Chapter 176: Dong Taohua finished washing the dishes and walked out of the kitchen with her hands swung...
Dong Taohua finished washing the dishes and emerged from the kitchen, shaking her hands. She saw Xu Heye standing in front of the calendar, lost in thought. She reached out and waved her hand in front of her daughter. "What are you staring at? Where's your dad?"
Xu Heye came back to her senses and looked around. "He must have gone to the bathroom."
Dong Taohua walked to the bathroom door again and knocked: "Xu Hui, are you in the bathroom?"
"Yes, I'll be right out." Xu Hui said, pressing the flush button. After a sound of water, he came out of the room and said, "Go ahead."
Dong Taohua shook her head: "I'm not going to the bathroom. Isn't it time for you two to go to my second brother's house to pay New Year's greetings?" The second brother Dong Taohua was talking about was Ji Weimin.
In addition to Ji Weimin, Xu Hui's stepfather's family has several other brothers, but they don't interact much.
Those brothers were quite cold towards Xu Hui, and some things happened in the past two years. After several times, Xu Hui realized that there was not much brotherhood between him and these stepbrothers.
Since the other party was unwilling to interact with him, he was too lazy to bother trying to please them. Now, among the brothers, only the second brother Ji Weimin interacted more frequently.
On the first day of the new year, the younger generation would go to pay New Year's greetings to their uncles and aunts. Although other families would not go, the second uncle Ji Weimin's family would still go.
"Yeah." Xu Hui nodded, "I was just going to use the restroom and then I'd go to my second brother's house with He Ye."
"Then you should hurry up and leave. It's getting late. It's not good to wait until noon to pay New Year's greetings to Second Brother and His Wife."
"Okay." Xu Hui said, and went to the kitchen to take out the last two boxes of yam left in the house.
Traditionally, their family's essential Lunar New Year dish was pork ribs stewed with yam. However, before the Lunar New Year, Ji Weimin called him and said his mother-in-law had a weak spleen and stomach. She'd consulted a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, but couldn't take medication, only dietary supplements. Yams are known to strengthen the spleen and stomach, so Xu Hui saved two boxes of this dish, intending to bring them to them on the first day of the Lunar New Year.
The father and daughter changed into leather shoes at the door and went out together.
Leave the community, find the bus stop, take the bus, transfer two buses, get off, and walk for a while to the small Western-style building where Ji Weimin lives.
During the Lunar New Year, every household kept their doors open to welcome friends and relatives. When the father and daughter entered, they found the living room filled with people. Besides the other brothers of the Ji family, there were also some strangers.
He Zhijun's face was not very good. Not only did Xu Hui have a cold relationship with his brothers, but Ji Weimin's relationship with them was not very good either.
The main issue was that, aside from Ji Weimin, the other three brothers in the Ji family hadn't fared very well. Those three, along with their sisters-in-law, all felt that the old man's appointment as Director of the Education Bureau's Admissions Office was a plan by his grandfather.
God knows, how many years has the old man been dead?
Another thing is that when they were just rehabilitated, everyone pestered the old man to use his connections to arrange good jobs for them. Only Lao Ji went to an ordinary middle school to become an ordinary physics teacher.
If it weren't for his diligent teaching, and if he hadn't later seized the opportunity to join the Education Bureau and done an excellent job, and if it weren't for the help from his parents, Old Ji's career would have gradually improved.
But people don't pay attention to these things. They ignore the more than ten years of hardship they endured in the past and only focus on the present. They jump up and down and make a fuss if they are not satisfied with something.
The eldest son of the eldest family couldn't even get into high school. He has been hanging around for a few years. Now he wants Old Ji to get him a job in the Education Bureau and get a public job. How is this possible?
The Education Bureau was not founded by Lao Ji. He is in charge of admissions but not recruitment.
Then there was the fourth child, a son whom the family treasured and never properly educated. Only twelve or thirteen years old, he was constantly getting into fights and making trouble, not only hitting his classmates but also hitting the teacher who stepped forward to intervene.
Now, the school has persuaded me to drop out.
Since he couldn't get into school, he went to Lao Ji and asked him to put pressure on the school to admit him, and to get him into a good school and a good class.
He said that his son's academic performance was poor because he went to a bad school and a bad class. If he could go to a good school and be classmates with those smart kids and academic geniuses, his son would definitely be able to study well.
