Chapter 239 239

The whole Jiangjia Village had the same spirit as Jiang Hongbing at this moment, with a rosy face. From a distance, one could see the pure and brilliant smile on his face. Everyone had a flourishing hope on their face.

Jiang Jun's house had been built to the third floor, and it was visible to the naked eye.

Jiang Hongbing was standing on the wooden board on the third floor, holding a brick in his hand.

The eldest sister-in-law was a very capable woman. She used a shovel to stir the cement paste, poured it into a small gray bucket, and carried it downstairs with one hand each. She hung it on the hook and shouted, "Pull!"

Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing on the upper floor pulled the cement paste upstairs and poured the cement paste in the bucket onto the brick wall. Then they threw the plastic bucket down with a "snap" sound, wiped the cement with a sharp knife quickly, and the cement became smooth. Then they quickly piled the red bricks on the cement one by one, and knocked them firmly with a sharp knife. A layer of wall bricks was laid in this way.

Experienced hands like them can lay walls very quickly, and the walls are laid smoothly and straightly.

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 using the rope, and came up to greet them: "We have a phone at home now. Call us in advance when you come back, and we will pick you up at the pier!"

The current pier of Jiangjia Village is closer than the ferry, and it only takes half an hour to get there.

Grandpa Jiang smiled leisurely as always and said, "We have Liu Liu and Bai Zi here, why do you need to answer it? You are very busy all year round, no need to answer it!"

Jiang Hongbing looked at Jiang Bai again, took off his gloves and reached out to pat his shoulder, but looked at his hands, put them back, wiped them on his body, but still couldn't wipe them clean, so he smiled with admiration and said, "Good boy, have you eaten chemical fertilizers? How come you're so tall? Taller than your second uncle, right?"

Jiang Bai pursed his lips and smiled shyly.

Jiang Hongbing looked at Jiang Xiao again: "Even Xiao Xiao is almost catching up with me!"

Jiang Xiao is now 1.72 meters tall. Because there is snow and mud in her hometown in winter, 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 she looks like 1.78 meters tall. She is tall and thin, and looks quite cold when she is not smiling, and her smile is like melting ice and snow.

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 drink your beam-raising wine soon, right?"

Jiang Jun was one year younger than Jiang Song, and he scratched his head a little embarrassedly. Jiang Hongbing immediately teased him, "Not only can you drink his beam-raising wine, you can also drink his engagement wine at the end of the year!"

This sentence made Jiang Jun blush.

The second cousin's wife laughed and shouted loudly: "Your third brother will want you to roll in bed when the time comes!"

For a while, the door of Jiang Jun's new house was full of 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 picked up the bricks skillfully, and after quickly picking up a dozen bricks, they stacked them side by side on the wooden bridge and soon piled them on the wall.

Jiang Hongjun and Jiang Hongbing had both gone downstairs, so there was no need for Aunt Jiang to turn around. She went to the ditch nearby to wash her hands, took off her dirty apron, came over, and said with a smile, "Are you hungry after coming back? Come on, Aunt Jiang will cook for you!"

Jiang Xi saw that her hands were red and swollen from the cold, like green carrots, so he hurried over, held Aunt Jiang's cold hands, and helped her warm them.

Unlike her previous life when her limbs were always cold, in this life Jiang Xi's hands were warm and dry. She held her aunt's hands, which seemed to warm her heart all of a sudden and made her face blossom with smiles. She felt that Xi Xi was not her daughter at all. The more she looked at her, the more she loved her. She was so happy that she held Jiang Xi's hand lovingly. She was afraid that she would feel cold, so she wanted to let go of her hand, but Jiang Xi held it tightly and held both of her hands in his warm palms, stroking them gently to warm them.

Aunt Jiang looked up at Jiang Wu, her eyes full of kindness: "Hey, you don't have to hold me, I'll freeze you, you young girls can't freeze."

This year she planted wolfberries, picked tea leaves, and opened a restaurant. Compared with last year, Aunt Jiang has lost a lot of weight. Her round face, which was originally round like Maitreya Buddha, has become so thin that her chin has come out, and her double chin is almost gone.

