Chapter 239
The mental outlook of the entire Jiangjia Village was just like Jiang Hongbing at this moment, with a rosy complexion. From afar one could see the pure and bright smile on his face, and everyone had a look of vigorous hope on their face.
Jiang Jun’s house has been built to the third floor and is visibly large.
Jiang Hongbing was standing on the wooden board on the third floor with a brick in his hand.
The eldest cousin's wife was a very capable woman. She used a shovel to stir the cement slurry, poured it into a small gray bucket, carried one in each hand downstairs, hung it on the hook, and shouted, "Pull!"
Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing from upstairs pulled the cement slurry up and poured the cement slurry in the bucket evenly on the brick wall. Then they threw the plastic bucket down with a "pop" sound, quickly wiped the cement with a sharp knife, and the cement became smooth. Then they quickly stacked the red bricks on the cement one by one, and knocked them tightly with a sharp knife. In this way, a layer of wall bricks was laid.
Experienced workers like them can build walls very quickly and lay them flat and straight.
After the two buckets of cement mortar were laid, Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing wiped the sweat off their faces, quickly climbed down the stairs with the ropes, and came up to greet them: "There is a phone at home now, call us in advance when you come back, and we will pick you up at the dock!"
The current pier in Jiangjia Village is closer than the ferry, and it only takes half an hour to walk there.
Grandpa Jiang smiled leisurely as always and said, "Ningning and Baizi are here, why do you need to answer the call? You are busy all year round, so you don't need to answer it!"
Jiang Hongbing looked at Jiang Bai again, took off his gloves and reached out to pat his shoulder, but when he looked at his hands, he took them back and rubbed them on his body, but they were still not clean. He smiled in admiration and said, "Good boy, did you eat fertilizer? How come you are so tall? Taller than your second uncle, right?"
Jiang Bai pursed his lips and smiled shyly.
Jiang Hongbing looked at Jiang Ning again: "Even Ningning is almost as tall as me!"
Jiang Ning is now 1.72 meters tall. Her hometown has snow and mud in winter, so every time she comes back, she wears thick-heeled leather shoes with three-centimeter heels, which are both waterproof and non-slip. Plus, girls look slightly taller than their actual height. She is 1.75 meters tall with shoes on, but looks like 1.78 meters. She is tall and thin, and has a somewhat cold temperament when she is not smiling, and when she smiles, it is like ice and snow melting.
She smiled and glanced at the big house that Jiang Jun's family was building, and said to Jiang Jun with a smile: "Third brother, congratulations, you will be able to have your beam-raising wine soon, right?"
Jiang Jun is one year younger than Jiang Song. Hearing this, he scratched his head a little embarrassedly. Jiang Hongbing immediately teased him, "Not only can you drink his beam wine, but you can also drink his engagement wine at the end of the year!"
In one sentence, Jiang Jun was embarrassed.
The second cousin's wife laughed and shouted loudly: "Your third brother will want you to roll out of bed by then!"
For a moment, the entrance of Jiang Jun’s newly built house was filled with loud laughter.
Jiang's aunt was originally downstairs, throwing bricks to Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing upstairs. She had a straw fork in her hand and quickly forked the ground, and one or two bricks were thrown up easily. Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing scooped up a dozen bricks skillfully and quickly stacked them side by side on the wooden bridge, and soon piled them on the wall.
Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing both went downstairs. Aunt Jiang didn't need to go back and forth. She washed her hands in a nearby ditch, took off her dirty apron, and came over, smiling and saying, "Are you hungry after coming back? Come on, Aunt Jiang will go make you some food!"
Jiang Ning saw that her hands were red and swollen from the cold, like tender carrots, so she hurried over, held her aunt's cold hands, and helped her warm them.
