Chapter 85
In the evening, the Border Defense Primary School was over.
A bunch of students ran out of the school gate chattering. Chen Tianyou walked slowly behind them with his schoolbag on his back. Several female classmates deliberately slowed down their pace to wait for him: "Student Chen, I have a few math problems that I can't solve. Can you teach me?"
"Student Chen, I couldn't hear the teacher's class this morning and I didn't take any notes. Can you lend me your notebook?"
"Student Chen..."
Chen Tianyou frowned and said politely, "I'm sorry, classmates. My mother is pregnant and has a hard time working. I have to go home early to do housework. If you have any questions, please look for the study committee member, Wang Songyue."
I don’t know if it’s because he eats well, lives a good life, or it’s genes, but Chen Tianyou has suddenly grown taller this year, and his appearance has become more and more handsome. His eyebrows and features are particularly delicate, his skin is particularly fair, and his lips are red and his teeth are white. He doesn’t look feminine, but instead looks like those pretty boys in the movies, which makes people like him just by looking at him.
There were many female students in the military school who started school late and were only twelve or thirteen years old and were still in the fifth grade. They were all in love and were surrounding Chen Tianyou all day long.
Seeing him trying to shirk his responsibility again, a female classmate pouted and said, "Classmate Wang has good grades, but she is too aloof. She usually doesn't talk to us. Will she help us solve problems?"
"That's right, classmate Chen, I'm not saying anything bad about you, but doesn't Xu Tao go to your house every day to help you with housework? What can you do when you come home so early?"
Just then, Wang Songyue and Xu Tao both came out of the school gate. One of them was wearing a beautiful floral dress and a pigtail with a flower rope. She had delicate features and was as pretty as fairies in a painting.
The other one was wearing a half-worn homespun garment and had her hair casually tied up in a ponytail. Although her facial features were also good-looking, they pale in comparison to the person next to her. She was like a wild lily swaying in the wind and was easily overlooked.
Chen Tianyou saw the two of them coming out at the same time, and he had a terrible headache. He dismissed the female classmates who were surrounding him with a few words, and said to Xu Tao who was walking over, "Xu Tao, can you please stop working at my house? You have caused me a lot of trouble, do you know? When I helped you, I didn't think about asking you to repay me. If I had known that you would not listen to my advice, I would not have helped you no matter what I said."
These words were very serious. Xu Tao's eyes suddenly turned red. She bit her lip and said, "Don't you really want to see me?"
Chen Tianyou shook his head: "It's not that I don't want to see you, but I want you to be normal and live your own life."
Xu Tao glanced at Wang Songyue, not knowing what she was thinking, and lowered her head and said, "I understand."
She left with her schoolbag on her back, looking lonely.
"Chen Tianyou, she's sad." Wang Songyue watched Xu Tao leave and said politely, "She came to work for you out of kindness. You shouldn't be so direct and hurt her feelings."
"Then what do you say we should do? I can't let her work at my house forever and let others gossip about us all the time, right?" Chen Tianyou walked forward with his schoolbag on his back. "The high school entrance exam will be in a month, and I'm no longer the ignorant little boy I used to be. I can't let a girl like her have her reputation ruined because of me."
Wang Songyue followed him with a book in her arms and said, "You sound like you've grown up. If you want to avoid suspicion, why don't you avoid me and other female classmates? You're targeting Xu Tao. She's already pitiful enough. Her parents have always been mean to her. As her classmates, we should do our best to help her."
"How can it be the same?" Chen Tianyou stopped and looked at her with a frown, "Do you really not understand or are you pretending not to understand? The other female classmates at least just asked me some questions about study and did not do anything beyond the rules. What Xu Tao did has already exceeded the limit. In the long run, it will hurt both me and her. Besides, you are different from her, so I don't need to avoid you."
He stopped so suddenly that Wang Songyue didn't notice and fell into the arms of Chen Tianyou, who was a head taller than her, and smelled the unique fragrance of the young man.