He Zhijun just wanted to spit at him twice, like letting a wolf out among the sheep. She was afraid that those good students would be led astray by him.
As for the fifth child, whose child was still young and in elementary school, he didn't need any help from Old Ji. He just kept an eye on their house, fearing that the old man had left some property behind.
Seeing Xu Hui and Xu Heye coming over, He Zhijun finally showed a smile on his face.
"Second sister-in-law (Second aunt), Happy New Year." Xu Hui and Xu Heye said in unison, "Happy New Year to you."
Xu Hui then handed over the gift in his hand. He Zhijun took the gift box and said with a smile, "Since you're here, what else do you want to bring?"
Xu Hui said, "It's not a valuable thing. Years ago, I heard from my second brother that my mother-in-law has a weak spleen and stomach. The yam and lotus seeds in this are ingredients that strengthen the spleen and stomach. You can send it over and ask my sister-in-law to steam some for the old lady every day to try."
He Zhijun was a little touched. Her mother was old and her body functions were declining, especially her stomach. She couldn't eat cold or meaty food, as she would get diarrhea if she ate.
I found a Chinese medicine doctor I knew and he said it was a case of spleen and stomach imbalance. Unfortunately, she was old and couldn't take many medicines, fearing her body wouldn't be able to adapt. So I asked him to give her some food supplements, cooking more ingredients like millet, pumpkin, yam, lotus seeds, and other spleen-nourishing and stomach-nourishing foods for her.
He Zhijun sent the yams that Xu Hui had previously sent to their family back to her parents' home.
She had stewed those yams at home before, and they were of excellent quality. The stems were white, the texture was fine, the yam was glutinous and fragrant, and it would not become mushy even after long cooking. When stewed with pork ribs, it had a unique fragrance. It was also delicious when made into yam cakes. Most importantly, it made her stomach feel comfortable after eating it.
Ji Weimin's stomach wasn't good either; those years in the bullpen were bound to be tough. If he'd drunk alcohol or eaten greasy food the day before, his stomach wouldn't digest it, and he'd wake up with a dry, bitter mouth and bad breath.
He Zhijun stewed yam soup for him. He ate a bowl of hot yam soup with pork ribs in the evening, and his mouth felt unexpectedly refreshed the next day.
After she sent the yam back to her parents' home, her sister-in-law followed the doctor's instructions and steamed a small section of it for the old lady every day when she cooked rice, crushed it and ate it with rice. After eating it for half a month, the old lady's diarrhea improved a lot.
Seeing that the yam was almost finished, He Zhijun was about to ask Xu Hui to help buy some back, but unexpectedly Xu Hui had already brought the food over.
"Sister-in-law, this is all we have at home right now. But don't worry, I called my friends in Gan Province and asked them to go to the countryside to buy some for me and send it over.
I'll send it to you when the food arrives. I bought a lot, so besides the food for my mother-in-law, you and your second brother can also eat it often."
Ji Weimin's stomach might not be very good either. He smelled something bad several times when he ate with Ji Weimin.
He Zhijun was excited and moved: "Third brother, thank you very much."
"You must have spent a lot of money on buying yams. I'll give you the money." As he said that, he took out his wallet and was about to give the money to Xu Hui.
Xu Hui quickly refused: "No, sister-in-law. It didn't cost much."
"Besides, you and my second brother have helped us so much. If I buy you some local specialties and ask you to pay for them, who am I then?"
Not to mention the care that Ji Weimin and He Zhijun gave him when he was young, the help that Ji Weimin gave him in the past two or three years alone is more than can be repaid with a single dollar.
The lost property certificate that Ji Weimin helped to issue saved He Ye's future, and his stepfather also helped him get back his biological father's house. If Ji Weimin had selfish motives and refused to give it to him, there was nothing he could do.
No, he didn't even know that his biological father had left him such a guarantee.
"Okay, then I'll shamelessly accept it." Seeing Xu Hui's insistence on not accepting it, He Zhijun didn't insist. The two families were family, not strangers. She and Lao Ji could just make up for it in other ways later.
Ji Weida, the fifth son of the Ji family, who was sitting in the living room, saw this brotherly and respectful look and rolled his eyes: "Flatterer."
