When offering sacrifices to ancestors here, chicken is a must, pork is also necessary, and of course, the best is a pig's head. In addition, a fish is also required, and cakes and fruits are also indispensable.
The cakes and pastries that Shi Zhen's family used for this ancestral worship ceremony were snacks that Shi Zhen bought back.
As for the New Year's Eve dinner, it's really just about preparing the dishes used for ancestor worship and serving them on the table, plus a few more stir-fried dishes.
After Zhao Qiujuan grew up, she mostly did these things. She would quickly clean up the fish that had long since died and braise them.
In another ten years or so, rural people will start using live fish as offerings during the Lunar New Year, and many will release the fish back into the wild. But now... releasing them is out of the question; they will definitely be eaten.
The chicken had been cooked for a while, so Zhao Qiujuan chopped it up and put it on the table, then poured a bowl of soy sauce and placed it next to it.
Shi Zhen saw this, peeled two cloves of garlic, chopped them into minced meat, and put them in soy sauce.
If you have the ingredients, you can also add some sesame oil or something similar; this will make the dipping sauce taste even better.
The pork was salted, so it could be cut open directly. Then, Zhao Qiujuan stir-fried some vegetables and made an egg drop soup with chicken broth.
Around 4 p.m., while it was still light, many families in the village began to eat their New Year's Eve dinner.
The villagers don't work; they farm at home and have little entertainment, so they generally get up very early. Many eat breakfast at five or six in the morning, and many eat lunch at ten or eleven, so dinner is naturally earlier as well.
After Zhao Qiujuan finished tidying up, she invited Shi Zhen and the others to have New Year's Eve dinner. After dinner, Shi Dalin gave Shi Ting and Guan Baiyu a red envelope each.
In the past, the children in the family would receive red envelopes, but now that Shi Zhen and Zhao Qiujuan can earn their own money, Shi Dalin no longer gives them red envelopes.
In addition... before, he would give each of the four children one yuan, but now... Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting each have ten yuan in their red envelopes.
After Shi Dalin gave her a red envelope, Zhao Meiyun followed suit and gave him one as well.
Zhao Meiyun also gave Shi Ting and Guan Baiyu ten yuan each. She used to not give red envelopes to the children, but recently she had earned some money from embroidering sweaters and the like, so she gave them some.
Logically speaking, she could have refused to give Guan Baiyu the money... She gave Guan Baiyu the money out of consideration for Shi Zhen.
Immediately afterwards, Zhao Qiujuan also gave ten yuan.
Shi Ting accepted the red envelope, opened it immediately, and looked at Shi Zhen expectantly after reading it: "Brother..."
Shi Zhen smiled, gave her a red envelope, and then gave Guan Baiyu one as well.
Guan Baiyu didn't open a single red envelope, but Shi Ting opened one on the spot and exclaimed excitedly, "Brother! You're so great!"
Shi Zhen's two red envelopes each contained one hundred yuan.
Seeing how happy she was, Shi Zhen was also in a good mood.
He doesn't know how to educate children, and he hasn't taught Shi Ting much in the past six months.
But the current Shi Ting is not as excessive as she was in her previous life.
Thinking about it carefully, Shi Ting's behavior in her past life was probably related to him.
He liked his younger sister Shi Ting much more back then than he does now, and he always felt sorry for her because she had no mother since she was little, so he always took extra care of her.
As he continued to take care of her, he got used to spending money on his sister.
Every time Shi Ting spent money, she could get more from him, and she knew he had money... It's no wonder Shi Ting couldn't control herself.
Now that he and Shi Ting are keeping their finances separate, Shi Ting spends less money.
Shi Ting happily spun around in the room. After a while, she even gritted her teeth and gave 120 yuan to Shi Zhen: "Brother, please keep this money for me. I want to spend it slowly... I'm afraid if I keep it myself, I'll spend it all at once."
Shi Zhen accepted the money and was momentarily moved.
"Brother, you can take my money too!" Guan Baiyu immediately handed the red envelope in his hand to Shi Zhen.
"You're starting your own company, why would you need me to manage your money?" Shi Zhen said.
