Chapter 057: Daily Life at the End of the Year
Wen Jiajia was fine, but Sha Yue next to her blushed.
"Hey! Why are you asking this?" She spoke in a mosquito-like voice, covering her cheeks with both hands, and her ears to her neck were all red.
"Don't be shy. It's human desire. Since we're here, we have to take something with us." Wen Jiajia was very open-minded. It was her first time here. Unlike the military hospital, where doctors would start to make fun of people after several visits, the doctors here didn't know how to do that yet.
Sha Yue never expected Wen Jiajia to be so "wild". In this age where talking about sex is taboo, she is not used to the behavior of putting things related to "sex" on the table, even though she often says some dirty words to Wen Jiajia.
But this embarrassing feeling didn't last long in my heart, as it was replaced by worries about my stomach.
"I have to take my mother home." She said, "It seems that there needs to be an old man at home who can help."
Wen Jiajia nodded, that was true.
At that time, there were no nannies or confinement nannies, so dual-income families really had to rely on their family members for help when giving birth.
Wen Jiajia counted on her fingers and said enviously, "We have a holiday on February 8th, right? If you can hold on for another half a month, you can rest for several months. Have you found a replacement?"
Sha Yue took out the candy she brought with her from her pocket and just as she was about to eat it, she remembered what the doctor said and put it back in her pocket: "I've found it, the daughter of colleague Feng Yu."
Wen Jiajia was a little surprised. It seemed that Shayue and her sister-in-law didn't have a job.
Perhaps her expression was too obvious, Sha Yue noticed it and couldn't help but laugh: "Haha, we can't just find someone to do the work in our office. At least he has to have graduated from junior high school and know how to organize the information."
Wen Jiajia slapped her head and said, "I forgot."
As they were talking, the two arrived at the pharmaceutical factory.
Passing by the big propaganda column, the most eye-catching thing is the newspaper that published Wen Jiajia's article.
Shayue and Yourongyan stopped, pulled her under the propaganda column, looked at her for a long time and said to her: "It's a pity that you don't live in the city. Believe it or not, as long as you apply, the factory will definitely allocate a house to you within two years." It also scored points in the two reports.
There are so many pharmaceutical factories in the country. Their factory can be ranked among the best in the city and province, but it is hard to compare with the big factories in the northeast and southwest. Especially in the northeast, there are four pharmaceutical factories. Whether it is the area or the number of employees, or even the hard power itself, they are far behind their pharmaceutical factories.
But they don't have an employee who can appear in newspapers twice a year. Anyway, the pharmaceutical factory has become very prominent.
Don’t mention it, Wen Jiajia really feels a little regretful.
If the house is divided now, it will definitely be demolished in a few decades. It is possible that the sky-high demolition fee will be paid, and at least you can earn two houses.
On the contrary, it is the army. Even if the army’s houses are divided, they still belong to the army. Even if they are demolished, it has nothing to do with the family members.
However, the regret only passed in a moment. Wen Jiajia was really unhappy to live in the factory.
In the evening, before going home, I heard Jiajia go to the state-owned hotel and asked the chef to help buy a chicken.
I can't bear to kill my own chickens. They have just started laying eggs. How can I bear to do such a thing as killing the chickens to get the eggs?
She realized that it would be difficult to buy chicken in the village again.
I asked about it two days ago, and it turned out that I was right.
Wei Dai said: "I asked five households, and none of them were willing to sell. Even the old hens that don't lay eggs very often have to be kept for their own New Year's Eve dinner."
Chickens are like this, let alone ducks.
But Duck Wei Dai said that they could try to catch wild ducks, and if they couldn't catch one, they could buy another, so Wen Jiajia was not in a hurry.
The master chef's surname was He. He thought Wen Jiajia was very good at paying, so he nodded and agreed. He also advised: "You bought the chicken for the New Year. If you buy it now, you have to keep it for a while, and you will waste a lot of vegetable food."
Wen Jiajia sighed heavily, "There's nothing we can do, Master He. It will be hard to buy at the end of the year. The price will be even higher then. The higher price may even exceed the vegetables and grains we feed during this period."
Master He smiled and said, "That's right."
After giving the money, Wen Jiajia wanted to leave. It gets dark quickly in winter, so she had to leave the city quickly to catch up with the daily rush of people leaving the city.
"Hey! Wait, if there are geese, would you buy them?" Master He asked again.
Wen Jiajia waved her hands and said, "No, no, I can still raise chickens, but I really can't afford to raise geese."