But she is wearing a lot of clothes, including sweaters, vests, down jackets, and coats, which makes her figure look as plump and bloated as before. But everyone is used to Aunt Jiang like this, and they think she is friendly and kind.

Seeing that she didn't let go, Aunt Jiang took her hand and walked home from the cement path of the old well at the entrance of the village.

Taking this path, it is closer. You can directly pass the old well at the entrance of the village and reach the lotus pond under the high platform. Then go up the waterproof high platform and you will reach the home of my aunt.

Last year, Jiang Hongbing got married, and Jiang's father and mother came back a little earlier. This year, there are more people 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 the business is good. They want to work a few more days this year to make more money.

This winter vacation, Jiang Xi had nothing to do. Jiang Bai didn't shoot a movie 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 earlier.

My aunt opened the door.

They are still living with the second son Jiang Hongbing. If they move, they have to wait until the big house of Jiang Jun's family is fully built before they can move in.

Jiang Xi noticed that this year, there were more saplings on the high platforms of every household. Because it was winter, the leaves of the saplings were all bare, and it was impossible to tell what kind of tree it was just by looking at the branches, so she asked Aunt Jiang.

Aunt Jiang smiled and pointed to her and said, "Look, those are peach trees. My peaches are delicious. This year, those tourists like to eat my peaches. This year, many families have planted them. Those are persimmon trees and chestnut trees."

Everything Aunt Jiang planted tasted better than others, even the peaches from her peach trees were sweeter than others.

Jiang Xi's impression of the local persimmon trees is that every household has trees full of persimmons, hanging on the trees and falling to the ground one by one, rotting, but no one picks them. Even many families, like Grandpa Jiang in his previous life, planted watermelons and tomatoes, but no one ate the persimmons, so they fed them to pigs.

Because there were too many, every household had persimmon trees, some had one or two, and some had three or four. They couldn't sell them all, and they didn't know how to make persimmon cakes.

But these things were good things that Jiang Xi couldn't even think of when he was a child. As soon as the wild persimmons on the mountain turned green and yellow, people picked them up in baskets and brought them home, buried them in the ashes, and waited for the persimmons to become soft and red.

When I was a child, I wanted to eat things that I couldn’t find. I don’t know why, but when I grew up, they were so ubiquitous that no one wanted them and no one ate them.

The locals planted very few chestnuts, because the mountains and plains were full of wild chestnuts. When she was a child, she often saw Grandma Jiang using snakeskin bags to pick a lot of chestnuts, pile them in the corners, and sprinkle some water on the chestnut shells. After a few days, the chestnut shells would all fall off. All they had to do was sweep the chestnut shells open to reveal the dark chestnuts underneath. They would then be taken to Aunt Jiang's home in Shuibu Town and have Aunt Jiang help them sell them.

Jiang Qing felt that there were actually more resources to be mined in her hometown, waiting to be mined out bit by bit to generate economic benefits.

This is really a treasure land!

Those hairy chestnut shells would not be thrown away. After drying, they would be used with rice bran and sawdust to make a good material for making a brazier in winter. Some firewood and branches with sparks would be poured into a hole in the iron basin, sprinkled with a shovel of hairy chestnut shells, and then covered with rice bran or sawdust. A brazier could keep warm for a whole day and night, and it would still be warm until the next day.

When they were young, their clothes, shoes, and insoles were dried on the bamboo cover on the brazier.

At this time, the eldest aunt directly lifted the bamboo cover for the little granddaughter to dry clothes, took out the charcoal basin inside with cotton cloth, put it in a rectangular fire barrel, and then covered it with a thick quilt the size of a baby quilt, and let Jiang Xi and Jiang Yeye go in to warm themselves by the fire. She went to the kitchen to make food for Jiang Xi.

Before going in, she asked Jiang Xi with a smile on her face: "Do you want to eat rice noodles or fried rice cakes? We killed a pig this year and made some pickled meat and sausage. When you start school, you and Baizi can take some to school to eat!"