Shi Dalin and the others were somewhat surprised: "Start a company?" They hadn't misheard.
Shi Zhen said with a proud look, "Xiao Yu plans to open a company with his classmates to produce pencil cases and school bags. Their company will be open after the New Year."
Shi Zhen praised Guan Baiyu profusely.
Shi Dalin and the others were shocked. After making money by setting up a stall, their horizons broadened considerably, but starting a company was still a distant dream for them.
They're planning to run this stall for the rest of their lives!
Guan Baiyu is really amazing.
Shi Dalin said, "Ah Zhen, you should learn more from Xiao Yu."
Shi Zhen smiled and said, "I will."
Guan Baiyu: "..." He learned all about starting a company from his brother!
After the New Year's Eve dinner, there was nothing much for the Shi family to do, except for Shi Dalin, who kept lamenting, "If only we had brought the color TV back, we could have watched the Spring Festival Gala."
"Dad, the signal is bad here," Shi Zhen said.
"Alas!" Shi Dalin still felt it was a pity.
Shi Zhen added, "Dad, don't worry, we might be able to see a rebroadcast when we get back."
These days there are few TV programs, so many programs are repeatedly rebroadcast.
Shi Dalin was then pleased.
After his initial joy, Shi Dalin couldn't help but say, "People, once they've experienced good times, really can't stand bad times..." He especially missed Anshan Town.
In Anshan Town, they have gas stoves and rice cookers for cooking, and running water for washing dishes, but here? There's nothing.
It's not convenient to buy anything here. There's a small shop run by a family in the village, but they only have the most basic oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.
Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun began to praise Anshan Town.
Shi Zhen also agreed with this point. Wasn't Zhao Dongjuan unwilling to come back precisely because this place was too poor?
However, Anshan Town is not actually a very prosperous place.
By this time, big cities already had KFC coffee shops and so on; that's what you call bustling and prosperous.
Even Changxi City is much better than Anshan Town.
However, life in their mountain village wasn't too bad. He remembered a friend he met later, a man born in the 1980s who had grown up in an area inhabited by ethnic minorities. He said that in the 1990s, there were still slogans everywhere, such as "It is illegal to sever someone's tendons."
Even in the 1990s, the area was still extremely unsafe.
On New Year's Eve, people don't visit each other's homes unless they're going to collect debts.
They didn't lend any money out, and no one came to collect debts. They played cards for a while, and then went to bed early, around 8 o'clock.
In their mountain village, there is no custom of staying up all night on New Year's Eve.
Shi Zhen was awakened by the sound of firecrackers on the first day of the Lunar New Year.
This is called "opening the door with firecrackers," which are set off on the first day of the Lunar New Year when the door is opened, symbolizing a prosperous and thriving year ahead.
When Shi Zhen woke up, he found Guan Baiyu's feet in his bed.
Shi Dalin and Zhao Meiyun's bed wasn't big, and the two of them slept close together. Although Guan Baiyu's feet were outside the covers, they weren't cold.
Shi Zhen turned his head to look at Guan Baiyu, wondering if there was any way to cover Guan Baiyu's ears and let him sleep a little longer, when he saw Guan Baiyu open his eyes.
"Good morning, brother." Guan Baiyu smiled at Shi Zhen.
"Good morning." Shi Zhen took a deep breath, feeling a little dazed.
Being too close to Guan Baiyu always reminded him of the past...
"Xiaoyu, get up, I'll take you for a walk around the area," Shi Zhen said.
Upon hearing this, Guan Baiyu immediately jumped out of bed: "Brother, where are we going?"
"Just taking a walk around," Shi Zhen said.
The area around their village is relatively safe. Now that it's winter, there are fewer snakes, insects, and rodents, so they can roam around freely.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Shi Zhen did nothing but accompany Guan Baiyu around. The same thing happened on the second and third days.
Guan Baiyu was initially a little worried that Shi Ting would be unhappy, however... Shi Ting also had a group of friends in the village, and she was having so much fun that she didn't pay any attention to Shi Zhen.
Over the past three days, many people have come to talk to Shi Zhen and ask about the situation outside, and Shi Zhen has explained everything to them.
