Chu Dai touched his nose sheepishly and said honestly, "A little bit."
Gu Qinglie's laughter became even more arrogant, and Gu Qingqing couldn't help but frown.
Shi Rushuang brought some fried beans and pumpkin seeds from the kitchen for the villagers as snacks, and put a handful in the girl's pocket: "It's so cold, and you're still carrying a bucket to catch snails?"
"yes."
"Go put on some overboots. The water is so cool in such a cold day. Your legs are numb from the cold." Shi Rushuang felt helpless. The lady was a troublesome person and wanted to get involved in everything.
"Don't worry, mother," Gu Qingqing held Chu Dai's arm and said coquettishly to Shi Rushuang, "With my brothers here, I don't need to go into the water. I'll just watch from above and help carry the basket."
"That's good enough. Then you guys go and have fun. It's also a good opportunity to take Xiao Chu to get familiar with the village." Shi Rushuang said nothing more.
"Okay~" Gu Qingqing winked at Gu Qinglie and Gu Xiong, and the brothers understood and pulled Chu Zhao and Gu Bao who was holding the catching net beside them towards the village entrance.
The yard was bustling with people, and those who couldn't sit down stood at the gate to watch TV. Gu Qingqing and her friends couldn't squeeze out, so they took a detour from the backyard to the village entrance.
The cold wind blew in gusts at night. Gu Qingqing tucked her head into the red scarf that Sun Shufen had knitted for her. Seeing the man standing straight with half of his white neck exposed, she reached out and pulled his collar.
"Aren't you cold, brother?"
Chu Dai shook his head, "It's not cold."
"You don't even care about your own brother," Gu Qinglie held the bucket in his right hand and put his left hand on Chu Zhao's shoulder: "The border town is much colder than this. We usually train in light clothes. How can you be so frivolous?"
Gu Qingqing glared at him: "You are so thick-skinned, don't get involved with him."
Gu Qinglie shook his head, "Old Chu, you saw how my sister's elbow became crooked."
"Now Old Chu is the insider and you are the outsider. You have to make your stance clear, second uncle." Chu Zhao smiled and echoed Gu Qinglie.
"That's about it." Chu Dai glanced at them, "You're just acting on TV, why didn't you just get out of the screen?"
Chu Zhao sighed, "You didn't even bother to pay attention to me when I teased you before, but now that you have a wife, you're different now. You're so reserved."
"Hey, hey, hey, move aside, let me pass first." Gu Xiong held a long string of cages in his hand, "I'm going to put this in the river first. There should be a lot of fish and shrimp when I come to get it tomorrow morning."
"Brother is still smart." Gu Qingqing praised him: "Unlike Goudan, who only knows how to dig in the mud."
"That's called catching loaches." After walking for about ten minutes, they arrived at the entrance of the village. Gu Qinglie rolled up his trousers and went barefoot into the fields: "Uncle Chu, let's catch loaches. You can just catch snails in the ditch. There are quite a few on the edge. You don't have to go down. Let my uncle give you the net."
Gu Qinglie arranged everything perfectly. Gu Bao originally planned to catch snails in the ditch beside the field, but now he had to give the catch to his nephew-in-law and walk on the ridge of the field with the bucket in his hand.
"Qinglie, it's too cold. I'll be holding the bucket for you guys. If you find loaches, throw them to me."
"Okay." Gu Qinglie made a gesture and started competing with Chu Zhao in catching loaches. Gu Xiong went to the river to put the cage and waited for the harvest tomorrow morning.
He came over and saw that it seemed like he was not needed here. "Sister Qing, I'm going home to watch TV. You guys should come back early. We have to get up early tomorrow to prepare New Year's goods. We are still busy."
"Okay, brother, don't worry, we will be back in an hour." Gu Qingqing waved at him.
Gu Xiong hurried back to watch TV, but the show soon disappeared.
The moonlight in winter was too pale, illuminating the ridges of the fields with a white glow. Chu Dai was catching snails along the ditch with a net, and he caught them accurately every time. The snails in the net fell into the bucket with a clang.
Gu Qingqing didn't hold the bucket in her hands. She put her left hand in her pocket and held his arm with her right hand. Chu Dai held the bucket in his left hand and the sling in his right hand.
"Brother, can you see it?" She looked down and saw that the ditch in the field was dark and she could only hear the sound of gurgling water.
"I just picked it up randomly, based on how I felt." Chu Dai saw her sniffing and asked, "Are you cold?"
"It's fine," Gu Qingqing grinned, "I'm in great shape."
Chu Dai laughed dumbly.
"Wow, I caught it!" Gu Qinglie's hands were covered in mud, and a slippery loach kept twisting in his hands. He showed off to Chu Zhao.
"I have one here too." Chu Zhao put his finger down along the hole in the mud in the field and pulled out a finger-sized piece.
"Throw it, I'll catch it." Gu Bao pointed the bucket at them.
Gu Qinglie and Chu Zhao were so excited when they touched the loach that they bent over and looked for holes everywhere.
"Aqiu~" Gu Qingqing sneezed violently. Chu Dai put down the wooden barrel and touched her hand. It was icy cold.
"No more fishing, let's go back." Chu Dai said to the people in the field, "We'll go home first, don't stay too late."
Gu Qinglie waved his hand to signal them to leave quickly.
As she left, Gu Qingqing kept looking back and muttered, "But I want to eat fried snails with basil tomorrow."