Unlike her previous life when her limbs were always cold, in this life Jiang Ning's hands were warm and dry. She held her aunt's hands, as if it warmed her heart all of a sudden, making her face burst into smiles. She felt that Ning Ning was not her daughter. The more she looked at her, the more she loved her. She was so happy that her eyes were full of love that she held Jiang Ning's hand. She was afraid that she would freeze her, so she wanted to let go of her hand, but Jiang Ning held it tightly and held both of her hands in his warm palms, stroking her gently to warm her.
Aunt Jiang looked up at Jiang Ning, her eyes full of kindness: "Hey, you don't have to hold me, don't let me get cold. You young girls can't get cold."
This year she is planting wolfberries, picking tea leaves, and running a restaurant. Compared with last year, my aunt has lost a lot of weight. Her originally round face like Maitreya Buddha has become so round that her chin has emerged this year, and her double chin is almost gone.
But she was wearing a lot of clothes, including sweaters, vests, down jackets and overcoats, which made her figure look as plump and bloated as before. But everyone was used to such an aunt-in-law and felt she was friendly and kind.
Seeing that she refused to let go, the aunt-in-law took her hand and walked home along the cement path at the old well at the entrance of the village.
Taking this path, which is closer, you can go directly through the old well at the entrance of the village to the lotus pond under the high platform, and then climb up the waterproof platform to reach my uncle's wife's home.
Last year, Jiang Hongbing got married, and Jiang's father and mother came back a little earlier. This year, more people are selling boxed lunches near the train station. Even though Jiang's father's food is delicious and the price is affordable, it has more or less affected the business. At the end of the year, there are many people at the train station and business is good, so they want to work a few more days this year and make more money.
During this year's winter vacation, Jiang Ning had nothing to do, and Jiang Bai had no filming during the winter vacation because he had to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination. In addition, Grandpa Jiang missed his old friends in his hometown, so they came back a little early.
My aunt opened the door.
They are still living with the second son Jiang Hongbing. If they want to move, they have to wait until Jiang Jun's big house is fully built.
Jiang Ning noticed that this year, there were more saplings on the platforms of every household. Because it was winter, the leaves of the saplings had fallen off and they were bare. It was impossible to tell what kind of tree they were just by looking at the branches, so he asked Aunt Jiang.
Aunt Jiang smiled and pointed to her and said, "Look, those are peach trees. My peaches are delicious. This year, tourists like to eat my peaches. This year, many families have planted them. Those are persimmon trees and chestnut trees."
Everything Aunt Jiang's wife grows tastes better than others. Even the peaches from her peach trees are sweeter than others.
Jiang Ning's impression of the local persimmon trees is that every household has trees full of persimmons, which hang on the trees and fall to the ground one by one to rot, but no one picks them. Many families, like Grandpa Jiang in his previous life, even grow watermelons, tomatoes, and persimmons, but no one eats them and they feed them to pigs.
Because there are too many of them, they are everywhere in the local area. Every household has a persimmon tree, some have one or two, and some have three or four. But they can't sell them all, and they don't know how to make persimmon cakes.
But these things were unimaginable good things when Jiang Ning was a child. As soon as the wild persimmons on the mountain turned green and yellow, people picked them in baskets and brought them home, buried them in wood ash, waiting for them to soften and turn red.
When I was a child, I wanted to eat something but I couldn’t find it. I don’t know why, but when I grew up, it was so abundant that no one wanted it and no one ate it.
However, the locals rarely plant chestnuts, because the mountains and plains are full of wild chestnuts. When she was a child, she often saw Grandma Jiang using snakeskin bags to pick many chestnuts and pile them in the corners of the walls. She would sprinkle some water on the chestnut shells, and after a few days, all the shells would fall off. All she had to do was sweep away the shells, and underneath would be the black chestnuts. She would then take them to Aunt Jiang's house in Shuibu Town and ask Aunt Jiang to help sell them.
Jiang Ning felt that there were actually more resources to be tapped in his hometown, which only needed to be tapped out bit by bit to generate economic benefits.
This is truly a treasure trove!