On the fourth day of the month... Shi Zhen took Guan Baiyu to find the people he wanted to take out and have them work for him.
He has six people he is interested in. Four of them are already married, and two are not yet married. They are all young and strong, between the ages of twenty and thirty.
Among these people, there were actually a few who had approached Shi Zhen before, asking about working outside. Now that Shi Zhen had approached them, they agreed to go out and work with him without hesitation.
Shi Zhen was not surprised by this.
In their past life, Shi Xinghuo followed him out and died unexpectedly. Even so, they were still willing to follow him out. Not to mention that in this life, Shi Xinghuo and Shi Xingchao have both made money outside, and their family's life is becoming increasingly prosperous.
With this matter settled, Shi Zhen's mission upon returning home can be considered complete.
As a result... he wandered around outside and returned home to find a young man in his house—Zhao Qiujuan—looking at someone.
Shi Zhen knew that man; he was related to his family and was his cousin.
With little education, most people who leave the mountains to work will choose to rely on acquaintances.
In his previous life, he was quite capable in Changxi City, and people from his area would choose Changxi City as their first choice when they went out to work.
This man also worked on his construction site for a period of time.
After he quit being a contractor, he went into the renovation business, specializing in laying tiles and such.
He was doing neither well nor badly, but Shi Zhen didn't like him much. There was no other reason than that he, like Zhao Dongjuan, liked to take advantage of others, and sometimes to an excessive degree.
Shi Zhen's cousin also has the surname Shi, and his name is Shi Zhiqiang. He is the son of Shi Zhen's grandmother's sister and lives in the same village as them.
Shi Zhen's grandmother and Shi Zhiqiang's grandmother married into this family together. Although the two sisters had a so-so relationship, the two families were relatives and had always kept in touch.
But around the time Shi Zhen's mother passed away, Shi Zhiqiang's family did something quite disgusting.
At that time, Shi Dalin was really poor. Shi Zhiqiang's family was probably afraid that Shi Dalin would borrow money from them. When Shi Dalin went to inform them and asked them to attend the funeral, they said that they had too many relatives and would no longer associate with Shi Dalin, nor would they attend the funeral.
What's even more absurd is that they maintained contact with relatives of Shi Dashan's family, which was relatively well-off.
However, when Shi Dashan later learned that they had severed ties with Shi Dalin, he stopped associating with them.
In his previous life, Shi Dalin never told his family about this, so Shi Zhen initially didn't know either. Later, when his father got older and started talking more, he talked to his father about the past and learned about the conflict between the two families. When they talked about it, Shi Dalin's eyes were filled with tears, and he kept saying that a person must have money, otherwise, no matter where they go, they will be looked down upon.
Because Shi Zhen was unaware of this matter at first, when Shi Zhiqiang came to his construction team, he took good care of him. As a result, Shi Zhiqiang started to act like a relative, always trying to take advantage of others, and even taking kickbacks.
Shi Zhen didn't like this person, and he didn't plan to invite him when he was taking people out to work. But this person came to meet Zhao Qiujuan for a date?
Shi Zhen looked at his father and noticed that his father seemed a little unhappy.
However, his father... like many men of this era, didn't like to talk to people about his problems.
He usually does nothing but work. Even if he dotes on Shi Ting, he will at most pick a fruit for her, but he will never hug her or praise her.
When Shi Zhen was a child, he was never praised by him. Instead, he was beaten by him for things like tearing his clothes, accidentally getting injured and worrying his mother, or not taking good care of his younger sister.
When Shi Dalin beats people, he doesn't say much. He just finishes beating them and that's it. Sometimes Shi Zhen doesn't even know why he was beaten.
His mother couldn't stand seeing him get beaten either; occasionally, when he was beaten, his mother would yell at his father.
Every time that happened, his father would stand there with his head down, taking the scolding, and then give him a bite of food at mealtime, and that would be the end of it.
However, after his mother passed away, he stopped being naughty, and Shi Dalin never hit him again.
Based on Shi Zhen's understanding of his father, his father would most likely not talk about the past when he was with Zhao Meiyun. Zhao Meiyun probably didn't know the reason why the two families broke off their ties, which is why she arranged for Zhao Qiujuan to meet this person.
