"Mom, this fried egg is so delicious."
Little Shumei couldn't hold the chopsticks steadily, so she just picked up the fried egg and started chewing it, stuffing it into her mouth while talking incoherently.
"This dish is delicious!" The third brother praised it, his face almost buried in his bowl. "It would be great if I could eat like this every day!"
Lin Guoqing thought his son was just talking nonsense. "How could it not smell good? Don't you see how much oil was used? Even a landlord can't afford to eat like this every day!"
"That's not impossible." Chen Chunhua calculated carefully, "Once the jar of oil at home is used up, it should be time to harvest rapeseed again. We won't use the oil we get this year to exchange for grain. We'll keep it at home for our own consumption. It should be enough to use until next year's oil pressing."
Lin Guoqing's face was almost flushed. He just said that he had to cook 7 eggs every day, and now he has to use oil to cook every day. What's going on? Did his wife pick up a gold nugget?
"Chunhua! We still have to make ends meet! If we don't exchange this oil for grain, we can't eat it!"
The children were all there, and he couldn't quarrel with his wife in front of them, so he could only hold his temper and remind her.
He even wanted his mother to say a few more words to help him, but unfortunately the old lady didn't care at all about how the food was distributed. As long as she didn't go hungry, it was enough. She was eating with her mouth full of oil and was so happy that she didn't have time to care about her son's life or death.
Chen Chunhua said, "I know, we can just exchange money for food when the time comes."
Using money to exchange for food again, where is the money? Lin Guoqing was so frustrated that he even looked at the fried eggs in his bowl and found them tasteless.
He put his piece of fried egg into Lin Shuying's bowl.
"Xiaoying, eat more. Eating more will help you get better faster!"
Lin Shuying had just finished eating her own, and although she was still holding on, she was reluctant to eat her father's. Unable to refuse, she picked up the fried egg and put it into Lin Shugan's bowl.
"I'm taking medicine, I'll be fine. Big brother also has a cold, and just drinking hot water isn't enough, he needs some nourishment too. Big brother, take some."
Lin Shu quickly put the fried egg back into Lin Shuchao's bowl. "I'm full and can't eat any more. Let Chaochao eat it! Grandpa Jinshui said he's in his growing stage and needs to eat more."
A fried egg was given by his father to his sister, who gave it to his brother, who then gave it to him. Lin Shuchao was torn between his own thoughts and his own desires. Should he give it to his younger sister? But he also wanted to eat it...
Lin Shuchao is only 4 years old, and it is too difficult for him to restrain his desires.
Before he could figure it out, the grandmother sitting across from him spoke up, "Are you guys passing the hydrangea? Chaochao, do you want to eat it? If not, give it to me!"
Lin Shuchao shuddered, and his mouth and hands were faster than his brain. He shouted, "Eat!" and then threw down his chopsticks, tore the fried egg into two halves, stuffed one half into his own mouth, and stuffed the other half directly into Lin Shumei's mouth.
Liang Shengdi has no love for children, so the boundaries of respecting the elderly among the Lin sisters are also vague.
Four-year-old Lin Shuchao only knew that his grandmother would often snatch food from him, saying she wanted it and then actually taking it away. He decided to put it away quickly.
Miss Lin Shu was a slow eater. She had just finished her own and was thinking it was a pity to finish it so quickly when half a poached egg went into her mouth.
She quickly caught it with her hands and continued chewing it. Her happiness index was five stars.
Liang Shengdi curled her lips and said, "You little rascal, you have no respect for the elderly or love for children at all."
Chen Chunhua and Lin Guoqing both buried their faces in their bowls, stifling laughter. Although they had little respect for Liang Shengdi, they couldn't laugh at her in front of others.
***
Before going to bed at night, Chen Chunhua half-sitting on the bed, next to Lin Shumei who was already sleeping like a pig in a surrendered position, lowered her voice and asked Lin Guoqing whose feet were still burning.
"Hey, didn't you say your grandfather left behind a set of tea sets?"
Lin Guoqing squinted at her, "Why did you suddenly think of this?"
His father was his grandfather's late-born son. Back then, probably when there was still an emperor, his grandfather and his great-grandfather were both servants in the house of the largest local landlord.
Later, the revolution became more intense, and the family moved abroad early. They sold all the large items that could be sold, and distributed the small items to the servants as an addition to their severance pay.
The family was quite kind and didn't mistreat their servants much. His grandfather worked as a servant for the young master and didn't suffer any hardship. In the end, he was even given quite a few things, including bowls, plates, cups, and washing-up utensils.
But later, the Japanese, the Nationalist army, and the bandits came into the village one after another. The porcelain was fragile, and I don't know how many of them were broken. But that tea set...
Because it was a complete set, it looked expensive. When the old man got it, he felt that his family didn't deserve it. He couldn't use the green jade cup to hold the lowest quality tea foam, right? That would be a disgrace to the cup.
So he found a place to hide, and it seemed that he really escaped the looting and burning. However, he did not tell anyone where he was hiding. He only mentioned this incident to Lin Guoqing's father.
Even during the most chaotic times of the past few years, no one had dug it up. Lin's father was even thankful his father hadn't told him the location, because with his tiny courage, he would have confessed the moment the red armbands reached the door.
When Chen Chunhua was bored during the confinement period of his third child, he secretly told it to his wife as a joke to cheer her up. But he didn't expect that she would bring it up again today.
"Don't say this outside, or you might end up in trouble."
He dried his feet and poured the water in the basin outside. After coming in, he first looked at the eldest daughter who was sleeping soundly on the wooden bed at the door, tucked the corner of her quilt, then looked at the second and third daughters who were sleeping on the footboard of their bed, glanced at their saliva with disgust, pulled the quilt with his feet, and then lay down on the bed.
"Why do you ask that?"
Chen Chunhua blinked. "That's a treasure from a wealthy family. Didn't you say it was made of jade? How much do you think it's worth?"
Lin Guoqing just lay down and wanted to jump up again.
"Are you dreaming? No matter how valuable that thing is, we can't touch it! Be careful or we'll be caught and paraded through the streets!"
Chen Chunhua curled her lips and said, "Why can't I touch it? It's not stolen. It was given to me by your grandfather who worked hard for me."
She didn't think of exchanging it for money now. After all, it was still unstable. If she was charged with the crime of reselling cultural relics, wouldn't she be in trouble?
She saw the chicken coop behind her today and suddenly remembered this incident.
In fact, the tea set had been buried in the ground under the chicken coop. It was buried quite deep, at least two or three meters. I don’t know how the old man dug this pit back then.
It was in the early 1990s when Lin Guoqing and Shen Chunhua saved some money to build a new house and dug it out while laying the foundation.
Unfortunately, I didn't know there was such a box there at the time, and even thought it was a big rock. After a few shovels, the box and the porcelain were all broken into pieces.
Chen Chunhua thought, since there won't be any more house searches in the next few years, why not dig it up and put it away first? She would feel at ease only when the valuables are in her own hands.
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