Chapter 241 241
In the middle of the night, braving the wind and snow, Jiang's father and mother walked for a long time on the snowy road on the embankment, and returned slipping all the way.
The whole village was silent, even the sound of summer frogs was gone. When they turned on the dim corridor lights, the inky darkness finally dispelled the inky night and brought in some light.
They saw several pairs of shoes on the corridor, one of which was obviously the big feet of an adult man.
Jiang's father and mother's first reaction was that their eldest son Jiang Song had returned, and then they saw a pair of women's leather shoes and old leather shoes next to them.
When the leather shoes came back, they were covered with a lot of mud. Jiang Xi washed the mud off the shoes in the ditch, applied shoe polish, and placed them at the door.
Jiang's father and mother felt a little disappointed, but soon they cheered up because they were facing an empty and deserted house as in previous years. This year, obviously, all the children were back.
Jiang's father was a little happier.
It was raining and snowing at night, so their feet were covered with mud. Fortunately, they went to Aunt Jiang's house in Shuibu Town to change into long boots, otherwise the shoes they brought back would have been wasted.
They knocked on the door, shouting loudly: "Songzi! Baizi! Dingding!"
The door was an iron door, and it made a banging sound when they knocked.
When Jiang's father knocked on the door, Jiang's mother had already unlocked the door and entered the house.
Jiang's father went to turn on the light, and the two saw that the snow-white floor tiles were swept clean. Jiang's father walked down the steps of the waterproof layer and went to the ditch to simply put the rain boots in the ditch. Jiang's mother changed out of her clean cotton shoes first, and put the rain boots covered with mud on the corridor outside, intending to wash them tomorrow morning.
Jiang's father saw it and took it and put it in the ditch.
It was dark, damp and cold, so Father Jiang didn't wash much. He simply wiped the mud off his rain boots and threw them outside the corridor. After changing into slippers, he shouted loudly while changing his shoes: "Songzi! Baizi! Lingling! Are you home?"
Grandpa Jiang, who was sleeping downstairs, was the first to be awakened. He turned on the light in the room, put on a thick down jacket, and walked out with his slippers on: "You are home!" "Why did you come back in the middle of the night? How cold is it at night? Just stay at your sister's house for one night, and come back by boat tomorrow morning."
He walked to the kitchen in a down jacket: "I'll boil some water for you."
Grandpa Jiang's decades of experience patrolling the mountains made him habitually wear a lot of clothes when he went to bed, with a cotton sweater and a cotton vest inside, and very thin pants, just a layer of cotton pants.
Jiang Bai was light-headed and woke up at the slightest movement, while Jiang Qing was very heavy-headed, but after hearing the movement, he still woke up with a startle, and then heard the voice of Jiang's father shouting.
Father Jiang has always been a father without any sense of boundaries. This may be a common problem among rural parents. They don't have the concept of knocking on the door before entering the child's room, and they don't have the concept of coming back in the middle of the night and walking quietly so as not to wake up the children. Therefore, knocking on the door loudly and waking up the children in the middle of the night is really a routine operation.
Jiang Bai immediately put on his trousers and zipped up his down jacket and went downstairs. Jiang Xi didn't want to get up from the warm quilt, but she knew the character of Grandpa Jiang. Grandpa Jiang would definitely get up and boil water and cook for Jiang's father and mother.
She didn't want Grandpa Jiang to get up so late to be busy, so she also got out of the quilt, put on her clothes, and went downstairs with a cold face.
If she didn't sleep well, she would be very irritable when she woke up. Just like now, she was suddenly awakened from a deep sleep, and her mood was not very good.
When she saw Grandpa Jiang wearing his coat with the zipper draped over his back, and sitting under the stove in cotton trousers to start a fire and boil water, the fire came up, "Grandpa, it's so cold, why don't you put on your clothes before going out? What if you catch a cold?"
She was really impressed by this old man!
"Your legs hurt when it's cloudy and rainy, and you don't put on your clothes properly!" Jiang Xi was really angry to death.
Grandpa Jiang had already lit the fire, and the dim and warm light from the stove shone on his face. Grandpa Jiang said nonchalantly, "There's a fire under the stove, how can you get frozen so easily? Go upstairs and go to sleep, I'm fine." Grandpa Jiang
really didn't think it was a big deal. If you were to ask where the warmest place was in winter, it would undoubtedly be under the stove, where the firelight was warm.
