Xiaobao took Jianshu back to the cowshed where he and his grandmother lived.

This place is still the same as before, shabby and small.

In the past, the only thing here worth a second look was his grandmother's vegetable garden.

"My grandmother was very old at that time and could not join the brigade's work to earn work points in exchange for food, so she grew a lot of vegetables in the vegetable garden. Can you imagine that our vegetable garden was full of vegetables, but my grandmother and I had no vegetables to eat?" Xiaobao asked Jian Shu.

Jian Shu shook his head.

"My grandmother used the vegetables from her garden to trade for food with other people in the brigade. Sometimes, a basket of vegetables wouldn't be enough to exchange for much. She was afraid that she and I would eat the vegetables. When someone wanted to trade for food, we had no vegetables, so she wouldn't let me eat them. Of course, she herself was reluctant to eat them either."

Xiaobao still remembers that at that time, the vegetable garden was full of vegetables, and his grandmother was almost starving to death, but she would not let anyone touch them and would rather gnaw on tree roots and bark.

She said that if they ate the vegetables in the garden, they would not be able to exchange them for food, and if they could not exchange them for food, he would starve.

Xiaobao's eyes turned red when he thought of his grandma.

Jian Shu handed him a handkerchief and said, "Wipe it!"

She didn't know how to comfort the person in front of her. Jian Shu's family was well-off.

The most hardship I experienced was when I was sent to the countryside as an educated youth.

But I never went hungry. At most, I did farm work with other educated youth.

Her family often gave her various subsidies, including money and food coupons.

But she also saw that the girl who was a sent-down youth with her had eight or nine brothers in her family, and that girl was the middle one. She felt it was a crime to eat one more bite of food every day.

As an educated youth, you also have to save food rations and send them back home.

Xiaobao didn't cry in the end. He forced the tears back.

"Let's go, let's..." Just as he was about to say go in and take a look, a little green suddenly caught his eye.

His grandmother's vegetable garden is full of vegetables.

Cucumbers, peppers, eggplant...

Even the way of growing vegetables is exactly the same as when his grandmother was around.

Xiaobao even thought his grandmother was still alive.

He rushed into the house, shouting, "Grandma, Grandma..."

When I opened the door to the room, the furnishings in the room were still the same as they were back then.

He rushed to his grandmother's room in one breath, but when he saw that there was no quilt on the bed, and there were no familiar people or familiar smells in the room, he realized that his grandmother was gone long ago.

"Xiaobao..." Jian Shu followed him into the room and saw Xiaobao looking at an old bed with a painful expression. The words that were on the tip of his tongue were swallowed back.

Xiaobao raised his head, looked at her, and forced a smile from the corner of his mouth. The smile did not seem forced at all, but the more it was like this, the sadder Jian Shu became.

"I'm fine, I just want to... be alone for a while." Xiaobao's voice was weak, as if something was stuck in his throat.

"I'll go out first. If you...if you have anything, just call me!" Jian Shu said.

Xiaobao continued to laugh: "Okay!"

Jian Shu walked out, and for a moment, Xiaobao was the only one left in the room.

He sat on the bed with his eyes closed, and in his mind was the image of his grandmother sitting on the bed and mending his clothes.

"Grandma, I'm back!" Xiaobao said softly.

"I'm doing very well now. I'm a doctor. Grandma, I remember what you said. I'm a man and I can't cry! I remember everything you said. I treat Sister Jinfeng as my own sister. She's been very good to me. I've also gone to college... I've never brought shame to the Zhang family."