Chapter 8 Gu Xi
There are many members of the Gu family, and they sat at two tables for dinner.
Men sit at one table with men, and women sit at another table with women.
Niu Niu sat obediently next to Zhang Yunniang. Although she was very hungry, she still behaved well when she saw the table full of food. She was completely different from her other two cousins, Gu Daya and Gu Xiaoya, who wanted to pounce on the food.
Old Mrs. Gu was very satisfied with Niu Niu's performance and couldn't help but nodded.
"Grandma, isn't dinner ready yet? I'm so hungry!" Gu Daya covered her stomach and acted coquettishly to Grandma Gu.
Old Lady Gu glared at her and said, "You are so old, but you only know how to eat! You don't know the rules at all!"
Gu Daya was scolded, but she didn't feel embarrassed at all. She still shamelessly urged Old Lady Gu to distribute the food quickly.
Old Mrs. Gu stopped torturing people. She picked up the big rice bowl and distributed the coarse grains in it according to the number of people.
There were not many dishes on the table, just a plate of stir-fried radish and a plate of boiled wild vegetables.
The stir-fried radish and boiled wild vegetables obviously didn't have too much oil in them, so they looked wilted and lacked the luster that food should have.
Even so, this is still a rare good meal for Niu Niu.
After all, when she was at the Zhang family, she couldn't even get some tender wild vegetables. She could only eat the old wild vegetable stems that most people couldn't chew. She could even count the grains of coarse rice in the bowl.
Gu Daya couldn't help but complain: "I haven't eaten meat for more than ten days, and I haven't even had an egg!"
Old Lady Gu immediately looked at Chen Chunhua, the biological mother of the Gu family, and said, "You are going to teach your daughter to be a young lady. Our family is not well off. We eat meat and eggs all the time. You should only let your daughter eat half a bowl like other families do!"
Chen Chunhua smiled awkwardly when she heard this. The Gu family was different from other families. In the environment where the whole village favored boys over girls, Old Lady Gu had not been infected with this bad habit at all.
Although I cannot treat my grandchildren equally, I will never starve my granddaughter and only feed my grandson.
"Mom, how about you fry some eggs for dinner? We haven't had meat in our house for a long time!" Chen Chunhua said shamelessly.
Old Mrs. Gu glared at her fiercely and said, "You are so beautiful!"
Chen Chunhua didn't say anything else, but her eyes noticed that Niu Niu stretched out her chopsticks and was about to pick up a piece of fried radish, and she immediately coughed lightly.
When Niu Niu looked up, she saw the stern look from her aunt who disliked her. She was so scared that she retracted her chopsticks and dared not pick up any food anymore.
Niu Niu had just come to this family, and Zhang Yunniang had been paying attention to the child's movements. When she saw this situation, she pretended not to see her sister-in-law's murderous look, and she picked up a piece of fried radish with chopsticks and put it into Niu Niu's bowl.
"Is it enough? If not, mother will give you more." As she spoke, Zhang Yuniang picked up another large piece of boiled wild vegetables with her chopsticks and put it into Niu Niu's bowl.
Chen Chunhua was unhappy and said, "Second sister-in-law, Niuniu is so young, can she finish all this? Don't waste it."
People in the countryside are most afraid of wasting food.
Everyone else at the table immediately looked at Niu Niu.
But Niu Niu is so young that she almost wants to bury her face in the bowl while eating.
She has a small face, but she is very fast at using chopsticks. She swings them so fast that afterimages appear.
Although she was obviously wolfing down the food, her eating posture was very beautiful, like a painting.
In a short while, she finished a bowl of coarse grains that was bigger than her face.
"Oh my god, there's a good-for-nothing in our family!" Chen Chunhua said sarcastically.
Niu Niu lowered her head in shame.
Although she was thin, she had always had a bigger appetite than the average person. When she was at the Zhang family, not to mention eating to her heart's content, occasionally when she was so hungry that she chewed grass, the Zhang family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law saw her and scolded her.
"Being able to eat is a blessing. My Niu Niu should eat enough so that she can stay healthy and mother can feel at ease." Zhang Yunniang smiled and patted Niu Niu's shoulder.
Niuniu raised her head immediately after hearing this. She looked carefully into Zhang Yunniang's eyes and indeed saw no trace of disdain in them, so she heaved a sigh of relief.
But she still clenched her fist and said, "Mom, I will try to eat less in the future. I can make fire, go up the mountain to collect firewood, cut grass for pigs, and wash clothes. You can leave these tasks to me in the future!"
Niu Niu is only five years old, but she has already formed simple values. There is no thought of being cunning or dishonest in her mind.
Zhang Yunniang felt sad watching this. Although little girls in the country would help their families with farm work at an early age, very few of them could do so many things at the age of five.
Zhang Yunniang did not refuse, but said: "Okay, mother will wait for Niuniu to help."
Seeing that she was useful in this family, Niu Niu immediately grinned.
Zhang Yunniang asked again: "Are you full?"
When Niu Niu heard this, she fell silent. She didn't want to deceive her adoptive mother, but her stomach was only 50% full.