Wang Songyue blushed and covered her forehead with one hand, not daring to look directly at the boy's face. However, she couldn't help but ask the question in her heart, "What's the difference between me and them?"
Chen Tianyou thought for a moment and said, "You are very quiet. You are not as noisy as her, nor as gossipy and noisy as other female classmates. You know me. I like a quiet person now. I find people who are too noisy very annoying."
Wang Songyue snorted coldly: "You are just making up a story. I am just a dumb person in your heart."
"If you are dumb, then who is talking to me?" Chen Tianyou teased her deliberately. When she looked puzzled, he smiled and said, "My mother hasn't cooked for a long time. Before, it was always my grandmother who cooked. The food she cooked was very light. Yesterday, I sighed and said I wanted to eat my mother's cooking. My mother said she would cook a table of delicious food for me today. You and Songyang can come over for dinner tonight."
"How can I do that? My brother and I are going to have dinner at your house again. My mother will start to nag me again."
"Let her keep complaining. Aunt Wang is just like what my mom said. She is too polite and always gives people a feeling of being distant. We have been neighbors for many years, but she is still so distant. If it were someone else, they would have been angry and thought that Aunt Wang was a stone that could not be warmed. Fortunately, my mom knows who Aunt Wang is. When I was a child, I often went to your house for dinner. It's just a meal for you. It's not a big deal."
Wang Songyue thought about it and it made sense. "Then I'll go directly to your house and help Aunt Yang."
"You?" Chen Tianyou looked her up and down and sneered, "You are just like your mother. You are so scared of bugs when washing vegetables that you scream. You can't help at all, but you scare my mother with your screams. You should let your brother do this kind of work."
"Don't underestimate me!" Wang Songyue stamped her feet in anger, "I'm not Xu Taocha!"
"Yes, yes, you are no worse than Xu Tao." Chen Tianyou lifted his legs and continued walking home without looking back.
"I'm serious!" Wang Songyue chased after him, "If she can do it, I can do it too."
"Okay, okay, you will, you will."
The two of them joked around and returned to their respective homes. When Chen Tianyou entered the yard, he saw his father sitting in the yard, fiddling with some mechanical equipment and antennas. He asked curiously, "Dad, what are you doing?"
"Make some eavesdropping equipment." Chen Shengqing put a thumb-sized round gadget into Chen Tianyou's hand, "Go, quietly put it in your mother's pocket."
"What, Dad? Do you suspect there is a spy among us?" Chen Tianyou looked gossipy.
"What nonsense! Just go if I tell you to." Chen Shengqing put a military eavesdropping headset to his ear and stretched out his hand to chase him away like a fly. "Let me hear the sound quality of this modified small eavesdropping device."
It turned out to be an audition. Chen Tianyou ran into the kitchen with the small disc in his hand, feeling disappointed.
Yang Qiujin was frying fish. The child suddenly lamented yesterday that she had not eaten her cooking for a long time. Yang Qiujin then recalled that since she was found out she was pregnant, her mother-in-law sympathized with her pregnancy and was busy with work, so she took care of all the housework at home. Therefore, she had not cooked for several months.
Although her mother-in-law is a good cook, compared to young people like her who like to eat heavy food, the food her mother-in-law cooks is relatively light and difficult for Tianyou, who likes to eat heavy food, to cook. After such a long time, he carefully asked her if he could cook some of her specialties.
The answer was of course yes. After work, she went to the farm grocery store and bought a live hen, a live rabbit and a big herring supplied by their farm.
Naturally, tasks like killing chickens, rabbits and fish were handled by Chen Shengqing Baosuo. Her mother-in-law was responsible for helping her with the fire, and she only had to take care of the cooking.
Chen Tianyou entered the kitchen and directly put the small disc into Yang Qiujin's pocket without covering it up. "Mom, my dad wants to test his new results. Please cooperate with me."
Yang Qiujin was not surprised at all. She took the golden fish out of the pot and put it on a plate. "There is a basket of potatoes behind the door. Take a few out and peel them. Mom will make you some hot and sour potato shreds."
