On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, Mingzheng and Xinyan also came back. When Xuemei and Hanchen returned home at one o'clock, the yard was full of people. Everyone from the old house had come, and Liu Xiu's family had also come.
Han Cheng and Xuemei returned home and sat down to chat for a while before they realized that they were all there to take pictures.
Xuemei's confusion was over. She'd thought something had happened again, or perhaps Mother and Father Liu were calling for dinner. Most Dragon Boat Festival gifts were exchanged a day in advance. Mother Liu had said that Han Chen and Xuemei lived with them, making them a family. They could prepare the gifts themselves, and Xuemei and her husband didn't need to get involved.
Han Chen immediately went back to the house and took out his camera. He first took a photo of Grandpa Liu and Grandma Liu, then started taking family photos. Grandpa Liu and Grandma Liu took photos of every family, starting with Liu Guanghui's family, then Liu Xiu's family. Mingwu helped take photos of Xuemei's family, as he had already learned how to take photos with Han Chen last time.
Next, Han Chen took a group photo of Mingzheng and his wife, and Mingwen's family of three.
This time when taking photos for everyone, Xuemei and Han Chen confiscated the money from Grandpa Liu and Grandma Liu, as well as the money from Liu Guanghui and Liu Xiu's family for taking photos.
This was something their elders had discussed with Liu's father and mother in advance. Each photo cost 20 cents, and they could take the negatives to the photo studio in the county town to have them developed themselves. This was more than half the cost of going to a photo studio.
In this way, Han Chen and Xuemei could make five cents for each photo. Although they could earn sixty cents for taking twelve photos with a roll of film, they didn't know if the film was available in the county town. It was very likely that the Lin family would have to send it from Beijing after it was used up.
However, everyone was happy. Han Chen and Xuemei felt that it was no big deal at all. After everyone left, Han Chen asked Feifei to take a photo of him, Xuemei, and the baby in Xuemei's belly as a family of three as a souvenir.
A few days after the summer harvest, the villagers began another round of farming. By the time the village was almost busy, it was already mid-July in the lunar calendar. The summer vacation for Qingya and her two siblings was almost a month long. During this period, Qingya and her two siblings also worked in the village, and their faces were all tanned.
Qingya and her two siblings now look like grown-up boys and girls. Qingya is already sixteen years old, but she is still 1.71 meters tall. Father Liu measured her at the beginning of this year, and she hasn't grown any taller in half a year. She probably won't grow any taller, but Qingya has a great advantage in being selected as a female soldier with this height.
Ruirui and Feifei are also fourteen years old. The two brothers also developed relatively early. Now Ruirui is only a little shorter than Han Chen, and he must be over 1.8 meters tall. Feifei is also as tall as Liu's father. Comparing the two brothers, Ruirui is stronger. Ruirui has been a chubby boy since he was a child, and now he is full of flesh. If you don't look at that childish face, no one would say that he is only fourteen years old.
Feifei's figure is similar to Qingya's, very thin, but with a thin layer of muscles, not as exaggerated as Liu's father's.
Today, while the village was on break and not working, Han Chen decided to take Xuemei to the county hospital for an ultrasound. Xuemei's baby was already three months old. A few days ago, Xuemei and Han Chen went to the clinic and had Wu Yuezhu, the grandfather and grandson, take her pulse. Both confirmed she was only pregnant, but to be on the safe side, they still insisted Xuemei go to the county hospital for an ultrasound.
There is no change in Xuemei's belly yet, and you can't tell there is a three-month-old baby inside. Liu's mother said that it may be because it is Xuemei's first child, so the pregnancy is not so obvious at first, but it will be visible after four months.
Xuemei and Han Chen planned to take Qingya and her two siblings out for some fresh air today, as they'd been working hard lately. So, Han Chen borrowed a tractor from the main unit.
The weather was incredibly hot, and the sun rose early. Xuemei and the others woke up at six in the morning, had breakfast, and were already on the tractor before seven. Xuemei had a thick layer of straw under her butt, and Ruirui and Qingya sat beside her to protect her from any bumps in the tractor. Everyone also took a straw hat; though they weren't drying it now, they'd need it later and on the way back.
Ruirui also carried a backpack filled with things for Luo Yao's family. There were three cans of freshly made chopped chili peppers, one can of chopped green chili peppers, one can of chopped red chili peppers, and one can of chopped chili and scallions. He also took a can of pickled cucumbers. The cucumber yield was high this year, so Xuemei specially made some pickled cucumbers. She also took some fresh vegetables, a few pounds of plums, and some wild pears.
Most importantly, Feifei was holding a watermelon. The watermelons planted by Liu's parents in their yard began to ripen in the middle of summer, and nine watermelon seedlings survived. A total of eighteen watermelons were harvested, the heaviest weighing over ten pounds, and the smallest weighing a little over three pounds.
Liu's father and mother sent a watermelon to the old house, Liu Xiu's family, Wang Weimin's family, and Wang Weidong's family. If there were many people in the family, they would send a watermelon weighing seven or eight kilograms, and if there were few people in the family, they would send a watermelon weighing about five kilograms.
We have eaten three watermelons at home. Now there are only two more than three pounds left that have not been picked. However, there are a few small watermelon babies on the vines. If they can grow up, they can be eaten after the autumn harvest.
Father and Mother Liu sold eight more. Two were sold to villagers, one was bought by Aunt Wang's family, and Li Li also bought one at her mother's instigation. Father Liu put the remaining six in a backpack and sold them to the supply and marketing cooperative. They were all sold for 20 cents per pound, because there were very few watermelons grown in Danru Commune.
Liu's parents sold the eight watermelons for nine yuan, sixty-eight cents, or nearly ten yuan. Xuemei had been much more careful about her diet since she became pregnant. For example, she used to love plums, but now only eats three or four a day at most. Liu's mother forbade her from eating them daily. The same went for watermelon. Every time the family cut a watermelon, Xuemei would only take a two-finger-wide bite and then run back to her room, because the more she looked at it, the more she wanted to eat.
Qingya also carried a basket, which contained vegetables and eggs that Wang Shuihua and the others brought to Mingzheng and his wife. Mingzheng and his wife came back once during the summer harvest, and Xinyan was also pregnant, and it was almost two months now.
The last time Mingzheng came back, he said that he would not come back this month, but would come back during the Mid-Autumn Festival. He would take a vacation with Xinyan and stay at home for a few more days. By then, Xinyan's belly would be three months old, the fetus would be stable, and it would be more convenient for her to take a car.
Along the way, Han Chen drove carefully and slowly, resulting in him arriving at the county transport plant at a little after 8:10.
After getting off the bus, Xuemei and the other four went their separate ways. Qingya and her two siblings went to the steel plant first to deliver something to Mingzheng, and then went to buy what they needed. Xuemei gave each of the three siblings two yuan in funding, and they could make up for the extra money themselves; Xuemei and Han Chen planned to go to the hospital for a check-up first.
After the examination, she went to Luo Yao's house to reunite with Qingya and her two siblings. Xuemei called Luo Yao yesterday and said that she would come to the county hospital for a check-up today. Luo Yao said that she was on vacation today and asked her to bring Han Chen and others to her house for lunch at noon.
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