It was already past ten o'clock in the evening when I got home.
Not only were Yuan Fangguo and Yuan Fangtai growling with hunger, but even Yuan Fangmin was running up and down the mountains, sweating profusely and exhausted.
Fortunately, mother Chen Yongying had already prepared dinner for the children.
Yuan Fangguo and Yuan Fangtai looked at their new home with wide eyes. The new house had four bedrooms, cement walls and cement floors. Although it looked completely different from his new home in Chengdu, it was definitely much better than the previous adobe walls.
"Grandma" "Grandma" Qin Mingzhen squinted her eyes and sat in the main room roasting charcoal fire. Next to her was the radio that Yuan Fangguo brought home during the Spring Festival last year, and songs were playing from the radio speakers.
As soon as she saw her two grandsons coming back, Qin Mingzhen quickly sat up.
"Why are you still carrying a backpack?" Qin Mingzhen said with some concern.
"Grandma, we brought back New Year's goods from Chengdu." Yuan Fangtai said with a smile.
Qin Mingzhen looked at Yuan Fangtai, who had been in the army for two years, with a face full of pity. She stretched out her palm, which was as dry as firewood, and began to caress Yuan Fangtai's face.
"He's gotten darker, but he's also gotten wiser."
"Second brother, should I call you Uncle PLA?" Fourth sister Yuan Fangan also came to Yuan Fangtai, and she couldn't help but tiptoeing.
Yuan Fangguo looked at the naughty look of the fourth sister and couldn't help but said: "Fourth sister, how tall are you now?"
"I'm already 161cm tall." Yuan Fangan answered loudly.
"You grew 5 centimeters in this year"
"Yeah." Yuan Fangan nodded.
Girls develop earlier than boys, so Yuan Fangan's height stands out among her peers.
"In two years, maybe he will be taller than his dad." Yuan Fangguo said with a smile.
Yuan Fangan stuck out her tongue playfully at her eldest brother, then looked at the backpacks her two brothers brought back with shining eyes.
“What New Year’s goods are there?”
"I bought you clothes, pants, shoes, a hat, and a sweater." Yuan Fangguo took out the gift for his fourth sister first.
"Let me see." Yuan Fangan was a little impatient to see what style her elder brother bought for her.
She opened it and couldn't let it go.
"Grandma, here are your cotton-padded jacket, cotton-padded pants, cotton-padded shoes, and reading glasses." Yuan Fangtai also took out gifts for Grandma Qin Mingzhen.
"You bought a good pair of reading glasses. Your grandma still has some presbyopia after the cataract surgery. Come, Mom, try them on." Yuan Chengzhu put the glasses on the nose of his old mother with a filial look on his face.
As soon as Qin Mingzhen put on her reading glasses, her eyes were no longer squinting. Her eyeballs gradually widened as she looked at the world that had not been clear for a long time.
"Okay, okay, thank you my two eldest grandsons." Qin Mingzhen was so happy that she couldn't close her mouth.
Grandma and my sister got gifts, and naturally my parents and third brother also got gifts. Yuan Fangguo bought a new set of clothes for everyone in the family.
He also brought back an electric rice cooker, a black and white TV and an antenna pole, but due to limited space in the backpack, these things were placed in the trunk of the car.
The younger sister Yuan Fangan was very sensible and quickly brought hot water and towels to her two brothers.
Mother Chen Yongying also brought up the food that had been heated in the pot, including bacon, sausage, stewed pig's trotters, and Yuan Fangguo's favorite cold-mixed zheergen.
"Brother, would you like some drink?" Yuan Fangmin took out a plastic bucket filled with strong sorghum liquor.
"Big brother, you and the second brother have a drink." Dad Yuan Chengzhu also brought a stool and sat over.
"Okay, Lao Er and I will have a drink with you." Yuan Fangguo said.
Yuan Fangmin poured full bowls into the bowls of the three adult men in the family like a bartender.
After taking a sip of the strong sorghum liquor, Yuan Fangguo felt it was a bit spicy and he couldn't help smacking his lips.
Yuan Fangtai hadn't drunk sorghum wine for a long time. When he saw his elder brother smacking his lips, he also smacked his lips.
However, Yuan Chengzhu, a mountain man, often drinks this kind of sorghum wine. After getting used to it, he finds it very pleasant and enjoyable.
"Dad, will there be a village fair tomorrow?" Yuan Fangguo couldn't help but ask while chewing the bacon pickled from his own native pig.
Yuan Chengzhu nodded and said, "We are going to buy New Year's goods, do you want to come?"
"Go, this time the second brother borrowed his comrade's car and drove it back. There was a TV and a rice cooker in the car, and we haven't taken them yet."
"Comrade's car" Yuan Chengzhu looked at Yuan Fangtai suspiciously.
Yuan Fangtai looked calm, as the two brothers had already discussed this before.
"Dad, I'm a driver for my unit now. My comrade went back to his hometown for vacation, and he asked me to start his car frequently. Otherwise, it would break down after a while. So when I went home, I asked him to lend me his car, and he was very generous and lent it to me directly."
After hearing this, Yuan Chengzhu had no doubts. "That's perfect. Let your mother stay home tomorrow and take grandma with you. We'll go to the market together. I also need to carry some millet and rapeseed to the village to be processed."
"That's perfect. Then we can each carry a backpack to the market." Yuan Fangguo said with a smile.
Yuan Chengzhu nodded and asked, "How long do you plan to stay at home this time?"
"I don't have much time off. I have to leave on the ninth day."
"I'm going with the second brother. The business that our classmates and I are jointly running is about to open." Yuan Fangguo quickly added.
"Boss, you can do business, but don't let it interfere with your studies." Yuan Chengzhu was silent for a long time before he said this with a meaningful look on his face.
Yuan Fangguo nodded. "Don't worry, Dad. I will study hard and won't let you down. By the way, here's 40,000 yuan. My second son and I saved it last year. Please accept it."
"So many!" Yuan Chengzhu said in astonishment, "Boss, what kind of business are you doing?"
"I just give tutoring lessons and sell some books, and make a profit from the difference."
"Brother, is it so easy to make money in the city?" Yuan Fangan, who was chewing a cured pork chop with relish, couldn't help but ask.
"Do you think money falls from the sky?" Yuan Fangguo patted his sister's head.
Yuan Fangan stuck out his tongue at him.
"Boss, what skill do you think this third child should learn?" Yuan Chengzhu suddenly asked.
"What?" Yuan Fangguo seemed not to hear clearly, and he couldn't help but ask another question.
"Your third brother is at home now. I wanted him to learn some skills after the New Year." Yuan Chengzhu repeated.
Yuan Fangguo was shocked and asked, "Dad, you are not going to let the third child go to school anymore?"
"Brother, it's not that Dad doesn't let him go, but the school doesn't want him anymore." Yuan Fangan interrupted.
"The school doesn't want him anymore." Yuan Fangguo seemed to understand something all of a sudden. No wonder the third brother had completely disappeared from his sight. It turned out that he was expelled from the school.
"Dad, what's going on with the third child?" Yuan Fangguo put down his chopsticks and asked seriously.
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