"Mom, Wang Songyue and Wang Songyang are coming to our house for dinner later. You should do more. Let Wang Songyang do the washing and peeling of vegetables. I still have to do review questions. You go ahead and do your work first." After Chen Tianyou finished speaking, he ran away.
Li Xiu'e loves her grandson very much. During the years that she has been in the army, she has basically taken care of all the housework at home and rarely asks Chen Tianyou to do it.
If Yang Qiujin had not urged Chen Tianyou to do things within his ability, Chen Tianyou would have been corrupted by Li Xiu'e.
"This boy gets lazier as he gets older. He doesn't even do anything when I ask him to help peel the skin. Mom, don't get used to him and let him do nothing. Look how lazy he is now. This won't work. A boy should be responsible like his father and do everything." Yang Qiujin said.
Li Xiu'e also knew that her daughter-in-law was a person who always kept her word. If her daughter-in-law told her something again and again and she didn't listen, she would definitely get angry. The consequences of her daughter-in-law's anger were very serious, and the biggest victim was her son, who had to be coaxed by Chen Shengqing with all kinds of sweet words.
Li Xiu'e immediately said, "In the future, if I am too busy, I will let Tianyou do it. He is not young anymore, he should learn from his father and do everything by himself."
"That's good enough." Yang Qiujin opened the lid of another pot with satisfaction, and with chopsticks she stabbed the hen in the bubbling orange chicken soup. She said to Li Xiu'e, "Mom, the chicken is ready. You don't need to add more firewood to the pot."
"Okay." Li Xiu'e took out two pieces of firewood from the stove and stood up to help her chop the chicken.
Chen Shengqing heard every word of the conversation between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the kitchen. He put down the military monitoring headset in his hand and just put the equipment away when a loud voice rang out: "Uncle Chen, I'm here."
Chen Shengqing looked in the direction of the voice and saw a young man of seven or eight years old wearing an army green military uniform standing at the gate of the courtyard. He was quite tall, with big double eyelids and good-looking facial features, but his skin was as black as charcoal. He was holding two aluminum lunch boxes in his hands. When he saw Chen Shengqing, he smiled, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
"Songyang, you've come just in time. Help your uncle." Chen Shengqing liked Wang Songyang very much, not only because this boy was lively and sweet-talker and loved eating their family's food, but also because this boy was helpful and very hardworking, unlike that bad boy Chen Tianyou, who became more and more lazy when he was asked to do work recently.
"How can I help you?" Wang Songyang ran up to him happily.
"Help me hold up the antenna. I want to tie it to my roof." Chen Shengqing put an antenna about half a meter long in Wang Songyang's hand, brought a wooden ladder from the toilet, climbed up to the roof in front of the main room and fiddled with it for a while.
Wang Songyue and Wang Songyang have completely different personalities and skin colors. She is quiet and has skin as white as jade. When she entered the yard, she pursed her lips and called Chen Shengqing "Uncle Chen". After getting Chen Shengqing's response, she picked up the lunch box that Wang Songyang put down and went into the kitchen.
When Yang Qiujin saw her, she waved a spatula and called her out enthusiastically, "Hey, Songyue, come here. It's been a long time since we've seen you at our house. Find a stool and sit down. The food will be ready soon."
"Auntie Yang, Songyang and I are here to eat again. I'm really sorry. These are two small pickled vegetables that my mother asked me to bring. My grandmother specially asked a fellow villager to bring them a few days ago. You can try them." Wang Songyue put the lunch box on the table next to the stove shyly, called out to Grandma Li Xiu'e again, and turned around and said, "Auntie Yang, do you need any vegetables washed or cut? I'll help."
Yang Qiujin didn't think much about it. "Then help me get a few potatoes from the corner, peel them and wash them. I'll cut them into shreds and stir-fry them into a plate of spicy and sour potato shreds that Tianyou and Songyang both like to eat."
