Seeing so many people appear at once, Qiao Baozhu was stunned for a moment, then greeted everyone with a smile.
After some greetings and introductions, Qiao Baozhu finally figured out the identities of these people.
Shen Xiao is the battalion commander of the third battalion, and Instructor Duan is the instructor of the third battalion. His wife's name is Zhang Cuilian. The couple came here when the regiment was first established and lived in Room 1.
The wife of Captain Song in Yard No. 47 is named Ji Hehua. The couple are childhood sweethearts and came from Yangzhou.
Wu Meili from Yard 21, her husband Jiang Sen, and Captain Song are all Shen Xiao's subordinates.
Zheng Xinxin’s husband is from the automobile company and has a good relationship with Shen Xiao.
Zhang Cuilian is the oldest and has spent the longest time in the family compound. She took the initiative to hold Qiao Baozhu's hand and explained with a smile.
"Before the mission last night, Captain Shen came to me on purpose. He said that you two would get married today and he would definitely not be able to make it back. Your marriage has been full of twists and turns, and he was afraid that you would be discouraged and not want to marry him."
Qiao Baozhu looked at Zhang Cuilian in surprise, thinking that what she said was too fake.
Shen Xiao changed the wedding room, and the Qiao family changed the bride, so the groom couldn't come on the wedding day. Their marriage is indeed worthy of the description of being full of twists and turns.
But when these words came out of Zhang Cuilian's mouth, it sounded as if Shen Xiao was afraid that she would run away.
"Captain Shen has entrusted us to come and accompany you when you get married."
Qiao Baozhu blushed and lowered her head shyly: "Thank you, sisters-in-law. I won't be polite to you now."
In any case, Shen Xiao was thoughtful and specially found his trusted wife to accompany her. Qiao Baozhu accepted his favor and would take this opportunity to ask several family members about the situation in the family compound.
The things sent by the family members are all useful at the moment.
Wu Meili took the rabbit, peeled it, cut it into pieces and stir-fried it with spicy peppers. Zhang Cuilian took two big catfish, each weighing about eleven or twelve pounds. Zheng Xinxin and her husband are both from Harbin, and they brought Russian bread. Ji Hehua is from Yangzhou, and she brought homemade salted duck. Aunt Qian, my next-door neighbor, cut a bunch of leeks from the field and picked a basket of vegetables and brought them over.
With everyone's help, plus the pork bought by Qiao Changhai, the feast was complete.
"This pork is obviously pulled from a slaughterhouse. It's fresh and good. It's even stamped with a blue stamp."
Sister Wu is tall, about 1.75 meters tall, with broad shoulders and a thick waist. She carried half a pig into the kitchen by herself, and with two kitchen knives in her hands, she quickly cut the pork in less than a few minutes.
Qiao Baozhu admired and praised: "Sister Wu, do you work in the cafeteria? You unloaded half a pig so easily, you are amazing."
Zhang Cuilian laughed and patted Qiao Baozhu on the shoulder: "You don't understand since you just arrived. Our Wu Meili is really great. People say that women hold up half the sky, and you, Sister Wu, can hold up the whole sky yourself."
Zheng Xinxin leaned over to Qiao Baozhu's ear and explained, "Almost every family in our compound raises pigs. At the end of the year, they all ask Sister Wu to help them slaughter the pigs and remove the meat."
Qiao Baozhu nodded in understanding. So that's how it is. This Sister Wu is really strong.
Qiao Changhai not only bought half a leg of meat, but also a lot of shanks and a pair of large intestines.
When a girl gets married, she always invites relatives and friends to a meal, and half of these things are prepared for the day when she returns home. If he stayed at Qiao's house, his brothers would have divided it up in less than an hour. It would be better to leave it at my daughter's home, which would save her face.
"We can't eat all the old meat. Let's cook a pot of braised pork, roast the large intestine, stew the shank bones, and keep the rest for yourselves."
As soon as Sister Wu arrived, she became the person in charge of the kitchen. Everyone just follows her instructions and does the work.
They borrowed a dining table from Aunt Qian's house next door, and together with the two dining tables, one new and one old, from Qiao Baozhu's house, they set up three tables for the feast. One table has male guests, one table has female guests, and one table has men and women sitting together.
The table was laid with shiny braised pork with potatoes, stir-fried large intestine with chili peppers, stewed ribs, spicy stir-fried rabbit meat, braised large crucian carp, pork chops with beans, stir-fried leeks and duck eggs, stir-fried cabbage with black fungus, cold tomatoes, and black fungus mixed with cucumbers.
Huang Xing ran to the service center and bought ten kilograms of loose white.
As the matchmaker, Liu Meilan stood up and said a few polite words, and then the dinner began!
"Eat your food, eat your food. Everyone has worked hard on the journey today. Eat more, you're welcome!"
Qiao Changhai smiled and invited the six drivers to eat, while his apprentice Huang Xing poured wine for everyone.
At Qiao Baozhu's table, there were seven people, including the matchmaker Liu Meilan, Chen Xiao's second aunt Zhang Guifen, Zhang Cuilian, Wu Meili, Zheng Xinxin, and Ji Hehua.
Zhang Guifen's two sons, Gao Liman, three female educated youth who were attending their wedding, and Bao Huihua formed a table for seven people.
Qiao Changhai is the father of the bride, Liu Meilan is the matchmaker, and the groom's second aunt is in charge, and the party is very lively with toasts and conversations.
As for Bao Huihua's table, although she is the elder, she can't speak. None of the six young people spoke and were not polite to each other. The tornado chopsticks were used to shovel the car's mouth. The man at the table had just finished a glass of white wine, and the plates on their table were all gone.
"Burp... It smells so good. The last time I ate meat like this was during the Chinese New Year."
Gao Liman burped and patted her belly contentedly. After devouring a bellyful of meat, she felt so sleepy that her eyelids drooped.
She stood up and walked around the yard to digest the food. Suddenly I saw a row of children standing outside the fence.
Gao Liman walked quickly to Qiao Baozhu's table, pointed outside and asked several family members with a smile: "Whose child is that standing outside? Invite him in so we can have a bite together!"
Qiao Baozhu and others looked in the direction of the sound and saw seven or eight children clinging to the fence and drooling.
"They weren't from our family. They were kids from the neighborhood. They must have smelled the meat and came running over."
Zhang Cuilian picked up the bowl and chopsticks with a smile and added a bowl of braised pork. When they reached the fence, each child was given a piece of braised pork.
"This is given to you by the bride. When Captain Shen comes back, he will invite your parents to a feast. You will all go with your parents then. Now I'll give you some meat, and you can all go home."
The living conditions of children in the staff quarters are much better than those of ordinary families, but they cannot eat meat every day. After the children ate the meat, they were even more reluctant to leave. Shouting loudly for wedding candy.
Qiao Baozhu went into the house, grabbed two handfuls of fruit candies, and distributed them to the children one by one. The little guys ran away contentedly.
Some children ate the candies and ran to show off to others, while others ran back home to share them with their family members.
As Wei Fang, who had skipped school and was going home, entered Yard No. 13, she saw Li Yan's grandson holding a piece of fruit candy and licking it.
"Gayazi, where did you get the candy?"
Gayazi was just over one year old, she couldn’t walk or speak yet, so she couldn’t give her an answer at all.
Wei Fang squinted her triangular eyes and looked around, but when she found no one around, she quickly snatched the candy from Gayazi's hand and put it into her mouth.
Ga Yazi howled loudly...
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