Chapter 157
At the end of 1979, on the eve of the Spring Festival of 1980.
"Niannian, Suisui, you two come and serve the dishes!" Bi Chunliu called from the kitchen. Xing Fei said he had a package from a comrade in Beijing and was going to pick it up today. Xia He and Qiu Guo said Liu He had returned and was treating them to dinner at the state-owned restaurant, so the three of them were the only ones left at home.
After two minutes, the two children still didn't move. Bi Chunliu said, "Xing Shuyu, Xing Shuhe, did you hear me? Come and serve the dishes!"
"Here we come!" The two children ran into the kitchen, picked up the dishes that their mother had placed on the stove and went to the main room.
Bi Chunliu shouted, "Run slower, don't spill the beans!"
"I know~"
Each sister held a dish in each hand and carried bowls and chopsticks every year, and replied in unison with a long tone.
Nian Nian and Sui Sui looked at each other and said, "Alas! Why doesn't mom believe them? Even with their eyes closed, they can walk from the kitchen to the living room!"
The Chinese New Year is coming soon. After the Chinese New Year, the kids will be 7 years old. In a few months, they will be in the second grade! !
Bi Chunliu cleaned up the kitchen and brought the pot into the main room. When he walked into the room, he heard a female voice on the radio saying, "To know what happened next, please listen to the next episode."
"No wonder you two are so anxious. It turns out you're listening to 'The Legend of Yue Fei' again. Next year, Mom will see if she can find someone to buy us a TV. Then we can watch the news broadcast and other programs."
"Oh yeah~ Long live Mom~" Nian Nian and Sui Sui cheered.
Bi Chunliu was amused by the two children. Her pastry shop opened in October. Although it seemed a bit unusual to the onlookers, her business was actually quite good. Moreover, since it was close to Shixiao and Shizhong, many children bought food there! She could definitely afford to buy a TV with a little money!
"I don't know what your dad did after he got the package? Why hasn't he come back yet?!" Bi Chunliu was about to complain that Xing Fei didn't even check the time when Nian Nian heard the sound of her father's bicycle bell ringing, "Dad is back!"
Xing Fei carefully carried six bottles of Coke in his hands and told Nian Nian and Sui Sui who were helping him carry the things, "You two should be careful. These are glass bottles of Coke. If they break, they will be gone."
"Coke?!" Bi Chunliu came out of the house and asked in surprise, "Where did you buy the Coke?"
Nian Nian and Sui Sui put six bottles of brown liquid on the table, and their two pairs of big eyes carefully looked at the difference between it and the Arctic Ocean.
Xing Fei: "I didn't buy it. My comrade-in-arms gave it to me. He said it's sold at the Beijing Friendship Store. I even asked a foreign friend to buy it for me! It's 40 cents a bottle!" Xing Fei gestured with the number four, causing Nian Nian and Sui Sui to hiss in surprise. It's so expensive!
Bi Chunliu didn't expect that Coke also needed "special supply". She used to want to wait for a place to sell Coke so that she could buy ten or eight bottles for Xing Fei. Now it seems hopeless. She should wait until it becomes truly popular.
"Dad, can we open a bottle tonight? I want to try it." Niannian licked her lips. She wanted to see the difference between Coke and Arctic Ocean. Suisui looked up at her parents pitifully and said, "Mom, I want to try it too."
Xing Fei looked at Bi Chunliu and asked, "Open a bottle?"
"Open!" Bi Chunliu put the other five bottles in the cabinet and took out the opener.
Niannian raised her hand, "Mom, let me open it!" Bi Chunliu gave her the opener. Niannian let her sister hold the bottle, and she held the opener herself. With a force, the Coke bottle made a "hiss" sound, and some gas came out of the bottle. The two children exclaimed "Wow" in curiosity.
Bi Chunliu took out the glass cups from home and gave each of the four people a cup.
Xing Fei took a sip and nodded with satisfaction. He liked the taste!
