Extra three
In the quiet tube-shaped building, there is a family who always wakes up earlier than everyone else because they run a small restaurant. The male owner of the family gets up at dawn, puts on his clothes without disturbing his wife who is sleeping beside him, and goes to the kitchen to boil water and cook.
By the time the water started to bubble and the steam covered the frozen windows, he had already wrapped a basket of buns and steamed them in the pot, preparing to heat the milk.
He stood in front of the stove, poured the milk he had made the night before into the milk pot, turned on the gas with a click, and smiled without turning his head: "Are you awake?"
But there is usually no sound behind him. It takes a long time before he hears a series of small footsteps running away. When he looks back, he sees a cup of hot water on the small table used for cutting vegetables and rolling noodles, still emitting hot steam. Next to the cup is a toy Big Head Soldier, a small army green plastic gadget. When you go to the vegetable market in the north, you can always come across one or two small shops selling plastic guns, Ultraman masks and so on. They also sell this kind of plastic Big Head Soldier, and they sell it in a big box, and they are not worth much.
But these soldiers who suddenly appeared in the kitchen were all well cared for, polished to a shine, without a single bit of paint falling off. Their fighting postures were different each time, holding their guns, standing majestically under the dim table lamp, surrounded by swirling water vapor.
The man prepared breakfast and cleaned the kitchen. The living room was already illuminated by dim light.
At this time, he would go to the small room, imitate the "tick-tick" rhythm of the wake-up call, and gently knock on the four doors, and say in a hoarse voice with a smile: "Comrade Yuan Tiantian, it's time for breakfast." When the little bulge in the quilt began to move, he would smile and walk away, not seeing that the little black child had already put on his clothes when he lifted the quilt.
The dining table was set up in the living room. While the children were having breakfast, the man was basically in the bedroom, because once his wife realized he was not there, she would wake up. After waking up, she would sit on the edge of the bed, one cotton sock in her hand, the other on her toes, staring at the wall with her eyes open, as if she was awake but also dreaming.
The man came in, put on her cotton socks, put on her clothes, and clumsily lifted a lock of hair with his orchid fingers to cover her temple bone, then fixed it with a star-shaped hairpin.
Her black hair grew out and reached her shoulders. He tied the white hair underneath into a bun. The tiny diamonds on the moon-shaped hairband flashed with his movements, as if he had grabbed a handful of stars as the night faded and dotted them in his lover's hair.
After finishing his breakfast, Yuan Tiantian jumped off his chair and sneaked to the bedroom door. In the dim light, he saw his father sitting next to his mother, holding her hand. After hesitating for a long time, he whispered, "Mom, what are you doing?" He still didn't call her.
When the man saw his son's little head sticking out, he grinned and said that his mother was Chang'e, who ran to the Moon Palace at night. The Moon Palace was very beautiful and there were many fun things. His mother had so much fun that she forgot to come back, so he was waiting here for her to come back.
But this time he didn't have to wait too long. The alarm rang, and the woman blinked, looking around in confusion. Seeing the man sitting next to her, she was startled. She rushed over and hugged him, crying, "Where have you been?" The man hugged her back, his voice hoarse and low, as if coming from a distant past. He stroked her back, his sweater rustling softly, and said with a smile, "Go cook."
She closed her eyes and hugged him tightly, waiting for her trembling breathing to calm down. It took a long time for her to open her eyes. The redness in her eyes had not faded yet, but she started chattering with a smile, and she didn't even stop when brushing her teeth and washing her face.
After washing up, she sat at the dining table and had breakfast with her husband. She was used to being busy, and she couldn't sit still after eating a few bites. She stood up, put on her glasses, and walked to the refrigerator while chewing the bun. She squinted her eyes and took a pencil to draw on the sticky note on the refrigerator door.
1. Get your husband's medical examination report
2. See the pine and bamboo trees
…
"Yes! Physical examination report!" Her eyes lit up, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster as she screamed. She went to the small chair on the balcony and took the half-knitted sweater. She lifted her husband up and pressed him on the sofa. While gesturing with the sweater on him, she said excitedly, "I'll take you to get the physical examination report later!"
The man was tossed around by her and smiled helplessly: "Didn't you just have a physical examination in the first half of the year? Don't waste your money."
"What nonsense!" The woman was displeased when she heard it. She bent her waist, raised her head and glared at him fiercely, then announced coquettishly and proudly: "Not only will I examine you here, I will also go to Shanghai to examine you!"