It’s not that there’s not enough food, but if it starts barking, the sound could probably be heard even in the family building.
"Okay." Master He waved his hand.
Wen Jiajia was pedaling her bike at a very fast speed. Dusk was falling and the sky was about to get dark, which made her a little anxious.
When we just left the city, there were few people on the road.
Wen Jiajia didn't stop, but pedaled as fast as she could despite the pain in her butt. When she was almost halfway through the journey, more and more people were traveling with her on the road.
"Jia Jia, you are slower than me today." The speaker is an older sister in the army who works in a textile factory.
Wen Jiajia smiled and said, "I was delayed for a while after get off work."
The older sister looked at the front basket of her bicycle and then at the back seat.
Wen Jiajia naturally knew what she was looking at. She was looking to see if there was any food to buy.
At some point, Wen Jiajia's reputation for sewing became known throughout the family compound.
Some say she eats meat every week, some say she goes to the hotel to pack up a big meal every few days to take home for a treat. Some say she has several sets of clothes and several pairs of shoes, which she changes every day, and some say she often goes to department stores to buy things, such as candy and cookies...
Anyway, he doesn't seem like a person who possesses such good qualities as diligence and thrift!
What they said was mostly true, and Wen Jiajia couldn't protest.
But which bastard knew so much and leaked these things out?
After a little thought, I knew it was someone I was traveling with. Only people who travel with her every day would know what she bought.
But it was strange. She didn't say every time, but at least she put things in the bag five or six times out of ten. How did those people guess what she bought? Wen Jiajia couldn't figure it out no matter how hard she tried.
This time, she didn't buy anything, so she held her head high and let them look at her however they wanted, showing it to them openly.
Wen Jiajia rode in front, with several people following behind.
When they reached the military gate, she turned around and said jokingly with a smile on her face, "I didn't buy anything today, did I? Meat, biscuits, nothing at all."
“…”
Some of the people at the back looked calm, some were in disbelief, and some smiled awkwardly and asked her why she suddenly said that.
Wen Jiajia had very good eyesight, and with the help of the bright moon, she was able to take in the expressions of several people.
After thinking it over in his mind, he said calmly, "Oh, I'm just joking with you comrades. Do you mind?"
She was not embarrassed. Her main feature was that she spoke quickly and spoke from her heart, but the people on the other side were quite embarrassed.
"I don't mind. There's nothing to mind about." The person who said this felt a little guilty.
Wen Jiajia nodded and left with a smile.
She probably knew who the long tongue was and she would have to stay away from them from now on.
When I got home, it was dark and I realized that Wei Dai had not come back yet.
He was always busy at one moment and idle at another. Wen Jiajia had gotten used to it. She threw her backpack on the sofa and started cooking.
The two children heard the noise and came out of the room.
As soon as the door opened, the sound of the radio reached Wen Jiajia's ears, "You're listening again, how long have you been listening?"
"Auntie." The two children called out, then ran to the kitchen. Wen Chun replied, "I just heard it."
Wen Jiajia also believed it, after all, the storytelling channel they often listened to would not start telling stories until six o'clock.
Wen Xuan looked up with anticipation: "Aunt, what are we going to eat tonight?"
What to eat? Anyway, there is no meat.
Wen Jiajia drained the rice and put it into a bucket to steam it. She also cut some pumpkin and stir-fried it. The pumpkin grown this year is sweet and sticky, and tastes better than the baby pumpkin that will be grown in a few decades.
Fry another plate of pickled cabbage with vinegar. As for the soup, I won’t cook it because winter melon soup is so greasy these days.
But there was only winter melon soup and mushroom soup, no other soups. Not to mention the two children, even Wen Jiajia and Wei Dai were not happy to eat them.
The pickled cabbage is stir-fried with chili peppers, which makes it sour and spicy. The stems are crisp and the leaves are juicy. The sour and spicy taste hits your mouth, and after the stimulation wears off, you can taste the sweetness of the cabbage itself.
It goes really well with rice.
After Wen Jiajia finished one bowl, she wanted to have a second bowl, but she was already 70% full, so she put down her chopsticks and didn't eat any more.
The same goes for the two children. Wen Jiajia controls their food intake. It’s okay for them to eat until they are full, but not too full.
These two girls actually liked to eat digestive tablets, so they ate more on purpose, and used the excuse of being full to ask Wen Jiajia for digestive tablets.
It's really infuriating and hilarious, and I really want to take off his pants and give him a good beating with a bamboo stick.
