Guan Baiyu waited until Shi Zhen finished eating before sitting down to continue eating, while also thinking about giving Shi Zhen something else when he came over later.
Shi Zhen and the others had to wait until the first group of people finished eating and the tables were cleared before they could start eating, by which time the food would be cold!
An octagonal table can only seat eight people. Zhao Meiyun and the others were helping out, while Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting were sitting with Shi Daniu's family.
Shi Daniu was also serving dishes. At this moment, Shi Daniu's wife and children, his parents, and an elderly couple in their sixties were at the table.
The man in the elderly couple started drinking as soon as he sat down at the table, and kept urging Shi Daniu's father to drink, and also to let Guan Baiyu drink... He became very unhappy when Guan Baiyu refused to drink.
While eating, he didn't know why, but his chopsticks kept rummaging through the dishes in front of him.
As for the woman in the elderly couple, she had been quiet until now, when she suddenly said, "This meal is ours, why are you giving it to others?"
The two dialects are slightly different, but Guan Baiyu can understand them both, which is a bit frustrating.
Although Shi Xingchao was stingy, he knew that the wedding banquet had to be presentable. In addition, Chen Xiaofen and her husband bought some extra pork, so the wedding banquet was actually very lavish. Even if all the people in the banquet ate the dishes until they were full, they might not be able to finish them.
At a time like this, can't we even offer the person who helped us a bite to eat?
If we really want to fuss about this, then wouldn't it be a huge loss if the children at that table ate less?
However, arguing with people in this kind of situation will ultimately upset the newlyweds, Shi Xingchao and his wife.
Guan Baiyu pretended not to understand and, when Shi Zhen came over, stuffed another piece of chicken into his mouth.
The old lady immediately became unhappy again.
Seeing this, Shi Daniu's wife smiled apologetically at Guan Baiyu, then looked at her son, scooped up some rice with a spoon and brought it to his mouth: "Xiaobao, eat another bite of rice, you can't just eat braised duck."
Shi Daniu's son turned his head away and focused on eating the braised duck leg he was holding.
That wasn't all; Shi Daniu's father even brought the plate of braised duck directly to his grandson, saying, "If Xiaobao likes it, let him eat it! Look how good his appetite is! How strong he is!"
The child looked to be six or seven years old. He hogged a whole plate of braised duck and ate it without even noticing how salty it was. Shi Daniu's wife, on the other hand, looked quite embarrassed and gave Guan Baiyu an apologetic smile.
This time, the old lady didn't say anything, probably because she didn't dare to say anything to her.
Guan Baiyu finished eating quickly and went to find Shi Zhen: "Brother, let me help you serve the dishes."
"Everything's ready." Shi Zhen smiled. They were just waiting for someone to finish eating so they could clear the table and have their own meal.
People who don't drink alcohol eat quickly. Not long after all the dishes were served, two tables of people finished eating. Shi Zhen and his group cleaned up, brought up the reserved dishes, and then began to eat.
Just then, Shi Ting came over: "Brother, give me a piece of braised duck."
At their table were their family and Shi Dashan's family, all adults without children. Shi Zhen handed her the braised duck leg: "What's wrong?"
"I didn't get a single bite." Shi Ting was annoyed. The braised duck was a bit far from her at first. She was drinking soda and hadn't eaten, so she didn't think about eating something that goes well with rice. Later... the braised duck was taken over by Shi Daniu's son.
She hadn't even had a full meal... After taking a braised duck leg, Shi Ting got another bowl of rice, squeezed onto Zhao Meiyun and Zhao Qiujuan's stools, and started eating.
Guan Baiyu glanced at the table where they had been sitting and saw that the old lady had taken several bowls and filled them with meat dishes.
The old man continued to drink while stirring the food in the bowl in front of him.
As for Shi Daniu's family... the adults had already finished eating, but the children were still playing and eating at the same time.
Shi Daniu's parents brought the food their grandson wanted to him... but no one was allowed to touch it.
After dinner, the helpers started washing the dishes and preparing and cleaning up the ingredients for the evening.
The women were picking vegetables, while the men were carrying water to wash the dishes. Shi Zhen and Shi Daniu washed the dishes together, and Shi Zhen took the opportunity to talk to Shi Daniu about Fang Miyan's family: "Fang Miyan's parents, although they don't treat her very well, they treat her younger brother extremely well, and they spoil him rotten. I wonder if her younger brother will go back to gambling in the future."