"Okay." Wang Songyue walked to the door of the kitchen and saw a small basket made of red willow branches. There were piles of half-fist-sized potatoes covered in mud. She hesitated for a moment, stretched out her white hands, and endured the uncomfortable feeling of being exposed to dirty things, twisting the potatoes one by one into the small basin held by Yang Qiujin.
Li Xiu'e, who was burning, saw her fearless expression and couldn't help but say, "Songyue, have you never done housework at home? I heard that your mother doesn't know how to do housework, and it's your father who does housework, right? If you don't know how to peel potatoes, don't show off, or you'll cut your fingers and make them bleed."
Finally, she added a piece of firewood to the stove and said with a sigh, "We are all girls, but our fates are so different. Songyue, you have good parents, so you don't have to do any work on weekdays. You can just study hard like a young lady. Xu Tao has a miserable life. Her biological father and stepmother don't care about anything. They abuse her every day. She doesn't even have enough food to eat, but still has to do all kinds of housework. Our Tianyou has been kind enough to help her a few times, and she was grateful and came to help me with the housework. This child is so obedient and pitiful..."
When Wang Songyue heard her mention Xu Tao, she felt irritated for some reason. She didn't care about the dirt anymore, so she took a knife and said, "Grandma Li, I don't know how to do housework, but I can learn. I can do better than Xu Tao."
Yang Qiujin then remembered that Wang Songyue didn't know how to do housework, "Songyue, don't do it, leave it alone, don't cut your hand."
As soon as she finished speaking, she saw Wang Songyue taking a knife and peeling the potato, but instead of peeling the potato, she cut her index finger hard.
Blood gushed out and the pain from the wound made Wang Songyue scream. He threw away the knife, pinched his bleeding fingers, and cried with tears in his eyes.
Seeing such a coquettish look, Li Xiu'e shook her head and thought that this girl was too coquettish compared to Xu Tao. She could cut her hand while doing such a simple job of peeling. If she couldn't learn to do housework in the future, no man would marry her.
Women these days all want to be iron ladies, able to do all kinds of jobs, and do more than men. Only when they do a job well do they feel they are great.
Wang Songyue is going to learn to be like her mother, the capitalist lady, and never do housework in her life. Which man would dare to marry her and take her home as his mistress?
"Songyue, are you okay?" Yang Qiujin put down the spatula and immediately held Wang Songyue's hand to check her wound. Seeing that the wound was a bit deep, she shouted towards the main room: "Tianyou, Songyue cut her hand. Go to the mother's room and get red medicine and gauze to disinfect Songyue and stop the bleeding."
"What?!" When Chen Tianyou heard that Wang Songyue's hand was injured, he hurriedly ran to the kitchen with a medical box, "Where is the injury? Let me see."
Wang Songyue handed her finger to him, crying, "I accidentally cut my finger here."
"Didn't I tell you not to try to be brave and let your brother do it?" Chen Tianyou opened the red medicine bottle and poured it on her wound to stop the bleeding and disinfect it. He wrapped gauze around her fingers and muttered, "They say you're just like your mother, you can't do anything. Now you feel better, you feel better now that you're injured."
"Can you please speak nicely? I'm injured and you're still scolding me." Wang Songyue felt very aggrieved, and her big eyes were about to shed tears again.
"Okay, okay, okay, it's my fault, it's all my fault. If I had known you were going to show off by peeling potatoes, I should have peeled them well to prevent you from getting hurt." Chen Tianyou surrendered.
The two young people were talking as if no one was around. Yang Qiujin was very calm and not surprised. After living as neighbors for so many years, she had already discovered that her son cared more about Wang Songyue than other girls. She liked Wang Songyue very much and was happy to see her success.
Li Xiu'e frowned. Although her thoughts were more open-minded than those of ordinary old people, she was born before the liberation after all. Her ideological education was different from that of today's young people. She believed from the bottom of her heart that a good woman should do housework, take care of the house, and take care of her husband and children.
Li Xiu'e has always looked down on Liang Xueqing next door, thinking that Liang Xueqing is useless except for being pretty and knowledgeable. She also doesn't know how instructor Wang next door can tolerate Liang Xueqing and treat her like a treasure.