Although Jiang's aunt was just a housewife in previous years and did not make 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 Jiang's aunt herself, which is one of the reasons why she is 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 the in-laws would come at that time, so an engagement party would be held. Secondly, her youngest son was getting married on the 6th of the lunar year, and a banquet would also be held.

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 pig 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 fragrant when mixed with garlic leaves and fried with rice cakes.

As soon as Aunt Jiang mentioned it, Jiang Xi felt that his 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 still eat rice cakes? You can't digest the food and your stomach hurts, so you know it's uncomfortable!"

Jiang Xi said hurriedly, "Yes, yes, I'll go make noodles for Grandpa."

Grandma Jiang didn't think Jiang Xi was lazy anymore, 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 stepped out of the fire barrel with his long legs, "I'll do it!" Then he went to the kitchen and made food with Aunt Jiang.

As for Grandma Jiang's cooking skills that have remained the same for decades, no one dared to let her cook. It was an exaggeration for others to say that the food cooked by anyone was the same as pig food. The food cooked by Grandma Jiang was really the same as pig food.

From this point of view, Grandpa Jiang and Grandma Jiang are worthy of being a couple, and the food they cook is equally unpalatable!

Aunt Jiang cooked noodles on the coal stove while Jiang Bo cut rice cakes.

Cutting rice cakes is a laborious job. Jiang Hongbing and Jiang Jun usually do it at home. Jiang Hongjun and his wife moved out and started a business.

Jiang Bo is not good at speaking. Aunt Jiang's three children don't know what to talk about with Jiang Bo. They just talked about the topic that the women in the village like to talk about the most: "You will graduate from college next year, right? You should find a partner at this age. When your third brother gets married, you and Songzi will be left. Have you found a partner outside?"

Jiang Bo blushed as he cut rice cakes. He said, "How can I find a partner? I don't have enough time to study every day."

It's really not enough. He has to film and study at the same time.

His desire to make money is much stronger than love.

Maybe because he had been short of food and clothing since childhood, he especially loved saving money. If his sister hadn't let him take out a loan in advance to buy two houses and a shop, he would have saved money until the end of time.

With money on him, he felt safe.

Aunt Jiang sat by the stove, and the light yellow light of the stove made her face very soft. She smiled softly and said, "It's almost easy to find one. Find a college student in the university."

Although life in the hometown is good now, the general idea of ​​rural people is that children in the village can only have a future if they can leave the countryside, and college students should find a college student to live with.

What kind of future can you have if you wander around the small piece of land in your hometown all day?

Jiang Bai smiled embarrassedly.

Aunt Jiang smiled and said, "Don't be embarrassed. Xiaoxiao has found a partner. Don't let your two older brothers still be single when Xiaoxiao is married."

She just said this casually. She really had nothing to talk about with her nephew. All she could see was Jiangjia Village, which was so big. She only cared about the children and could only talk about these things. After

Jiang Bai cut the rice cake, Aunt Jiang took out a piece of bacon she had dried.

It was the same bacon, and no one knew how Aunt Jiang made it. The bacon she made was fragrant and delicious, and not too salty. It was fried with eggs, mung bean sprouts, winter green vegetables, and garlic leaves in rapeseed oil. Jiang Xiao couldn't sit still outside because of the fragrance.

In her previous life, she had been away from home for many years. Every time she came back during the Chinese New Year, she would miss the noodles made by Aunt Jiang. No matter how much delicacies one had outside, they could not make the taste of her hometown. Even the rice cakes in her hometown were different from those eaten outside. They were extra soft and sticky, but not made of pure glutinous rice. Instead, they had the perfect taste made from the rice unique to their hometown.

Jiang Xi and Jiang Bai were full of rice cakes. They did not go back to the Jiang family, but took a good nap at Uncle Jiang's house.

In the afternoon, Jiang Xi had not woken up yet, but Jiang Bai had already gotten up early and went to clean the Jiang family's house.