The chestnut shells will not be thrown away. After drying, they can be used together with rice bran and sawdust to make good materials for making braziers in winter. Some firewood and branches with sparks are poured into an iron basin with a hole in it. A shovel of chestnut shells are sprinkled on it and then covered with rice bran or sawdust. A brazier can keep warm for a day and a night, and there is still residual heat until the next day.
When they were young, their clothes, shoes and insoles were dried in this way on the bamboo cover over the brazier.
Just at this moment, the aunt-in-law directly lifted the bamboo cover used to dry clothes for her granddaughter, took out the charcoal basin wrapped in cotton cloth, put it in the rectangular fire barrel, and then covered it with a thick quilt the size of a baby quilt. She let Jiang Ning and Grandpa Jiang go in to warm themselves by the fire, and she went to the kitchen to make food for Jiang Ning.
Before going in, he asked Jiang Ning with a smile on his face: "Do you want to eat rice noodles or fried rice cakes? We killed a pig this year and made a lot of pickled meat and sausages. When you start school, you and Baizi will bring some to school to eat!"
Although Aunt Jiang was just a housewife in previous years and did not earn money outside, she raised two pigs every year. In the 1990s, a pig could be sold for more than 1,000 yuan, and two pigs would be nearly 3,000 yuan. This 3,000 yuan was earned by Aunt Jiang herself, which is one of the reasons why she was so confident in front of Uncle Jiang.
This year, because she opened a small restaurant, there would be a lot of leftovers every day, so she raised an extra pig, and her two daughters-in-law also raised two pigs. The leftovers and rice bran alone were enough to keep the pigs fat and strong. So after selling two pigs this year, she did not sell the remaining one, but slaughtered it at home. Firstly, her youngest son was getting engaged on the 28th of the lunar year, and when the in-laws came, they would have to hold an engagement party. Secondly, her youngest son was getting married on the 6th of the lunar year, and she would also have to hold a banquet.
In previous years, a banquet table could have 20 kilograms of meat, and each table could have a chicken, which was already a big banquet. But this year, Uncle Jiang's mother's family prepared half a fat black pork and froze it there. For the remaining half, in addition to the pig's tail, limbs, and offal, they bought a few pairs of sausage casings and dried a lot of sausages and bacon. The bacon is most delicious when mixed with garlic leaves and fried with rice cakes.
As soon as Aunt Jiang mentioned this, Jiang Ning felt that her mouth was already watering. The three of them nodded and said, "We want rice cakes!"
Grandma Jiang had just returned from the old store at the entrance of the village after singing Christian songs with a group of old ladies. She heard Grandpa Jiang's eyes shining with desire to eat fried rice cakes with bacon and garlic leaves. She couldn't help but scold him, "You old man, you are asking for death. Don't you see how old you are? You're still eating rice cakes? You'll feel uncomfortable if you can't digest them and your stomach hurts!"
Jiang Ning said hurriedly: "Yes, yes, I'll go make noodles for grandpa."
Grandma Jiang no longer thought Jiang Ning was lazy. She walked in with a smile and said, "You just came back, why do you need to make noodles for him? I can do it!"
Jiang Bai was so scared that he quickly stepped out of the fire barrel with his long legs and said, "Let me do it!" Then he went to the kitchen and prepared food with Aunt Jiang.
Because of Grandma Jiang's cooking skills that have remained the same for decades, no one dares to let her cook. Others say that the food cooked by so-and-so is as good as pig food, which is an exaggeration. What Grandma Jiang cooks is really no different from pig food.
From this point of view, Grandpa Jiang and Grandma Jiang are worthy of being a couple. The food they cook is just as bad!
Aunt Jiang was cooking noodles on a coal stove while Jiang Bo was cutting rice cakes nearby.
Cutting rice cakes is strenuous work, and it is usually the job of Jiang Hongbing and Jiang Jun at home. Jiang Hongjun and his wife have separated to live on their own and cook separately.