But as the time of Grandpa Jiang's death in his previous life drew closer, Jiang Liu became more and more cautious and nervous about Grandpa Jiang's health.
She hurried over and forcefully zipped up the down jacket that Grandpa Jiang had draped over his back, and dragged him back to the room, until she made Grandpa Jiang lie down on the bed, covered with two layers of thick quilts, with the down jacket on top of the quilts, and then she stood in front of Grandpa Jiang's bed with her hands on her hips
, sulking. Grandpa Jiang moved in the quilt and called Jiang Xiao: "Hurry up and take the big cotton jacket off the top. These two thick quilts are so hot at night!" She complained again: "I'm just boiling some water, and there's a fire under the stove to keep it warm. How can it be cold? Hurry up and go to sleep. It's so cold."
Grandpa Jiang sighed.
He knew that his eldest granddaughter cared about him, and sometimes she would take care of him as if he were a child. But how could he be that serious? He was not old and his legs were not immobile.
Father and Mother Jiang came back very relaxed this year. Not only were their children at home, the house was clean and tidy, but they also helped to heat water for bathing and they could eat a mouthful of hot noodles.
This year, they finally didn't have to go to their brother and sister-in-law's house for noodles.
In fact, they didn't want to go. Every time they went, they had no choice. Their children were not at home, and the house was cold and empty.
Even though Jiang Xiao went downstairs with a cold face, and angrily pulled Grandpa Jiang, who was boiling water behind the stove, back to the room and forced him to lie down, she ran out without boiling water, but sat on the chair with a cold face and sulked, Jiang's father was not angry, but opened the box in a good mood and called Jiang Xiao: "Xing Xiao, come and see what I brought back for you!"
Jiang's father took out a brand new set of clothes for Jiang Xiao, a pink sweater with a doll collar and a cat pattern, a brand new pair of jeans, and a long pink fox collar thick coat.
Just looking at the color of this set, you can tell how pink it is. In Jiang's father's eyes, isn't it pink and tender like a little princess?
But Jiang Xi hasn't worn pink clothes for many years. She's used to simple, elegant and comfortable styles, and no longer pursues these pink little girl things.
The only pink clothes she remembers were bought by her aunt. She liked them very much and thought she could wear them forever. But she grew up too fast. Even though they were too big, they became too small for her after two or three years.
"Try them on quickly. These are the new clothes your mother and I bought for you to wear during the Chinese New Year. See if you like them!" Under the light, Jiang's father's eyes were sparkling, full of expectation.
Father Jiang took out a neatly folded black coat and called Jiang Bai: "Baizi, Baizi, come and see the new clothes your mother and I bought for you!"
These two sets of clothes really cost Father Jiang a lot of money.
Father Jiang bought the clothes with his private money and a little public money. He lied to Mother Jiang that the price was only more than 100 yuan. But Mother Jiang was not always on the construction site during the years when she worked with Father Jiang. She also worked in a clothing factory. Father Jiang's words were simply fooling a fool. She could tell how much the material cost by just touching it and asking at the wholesale market.
But she didn't say anything, didn't argue with Father Jiang, just pretended not to know and went home in silence.
She looked upstairs and no one was coming down.
She went upstairs. The door of her eldest son's room was still locked. She opened the door and saw a thick layer of dust inside. It was obvious that no one had lived there before.
Her tears suddenly fell. She stayed in her eldest son's room for a long time before going downstairs to eat the noodles cooked by Jiang Bai.
Jiang Xi took the clothes upstairs and hung them in the closet.
When she was a child, she looked at the new clothes on her eldest and second brothers. She knew that her "new clothes" for the New Year were all old clothes left over by her cousins, but when she wore them out and played with her friends, she would still say that these were her new clothes.
Children don’t have to be so cautious when talking. He pointed at her trouser legs and said jokingly, “Hahahahaha, why are your new trousers so long?”
At that time, what she wanted most was to have a real new set of clothes like her brothers.
Later, she no longer looked forward to new clothes for the New Year.
She could buy herself new clothes at any time.
Jiang’s father and mother woke up from a nap and it was Jiang Jun’s engagement banquet.
