Since the senior citizens' group left.
They always kept the courtyard house locked because it was just their family left.
Lou Xiao'e doesn't usually like living here.
Lou's father's health deteriorated, and she spent most of her time taking care of him.
In the huge courtyard, only Wang Shouren and Qin Jingru remained.
Therefore, they usually don't keep the courtyard gate open.
The people around knew what was going on here. Apart from a few children of the elderly who would occasionally come back to clean the house, no one else usually came. Most of the time, Qin Jingru was the one who went out to have fun on her own.
"Shh!" Qin Jingru pinched Laifu's mouth shut.
"Woo woo woo woo..." Laifu could only make "woo woo woo woo" sounds, looking very anxious.
Qin Jingru picked up the dog and got up to walk outside.
Wang Shouren also went out with them.
As soon as I went outside, I saw an old man wearing a flashy shirt, a beret, and sunglasses come in.
Before Qin Jingru could say anything, Laifu, who was in her arms, barked.
"Oh ho, you've got a puppy now, and it's pretty fierce. Is it Old Wang's from next door?" The old man took off his glasses, glanced at the puppy, and said cheerfully to Qin Jingru and Wang Shouren.
"Third Uncle?" x2
"Wow, you're so trendy! You've turned into this after just one trip to Hong Kong," Qin Jingru couldn't help but say.
The old man's attire is quite similar to that of the hippies in Hong Kong; the only thing missing is that he dyes his hair all sorts of colors.
"Hey, going out for a trip shouldn't make you a little different, right?"
"What about the others?" Wang Shouren asked curiously.
"After that, I'll come back first, open the door, and be the vanguard."
One by one, the elderly men, women, and old folks who had previously lived in the courtyard returned.
Everyone was beaming with joy and extremely excited.
Not long after the elderly returned, many of their younger generations followed suit.
Sometimes, having an elderly person in a family creates an extraordinary sense of community, and this courtyard house today is particularly cohesive.
The three uncles, three aunts, one uncle, and one aunt didn't go out for dinner; they cooked at Wang Shouren's house instead.
Their kitchen hadn't been used for several months, and they needed some time to prepare, so they simply made do with a meal at Wang Shouren's house.
They also brought them some gifts. These days, souvenirs still have some meaning, unlike the perfunctory ones of later generations.
The adults were talking at the table, while little Laifu ran around under the table, stopping every now and then to sniff around, wagging its tail rapidly. An older woman, finding Laifu adorable, even tossed it two pieces of raw meat.
Now the little guy is really into raw meat.
"Good heavens, Old Wang's dog is such a treasure, how could he bear to let it have puppies?"
"That was an unplanned pregnancy." Qin Jingru chatted with her third uncle about recent gossip, talking about this family and that family, showing a hint of inheriting her third uncle's mantle.
"By the way, Lao Yan, where are your kids? Weren't they supposed to be back today? Why isn't any of them back?" The old man frowned; he didn't have much affection for this kind of behavior.
Yan Bugui poured himself a glass of wine and said slowly, "I didn't let them come. Yu Li and her husband went to another place, and my other sons are not in Beijing. There's no need to bother them. It's not like I can't move."
"You're really magnanimous." Qin Jingru gave the Third Uncle a thumbs up while playing with Xiao Laifu.
I don't know what got into Uncle San, but the older people get, the more open-minded they become.
"Hey, if you've been stingy your whole life, you have to be more magnanimous in your old age. And you know what? I've found that there's a prerequisite for being magnanimous."
"What?" an old man asked curiously.
"I don't lack money!"
"Hey, I thought you were going to spout some profound wisdom," an old man said helplessly, taking a sip of his drink. "It's all about money, isn't it?"
"No, that's not it. Ninety-nine percent of things in this world are about money. If I didn't have money, I wouldn't dare to go abroad. If I didn't have money, I would have to stay here and worry about this and that. Tell me, isn't that right? If it were you in the past, would you have let Xiao Chuan go abroad?" The third uncle asked with a smile.
An old man pondered for a moment and nodded: "That's true. If it were me in the past, I definitely wouldn't have dared to let him go too far."
"That's it, why aren't we worried? It's because we have grain in our hands and we're not panicking. Besides, we're still healthy." The third uncle patted his chest and gave a thumbs up: "They can't just not come back to smash the basin, can they? If they really don't come, then this old man really has nothing to say."
"Over the years, the most profound thing I've come to understand is this: 'When the granaries are full, people know etiquette.' When we were poor and had nothing to eat, who cared about culture or morality? Just surviving was a blessing. Later, our country improved, and rules were established. This is a good thing; at least, it helps people become truly human. Now that things have developed to this point, at least this old man like me isn't worried anymore. What worries me is the future of their generation."
"I've lived enough," the old man said cheerfully, taking a sip of his drink.
"That's you, I haven't lived enough yet." An old man said irritably, taking a sip as well.
The two older women were distributing gifts on the side; they had originally planned to cook. However, Wang Shouren simply made a phone call and ordered food to be delivered to his door. Nowadays, some well-known restaurants, or rather, restaurants that aren't short of money, are gradually installing telephones to deliver food directly to people's homes, and most of the time it's free.
If you're willing to give a small tip for running the errand, it's not a big deal.
The older woman looked very healthy, with rosy cheeks and a radiant complexion. The more she looked like this, the more worried Wang Shouren became.
At the end of last year, Wang Shouren noticed that the older woman's complexion was off. For an elderly person, having a rosy complexion like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl is not necessarily a good thing.
The three older women were excited, and the older woman was also enjoying herself, so Wang Shouren didn't want to disturb them.
Moreover, he himself wasn't really confident, since the time had come. He could only sigh inwardly and join the conversation between the two old men.
To be honest, when men chat, they always talk about the same few things, from ancient times to the present. If they want to boast, the best thing to do is to talk about national affairs.
Qin Jingru was dragged over by two middle-aged women to help distribute the gifts.
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