After dinner, before Wen Jiajia could clean up the dishes, Wei Dai came back with slightly wet hair.
Wen Jiajia quickly took a dry towel to wipe him, and then hurried to cook ginger soup.
"Did you soak in water today? Why do your hair and clothes feel wet?" Wen Jiajia frowned. "How can you soak in water in the middle of winter? Change your clothes first. The thermos contains hot water that I just boiled. Use both bottles to wash..."
Before she could finish, Wei Dai came up behind her.
He placed his head beside her ear and his hot and moist breath rushed towards her cheek.
Wen Jiajia couldn't stand it and pushed him away: "Go quickly, don't catch a cold."
Wei Dai: "You don't want me to take a shower with you?"
Wen Jiajia turned around and kicked his calf: "When did I ever ask you to accompany me to take a shower?"
It was just that some time ago she found a moth in the bathroom that was bigger than her hands and had big patterned eyes. This scared her so much that she no longer dared to take a bath alone.
Wen Jiajia was so scared that day that she screamed, and the sound was so shrill that it startled all the families living in Beishan. They thought something had happened, but it turned out to be a moth.
So Wen Jiajia contributed to the hot news after dinner in Beishan for a few days, and the three words "afraid of moths" were probably firmly tied to her.
Wei Dai looked at her with a half-smile, which made her blush and she pushed him out of the kitchen in a rage.
"Go quickly! You're showing off. If you keep nagging, don't expect me to make ginger soup for you." Wen Jiajia raised her eyebrows. She had originally planned to add brown sugar to the soup, but now she decided not to.
But when Wei Dai carried two thermoses to the bathroom, she still added brown sugar to the pot.
I just put more ginger in the soup and made it thick, until she found it pungent just by smelling it and that was when she was satisfied.
However, after taking a shower, Wei Dai drank the bowl of thick ginger soup without changing his expression. Wen Jiajia observed his face for a long time but could not see any expression of being hurt by the spiciness.
She was depressed. Well, this guy is so thick-skinned that he has no micro-expressions anymore.
Wei Dai used up two bottles of hot water, so Wen Jiajia could only boil half a pot of water.
Fortunately, the charcoal fire in the stove was still there. I poured some firewood into the charcoal pile twice and then closed the stove door. With a "bang", I heard the firewood start to burn.
The fire is strong and the water boils easily.
Wen Jiajia filled up two thermos bottles, then took out the hand warmers, filled them up as well and stuffed them into the quilt.
Ask Wei Dai: "Do you still want to use hot water?"
Wei Dai said, "Thank you Yang for bringing back half a bag of bamboo shoots. I'll peel them and cook them after dinner."
Wen Jiajia was surprised: "It's so cold here, and there's so much snow, but there are still winter bamboo shoots?"
Wei Dai laughed at her and said, "Of course there are none. It's just that there aren't as many as in our hometown."
During the New Year in my hometown...it's the bamboo shoot season. The mountains are full of winter bamboo shoots. Sometimes you can dig two or three bags in one morning.
Here, if you can get half a bag from morning to night, it's pretty good. It's not as much as the bamboo shoots you can get in your hometown during the off-year bamboo shoot season.
Wen Jiajia said, "Then I'll go ask Xie Yang for it." She didn't want to wash the dishes.
Wei Dai didn't care. After dinner, he washed a few bowls, helped her scoop the water from the pot into the bathtub, carried it into the bathroom, and finally added some firewood, added water to the pot and continued to cook.
After he finished all these things, Wen Jiajia came back carrying half a bag of bamboo shoots.
He said sarcastically, "I thought you were going to wait until the water in the tub got cold before coming back."
Wen Jiajia smiled and said, "I chatted with Teacher Shen for a while."
Then she ran to the bedroom to get clothes, and when she came out she was only wearing a thin autumn coat, which made Wei Dai very angry.
The bamboo shoots are sweet, and the smell of them lingers in the house for a long time after a night out.
Time flies like lightning, and a thousand miles pass in an instant.
Before we knew it, all the leaves on the two trees in the yard had disappeared, leaving only bare branches.
In the vegetable garden, only the garlic sprouts and leeks covered with straw were still growing lushly, and there was no sign of other vegetables.
The vegetable plots behind the family's building were all abandoned, waiting only for the next spring to be tilled and sown again.
That day, Wen Jiajia brought back the stone mill that she asked Hao Qingying's father to buy. After thinking it over, she placed the stone mill next to the door next to the kitchen.
