished eating the corn cob and put it on the small table.

"Well, auntie, sister." A weak voice sounded: "I am also going to the Construction Corps to visit relatives."

The three of them started chatting immediately. Sun Shufen and Gu Qingqing were both talkative, but the young woman was more reserved, interjecting a few words from time to time.

"What a fate!" Sun Shufen said with emotion.

Unexpectedly, the good people I met today were members of the military corps.

Gu Qingqing also almost understood their situation. The square-faced aunt was called Sun Shufen. She took her daughter Yu Tu and youngest son Yu Xu to follow the army. Her husband Yu Fugui was the squad leader in the kitchen squad.

The young woman's name is Xu Nian, and her husband is a local military doctor named Zhao Ze.

As they became military relatives, Sun Shufen started to talk. In addition, Auntie Gu Qingqing was from the same village as her. The more she looked at her, the more she liked her. "Qingqing, if you have any problems when you get to the Corps, just go find Auntie. Don't worry, Auntie will take care of you."

Gu Qingqing smiled brightly, revealing a row of teeth as white as peeled almonds: "Then I'll trouble you, uncle and aunt!"

"What's the big deal?"

It is almost two thousand kilometers from Yancheng to the Construction Corps in the north. We stopped and started along the way, and the speed dropped from 100 to 70 or 80 per hour.

Gu Qingqing woke up at dawn the next day. She got up and went to the toilet, then took a cup to get hot water from the dining car.

There were still a few steamed buns left from the ones she brought yesterday. She thought they would soon reach the military corps and would not be short of food, so she distributed the steamed buns and corn cobs to Yu Tu, her younger brother, and Sun Shufen and Xu Nian.

"I don't feel comfortable with this since I always have to eat yours." Sun Shufen felt a little embarrassed.

"It's okay. I also ate Auntie's steamed cakes and Sister Anian's wheat bran steamed buns." Gu Qingqing waved her hands nonchalantly: "Auntie, how do we get to the military base after getting off the bus? Do you know the way?"

"You've asked the right person." Sun Shufen bit a corn cob and said, "My husband told me before when I came to visit my family that the kitchen staff would come to buy food for lunch, dinner and the next morning at 7:30 every morning. After getting off the train station, we could go directly to the market and follow the army's car back home."

Just as I finished speaking, I heard a clear and melodious announcement on the radio:

"The train has arrived at the Construction Corps. Passengers, please take your belongings and get off the train in order."

The passengers stood up and packed their bags. There was a whistle sound and the brakes were applied. The train stopped at the station and the train attendants helped the elderly and women with limited mobility off the train.

Sun Shufen held one child in each hand and hugged another in the other, and carried a blue cloth bag on her back.

"Qingqing, you two should follow me and don't wander around."