Jiang Bai is not good at speaking, and the three boys of Jiang Dabo's mother don't know what to talk about with Jiang Bai, so they talked about the topic that the women in the village like to talk about the most: "You will graduate from college next year, right? At this age, you should also find a partner. When your third brother gets married, it will only be you and Songzi. Have you found a partner outside?"
Jiang Bo was cutting rice cakes, his face was a little red, and he said, "How can I find a partner? I don't even have enough time to study every day."
It’s really not enough, I have to film and study at the same time.
His desire to make money is much stronger than his desire for love.
Maybe because he had been short of food and clothing since childhood, he loved saving money very much. If his sister had not allowed him to take out a loan in advance to buy two houses and a shop, he would have saved money forever.
He feels safe when he has money.
Aunt Jiang sat by the stove. The pale yellow light from the stove made her face look very soft. She smiled and said softly, "It's almost easy to find someone. Find a college student in the university."
Although life in my hometown is better now, the general idea of rural people is that children from the village can have a bright future only if they can leave the countryside, and college students should find another college student to live with.
What kind of future can you achieve by wandering around the small piece of land in your hometown all day long?
Jiang Bai smiled embarrassedly.
Aunt Jiang smiled and said, "Don't be embarrassed. Ningning has found a partner. Don't let your two older brothers still be single when Ningning is married."
She just said this casually. She really had no topics to talk about with her nephew. All she could see was Jiangjia Village, and she only cared about the children's affairs. These were all she could talk about.
After Jiang Bai cut the rice cake, Aunt Jiang took out a piece of bacon she had dried.
They both make bacon, but I don’t know how Aunt Jiang makes it. The bacon she makes is fragrant and delicious, and not too salty. It is fried with eggs, mung bean sprouts, winter green vegetables, and garlic leaves in rapeseed oil. The aroma is so fragrant that Jiang Ning couldn’t sit still outside.
In her previous life, she had been away from home for many years. Every time she came back for the Chinese New Year, she would miss the noodles made by Aunt Jiang. No matter how delicacies the food outside was, it could not taste like the taste of her hometown. Even the rice cakes in her hometown were different from those eaten outside. They were especially soft and sticky, but not pure glutinous rice. Instead, they had the perfect taste made from the rice unique to their hometown.
Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai were both full of rice cakes. They didn't go back to the Jiang family, but took a nice nap at Uncle Jiang's mother's house.
In the afternoon, Jiang Ning hadn't woken up yet, but Jiang Bai had already gotten up early and went to clean the Jiang family's house.
In fact, there was nothing much to clean. This year, the Jiang family's house was used as a hotel by Uncle Jiang and his family. Except for the rooms of Jiang's father, Jiang's mother, and Jiang Song, which were locked tightly, the rest of the rooms were all rented out to tourists. The house was very clean, and the new quilts and mattresses in the house were all dried in the sun and smelled of the sun.
The main problem with the Jiang family’s house is that it’s empty.
It's empty and there's no sense of life.
Even though it has been built for two or three years, because no one has lived there for a long time, there is no furniture in the house except the commonly used tables, chairs, cabinets and beds. The tables, chairs, cabinets and cabinets are all brand new.
There weren't many signs of use in the kitchen. There wasn't even any firewood under the stove, just dozens of coal briquettes left over from last year.
Uncle Jiang rented the Jiang family's land to grow crops, and he had to wait for Jiang's father and mother to come back before he could deliver the crops to them. When they were not back, the crops would be light or heavy and difficult to deliver. Another thing to say was the vegetable garden.
Just like last year, Aunt Jiang opened two small vegetable plots in the yard for the Jiang family. In the summer, they picked vegetables from the plot and sold them to tourists. Even in the winter, when the vegetables grew lushly and Jiang's father and mother were not at home, they would come from time to time to pick some coriander, garlic, and other vegetables to eat themselves.
Jiang Bai stood in the empty house, looking at the cold pots and pans in the kitchen, and for a moment he felt at a loss as to where to start.
