Sheng Liancheng called to his sons, and the four of them clinked glasses and drank together.
"Dad, don't worry, we will all study hard and will never let you down."
Sheng Xikang put down his wine glass, quickly ate a bite of food, and then solemnly expressed his opinion.
“Yes, Mom and Dad, don’t worry, we will all work hard,” Sheng Xi’an echoed.
"And us, Mom and Dad, don't worry, we will study hard and strive to get into good universities."
Sheng Yunfang, Sheng Yunfei, and Sheng Xitai spoke in unison.
"We, we, and us."
When Sheng Xinhua and Sheng Xinyu saw how lively it was, they got anxious and hurriedly started shouting.
The two kids' involvement amused everyone, making them laugh.
Zhou Qinglan looked at the two children, both amused and exasperated. "You two are everywhere, you little brats, what do you know?"
“Look, why are you talking about them during the New Year? They’re still young, what do they know? They’re just joining in the fun.” Zhang Shuzhen stopped Zhou Qinglan from talking about the children.
"Xinhua and Xinyu, you two must remember what I said today. You must study hard from now on, learn from your mother, your second uncle, and your third uncle, and get into a good university and find a good job in the future."
Zhang Shuzhen wasn't very educated and couldn't articulate profound truths. In her view, getting into university was the best way out.
"Yes, we've got it." Sheng Xinhua nodded vigorously and replied loudly.
"How wonderful! Looking at the two children, all my worries disappear."
"Come on, come on, eat up! There's so much delicious food, eat as much as you want!" Sheng Liancheng said with a smile, urging the children to eat.
A table full of food, but in the end, not even half of it was eaten, and it could only be put away in the kitchen cupboard.
That's how it is during the Lunar New Year; you have to leave some food for yourself, so you have to cook more dishes and have leftovers.
After the meal, everyone was lazy and didn't want to move, so they each found a place to lean back and rest.
Sheng Xinhua and Sheng Xinyu hadn't slept during the day, and now they were both sleepy and rubbing their eyes. Zhou Qinglan coaxed the two children to go to the west room to sleep for a while.
At first, Sheng Xinhua didn't want to go, but Zhou Qinglan said that they were going to set off firecrackers at 11 p.m., and if they didn't sleep then, they wouldn't have a chance to set off firecrackers that night.
Upon hearing this, Sheng Xinhua quickly led his younger brother to the west room to sleep.
When it was completely dark outside, Sheng Liancheng asked his son to light up the lanterns outside.
In the past, lanterns were made by Zhang Shuzhen and her daughter by tying sorghum stalks together and pasting red paper on the outside.
This year, Zhou Qinglan brought back several round lanterns made of red cloth from the provincial capital, with yellow tassels at the bottom; they were particularly beautiful.
Sheng Liancheng said, "Don't light candles anymore. It'll make the lanterns look blackened. Let's just put light bulbs inside instead."
Luckily, we had a light bulb that we used to use when gathering cow hair in the summer, so we installed it inside the lantern.
The light shone through the red silk cloth, casting a red glow that illuminated the Sheng family courtyard, making it exceptionally festive.
Around seven o'clock, the two children were still asleep, so everyone hurried to make dumplings.
Not long after they started making dumplings, the two children woke up without making a sound. They put on their shoes and ran to the east room. When they saw the dumplings being made in the east room, the two children pretended to climb onto the kang (a heated brick bed) to grab the dough.
"Sixth Brother, hurry up and take the two of them to play on the north kang."
When Zhang Shuzhen saw that two bandits had arrived, she was shocked.
They can cause trouble normally, but this is for New Year's dumplings, we can't let them mess around. So we quickly called out to Sheng Xitai, who was engrossed in listening to the radio.
Upon hearing this, Sheng Xitai quickly carried his two nephews to the north kang (heated brick bed), grabbed a large amount of roasted pine nuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, peanuts, and other nuts, and used pliers to peel the nuts for his two nephews to eat.
Kids are easy to coax. As soon as they saw so much good food, the two children stopped causing trouble and sat quietly on the kang (a heated brick bed), watching eagerly as their sixth uncle prepared the food for them.
While they were making dumplings, Zhang Shuzhen and the others sped up their dumpling-making. By 10 o'clock, they had finished and quickly took them outside.
At eleven o'clock, water was boiled to cook dumplings, and Sheng Liancheng also started to get busy.
Nowadays, there aren't so many formalities. Sheng Liancheng and his sons set up a table in the open space of the courtyard, placing steamed buns, fruit, fish, meat, three cups of wine, and three pairs of chopsticks on it.
If you don't have an incense burner bowl at home, fill two bowls with wood ash, pack it down, and stick three incense sticks in them.
Sheng Liancheng piled the pre-printed paper money in front of the altar, picked up a few sheets and lit them, while also lighting incense and inserting them into the incense burner bowl.
Over there, Sheng Xiping also lit firecrackers.
Amidst the crackling of firecrackers, Sheng Liancheng knelt before the altar, sincerely kowtowing and muttering something unintelligible.
Afterwards, Sheng Liancheng took the paper money into the house and lit a few pieces of paper in front of the east and west stoves, directly north of the kitchen.
Outside, Sheng Xi'an, who was setting off firecrackers, was a little dumbfounded by his father's actions.
"Brother, are you sure Dad's doing these things is okay?" A few years ago, these things were strictly forbidden. Are you sure nothing bad will happen now?
"It's okay. If you don't say anything and I don't say anything, it'll just be like that. The regulations aren't as strict as they used to be, and everyone knows what's going on."
Many things have been passed down for thousands of years, and there must be some truth to them. Sheng Xiping neither supported nor opposed these things, as long as his father was happy.
"Dad, set off firecrackers, set off firecrackers."
Sheng Xinhua and Sheng Xinyu were wearing thick cotton-padded coats, hats, scarves, and glove covers, looking as round and plump as brooding chickens.
At this moment, they couldn't wait to urge Sheng Xiping to set off the cannon, as they hadn't had enough of what they'd just seen.
"Okay, okay, don't worry, there are plenty of firecrackers. Your mom bought a lot this year."
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