For a wealthy family like Xiao Weiguo's, the New Year's Eve dinner is naturally extremely extravagant.
In the villa's spacious dining room, a large table was laden with delicacies from land and sea.
Because of the Chinese New Year, Xiao Weiguo gave the nanny, Aunt Jiang, a holiday. This big table of dishes was made by the whole family working together, led by the grandmother.
All afternoon, even the two little kids, Xiao Jiang and Xiao Yue, were busy, following behind the adults washing and picking things. They were having a great time.
Food cooked by oneself tastes better, and the fruits of labor bring greater satisfaction.
The Xiao Weiguo family, the Liu Changhe family, the Liu Erzhu family, Xiao Mengjie and her daughter, plus the lonely Jiao Bai and his apprentice Hu Zi, made up a total of sixteen or seventeen people, filling the large restaurant to capacity. Laughter and cheerful voices echoed in everyone's ears.
Several men who enjoyed drinking would occasionally raise their glasses to toast each other, while the other women and children drank milk and beverages.
At this moment, everyone puts aside all their work and worries, and fully enjoys the joy that the New Year brings.
Compared to this happy family, there is another person who, on this day of family reunion, is working hard at a table in the Panlong Group Company's guesthouse, feeling miserable.
This person is Zhang Damao.
Before the Lunar New Year, Xiao Weiguo had told him to take a good rest for a while before starting preparations for his second film.
However, he didn't listen to Xiao Weiguo at all. After handing over the work on the previous film, he immediately started working on polishing the script for the second film.
Having gained experience from his first film, he has a much better understanding of directing and has corrected some of his previous ideas.
In his second film, he will approach his work with a more mature attitude, striving to achieve even greater success than his previous film.
He also knew that the Chinese New Year was approaching. In the past, he would go home a few days before the Spring Festival to spend the holiday with his elderly parents.
But today is different. It's not that he doesn't want to go back, it's that he's afraid to go back. He can't imagine facing those faces and those people when he returns home. He doesn't know if he'll have the courage to go on living.
He doesn't even dare to write a letter home now, afraid that someone will come looking for him at the address on the letter.
But it's the Spring Festival, a traditional time for family reunions in China. How could he not miss his elderly parents?
How many people have truly experienced the feeling of being alone far from home on New Year's Eve? Those who haven't experienced it can never truly understand the loneliness and desolation it evokes.
So he could only numb himself by constantly working, trying his best not to think about those things, and not let himself be idle to feel that loneliness.
In a remote mountain village, Zhang Damao's parents waited all winter, but their son never returned.
Amidst the sounds of firecrackers outside the window, the elderly couple sat facing each other on the kang (a heated brick bed).
The wind was howling outside, but it was still warm inside.
Ever since their son married the village chief Wei Changqing's daughter, the couple has become the laughing stock of the village.
Zhang Damao, such a promising young man, actually coveted wealth and married the village chief's daughter.
To people, this was simply a fantasy.
Sleeping with a woman like that, I don't know how Zhang Damao could bring himself to do it, he really has a good appetite.
The elderly couple often overheard people saying that the two top scholars they had raised with great difficulty had been thrown into a cesspool.
But what can we do?
When the elderly couple found out, their son and that woman were already sleeping together.
If they don't acknowledge it, do you think those four tough, ruthless bastards from the Wei family would let their family off the hook?
Fortunately, the Wei family still had a conscience and kept their word.
The old couple no longer had to worry about their crops on the hillside; those four bears took care of everything for them with just a little effort.
Whenever there was heavy work to be done at home, his daughter-in-law, Wei Yulan, would always send her brothers over to help.
That's why there's no shortage of firewood in the house for the winter—those guys chopped and delivered it, filling half the kitchen with dry firewood, enough for them to burn all winter.
Also, two months ago, Wei Yulan consulted a local folk doctor in the village and discovered that she was already pregnant.
Now she carries her big belly all day long, and tells everyone that this is her and Brother Mao's child.
I estimate that she will be born after the Lunar New Year, around next summer.
Their grandson is almost born, what more can the old couple say? Whether they acknowledge the relationship or not, it's already a done deal.
Fortunately, Wei Yulan not only didn't ask them to serve her, but also often brought them food and supplies to visit them.
I don't know if it was taught to her by her family or if she did it on her own.
In short, her actions were not, as others might have imagined, like a shrew abusing her in-laws.
Human nature is complex. Perhaps she truly loved Zhang Damao, and therefore extended that love to his parents as well.
However, like Zhang Damao's parents, she waited all winter but her brother Damao didn't come back, not even a letter. Now she's heavily pregnant, and I wonder what she's thinking.
Some time ago, there were rumors that Zhang Damao has now become a famous director, and that the movie he made during the Spring Festival is very famous throughout the country.
In their small mountain village, the latest movies are never shown.
Occasionally, a projectionist from the village would come to show movies, but they were all old-fashioned films, either war movies or operas.
Even the grassroots projectionists didn't know what movies Zhang Damao had made.
But that's not important. What's important is that her brother, Da Mao, is a director, a big shot that people in the mountains would never dare to dream of in several lifetimes.
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