"It just so happens that I was going to Shanghai to see the pine and bamboo trees." She sat down next to her husband, the wool of her sweater balled up in her hands, and began to chatter with a smile: "Hey, do all southern girls talk in a roundabout way? If you miss Tiantian, just say you miss her. But instead of saying it, she kept asking me on the phone, asking if Tiantian was okay, if she'd grown taller, and whether she looked like you or me. I didn't react at first!"
She giggled and sighed, "My son still looks like me. Before you came back, I took Tiantian to Shanghai to see them. Wow! They look so alike! How could they be so alike? It's funny to see an adult's face on a child!"
"You talk too much." She turned to look at her husband. He listened quietly, his white eyes smiling gently.
"That little mouth never stopped, circling Tiantian, calling him brother, brother, running back and forth between the living room and bedroom, taking out all his goodies for Tiantian, filling up the entire table."
She became a little frustrated when she said this. "Look at Tiantian again, he doesn't say anything, just sits there with his head down and a silly smile. But when we got out and got on the train, he finally opened his mouth and kept calling his younger brother "younger brother". All the way there, he kept talking about his younger brother. When we got home, he put the toys his younger brother gave him in his treasure cabinet."
"That's just his nature." She said as she touched her husband's hand, stroking his broken palm. "He likes you in his heart."
The man smiled silently after hearing this, glanced at the small black shadow that flashed by on the wall, and kept the secret about the soldier every morning.
"At first, I was worried about them." She lowered her head and absentmindedly crumpled the sweater on her legs, then unfolded it again. "Another weak woman singing Kunqu Opera, raising her son alone..." But then she smiled and raised her head again. "But the last time I saw them, they were doing well! Let me tell you, Kunqu Opera is now an intangible cultural heritage, and Ren Songzhu is now a People's Artist!"
"Her husband is interesting too." She sat next to the man, gently kneading his shoulders and thighs, massaging him, and couldn't stop smiling.
"Song Zhu said that when she was eighteen and still singing opera in a teahouse in Nanxiang Ancient Town, a student came one day wearing a white shirt and carrying a schoolbag, squeezing in the crowd to listen to the opera. People laughed at him for being disrespectful, saying he was just here to see women. Students are shy, so after a few words, he ran away with his face red and his neck thick. But later, when he got a job and went to listen to the opera again in a well-tailored suit, people still laughed at him, saying why he dressed so formally to listen to the opera. Haha, every time he went, his face red with embarrassment, he ran away in panic."
"Aren't they together now?" She smiled, tilting her head back to appraise them carefully. "Hmm... I think that guy is good, he's a teacher. When Tiantian and I went there, he was busy in the kitchen alone, making tea and cutting fruit. After he was done, he didn't say much. He just smiled at us and said he would chat slowly before going back to the study to correct students' homework. I saw that his sweater and the cuffs were all pilling, but Songzhu and her brother's clothes were all new. You'd see if you went to her house. The carpet and sofa were piled with her brother's toys."
At this point, she patted her husband's hand mysteriously, as if she had received some good news that shouldn't be announced, and said, "Songzhu is pregnant. Let's go see her when we go to Shanghai. She's been pregnant for over five months." Her smile turned charming again, and she leaned close to her husband's ear and whispered, "What's wrong with you? You're just using all your brute strength to torment me. You're just farming and not producing anything, so you're not going to achieve anything."
He scratched his head with a silly smile and stammered for a long time, which made her laugh again. But after all, the couple still felt that having Tiantian was good enough.
The Xingyue Restaurant was closed that day, so they went to the hospital early in the morning to get their physical examination reports.
"Yuan Shouyue! Where is Yuan Shouyue?" The nurse at the door of the clinic, holding a stack of medical examination reports, shouted in a loud voice: "And Zhou Nianxing! Zhou Nianxing!"
"I'm coming! Here, here!" A woman emerged from the crowd moments later, dashing over to the nurse, adjusting her hairband, which had fallen off in her haste. She said with a grin, "Here, here." Her face drew the attention of the men, young and old, around her, but she didn't even spare a glance. She took the report and left the hospital with her husband, her bag and coat draped over him. She studied it with a frown as she walked, her brow furrowing ever tighter as she read from beginning to end. She shouted in frustration and anxiety, "Tsk, why are you still anemic?"
"Anemia..." The man beside him smiled helplessly, "Anemia is nothing."
"What's that? I'll go buy some pork liver in a bit. Just eat your liver honestly!" She looked up and yelled at him, then pulled him over and lay on his chest, listening to his heartbeat through his thick jacket and wool sweater, steady and quiet.
"They are all watching." He put his hands behind his back and smiled, waiting for her to cover her chest and yell, "Why do you care what they do?" Then he grinned with his big white teeth as if he had succeeded, stretched out his hands and held her tightly in his arms.
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