Wang Songyue is Liang Xueqing's daughter. Not to mention her childhood, now Wang Songyue is a teenage girl who can't even peel a potato. What have her parents done to her!
Li Xiu'e started helping her family cut pig grass and feed chickens and ducks when she was five or six years old. She started standing on a stool and cooking for her family on an earthen stove when she was seven or eight years old. Not to mention that when Wang Songyue was her age, she was already doing laundry and working in the fields.
After the family finished their meal, Chen Tianyou and Wang Songyue went out to play. Li Xiu'e called her son and daughter-in-law to the small house and said seriously, "Shengqing, Qiujin, Mom thinks we should move to a bigger house. Qiujin is about to give birth. If we have another boy, Tianyou is getting older. It's not appropriate for me to live in the same room with him again."
"Mom is right." Chen Shengqing did not object and asked Yang Qiujin for her opinion, "Qiujin, what do you think?"
Chen Shengqing is now at the rank of deputy regiment commander. With his military rank, he can move into a larger house with at least three rooms.
He had been at the deputy regimental commander level for more than three years, and Yang Qiujin had never let him move house. Besides being used to living here, he was also too busy with work to have time to move.
"Mom, why do you suddenly want to change the yard?" After cooking, Yang Qiujin felt her lower back was particularly tired. She rubbed her back and asked while sitting on the kang in the small room.
"I'm doing this for our Tianyou." Li Xiu'e did not hide it. "You've seen it, Tianyou is like a madman, always getting close to that girl from the Wang family. That girl, like her mother, is good-looking and good at studying, but she's useless. She can't do any housework at all. When she peels a potato, she peels it on her fingers without even peeling the skin. She's nothing like Xu Tao, who can do everything beautifully. If Tianyou keeps in contact with the girl from the Wang family, and they grow up and develop feelings for each other, you want Tianyou to marry a daughter-in-law who can't do anything and becomes the ancestor's daughter-in-law."
Yang Qiujin was stunned for a moment and said, "Mom, how old is Tianyou? You are already thinking about the future. Besides, I think Wang Songyue is a good girl. Although she can't do housework, she is well-educated and polite. When I first came to the army with Tianyou, Tianyou caused a lot of trouble and his grades were always at the bottom. It was all thanks to the girl next door Liang who helped me take care of Tianyou that I could go to work with peace of mind. Wang Songyue is a good girl. Yue also helped me to take care of Tianyou, not letting him do bad things in school, and helped him to study hard. Only then did Tianyou gradually change his temper and stop being naughty as before. His academic performance also improved from the bottom to the top three in the class. If Tianyou really gets along with Wang Songyue and marries her as his daughter-in-law, I will not only not object, but also feel very lucky. After all, we know the Wang family next door very well. "
Chen Shengqing echoed, "Mom, don't ignore the shining points of the girl from the Wang family because of your momentary prejudice. Before you came to the army, Qiu Jin and I were busy with work, and Tianyou was mostly looked after by the wife of instructor Wang next door. Tianyou has changed from an annoying naughty child to a polite, sensible and good student. Comrade Liang and Wang Songyue have made great contributions. You can't ignore their character because of their class background. Wang Songyue can't do housework, but Tianyou can do it. Housework is not only for women."
Li Xiu'e originally thought that her son and daughter-in-law would support her ideas, but unexpectedly, both of them opposed her ideas. What's more, she couldn't refute what they said.
Li Xiu'e was furious. "No matter what you say, we have decided to move. I don't want to share the same small bed with Tianyou anymore. If you don't agree, I will go back to my hometown."
Yang Qiujin knew that she was just speaking in anger. As she was about to give birth, her mother-in-law would not ignore her. After thinking for a while, she said to Chen Shengqing, "Let's move. The house is bigger. With one more room, when the second baby is born, there will be more space for the children to play."
Chen Shengqing always puts her ideas first. "Okay, I'll go to the army to apply tomorrow. After the housing review is passed, we'll move in."
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