"If you haven't eaten it, add more. Our Gu family is not the kind that can't afford to eat!" Old Mrs. Gu added a large spoonful of coarse grains into Niu Niu's bowl with a cold face.
Niuniu was immediately flattered and said with a smile, "Thank you, grandma."
When Mrs. Gu saw that Niu Niu finally smiled at her, a barely perceptible smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.
There wasn't much drama at the man's table. They finished eating quickly and cleared the table.
Niu Niu carefully observed the situation in the Gu family, which was very different from when she was in the Zhang family.
Family-friendly men will do housework. After they finish their own work at the table, they will come over to help the women.
However, Zhang Guangzong always waited for Xiao Cai to clean up. When he ate, he waited for others to serve him the food. He lay around at home all day and never did any housework.
Gu Mingda saw the little girl's puzzled look, which was so adorable that he couldn't help but pinch her soft little face.
"Yunniang, take Niuniu with you later." Gu Mingda reminded.
Niu Niu was completely confused.
After the kitchen was cleaned up, the Gu family had no other work to do, and Niu Niu finally knew what to do.
In a corner of the yard, there are several small sand tables on the ground.
The boys from the first and third rooms all had sad faces.
"Uncle, I just want to farm. I don't want to study!" said Gu Yun, the eldest grandson of the Gu family.
Gu Mingda also had a headache. His eyes swept across his nephew Gu Yun and fell on Boss Gu who was not far away. The father and son looked exactly the same and had similar temperaments.
Another nephew, Gu Jin, also hurriedly said, "Uncle, I don't want to learn either, so please don't make things difficult for me."
Even though Gu Mingda was very smart, he had no idea what to do when he met these two nephews who hated studying.
But Boss Gu picked up a stick and hit them, scolding: "You two useless things, your uncle taught you with good intentions, but you don't appreciate it!"
The brothers Gu Yun and Gu Jin may not look very smart, but they are very good at dealing with their father.
"Is it our fault that we don't like to read? We just take after your roots!"
"Yes, if studying is really that easy, why don't you study, Dad?"
The two brothers sang in unison and lifted up Boss Gu.
The Gu family never sent their grandchildren to private schools, and always adopted an economical and practical method: the only scholar, Gu Mingda, taught them.
This scene of discord between father and son has been played out countless times in the old Gu family, and Gu Mingda has long been accustomed to it.
If his nephews were willing to learn, he would teach them more; if they were unwilling to learn, he would just watch them get beaten.
Although the brothers Gu Yun and Gu Jin were good at talking, Boss Gu was even more powerful with his stick. After beating the brothers up severely, the two brothers were almost forced to sit in front of the sand table.
Gu Mingda picked up a piece of paper and wrote the word "曦" on it.
When Gu Yun and Gu Jin saw such complicated words, their faces immediately wrinkled.
However, it was Gu Mingda’s biological son, the thirteen-year-old Gu Yan, who looked at Niu Niu first.
Niu Niu still didn’t know what this word meant to her. She just tilted her head and looked at the paper curiously, wondering if this was the legendary recognition of words?
In the Zhang family, Niu Niu couldn't even learn to read, and she might even be beaten if she touched Zhang Guangzong's book.
Gu Mingda said to Niuniu, "This character is pronounced as Xi, which means the road ahead is as bright and brilliant as the rising sun. You must remember that your name is Gu Xi."
In Gu Mingda's generation, the names were arranged in the order of "Ming", and in Gu Yun's generation, the names were arranged in the order of "Ri".
Obviously, Gu Mingda used this generation status for his adopted daughter without discussing it with his family.
It was just a name for a girl, and both the eldest and second oldest Gu looked indifferent.
Chen Chunhua and Liu Erni were illiterate and had no idea how special this word was, but both of them were the kind of people who would feel uncomfortable as if ants were crawling all over their bodies if they didn't take advantage of an opportunity.
Chen Chunhua pushed her daughter Daya forward and said with a dry laugh, "Her second uncle, you can't be partial and only name Niu Niu. My Daya is also your niece!"
Liu Erni also pushed her daughter Xiaoya in front of Gu Mingda, and her meaning was obvious.
Gu Mingda did not refuse and named the two children Gu Qing and Gu Xing respectively.
When Niu Niu found out that this was her name, she stared at the big characters without blinking, wishing she could learn how to write it right now.
Gu Mingda did not favor one over the other. He gave Niu Niu a branch and a sandbox and asked her to practice calligraphy on the sandbox.
Gu Daya was jealous and turned to Chen Chunhua and said, "Mom, I also want to learn to read. Why do you only let my elder brother and second brother learn and not me?"
Chen Chunhua slapped her on the forehead and scolded her, "Why are you, a little girl, learning to read? Do you have a sandbox? Are the clothes I asked you to sew finished?"
Gu Yun, the eldest brother, perhaps out of brotherly love or because he really didn't want to learn such complicated characters, shouted anxiously: "Mom, I have a sandbox, I'll lend it to my sister! Let my sister learn to recognize characters, I won't learn!"
(End of this chapter)
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