Actually, there was nothing 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, all other rooms were rented out to tourists. The house was cleaned very cleanly, and the new quilts and mattresses in the house were all full of the smell of sunshine.

The main problem with the Jiang family's house was that it was empty.

It was empty and there was no sense of life.

Even though it was built two or three years ago, because no one has lived there for a long time, there is nothing in the house except the commonly used tables, chairs, cabinets and beds. The tables, chairs and cabinets are all brand new. There

are not many signs of use in the kitchen. There is not even firewood under the stove. There are dozens of coal briquettes left over from last year.

Uncle Jiang rented the Jiang family's land to grow food, and he had to wait for Jiang's father and mother to come back before he could deliver the food to them. When they are not back, the food is not easy to deliver, and the vegetable garden is another example.

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 plots and sold them to tourists. Even in the winter, when the vegetables grew luxuriantly, when Jiang's father and mother were not at home, they would come from time to time to pick some coriander, garlic, and vegetables to eat at home.

Jiang Bai stood in the empty house, looking at the cold pots and pans in the kitchen, and for a moment he felt like he had no idea where to start.

I don't know when, 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 to take a shower 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 tap and having water come out whenever he wanted to wash knives and chopping boards, without having to go to the old well at the entrance of the village to fetch buckets of water to drink.

When his friends came to his new house for a gathering, they could cook at any time. He could clean the kitchen while cooking, and have 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 talking about female classmates from school. He felt indescribably relaxed just by listening to them bragging and chatting quietly.

Unconsciously, he seemed to regard the house in Shanghai as his own home, his own nest. He felt safe and comfortable there with his grandfather by his side. He no longer had the sense of belonging to this house that his parents had always emphasized as his eldest brother's when it was first built.

With his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he stood in the kitchen, 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 move these things easily.

Standing in this house, Jiang's father's laughter would always ring in his mind: "This house is for Songzi. After building Baizi's house, our mission as a couple will be completed!"

This sentence seemed to remind him at all times that this was not his home, this was not his house, and he was an outsider living in this house.

This also made him stand in this empty and deserted big house, feeling a little at a loss as if he was standing in someone else's house.

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 front door and looked in the direction of his uncle's family's house. His sister was still taking a nap. Grandpa might have woken up to play with his old friends.

He rolled up his sleeves, picked up the broom, and went to clean his grandfather's room, his own room, and his sister's room. He cleaned 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, Jiang's mother's room, and Jiang Song's room, the doors were all locked tightly. Jiang Bo 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 thinking too much, suppress the feeling of escape in his heart, and continue to live in this place, in this village where he was born and raised, in this "home".

Jiang Hongbing got married, so Jiang Xi and Jiang Bai could no longer stay at Jiang Da's aunt's house as before. Jiang Da's aunt was the mistress of the house before, but now the mistress has changed to the second cousin's wife, so Jiang Xi could no longer embarrass his aunt, and 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 noodles, a bucket of rapeseed oil, and some sweet potato noodles, bacon, sausage, pig blood, etc. made by Jiang's aunt. In the evening, the three of them used a small red clay stove to simply heat a pot and made a pot of vermicelli with pig blood.

Jiang Xi is getting lazier now. Jiang Bai is the one who cooks at home and washes the dishes after meals.

Jiang Bai naturally has an opinion about this and said to Jiang Xi: "Why are you so lazy now?"

He remembered that his sister was not like this when she was a child.

Jiang Xi lazily held the 'Wugong Tea' from his hometown, took a sip of the clear tea in the dense fog, and said with a sweet smile: "There is no way, who let me have a good brother?"

Good brother Jiang Bai's lips curled up quickly due to the compliment, but he controlled himself not to smile too obviously, and 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.

The entertainment in the countryside is extremely limited. In the summer when there are many tourists, it is not so bad. In the evening, there are crayfish, fried river crabs, grilled fish, and square dance disco in the evening. In the winter, when there are no tourists here, the weather is too cold, the snowy roads are slippery, and the square dance disco is cancelled. Every household closes the door and stays at home during the winter. The only entertainment is watching TV.

