Su Xueli bit her lip and said sarcastically, "If you want to see him, then go see him. Don't take it out on Mao Cao."
Wei Mingshen didn't say anything. He swept the damaged thatch into a dustpan, took it, and went to the kitchen.
He came in again carrying a bundle of thatch, and said ingratiatingly, "There's plenty of thatch, isn't there? What's there to be angry about?"
Su Xueli rolled her eyes at him and said, "Hurry up and cut it."
Wei Mingshen quickly started cutting, no longer daring to be distracted.
The aroma of fried oil wafted from outside. In these days, people don't eat much oil, so the smell of fried oil was very tempting. Wei Mingshen sniffed hard and said, "We've been working for half a day, we must be hungry. I'll go see what they're frying in the kitchen."
Su Xueli stopped him and said, "We can't eat anything fried first. We have to let our mother worship the gods before we can eat it."
Zhou Mingtao said impatiently, "How come you've become so long-winded? There are no ghosts or gods out there. You read books and newspapers every day, don't you?"
Su Xueli said, "It has nothing to do with that. This is called rules. Every family has its rules. Don't make the elders unhappy during the New Year."
Wei Mingshen thought about it and agreed. He picked up the two glasses of water that had been poured on the table, handed one to her, and drank one himself. But he was still craving it, so he said, "I don't want to eat. Let's go see what they've fried."
Su Xueli laughed, "It's the New Year, if Mom hears you say 'what kind of fried stuff' she'll give you a good whack."
Wei Mingshen shrugged and said, "I'm not going to talk about it anymore."
As he walked to the door, he turned back to her and said, "I love hearing you say 'our dad' and 'our mom' the most. It sounds like you've been saying them for years. It's so nice to hear."
Su Xueli was taken aback; she had been calling for this for many years.
Wei Mingshen walked to the kitchen doorway and asked into the kitchen, which was filled with oil and smoke, "Mom, what kind of food are you frying?"
In southwestern Shandong, there's a custom that you can't say anything carelessly during the New Year, especially during the important step of "frying oil" (a traditional Chinese cooking process). You have to say auspicious words and choose words that sound good.
Does Cao Maizi even know his son's character? He has a sharp and vicious tongue, and you won't hear him say a kind word. Every year when he's deep-fried, he's kicked out, and only allowed to come home to eat after the oil is ready.
I couldn't chase him out this year, but I was terrified when I saw him coming. I quickly came out of the kitchen, grabbed a rolling pin, and chased him away: "Hurry up, hurry up! This year, Shirley gave me money to prepare for the New Year. I bought a lot of things, including fried fish, fried crispy pork, fried meatballs, and fried dough sticks. I'll pray to the gods first and then you can eat them, okay?"
See how well she understands her son? She knows he's craving something.
"Hey, you two little girls are here again. You're early, children. We'll feed you after we've prayed to the gods." Cao Maizi turned her head and saw two little girls, dressed in tattered clothes, thin and bony, with timid eyes, walking into the yard.
These two little girls are from the same alley. Their mother was brought from the Northwest by their father, a clear case of marrying far away.
She gave birth to two daughters after arriving here, which infuriated her in-laws who favored sons over daughters. Since she had married far away and had no family to support her, her in-laws took the opportunity to bully her and her two children.
She often doesn't feed the mother and her two children, and she makes all sorts of sarcastic remarks to her daughter-in-law every day, saying that she can't have sons and is a jinx. She says that if their son didn't marry her, he could have had a bunch of sons with anyone else and would be living a life of luxury.
They all forgot that their son had gone to the Northwest to buy a wife because he couldn't find one himself.
Yes, she was essentially bought. Because the area was so poor, the man's family would give the woman's family some money to marry their daughter to her so that she could have food to eat.
It's not unreasonable for her family to ask for some money, because once she gets married, who knows when she'll be able to go back to her parents' home? It's like raising a daughter for nothing. This little bit of money is a small way of repaying her family.
The two little girls, one five years old and the other three, were always so hungry they were as limp as lambs, but when they saw food, their eyes would instantly turn into those of hungry wolves.
Cao Maizi was kind-hearted and pitied the two little girls, often giving them food.
Kids will flock to any place with food, and they'll snuggle up to whoever gives them food. They smelled the aroma of fried food from his house and came over to mooch a bite.
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