It was called an engagement banquet, but in fact it was the matchmaker bringing the woman’s family to the man’s house, eating an engagement wine, explaining the betrothal gifts and the three golds, and deciding on the spot. Then the man had to give money to the two young people to go to the gold shop in the town or neighboring city to buy the three golds.
Usually the three golds refer to earrings, necklaces and rings.
Jiang Xi and Jiang Bai also accompanied them.
After lunch, Jiang Jun took his girlfriend and her sister to pick gold. Jiang Bai and Jiang Xi returned to the Jiang family to write couplets.
Unlike last year, when all the elder brothers, sisters-in-law, uncles and aunts in the village came to the Jiang family to ask Jiang Xi for a couplet, this year, in addition to the elder brothers and sisters-in-law, the Jiang family also had a group of young men and women. They were all girls who came back from working and dressed very fashionably and shyly.
If they were not all from the same ancestor, there would still be a custom in their village that people with the same surname cannot marry, even if they have already gone through five mournings. Even the people in Jiangjia Village and the small Jiangjia Village that was separated from them did not intermarry, because the elders in the village knew very well that the ancestors of their Jiangjia Village were four brothers.
These young girls who stared at Jiang Bai were still very shy, their hearts pounding. There were
also those who wanted to matchmake for Jiang Bai, one said she had a cousin, the other said she had a cousin, and they stared at Jiang Bai's face.
Because it was winter, Jiang Liu and Jiang Bai's skin was dry. In autumn and winter, if they didn't apply skin care cream, they would feel a cutting pain when the biting winter wind blew.
Jiang's father was the same, so when they were young, Jiang's father bought clam oil in bulk, directly using a small black pottery jar. He bought a whole jar of clam oil and used it to apply on the faces, hands, and heels of the whole family. The whole family's hands and faces were oily.
Jiang Xi also needs to use a thick moisturizing cream in winter to ensure that he can smile in winter and his skin will not be dry and cracked like in the cartoons. Jiang Bai is the same. He seems to think that using facial cream is too sissy, so he won't apply skin care products. But when his skin, ears and lips are really dry and painful in winter, he can't help but smell it. Not only his face and ears, but also the back of his hands are smeared with Vaseline. After applying it, the back of his hands in winter really doesn't seem to be cracked by the cold in previous years, but only a little red and swollen.
It's mainly because of the itching of frostbite that he can't stand it.
His skin was originally good, and he applied skin cream on his face every day to prevent dryness and pain caused by freezing. His skin became more and more soft and smooth, and his lips did not become dry and flaky like in previous winters because of the lip balm. In addition, his long eyelashes like crow feathers, and his face showed serious and focused expression when he was concentrating on writing couplets, which made the girls in the main room of the Jiang family look so excited that they didn't know what to do.
It's not that no one had thought about it, but since they were really brothers of the same clan, the idea just came up, but was dispelled by the words of the little sisters in their own room: "Alas, the three brothers and sisters of the Jiang family are so good-looking, and I don't know what their wives will look like in the future!" "Why
do you think so much? It definitely won't be us! They are college students. Even if they don't find a college student, at least they should be high school students, right?"
These words made these little girls sad.
Among them, the family that loves them the most only let them study in junior high school, and most of them only graduated from elementary school.
"Forget it, don't think about it, it has nothing to do with us anyway, let's just wait and see!" A girl whispered with a smile. They
kept lingering at Jiang's house until it was past four in the evening, and they had to hurry home for dinner, and then they slowly dispersed.
Jiang's father had been anxiously waiting for Jiang Song to come back, even if he didn't come back, at least he could call.
Unfortunately, Jiang Song still didn't come back.
Just when Jiang Song was happy to bring his girlfriend back to meet his parents, the girl who worked in a dance hall and had a brief affair with him before, and he gave her 5,000 yuan to let her leave, found Jiang Song and his girlfriend with a little boy in her arms.
She knelt down on the street where they were going to watch a movie, holding the child and begging Jiang Song's girlfriend, crying with tears all over her face, miserable: "The child can't live without a father. I am just a weak woman, with a child, and I have no way to support her. Please, give the child's father back to me~!"
Jiang Song's girlfriend was just a little girl who was well protected by her parents since she was a child, still in the ivory tower, full of pink bubbles, enjoying love, and never experienced setbacks. How could she have experienced such a battle?
