"Sister Yuling, come and sit here." After the liberation, many small stools were placed on the truck bed. Wu Tiejun patted the stool beside him and motioned Qiu Yuling to come over.
"Hold on tight, you'll be everywhere." Grandma Wu pushed her eldest grandson back and said hello to Qiu Yuling's grandmother, "Old sister, sit over here, you'll be closer to the front of the car."
"Aunt Li, please go sit next to Aunt Wu, and we can sit at the back." Captain Li's wife, Wang Chun, saw that there was no seat at the front, so she thought of letting the old lady sit there, and it didn't matter where the young people sat.
"Aunt Wang, my aunt is pregnant, so it's better for her to sit in the front. I see there's an empty corner, so please come sit there with my aunt."
Qiu Yuling also brought a straw mat, which she first used to pave a seat for her grandma, and then moved back to call Li Qingju and Wang Chunlai.
"Oh, Qingju, your niece is well-loved and considerate." Wang Chunlai originally thought that it didn't matter where she sat, but in fact, she preferred standing so that she could clearly see the scenery outside the car wall.
But Qingju is pregnant, so she can just squeeze to the front.
Qiu Yuling brought two straw mats in total, one for her grandmother and the other for Li Qingju, as she didn't need one herself.
"Sister Yuling, sit here with me. I saw you from afar and saved a seat for you." Wu Tiejun saw that Qiu Yuling had finished her work and hurriedly asked her to sit next to him.
"Old sister, I'm sorry to make you laugh. I've been a naughty monkey. Ever since I came home yesterday, I've been calling Sister Yuling all the best and Sister Yuling all the worst. I haven't stopped until now and I'm making a fuss."
"You're not saying that. Your grandson is smart and sturdy. You can tell he's well-fed."
"Your little Yuling is really well-raised. Her little face is so fair and clean. She doesn't look like a child raised in this yellow sandy land. But after meeting her elder sister today, I realized that this is just like her roots."
Grandma Yuling was too embarrassed to argue about this, so she just changed the subject, "Your accent doesn't sound like you're from the Northwest."
"Well, we came from Shanghai. My son and daughter-in-law came to Xinjiang to support the cause after the liberation. I couldn't bear to leave them behind, so I came along."
"You've come a long way, have you adapted to the climate here?"
"It didn't work at first, but I've lived here for a few years now. The sky is high and the land is vast, and now I feel it's getting better..."
The sounds on the truck bed were like the waves, rising and falling. The old people were talking about their own things, and the young wives were talking about their own things. The noisiest group was the one that Qiu Yuling had passively joined. Wu Tiejun and the big and small tigers were leading the group and were roaring loudly.
Apart from wanting to pull someone over and give them a slap on the butt, Qiu Yuling just wanted to be quiet. Perhaps it was the contrast and foil, she suddenly felt that Wang Aihong, who was far away in her hometown, had become quiet and elegant.
"A-choo! Who is nagging me?" Wang Aihong felt so depressed while doing her homework. Others were having fun, but she was forced to study by her new sister-in-law. It was all her brother's fault for not being able to take his sister-in-law to join the army.
"Aihong, you are not allowed to go out." As soon as the door creaked, Wang Aihong's sister-in-law spoke.
"I know, ah~~~~why hasn't the sky collapsed yet..."
Qiu Yuling didn't know what her little friend was going through, but she was no less miserable.
Yesterday there were only three handsome little boys, but today's team also includes a guy who just grew legs and doesn't listen to instructions at all, as well as his sister with a very high voice.
"Wang Xiaogang, wipe your snot off. Mom, look at him, his snot is almost going into his mouth." Wang Xiaotao called her mother in despair.
The woman with a square scarf around her neck pulled her son over, wiped his nose with her thumb, and smeared the snot on the wall of the truck bed.
Qiu Yuling: ...I suddenly didn’t want to hold the railing anymore.
"Sister Yuling, why did you sit back down? The car is about to leave. It would be nice to stand and enjoy the breeze."
"I want to take a break, you play it." No matter how Wu Tiejun shouted, Qiu Yuling remained unmoved.
"Girls are so elegant. Look how worry-free you are when you take her with you. Unlike our brat, he's always worried and even a dog can't catch up with him."
When Grandma Wu saw Yuling sitting next to her grandmother, her face was full of envy.
"How can we compare them? Girls and boys have their own ways of doing things. They are all the same." A new round of complaining competition has begun. Yuling's grandmother said less, while Grandma Wu said more.
Wu Tiejun threw a firecracker into the hole of his father's shoe. His father didn't pay attention to the bottom of his foot. When he put it in, the fuse had just burned out. With a "bang", Wu the political commissar's big toe was gloriously injured.
Political Commissar Wu limped and chased Wu Tiejun for two barracks streets before he finally beat him up.
Another time, he hid in a corner of the kang, and the adults didn't notice him. After a while, they smelled a burning smell. Wu Tiejun's mother took a look and found that the mat was on fire. She put out the fire and found the arsonist. When she asked him, she found out that he said he was "feeding the fire"...
"Old sister, you don't know, if I hadn't protected him many times, that brat would have been beaten to death... But he deserved it!"
"Aunt Wu, you were still talking about this. Tiejun is so cruel. He ruined my new chopping board like that."
Hearing this, everyone around couldn't help laughing.
It turned out that Wu Tiejun and two other cobblers used a knife to cut a triangle out of a pumpkin in the vegetable garden of a battalion commander's house. The three of them defecated in it, and then the bad thing was that they covered the triangle back up.
People passing by were surprised at the size of the pumpkin in the battalion commander's house. It was really big. Later, the battalion commander's wife picked the pumpkin and took it back. On the way, she wondered why it was so big but so light. Maybe it had something inside it.
The wife of a battalion commander also called the neighbors she knew well, thinking that the pumpkin was too big and wanted to share it among everyone.
Who knew that when the knife was cut, feces would flow all over the chopping board. The smell was so strong that someone vomited immediately.
The battalion commander's new chopping board made of saxaul wood was destroyed. After much investigation, the culprit was finally found: Wu Tiejun again...
It is said that this unfortunate child has been beaten many times since he was a child, but the problem is that he only remembers the food and not the beating. After beating her son, his mother still felt guilty and gave her own chopping board as compensation. She told Wu Tiejun that the chopping board she used was covered with shit. She originally wanted to scare her son, but who knew that he still ate every meal with relish.
"Tsk~, Sister Yuling, let me tell you, I've long discovered that my mother asked my father to put the chopping boards together to make bed boards for the company dormitory. She still wants to coax me, but I'm very smart."
"You're so smart, you silly boy." Grandma Wu couldn't help blushing no matter how many times she heard it.
"Ouch, who slapped me on the head?"
"It's me, your grandma, what's wrong?"
"Hey, grandma, didn't you always tell my dad not to hit my head? If you do, I'll be stupid."
"He's already stupid, so this one blow won't make any difference." Grandma Wu was very angry.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