Bi Chunliu looked at Nian Nian and Sui Sui, wanting to know what they thought. The two children took a sip, and Sui Sui frowned, "Sister, do you like it? I feel like Coke hits my lips, so-so." Nian Nian tasted it carefully and nodded. It was delicious! She liked it!
…
Bi Qiuguo and Bi Xiahe only found out that there was Coke at home on the Spring Festival day. At that time, they were making dumplings at Han Zhong's house.
"Wow~ Then I'm going to try it tonight!" While Bi Qiuguo was making dumplings, Niannian stuffed a candy into his mouth.
Bi Xiahe: "Niannian, do you exchange all your candies for chicken feathers?"
"Yes, Sui Sui and I saved up a lot of chicken feathers to exchange for them. Zhenzhen, Ruirui, do you two like them?" Niannian also stuffed a candy into the mouths of Bi Weiguo's daughter Bi Baozhen and Han Kemei's son Zhang Xinrui.
Ruirui hugged her sister and shouted "I like it" loudly.
Zhenzhen is half a year younger than Ruirui. Wang Ying tied her hair into two small buns, which swayed happily as she nodded. "I like it~"
Wang Ying, who was also making dumplings at the table, reminded her daughter, "Sister Niannian gave Zhenzhen a candy. What should Zhenzhen say?"
Zhenzhen looked at her mother, then at her sister, "Thank you, sister~"
Han Kemei looked silently at her son who was smacking his lips. Ruirui followed and said thank you to her sister. Han Kemei looked away with satisfaction.
Niannian kissed Zhenzhen, "You're welcome~ Little Zhenzhen, why are you so cute~" She then kissed Ruirui, who was waiting with her head tilted up, and sighed, "Little Ruirui, little Ruirui, come on, sister will take you to wash your hands. What are you touching?"
Ruirui was taken by her sister to wash her hands, while the people in the house continued to make dumplings.
Bi Xiahe talked about a newspaper she read in the first half of the year, which said that a man made more than 300 yuan by exchanging chicken feathers for sugar.
"So many?!" Han Kemei was shocked, and then said, "Chicken feathers are more common in rural areas. To earn so much, I guess I have to travel to many places. This is hard-earned money."
"Isn't it? The newspaper said he lost several pounds in a few days."
"It's not easy for either. You earn a lot but it's also tiring." Wang Ying was quite emotional. His elder sister-in-law's store was doing very well, which made Wei Guo very happy. But Wang Ying also knew that his elder sister had worried a lot, and she had lost a lot of weight in the first half month.
"Eh? No more? Sister Xiaomei, take a look at the bowl over there, is there any dough left?" Bi Qiuguo finished rolling out the dough.
"And what's more, we have a lot of work to do today." Han Kemei grabbed a large lump of noodles and threw it on the chopping board.
The number of people celebrating the Lunar New Year together this time had been agreed long ago, and compared to previous years, there were more people. Before the Lunar New Year, Han Zhong specially hired people to build a stove for his family.
Bi Chunliu had been frying something in front of the new stove in the yard since the afternoon. Later, when Xing Fei took over, he went to the kitchen to cut vegetables. Today, Bi Weiguo was the head chef, and Han Zhong also occupied a stove, saying that he wanted to show everyone two new dishes he learned this year. Zhang Lingyue was in charge of washing and selecting vegetables.
Sui Sui distributed candies to the adults busy in the kitchen, one for mom, one for grandpa, one for uncle, one for aunt-in-law, and one for dad in the yard.
Xing Fei gave Suisui a few pieces of freshly fried rice cakes and asked them to share them. Suisui took a bite and gave her father a thumbs up, "Dad, your cooking is so delicious! It's almost making me dizzy!"
Nian Nian brought Rui Rui over and gave her half of the food. "Delicious!"
Ruirui imitated: "Uncle is delicious~"
Xing Fei laughed, "Uncle's food isn't delicious, it's the fried cakes that are delicious! Suisui, give half to Zhenzhen too."
"I know!"
The three children rushed back to the house. Xing Fei heard Xiaomei asking Ruirui to give her a taste and shouted, "If there's not enough, take a few more."