Her first reaction was naturally disbelief. She turned to look at Jiang Song's expression. Jiang Song's first reaction was: "What are you doing here? How did you find this place?"
Instead of, this child is not mine!
Moreover, it must be said that Jiang Song's genes were strong. The tightly wrapped little boy looked at least 60% like Jiang Song, and 40% like the kneeling girl.
The kneeling woman begged her and held the child in front of them. The half-year-old baby was so scared that he burst into tears.
Jiang Song has always been popular with people, from old men and women in their seventies and eighties to babies of a few months old. Of course, it is not without reason. He is a person who likes children very much. From childhood to adulthood, he can patiently hold any child in his arms and coax them.
He can hold them for a long time without letting go. When he saw the baby who was suspected to be his son, being held in a blanket by the girl kneeling on the ground, and it looked like he could fall off at any time, Jiang Song's first reaction was to quickly hold the crying baby in the hands of the kneeling girl in his arms, coaxing the baby softly with skilled movements, and looking at the kneeling girl with a frown.
When the woman saw him holding the child, she was delighted. She burst into tears and stood up with Jiang Song's strength. She snuggled up to Jiang Song like a couple.
When Jiang Song's girlfriend saw Jiang Song's actions, her face turned pale and tears welled up in her eyes, as if she had just met her for the first time.
Jiang Song tried to explain, but his girlfriend slapped him hard on the chin.
But she didn't leave and wanted to hear Jiang Song's explanation.
During the two years she had been with Jiang Song, Jiang Song had treated her like a princess and fulfilled all her requests. At this moment, her heart felt like a knife had been stabbed into it. Her mind told her that this was all true, but emotionally she wanted to give Jiang Song one last chance. She wanted to hear his explanation and tell him that he had nothing to do with this woman and that the child was not hers.
Even though this woman had come to the gate of their school to look for her before,
she felt as if her heart was being cut by a knife.
There were many people around them, all pointing and talking at them. The woman who snuggled up to Jiang Song was avoided by Jiang Song as if he were the plague god. The woman who strode to his girlfriend's side didn't mind Jiang Song's avoidance of her at all, and even smiled at Jiang Song with tears on her face: "A Song, look, our son looks so much like you!" She also cried to her girlfriend: "I'm sorry, the child really needs a father. If possible, I don't want to disturb you, but I really can't raise the child alone. Please, give my child's father back to me!"
These words were like a slap in the face of his girlfriend, and her girlfriend was so angry that she slapped the woman who worked in the former dance hall hard. The woman took the force of his girlfriend's slap and fell to the ground, covering her face and crying uncontrollably.
The child in Jiang Song's arms started to cry again. Jiang Song instinctively tried to comfort the child and help the woman who had fallen to the ground.
His girlfriend looked at him in disbelief. Just as he reached out to help the woman who had fallen to the ground, she had already run away crying and wiping her tears.
Jiang Song wanted to chase her, but the child's mother hugged her thigh and cried, "A Song, A Song, it hurts so much, I think I fell and broke my leg, help me up quickly~!"
If Jiang Song was a man who knew the relationship between men and women, he would not have mixed up with the girl in the dance hall when he had a girlfriend, even though he knew in his heart that his girlfriend was more important. But seeing the girl hugging his thigh crying and grieving, he actually soft-heartedly pulled the girl up, half-pulled and half-carried her to a chair in the mall, stuffed the child to her, and then ran after his girlfriend.
When he half-carried her, the girl couldn't help but reveal a smug smile at the corner of her lips. She thought she had already kept Jiang Song, but he still ran off to chase his girlfriend. She got angry and got up to chase him, but how could she catch up with Jiang Song, who was tall, long-legged, and had a very developed motor nerve?
But she was not worried. She had already figured out where his girlfriend lived. At worst, she would go to his girlfriend's house to make trouble. She didn't believe that her girlfriend could tolerate him, and her family could tolerate him.
Jiang Song was the best person she had ever met in her impoverished 21 years of life, the most generous person who spent money on her, and the best person she could hold on to. Even if she tried her best, she would hold on to him and would not let him go.