The only black and white TV in the Jiang family is in the room of Jiang's father and mother. The room is locked and they can't see it. At this time, after dinner, it was only half past six. The three of them took a nap at Jiang's uncle's mother's house at noon. Jiang Xing sleeps a lot and slept for two hours before getting up. At this time, the three of them are very energetic and have nothing to do.

In the winter nights, few old men will get together to brag. They all lie down at home early.

Young people who have nothing to do get together to play mahjong, poker, or Pai Gow or Poker.

Jiang Xi and Jiang Bo both hate the gambling culture in the village. Jiang Bo would rather play chess with himself than play cards or mahjong.

After sitting for a while, Jiang Bo took out the chessboard and suggested: "Why don't we play chess?"

Jiang Xi is not not interested in playing chess, but not interested in playing chess with Jiang Bo.

Jiang Bo loves to play chess. He always plays chess on the chessboard when he has nothing to do. He has been good at chess since he was a child. Jiang Xi loses nine out of ten games when she plays with him. Later on, she has no interest in chess at all. Hearing this, she shook her head and said, "I won't play."

She is not very knowledgeable about this thing, but she doesn't have the enthusiasm of Jiang Bo to play chess.

The three of them sat down again. After a while, Jiang Bai suddenly said, "Big brother hasn't been back for a few years, right? I don't know if he will come back this year."

The Jiang family all tacitly accepted that Jiang Song had gone to jail, but it had been several years since the severe fighting in 1996. Everyone thought that even if Jiang Song had been in a fight, there should be news about him by now, right? Even Jiang Hehua, who

had been in jail for three years, was released this year.

Jiang Hehua's brother Jiang Shengzhi had already graduated from college. Before Jiang Hehua went to jail, the family of the former brigade secretary planned that Jiang Shengzhi would come back to 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 settled outside, the original plan is definitely not feasible. No one knows what they are planning to do outside now, and no one cares.

During the Qingming Festival this year, the former brigade secretary came back alone. He offered sacrifices to the 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, but now his hair has turned mostly white, his skin has darkened a lot, and he has lost weight.

He didn't seem to want the villagers to see him, and he didn't say hello to the villagers. He came and went in a hurry.

Jiang Xi turned the warm glass in her hand. The rising mist obscured the cold expression on her face. Even her tone seemed a little ethereal: "Who knows?"

Jiang Xi knew that Jiang Song had been missing for six or seven years before returning. The news outside was that he had entered a pyramid scheme after his business failed. That's why he didn't dare to call home or contact his family, for fear of harming his family relatives. These days, people are terrified by pyramid schemes. His words moved Jiang's father, Jiang's mother, and his uncle's relatives.

At that time, Jiang's father and mother were worried about him and couldn't sleep well day and night. In just a few years, most of their hair turned white. It was not until they got news about him that their spirits recovered.

But Jiang Song still settled in Sichuan Province and only came back once every few years. However, for Jiang's father and mother, knowing that their son was doing well and that he was fine was a blessing in disguise, and they were satisfied. You know, in their original thoughts, they had already made the worst plan. Later, they knew that their son was still fine, had a family, and had grandchildren. What else could they be dissatisfied with?

In Sichuan Province, Jiang Song went to his girlfriend's house last year and agreed with his girlfriend's parents that he would buy a house in the capital of Sichuan Province and settle in Sichuan Province in the future. The house would be bought not far from the community where they originally lived, so that his girlfriend could go back to her parents' home anytime in the future.

What else could his girlfriend's parents be dissatisfied with? Treating him like his own son, he and his girlfriend spent a year of loving days together.

His girlfriend, like Jiang Bo, will graduate from college next year. During the winter vacation, he went to her parents' home and played the role of a filial son for half of the winter vacation. After getting the consent of her parents, he decided to bring his girlfriend back to meet his parents during the Chinese New Year. When his girlfriend graduates next year, the two will get married.