She moved the wooden frame that Wei Dai had prepared earlier to the door and said to the comrades outside who were helping to move it, "Put it here."
The millstone was too heavy, so of course she didn't carry it back, but it was brought back with the logistics vehicle.
Comrade Xiao Wang was a kind person and brought his comrades to help her move home.
The two of them sent the Buddha to the west, and simply put the stone mill in place.
Wen Jiajia hurriedly went to the room cupboard to get apples, and after they finished installing them, she stuffed two apples into their hands.
"Hey, hey, hey, sister-in-law, what are you doing?" Xiao Wang quickly refused, "Save it for Chun'er and Xuanxuan."
Wen Jiajia refused to listen: "There are more at home, really! You should keep them, otherwise how can I ask you for help in the future."
She forced them to accept it, so they kept it. In winter, there was a shortage of vegetables and fruits, and apples were rare.
Only after the two of them left did Wen Jiajia breathe a sigh of relief.
Wen Jiajia really didn't lie to them. There were a lot of apples at home. She bought a whole box the day before yesterday.
I have to sigh again that pharmaceutical companies are really rich.
The apples were purchased by the pharmaceutical factory. The factory specially hired a transport team to go to Hebei Province to transport the apples. It is said that more than ten truckloads of apples were transported back.
So everyone knows that this year's New Year's gift is apples.
But the box at Wen Jiajia's house was bought by her. She was familiar with the finance department and knew that the factory had bought too many apples, so she asked the finance department to buy a box for her to reduce the burden on the factory.
The treasurer laughed when he heard her say this.
The "buy more" here is actually an unspoken gray rule, and the extra portion will naturally be distributed to some leaders.
But there was no shortage of a box, so just buy it. After the finance department had acted as a bridge, Wen Jiajia paid the money, and the people in the purchasing department delivered the goods. The transaction was carried out secretly, and the family's New Year's goods were finally settled.
Now that the stone mill is in place, Wen Jiajia soaks the soybeans. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow are rest days, so it's a good time to make tofu.
The next day.
The tofu swelled after being soaked in water, and the yellow color seemed to have faded a little. It looked like it could be ground. Wei Dai was rarely at home, so naturally he had to do this kind of heavy work.
Wei Dai didn't come back until two in the morning and slept until half past ten.
Just after finishing the meal, Wen Jiajia pulled him over to grind tofu.
"Planning to do it today?" Wei Dai glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. Today was only the 24th.
Wen Jiajia: "I have to go to work the day after tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If I don't do it today, I can only do it tomorrow. I have to go to the market tomorrow."
"What are you going to do?" Wei Dai moved the basin containing soybeans to the table next to the stone mill, and then took a large wooden spoon to scoop the soybeans from the basin.
"Get the bacon! I asked someone to bacon some time ago. I have to bring back the meat." Wen Jiajia was obviously greedy and said, "I go to the Hao family every now and then. The meat bacon made by their professional chefs is different. It smells so good. I can eat two bowls of rice just by the smell."
“Can it really smell this good?”
Wen Jiajia's eyes lit up: "Of course! You'll know when I get them back. We'll keep some and send them back home, and send some to big sister."
Wen Jiajia felt embarrassed to eat the brown sugar sent by her elder sister every day.
Wei Dai smiled and turned the grinding handle in his hand.
The new stone mill is not as easy to use as the old one. It always feels a little rough when grinding.
The rougher the grinding, the greater the grinding force.
That is, Wei Dai was the one grinding. If it were Wen Jiajia, she would grind for three minutes and then rest for five minutes.
But even Wei Dai took nearly an hour to grind all the beans.
Wen Jiajia went over to give him a massage on the arm, and then peeled an apple for him to eat: "Okay, we don't need you anymore, go and have a rest."
"……real?"
"real!"
Wei Dai felt numb inside. He felt it was weird that someone was so attentive and considerate all of a sudden.
Wen Jiajia really had no bad intentions. She simply thought that Wei Dai must be tired during this period, so she let him rest.
Ahem, normally, if I sleep at home, I will definitely quarrel with her two or three nights a week. But recently, I fall asleep as soon as I touch the bed, obviously I am not physically strong enough.
The ground coarse soy milk needs to be soaked.
What is soy milk? It is made by pouring boiling water into ground soy milk and stirring with a spoon.
After the foam is beaten out, skim it off, then place the steaming rack and bamboo sieve on the pot, cover the sieve with gauze, and finally scoop the soy milk into the sieve one spoonful at a time.