I don't know when it started, but he seemed to have gotten used to life in Shanghai, used to the flush toilets and electric water heaters in Shanghai, used to having hot water for bathing at all times, used to the clean bathroom, used to the natural gas and range hood in the new house, used to turning on the faucet and having water come out when he wanted to wash kitchen knives and chopping boards, without having to go to the old well at the entrance of the village to fetch water to drink.
When friends came to his new house for a dinner party, they could cook at any time. He could clean the kitchen while cooking and have fun eating, drinking and having fun with his friends. Because they were all classmates from the same school and major, they seemed to have endless topics to talk about even when they were just talking about female classmates at school. He felt indescribably relaxed just listening to them bragging and chatting quietly.
Unconsciously, he seemed to regard the house in Shanghai as his own home, his own nest. There, with his grandfather by his side, he felt safe and comfortable. He no longer had the sense of belonging to this house that his parents had always emphasized as his eldest brother's home when it was first built.
He stood in the kitchen with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking at all the pots and pans in the kitchen. He felt like he was standing in someone else's house and he couldn't touch these things easily.
Standing in this house, Jiang's father's laughter would ring in his mind at any time: "This house is for Songzi. After we build Baizi's house, our mission as husband and wife will be accomplished!"
This sentence seemed to remind him at all times that this was not his home, this was not his house, he was an outsider living in this house.
This also made him feel a bit out of place standing in this empty and deserted big house, as if he was standing in someone else's home.
He couldn't wait to be with his grandfather and sister. Only in this way did he seem to have warmth all over his body.
He walked to the gate and looked in the direction of his uncle's house. His sister was still taking a nap, and his grandfather must have woken up and gone to play with his old friends.
He rolled up his sleeves, picked up the broom, and stood up to clean his grandfather's room, his own and his sister's room inside and out. He cleaned away the dust on the windowsill, the dust in the corridor outside, and the dust in the attic one by one.
As for Jiang's father and mother's room and Jiang Song's room, the doors were locked tightly. Jiang Bai didn't know where the key was, so he couldn't open the door and couldn't help clean up.
Only by keeping himself busy in this way can he stop himself from having wild thoughts, suppress the urge to escape in his heart, and continue to live in this place, in the village where he was born and raised, in this "home".
Jiang Hongbing got married, so Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai could no longer stay at Jiang's aunt's house as before. Jiang's aunt used to be the mistress of the house, but now her second cousin's wife is the mistress. Jiang Ning could no longer make things difficult for her aunt, so the three of them returned to Jiang's father's house at night.
Jiang Bai brought back 50 kilograms of rice, a plastic bucket of rice cakes, a bag of rice flour, a bucket of rapeseed oil, and some sweet potato noodles, bacon, sausages, pig blood, etc. made by Jiang's aunt from her house. In the evening, the three of them used a small red clay stove to light a simple pot and made a pig blood vermicelli pot.
Jiang Ning is becoming more and more lazy now. Jiang Bai is the one who cooks at home and also washes the dishes after meals.
Jiang Bai naturally had an opinion about this and said to Jiang Ning: "Why are you so lazy now?"
He remembered that his sister was not like this when she was a child.
Jiang Ning lazily held the 'Wugong Tea' from her hometown, and in the misty air, she gently sipped the clear tea soup, and said with a sweet smile: "I can't help it, who made me have a good brother?"
Good brother Jiang Bai's lips curled up quickly when he was praised, but he controlled himself not to smile too obviously. He quickly cleaned up the dishes with satisfaction. The three of them sat in the main room looking at each other, and for a moment they didn't know what to do.
Entertainment in the countryside is extremely limited. It's not so bad in the summer when there are many tourists, with crayfish, fried river crabs, grilled fish in the evening, and square dance disco at night. In the winter, when there are no more tourists, the weather is too cold, the roads are slippery with snow, and the square dance disco is also cancelled. Every household closes their doors and stays at home during the winter. The only entertainment is watching TV.