Jiang Song originally planned to bring his girlfriend back home for the Chinese New Year this year, but because the girl he had been involved with before showed up with a baby, his plan to return home this year was blocked again and he couldn't come back again.
On the 29th day of the lunar year, almost all the young people who made money or didn't make money for the Chinese New Year came back. After they went out and saw the world, they began to look down on their hometown, which was remote and poor, and felt that they had seen the world.
Many girls found partners outside, and their partners were also workers who worked with them in the factory. They were together day and night in the factory, and after a long time, it was hard for them not to get together.
Many of them were farmers from other provinces thousands of miles away from their hometown. In some places, life might be more difficult than their life in Linhe Brigade.
But girls who have not received much love since childhood are particularly easy to be taken advantage of by others at a young age. They will follow them back and give birth to children for them thousands of miles away. They may not come back for several years. Some of them even disappear.
This is also one of the reasons why Grandpa Jiang wanted to take Jiang Xiao away from home when Jiang's mother beat him. He was afraid that his granddaughter, who he raised by himself, would run away like some girls in the village and never be found again. From then on, she would disappear in the vast sea of people without any news.
There are also girls who have been brainwashed since childhood, who think that they can get married only if they have a dowry of 8,000 to 18,000 yuan. Girls who get such high dowries are very proud, and their heads will be higher when they marry into their husband's family. Her husband's family really dare not be too excessive to such girls, because the cost of silence is too high.
Unless the girl's family is too mean, and does not treat her daughter as a person at all, and she is completely unable to stand up on her own.
Girls who want a high dowry cannot be coaxed by boys to go back with them, so they all return to the village for the New Year.
Originally, the village decided to draw lots to divide the land during the day, but Jiang Song had not returned on the 29th of the year, so Jiang's father asked Jiang Town Mayor, Jiang Guotai, and Jiang Village Chief if they could wait another day.
Village chief Jiang was somewhat unhappy, but for the sake of Jiang Xi and Jiang Bai, and because Jiang Guotai and Town Mayor Jiang both had good relations with Jiang Guoping, he nodded and agreed, saying, "Then let's wait until seven o'clock tonight and hold the lottery drawing ceremony in the cinema."
The cinema and the ancestral hall were very close, both in the center of the village. The space inside the ancestral hall was not as big as that of the cinema and could not accommodate so many people. Now it was raining and snowing outside, and it was impossible to let everyone stand outside to draw lots, so they had to hold the ceremony in the cinema.
The lottery ceremony alone would take at least three or four hours to complete, because after the lottery, the location had to be determined. On New Year's Eve, when the ancestor worship was finished, it was just noon in the city. They went to the tea plots that they had marked and circled to claim their own tea plots. In the afternoon, every household had to put up couplets and prepare New Year's Eve dinner, so there was no time to organize the lottery ceremony.
After the time was determined, the loudspeaker of the brigade shouted in the village: "Hey! Hey! Hey!"
"Broadcast a notice below! At 7 o'clock tonight, the four families in Jiangjia Village, unmarried girls, and families who have not been allocated tea plots, all come to the cinema to gather in the evening to draw lots to divide the tea plots and the girls to divide the homesteads!"
"Hey! At 7 o'clock tonight, the four families in Jiangjia Village, and families who have not been allocated tea plots...girls to divide the homesteads!"
The radio called out three times in a row. Not only did the people in Jiangjia Village hear it, but the entire Linhe Brigade also heard the brigade's broadcast. People from other villages, after hearing the broadcast, some who were working outside and didn't know the situation in their hometowns, were suddenly confused when they heard the broadcast: "Mom, what is the radio talking about? What about dividing tea land? And what about allocating homesteads to girls? Girls can also get homesteads?"
The middle-aged woman who was called "Mom" was also confused for a while, and hurriedly walked out of the kitchen, wanting to listen carefully to what the brigade's radio was saying, whether they had heard it wrong.
Why did Jiangjia Village also allocate homesteads to girls?
Many girls from various villages heard the broadcast and walked out of their homes, raised their ears and listened carefully, wanting to hear it more clearly, but the broadcast ended quickly after three times.
But this broadcast was like a huge rock dropped into a calm lake, stirring up waves.
These waves were not only among unmarried girls, but also among women who were deeply troubled by domestic violence, had nowhere to go, nowhere to rely on, and had become despairing and numb to life.