At this moment, the real soy milk flows into the pot through the fine holes in the gauze, while the bean dregs are filtered into the gauze.
After a while, the pot was bubbling with beans and had a strong bean flavor.
Wen Jiajia: "The soy milk is ready to drink. I'll scoop you a bowl. Do you want sweet or salty?"
Wei Dai put down the newspaper in his hand, stood up and took the bowl: "Sweet, right? Oh, and where are the two children?"
That shouldn't be the case. The soy milk flavor is so strong.
Wen Jiajia said unhappily, "She's out there having sex."
The Yuhong class has been suspended again because the teacher also has to prepare New Year’s goods.
So after breakfast, the two children ran out to play, and they played so hard that they didn’t even have time to go home to drink a sip of water.
Wei Dai said, "I'll go call them."
Wen Jiajia waved her hand and let him go.
It was sunny outside. The winter sun was white. If it weren't for the warmth from the sun shining on my body, I would have thought there was a round ice ball hanging in the sky.
There was no snow on the ground, but the land was still wet.
There is that stubborn little grass that sprouts buds as big as rice grains, but when the cold wave comes again, the green buds will wither again.
They bloom and fall, and only have a break when spring comes.
Wei Dai was good at finding people, and he quickly found the two sisters who were playing skipping rope in the open space of the family building.
"Going home." He held one in each hand.
Wen Chun was startled, turned around and saw that it was his uncle, then smiled and took his hand and said, "Uncle, can you come and be a woodpile for us?"
Wei Dai teased her: "Okay, as long as you don't drink soy milk."
Wen Xuan's eyes rolled around: "Soy milk?"
Wen Chun was surprised: "Auntie is grinding tofu, right?"
Wei Dai: "Yes, so are you guys going to play skipping rope here or go home and drink soy milk?"
Of course I went back! My uncle-in-law is so stupid. He can do skipping rope anytime, but he doesn't drink soy milk often.
The two children didn't wait for Wei Dai, and ran home one after the other.
When Wen Jiajia heard the sound, she scooped out the soy milk.
I scooped four bowls of soy milk and added sugar to each.
The soy milk is fragrant and tastes completely different from the powdered soy milk sold in bun shops decades later.
"Aunt——"
The two children cried out in disgust, but Wen Jiajia didn't even look at them. She just snorted and said, "How can you come back?"
They both agreed on the loss and just laughed.
Wei Dai was a step behind the other two and said to Wen Jiajia, "They must be sweating again. We need to clean them up."
So Wen Jiajia cast a deathly look at the two of them, scaring the two children so much that they tiptoed around, but they did not forget to drink soy milk from their bowls.
"You two had better not get your autumn clothes wet! You just changed your clothes yesterday, and your washed autumn clothes are not dry yet." As he said this, he added charcoal to the brazier and took a burning firewood from the stove and put it into the brazier.
Wait until the brazier is burning well, then cover it with the drying basket and put the autumn clothes washed yesterday on it to dry.
"Drink it quickly, and then dry it yourself after you finish it." Wen Jiajia said.
The two children laughed again, as long as they could drink soy milk.
After the couple finished drinking, one went to order some halogen while the other went to wash the tofu mold.
Wei Dai also made the mold some time ago. He made molds for four tables and can make 100 blocks of tofu.
The sun moved westward and it was afternoon.
"Are you ready?"
After ordering the brine in the kitchen, Wen Jiajia, whose tofu had already solidified into tender cubes, poked her head out and asked.
Wei Dai touched the half-dried mold and moved it to the kitchen: "It's done!"
Wen Jiajia scooped the tofu pudding into the mold, thought for a moment and asked Wei Dai, "Do you want to eat the tofu pudding? Let's make some dipping sauce for it later."
It just so happened that I fried chili oil at home yesterday. I poured it over the tofu pudding and added some chopped radish and scallions. It will definitely taste good.
It was rare that she was so interested in cooking, so Wei Dai naturally followed her lead and even suggested: "It would be good to add some crushed peanuts."
"Yes!" Wen Jiajia became more and more greedy the more she thought about it, and she couldn't help but speed up her movements. After the tofu for the four tables was pressed with stones, she started to pound the peanuts. She had to be quick, because tofu pudding made at home would easily become hard.
Pour chili oil on the white and tender tofu pudding, and then add sour radishes, fragrant peanuts, and chopped green onions... With a slurp, the couple sat by the door and enjoyed the delicious meal.
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