"We are all brothers, why are you sending so much to the second brother's family? It's because he is now an official and has a good life. It's true that the rich have distant relatives in the mountains, but the poor have no one to care about them in the city."
He Zhijun's face darkened when he heard this.
She carefully put down the yam gift box in her hand and looked at the fifth brother of the Ji family with a sullen face: "Five brothers, what do you mean by this?"
"You still have the nerve to say 'A rich man in the mountains has distant relatives, a poor man in the city has no one to care about him.' Isn't that exactly how you acted? The third brother just returned to Hucheng and offered to treat you brothers to a meal together.
You, on the other hand, think that the third child is poor, and you're afraid that he'll get attached to you. Not only do you drag your family along to eat at a rich man's house, but after eating, you don't even wipe the grease from the corners of your mouths before you start making sarcastic remarks and being sarcastic."
"Later, after you found out that Dad wanted to take back the house that the third child's biological father had given him, you started making trouble again. You insisted that the third child wasn't Dad's biological son and shouldn't have the house. You insisted that the third child buy the house and use the money to divide it among you."
"You only stopped when you forced the Third Brother to buy the house at market price. You didn't treat the Third Brother as a brother, and you still wanted his things. Ji Laowu, how come I didn't realize you were so thick-skinned?"
"It's a shame that your skin only exists on your face. You should use it to build a wall. A wall built with your skin will be impervious to wind and rain, swords and spears."
"Second sister-in-law, you—" He stared at He Zhijun with wide eyes: "How can you say that to me?"
"How else can I put it?" He Zhijun looked at him, "Why are you staring so wide-eyed? Do you think you're still a child, staring wide-eyed to act cute?"
"You're already in your forties, can't you be a little more mature?"
"You, you——" Ji Weida was so angry that he couldn't say a word. After a long while, he managed to say: "Second sister-in-law, I am the second brother's biological brother."
He Zhijun: "Yes, yes, I didn't say you are not your second brother's biological brother, right?"
Ji Weida became even angrier, his face turning red and white, which was really a beautiful sight.
Xu Heye couldn't hold back any longer and burst out laughing.
How could she not notice that her second aunt, who seemed gentle, intellectual and elegant, could speak so sharply and mercilessly.
Ji Wei Da finally found an outlet. He looked at Xu He Ye and blurted out, "You're really a country bumpkin from out of town, totally uneducated. Not only did you not avoid the elders when they were arguing, you even dared to laugh."
Xu Heye: “…”
She looked at Ji Weida, "Are you okay?"
Since you can’t win the argument with Second Aunt, are you taking it out on a junior like her?
If she were to live her life again, she would not be a punching bag.
Just as Xu Heye was about to fire back, He Zhijun spoke up, "Old Fifth, I was the one scolding you. How can you take it out on a junior like that?"
"Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. I didn't want to lose my temper, fearing it would ruin the good mood. But I see that you don't take me, your second sister-in-law, seriously at all. In that case, after paying New Year's greetings, hurry back home. It's even harder for my sister-in-law to entertain guests at home alone, so go back and help her."
Ji Weida was a little bit incredulous: "It's New Year's Day, and you're kicking me out, sister-in-law?"
He Zhijun: "I didn't drive you away, you were the one who started the trouble in my house. And Ji Laowu, remember, I don't like people who don't have a sense of propriety."
Ji Weida didn't expect that He Zhijun not only did not try to persuade him to stay, but also said that he had no sense of propriety and did not know how to advance or retreat.
"Okay, since my second sister-in-law doesn't welcome me, I'll leave now." After Ji Weida said this, he walked out of the Ji family angrily, without even caring about his daughter Ji Mingzhu.
After Ji Weida left, He Zhijun looked at the others and said, "Everyone, have some tea."
"Okay, okay." Everyone present responded awkwardly, picked up the tea and took a sip, then kept their mouths shut and didn't dare to speak casually.
To be honest, this was the first time they saw He Zhijun so angry.
I was afraid of saying the wrong thing and following in Ji Laowu's footsteps. If He Zhijun kicked me out on New Year's Day, my shame would be thrown into the Huangpu River.
Seeing that everyone understood, He Zhijun's smile deepened. She took Xu Heye's hand, asked her to sit next to her, and poured her the tea she was drinking: "Heye, drink this. This is a sweet tea made with longan, red dates and roses. It warms the body. We women like it."
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