"I'll get up early tomorrow and bring it back for you." Chu Dai put the basket in the barrel, then held the barrel with his right hand and held her with his left hand. He said with a smile, "It's not worth catching a cold in the middle of the night just because of stuttering. Go back and rest early."
Gu Qingqing walked beside him, almost putting all her weight on him, her dark eyes rolling around: "Then you sleep with me tonight!"
Chu Dai paused for a moment, then said helplessly, "Okay."
Gu Qingqing chattered beside him all the way, and Chu Dai listened quietly, nodding and agreeing from time to time, and returned to the Gu family yard. The villagers watched attentively with great interest, and Chu Yuan talked about the war in that era beside them, and it seemed that they were having a lot of fun.
Chu Dai followed Gu Qingqing and put the snails into the kitchen. There was half a bucket of them. After spitting out the mud and sand, they could definitely fry them tomorrow night.
Shi Rushuang didn't watch TV. She went back to the room and operated the sewing machine to cut the red cloth that Zhang Yuqing brought back into a wedding dress. Now with the light bulb, it was not so tiring for the eyes.
Zhang Cuifen was talking to the old lady in the village about the refrigerator washing machine: "Tomorrow is the New Year, so it's a good time to wash and dry all the clothes and quilts. We have too many family members to take care of. In the past, we had to use a lot of effort to wash them. Now, we can just throw them into the washing machine. It will stir them all by itself after plugging it in and pouring a bucket of water into it."
"Sister-in-law, you are so lucky. You don't have to wash clothes by hand anymore."
"Of course not. Her granddaughter married the son of the military commander. An ordinary soldier gets a monthly allowance of dozens of yuan, and the commander's must be hundreds of yuan."
Although their work points have increased now, they still don't dare to think about money.
As the commander of a major military region, Chu Yuan's allowance was more than three hundred yuan a month, not to mention grain coupons and cloth coupons. In the past, he used the money to subsidize his brothers' families and did not save it. If he really wanted to save it, there would be no need to borrow from the Chu family.
Gu Tiezhu also had a great time chatting with his old colleagues, with wrinkles on his face from smiling. The Gu family could be said to be very proud today.
A TV, a refrigerator, and a washing machine - anyone who has one of these would brag about it for half a year, but his in-laws bought them all for them.
Listening to the laughter outside, Gu Qingqing picked up the kettle on the stove and poured half of the hot water into the enamel basin.
"Okay." Chu Dai said, indicating that it was enough. He picked up the ladle and went outside to pump water from the well twice. He used the large water tank in the kitchen to raise fish, and the water was fishy.
After wringing out the soaked towel, he handed it to Gu Qingqing to wipe her face twice, washed his own face, and then followed Gu Qingqing back to the room.
I slept in her room in the afternoon and got used to the layout here.
The room was not big. It contained a 1.5-meter wooden bed, a large wardrobe, a table and two chairs. The windows were made of wood and sealed with transparent film. The walls on both sides of the bed were covered with yellowed newspapers.
Gu Qingqing first took off her clothes and climbed onto the bed, then lay down on the inside, pulled a blue coarse quilt over herself, and stared at the man beside the bed.
Chu Dai's blood boiled at her straightforward look. He sighed, took off his woolen coat, changed into white cotton and linen clothes, and sat on the bed.
Gu Qingqing put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his broad back: "Brother, are you still used to it?"
She asked this several times that day. Chu Dai lifted the quilt and lay down, leaning sideways to look at her: "It's a habit. If you weren't going to Baisha Island, you could live here forever."
Gu Qingqing moved her lips and said, "Is this a bribe?"
Chu Dai raised his eyebrows, wondering what was going on in this little head all day long.
Gu Qingqing thought he didn't understand, so she explained, "It's the kind of marriage that takes place when one's wife marries into the family, but we don't seem to have one in our village yet."
Chu Dai was amused when he heard this: "Then how do you know about marrying into the family?"
"There is one in the Red Flag Production Team next door, but that uncle is lazy and likes to eat, so he has to rely on his wife to support him."
After saying that, she snuggled into the man's arms: "My brother is different. He knows everything. I have to rely on you to support me."
Chu Dai propped his head up on the bed with his left elbow. He lowered his eyes to look at the girl in his arms and smiled, "Go to sleep quickly and stop touching me."
Gu Qingqing blinked her big eyes, listened to the laughter outside, and rubbed her head in his arms: "I can't sleep, brother, why don't you tell me what Baisha Island is like."
Chu Dai didn't expect her to ask this suddenly. He thought about the information about Baisha Island given by the regiment headquarters and whispered, "Baisha Island is in the southeast of the military region and is not adjacent to the inland area. It takes seven or eight hours to get there by boat."
"It's so far." Gu Qingqing found a comfortable position, put her hand into his clothes, touched the scar on his waist, and muttered.
Chu Dai said "hmm" absentmindedly, and continued, "The island is 4.5 kilometers long and 3.8 kilometers wide. It is the largest of the 145 surrounding islands."
The man's voice was lazy and low, and Gu Qingqing felt a little drowsy after listening to it.
Her little head rested against his chest, her hand traced down the scar, Gu Qingqing hummed with satisfaction, and fell asleep in his arms.
Chu Dai bent down and kissed her forehead, tucked in the quilt, and lay down to sleep.
The next day, just after daybreak, the three daughters-in-law of the Gu family, led by Zhang Cuifen, went to the kitchen to light a fire and cook. Gu Xiong and Gu Yuanchao were pushing the big stone mill in the yard with great effort, while Chu Zhao was adding beans with a ladle.
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