After a busy time, the family finally enjoyed a steaming hot New Year’s Eve dinner with a variety of dishes.
Han Zhong, as an elder, was specially invited to speak. "On this New Year's Eve, as we bid farewell to the old and usher in the new, our family sits together to celebrate the coming of 1980. This past year... Finally, I hope everyone in our family is healthy, successful at work, and successful in their studies. I also wish our motherland good weather and prosperity!"
"Great!" Everyone cheered. Ruirui and Zhenzhen, two children who were not even three years old, didn't understand what was said, but they also shouted at the top of their lungs.
"Thank you everyone, let's eat!"
After Xing Fei finished clapping, he quietly complained to Bi Chunliu: "Our dad even prepared some lyrics specially. The old man must have come prepared!" Bi Chunliu secretly punched him under the table and then glared at him, wondering how come he became so talkative even when he was old.
After eating the New Year's Eve dinner, the family began to clean up the dishes. Because Han Zhong's place could not accommodate everyone, except for Han Kemei's family of three, the rest of them prepared to go back to their own homes. Bi Chunliu was worried about Weiguo and his family, so she asked them to go home with her. Anyway, Bi Weiguo's original bed could accommodate the three of them if they squeezed together. If that didn't work, one of the small beds that Nian Nian and Sui Sui used to sleep in was still there.
Besides, it’s winter and Chinese New Year, so what’s wrong with squeezing in?!
…
Since entering the 1980s, time has flown by even faster. Just as many people describe time, time flies by like a fleeting horse. In the blink of an eye, it seems like 1982 has arrived.
Two years were enough for Nian Nian and Sui Sui to grow into 10-year-old girls, for Bi Xiahe and Bi Qiuguo to graduate from school and choose to enter the workplace or continue their studies again, for Bi Chunliu to gradually expand his own Spring Pastry Shop to three stores, one of which was opened in the provincial capital, for Bi Weiguo to resign from the canteen and open a restaurant, and for Xing Fei to be promoted to the second-in-command in the bureau.
Since 1982, Bi Chunliu has been thinking about whether she should resign from the textile factory and concentrate on opening a store. But just as summer began, she finally made up her mind.
Because I was cheated.
The manager of the second store, whose boyfriend wanted to publish a poetry collection but didn't have enough money, secretly took the store's money. When she found out, she started to make excuses, saying, "You only paid to open the store. Besides the first month of regular visits, you haven't contributed much to the daily operations since then. It's not like I won't pay you back. Can't I just deduct the money from my salary when the time comes?" She even said how good she was to herself, so what's wrong with helping her boyfriend? Someone so rich, yet he wouldn't even help with the money for publishing a few poetry collections? What a stingy person!
Bi Chunliu: …………
:)
It's true that every pitiful person has their own hateful side. I helped her unnecessarily before. I thought this girl had grown some brains after being cheated by a man, but it turns out she has grown another love brain on top of a love brain! !
Bi Chunliu decisively reported the case and recovered some of the money, which somewhat compensated for the loss.
Resigning was no small matter, and Bi Chunliu discussed it carefully with Xing Fei, who raised both hands to express his full support. Ultimately, Bi Chunliu resigned from the Nanshan Textile Factory in July 1982.
After completing the paperwork and saying goodbye to the office staff, Wang Xiaojun, who had followed Dai Yan to the provincial capital two years ago, no longer worked at the textile factory, was escorted out by Zhao Mei and Wang Hongxia, who told Bi Chunliu to remember to visit them more often when she had time.
Before leaving, Bi Chunliu looked back. It seemed that there had been no changes in the factory, but she knew that there had been great changes.
In the turbulent tide of the times, if a factory doesn't adapt, it will be ruthlessly eliminated. This is what the current textile mill is like, indulging in the pride and glory of the past. Bi Chunliu doesn't think she is a very capable person. She can't save the textile mill, nor can she save the workers in the textile mill.
After working in a textile factory for 14 years, the 32-year-old Bi Chunliu finally started other careers. She turned around and went home, and suddenly she felt full of energy!
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