The Jiang family's only black and white TV was in Jiang's father and mother's room. The room was locked and they couldn't see it. It was only half past six after dinner. The three of them took a nap at Uncle Jiang's mother's house at noon. Jiang Ning slept longer and slept for two hours before getting up. At this time, the three of them were very energetic and had nothing to do.
On winter nights, few old men would gather together to brag, as they would all go to bed early at home.
When young people have nothing to do, they get together to play mahjong, poker, or pai gow or golden flowers.
Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai both hate the gambling culture in the village. Jiang Bai would rather play chess by himself than play cards or mahjong.
After sitting for a while, Jiang Bai took out the chessboard and suggested: "How about we play chess?"
Jiang Ning is not uninterested in playing chess, but in playing chess with Jiang Bai.
Jiang Bai loves playing chess. He always plays chess on the chessboard when he is free. He has been good at chess since he was a child. Jiang Ning loses nine out of ten games when playing with him. Later on, he lost all interest in chess. Hearing this, he quickly shook his head and said, "I won't play."
She doesn't delve too much into this stuff, but she doesn't have Jiang Bai's enthusiasm for playing chess.
The three of them sat down again. After a while, Jiang Bai suddenly said, "Brother hasn't been back for several years, right? I don't know if he will come back this year."
The Jiang family all assumed that Jiang Song had gone to jail, but it had been several years since the crackdown in 1996. Everyone thought that even if Jiang Song had been involved in a fight, there should have been news about him by now, right?
Even Jiang Hehua, who had been in prison for three years, was released this year.
Jiang Hehua's brother Jiang Shengzhi has already graduated from university. Before Jiang Hehua went to jail, the former brigade secretary's family planned for Jiang Shengzhi to come back and take the civil service exam and work in the county or town government, and Jiang Hehua would follow the same path in the future.
Now that they have all settled down outside, the original plan is definitely not feasible. No one knows what their plans are now outside, and no one cares.
During the Qingming Festival this year, the former brigade secretary came back alone. He visited the graves of his ancestors, cut the wild wormwood at the door, locked the door and left again.
When he was the brigade secretary, he always looked young and energetic. Now, most of his hair has turned white, his skin has become much darker, and he has become thinner.
He didn't seem to want the villagers to see him, and he didn't say hello to them. He came and left in a hurry.
Jiang Ning turned the warm glass in her hand. The rising mist obscured the cold expression on her face. Even her tone seemed a little vague: "Who knows?"
Jiang Ning knew that Jiang Song had been missing for six or seven years in his previous life. The rumor outside was that after his business failed, he joined a pyramid scheme, so he didn't dare to call home or contact his family, for fear of harming all his relatives. Nowadays, people are terrified of pyramid schemes, and his words moved Jiang's father, mother, and his uncle's relatives.
At that time, Jiang's father and mother were so worried about him that they couldn't sleep well day and night. In just a few years, most of their hair turned white. It was not until they received news about him that they recovered their spirits.
But Jiang Song still settled in Sichuan Province and only came back once every few years. But for Jiang's father and mother, having news about their son and knowing that he was doing well and was fine was a blessing in disguise and they were satisfied. You know, in their original minds, they had already made the worst-case scenario. Later, they learned that their son was still fine, had started a family, and had grandchildren. What else could they be dissatisfied with?
In Sichuan Province, Jiang Song went to his girlfriend's home last year and agreed with his girlfriend's parents that they would buy a house in the provincial capital of Sichuan and settle down in Sichuan in the future. The house would be not far from the community where they originally lived, so that his girlfriend could go back to her parents' home anytime she wanted in the future.
What could possibly make his girlfriend's parents unhappy? She treated him like her own son, and he and his girlfriend spent a year in love with each other.
His girlfriend, like Jiang Bai, will graduate from college next year. During the winter vacation, he went to her parents' house and spent half of the vacation being a filial son. Then, he got her parents' consent and decided to bring her back to meet them during the Chinese New Year. They will get married after his girlfriend graduates next year.
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