"Ah Zhen, you're back." Zhao Meiyun was quite happy to see Shi Zhen return: "Keep talking to Zhiqiang."
Shi Zhen didn't want to make things too ugly, so he sat down and chatted with Shi Zhiqiang for a few minutes. He then discovered that Shi Zhiqiang was clearly more interested in him than in Zhao Qiujuan.
Of course, Shi Zhiqiang's interest in him had nothing to do with feelings.
Shi Zhiqiang most likely didn't like Zhao Qiujuan. If he really did, he would have proposed marriage long ago, given how many years they'd been living in the same village.
Shi Zhiqiang came to meet Zhao Qiujuan probably because her family had become wealthy and he wanted to go out and work to earn money.
Especially since Zhao Meiyun mentioned that Zhao Qiujuan could make money, Zhao Qiujuan's image in Shi Zhiqiang's eyes must be different now.
Shi Zhiqiang caught up with Shi Zhen and asked him about his work outside.
Shi Zhen said some things he had told the villagers, and then stopped talking. Zhao Meiyun urged Shi Zhiqiang and Zhao Qiujuan to go out for a stroll.
Only then did Shi Zhiqiang let Shi Zhen go, and he went out with Zhao Qiujuan.
After Shi Zhiqiang and Zhao Qiujuan left, Shi Dalin immediately said, "This person is no good."
"Why? His family is quite well-off." Zhao Meiyun asked, somewhat puzzled. Shi Zhiqiang was considered a sought-after young man in the village.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have arranged for someone to meet Zhao Qiujuan without even discussing it with Shi Dalin after someone suggested it.
Of course, there was another reason why they didn't discuss it: Shi Dalin had been sleeping alone in the main room recently, and since they weren't sleeping together, they didn't have time to discuss it.
Shi Dalin frowned, clearly unsure of what to say.
To be honest, Shi Zhiqiang had no problems in any aspect. The main reason he was unwilling was that when he went to invite people to the funeral, they acted as if they were afraid he would borrow money or get entangled with them, and they immediately threatened to sever ties with him.
“Anyway, this guy is no good,” Shi Dalin said.
Zhao Meiyun was a little confused, but since Shi Dalin said no... well... that's fine then...
Seeing that Zhao Meiyun was somewhat unhappy, Shi Zhen said, "Aunt Zhao, that family is materialistic and greedy. Before, when we were poor, they were relatives of ours and didn't want to come to our door. Now they only come because they see we have money. And that Shi Zhiqiang, he likes to take advantage of others, and his mother is even more difficult to get along with. If you marry him, you will suffer."
Zhao Meiyun trusted Shi Zhen a lot, and upon hearing what Shi Zhen said, she immediately felt that there was something wrong with Shi Zhiqiang: "Is that so! That won't do! I'll go and see someone else."
“Aunt Zhao, don’t worry, my sister is only twenty-one,” Shi Zhen said.
Zhao Meiyun exclaimed anxiously, "She's already twenty-one! How can I not be worried! No, your sister is already twenty-two, not twenty-one!"
Zhao Meiyun is used to saying her age in the traditional Chinese way (by the lunar calendar), but to be honest... Zhao Qiujuan is still more than a month away from her 21st birthday!
Zhao Qiujuan was born in the second month of the lunar calendar.
Zhao Meiyun thought of something and mentioned a few more names, asking Shi Zhen what those people were like.
After returning from a six-month absence, Zhao Qiujuan became incredibly popular, with many people wanting to date her within just a few days.
Shi Zhen felt that... none of these people were very good.
Actually, if Zhao Qiujuan had stayed in the mountains and married one of them, just like her ancestors, she wouldn't have lived such a bad life.
But times have changed.
Many people, after going out to work and seeing the world, start doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
Another issue is the preference for sons over daughters.
Most people here are sexist and prefer sons to daughters.
Zhao Dongjuan wouldn't be afraid of suffering losses if she married anyone, but given Zhao Qiujuan's personality, she would definitely suffer losses.
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