Winter fishing in the north is quite famous. At this time of year, the river is covered with thick ice. When she has nothing to do, she will chisel a hole, and then the fish will swim over in groups. She will scoop them up one ladle at a time.
Now, a large quantity of dried fish has accumulated in the corridor.
After handing the bucket of fish to Zhu Hong again and giving her three eggs as payment, Meng Fuyan braved the wind and snow to go home.
At home, younger brother Meng Yunji was reading and doing his homework. The little guy was already on winter vacation. Children of this age love to move around, but the educated youth compound was far from the village, and with the freezing weather, going out would be quite a hardship. Most people would stay home if they could avoid it.
In the days before cell phones and televisions, there really wasn't much to do at home.
But it doesn't matter. For a top student, studying is also a very happy thing. With a top student sister by his side, Meng Yunji is not worried about having nothing to do at all.
"Sister, you're back!"
"Hmm, are you hungry? I caught a lot of fish today. We'll have braised fish for lunch."
"Okay, I'll start the fire later."
"OK!"
These past few days, without the Wu siblings around, Meng Fuyan and her brother have been living a very relaxed life. They feel like their eyes have been redeemed, and they feel refreshed.
Meng Fuyan returned to her room and changed out of her clothes. She was soaked from the snow.
The house was warm. Even when she wasn't home, Meng Yunji would keep the kang (heated brick bed) in her room lit and the brazier burning. There was no way around it; that girl Zhu Hong was just too capable. Knowing that Meng Fuyan was willing to exchange things for her firewood, she went up the mountain almost every day.
Now that Meng Fuyan has enough firewood piled up in her backyard, she might as well use it freely.
Burning down one more room will help alleviate the overall stress on the house.
A fragrant chicken soup was simmering on the kitchen stove, ready to drink. Meng Fuyan added some salt and stirred it.
The rice on the other stove was already cooked. Meng Fuyan nodded. Not bad, her younger brother can cook now.
The rice was cooked perfectly, neither too soft nor too hard, with plump grains—quite good.
I used some hot water to clean the fish, soaked some mushrooms, and cooked them together before serving.
On the other side, Yuan Yi, wrapped in a thin cotton-padded coat, smelled the chicken soup in the air and almost drooled with envy.
Who would have thought that he, a rich young master, would now be reduced to drooling at the mere smell of chicken soup?
He knew that the fragrance was coming from Meng Fuyan's room. In the entire educated youth compound, Meng Fuyan was the richest. She had a lot of meat coupons and knew how to hunt.
Moreover, the last winter hunt was very successful. They saw with their own eyes that the captain gave Meng Fuyan a lot of meat. Later, he secretly gave her about 20 jin (10 kg) of meat. He happened to see this scene when he returned from the county town.
Standing under the dormitory corridor, looking at Meng Fuyan's room not far away, smoke was billowing from the chimney; she must be cooking!
The food at her house must be delicious; her house is spacious, with large windows and glass, and concrete floors…
Yuan Yi was cold and hungry at the moment, and he deeply regretted breaking off his engagement with Meng Fuyan. If they hadn't broken off the engagement, they would probably be married by now, right?
He would be living in Meng Fuyan's house right now, enjoying the warm and spacious house, lying in bed waiting for his wife to cook and serve him the meals.
The more Yuan Yi thought about it, the more he felt that this was how it should be. They had only had some misunderstandings back then, so how could they have broken off the engagement?
It's all Wu Siyu's fault. Now that Wu Siyu is no longer interfering, he and Meng Fuyan should reconcile.
The aroma of chicken soup was so tempting that Yuan Yi couldn't help but walk towards Meng Fuyan's house. When he arrived at the door, the aroma inside became even stronger. Yuan Yi greedily took a few breaths and immediately knocked on the door.
"Yanyan, it's me. Please open the door."
Meng Fuyan heard the voice but ignored it.
Yuan Yi continued tapping; after all, once the first step was taken, everything else would be much simpler.
"Yanyan, open the door! I know you're in there. I'm here to apologize. There were some misunderstandings between us before, all because Wu Siyu deliberately stirred things up. We grew up together, childhood sweethearts, and he was your fiancé... Ah..."
Before he could finish his mushy, sycophantic remarks, Meng Fuyan couldn't hold back any longer. She opened the door and kicked it out.
Yuan Yi didn't expect that the first thing Meng Fuyan did after opening the door was to kick him. Caught off guard, he was kicked hard and fell back several meters to the ground in the snow. Just as he was about to speak, he noticed shadows passing by.
Upon seeing the person who arrived, Meng Fuyan exclaimed with delight, "Brother Gu, you're back! Come in quickly!"
The three of them, Gu Tingzhi, Xu Jing, and Fu Chaosheng, came against the wind and snow, their bodies covered in snow.
They stood under the eaves, taking off their cotton-padded coats and brushing off the snow. Gu Tingzhi glanced at Yuan Yi, and that one glance sent a chill down Yuan Yi's spine, making him shiver. He didn't dare say another word, and when they went inside, he could only silently go back inside.
Meng Fuyan didn't even look at Yuan Yi before closing the door.
They quickly brought the brazier to the kitchen. "Warm yourselves up quickly, it's too cold outside. Have you eaten yet?"
Xu Jing said with a bitter laugh, "No, the mountain roads are too difficult to travel. We started traveling in the middle of the night and used all our strength. We're only just getting down the mountain now. I'm exhausted."
"Little sister, I'm so tired and hungry. Do you have anything to eat? Do you have any hot water?"
They were almost soaked through, with snow water on the outside and sweat on the inside, and their feet were numb with cold. They were suffering terribly.
Meng Fuyan hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, there's plenty of food. You should quickly change your clothes and shoes and go to Yunji's room to change. There's chicken soup here, it's still hot, have a sip first."
Meng Fuyan served each of them a bowl of hot chicken soup. The three of them felt better after sharing the poison. They went to Xu Jing and Fu Chaosheng's room to get clean clothes.
However, the three of them didn't come over to change their clothes; they changed in the cold, sterile room before coming over.
Meng Yunji brought over a large basin and poured in hot water for them to soak their feet.
Putting his feet in hot water and warming himself by the fire, Xu Jing felt like he had come back to life.
"Ouch, I'm freezing! This weather is unbearable."
Meng Fuyan was making chicken soup with noodles when she asked, "Where have you all been? We haven't seen you for so many days, the brigade leader was so worried."
As she put the noodles into the pot, she used a fan to fan the stove's vents, making the fire burn faster.
“At first, the captain was relatively calm, but later he came over almost every day to ask if you had returned. With such heavy snow, we were all worried that something might have happened to you in the mountains.”
Gu Tingzhi watched her busy figure, a different kind of tenderness in his eyes. "Nothing much. We found some things in the mountains, took some people to check them out, and found some human traffickers hiding there. We just happened to run into them, so we took people to deal with them."
"Just keep this to yourself, don't tell anyone else. There are probably other people behind those human traffickers, but they haven't been caught yet."
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