"Yes, her brother went too far. How could he gamble! And he lost so much!"
"You really can't spoil your kids, or you'll spoil them rotten," Shi Zhen said, trying to remind Shi Daniu not to indulge his child too much.
Shi Daniu nodded repeatedly, but didn't think about his own child at all.
Shi Zhen: "..."
"So, brother, back when you were selling popsicles, Tingting wanted one, and you insisted on charging her?" Guan Baiyu interjected with a smile. He knew what Shi Zhen wanted to do, so he was helping him out.
"Is that so?" Shi Daniu exclaimed in surprise.
Guan Baiyu then recounted how Shi Zhen had asked Shi Ting to embroider clothes, and how the money from the embroidery was used to buy snacks.
Shi Daniu couldn't understand: "She's still studying, why does she need to do this?" He thought Shi Ting was a really well-behaved and cute girl, she would do whatever he was asked and was very obedient, unlike his son, who was always unhappy about this and that.
“If she’s still in school and she’s already spending money so lavishly, what will happen when she grows up? Who knows, by then, she might not care about spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. No matter how much family wealth we have, it won’t be enough for her to squander,” Shi Zhen said.
Shi Daniu was stunned for a moment.
Recently, his son has been spending money really fast. He asked his father for a lot of money and bought a bunch of things that were useful and useless.
Just as Shi Daniu was thinking this, he saw his son walking towards him with a bag of snacks.
He opened the snack, took a bite, and then, seemingly not liking it, threw it away.
When Shi Daniu's father saw this, he quickly picked it up and, seeing that it wasn't dirty, ate it himself.
Meanwhile, Shi Daniu's son was already unpacking another bag of snacks.
Shi Daniu's anger flared up instantly.
In the eyes of the villagers, Shi Xingchao's wedding was exceptionally well-organized.
When holding a wedding, some people will pack up the dishes on the table and take them home, but others will not do so. In the end, there will be a lot of leftover food. Shi Dashan and his wife invited some close relatives to come to their house for dinner the next day.
However, Shi Zhen refused to go, as he had errands to run in the county town the next day.
When Shi Zhen went to the county town, he took Guan Baiyu and Shi Ting with him.
He brought Shi Ting along because he was going to transfer his and Shi Ting's household registrations. As for bringing Guan Baiyu... there's nothing good to eat with the leftovers, so it's better to go to the county town for some fun.
Shi Zhen had already asked about what to bring beforehand, and nothing was left out. The corresponding procedures were completed quickly. After returning, he would go to Anshan Town to complete the procedures, and then he and Shi Ting's household registrations could be transferred.
On the eighth day of the lunar new year, the Shi family returned to Anshan Town.
They still drove the tractor back, while Shi Daniu and his group took the bus. Along with Shi Daniu and his group were a dozen or so other workers whom Shi Zhen had hired from his hometown. Back in Anshan Town, Shi Zhen and the others got off the tractor, each of them letting out a long sigh of relief.
This trip back to my hometown was much more tiring than the last one. I was also not used to many things, and I couldn't eat or sleep well.
If you have too many good days, you can't stand hardship anymore... Not to mention others, Shi Dalin accidentally caught a cold and never fully recovered.
Zhao Meiyun, Zhao Qiujuan, and Shi Ting kept talking about going to the bathroom to take a shower together on the way home. When they got home, they rushed to get their change of clothes. Seeing this, Shi Dalin decided to go with them.
There is a bathhouse in Anshan Town. A bath costs two yuan, and many people go there to take a bath in winter.
Seeing this, Shi Zhen asked Guan Baiyu, "Xiaoyu, do you want to go to the bathroom to take a shower?"
"Brother, are you going?" Guan Baiyu asked.
"I'm not going," Shi Zhen said with a smile, adding that he could wash at home.
“Then I won’t go either.” Guan Baiyu said without hesitation.
"Okay, let's go back and take a shower."
Shi Zhen's construction site did not start work until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, while Guan Baiyu had already gone to school for extra classes by then.
Construction has resumed, and the progress has been slightly faster due to the addition of more workers, but not by much.
After all, many new workers don't know how to do certain tasks and need to be taught.
This time, it wasn't Shi Zhen who was in charge of teaching these workers, but Shi Daniu.
He was very serious and meticulous in his work, and had a good temper, making him very suitable for teaching people. However, after a few days, Shi Zhen noticed that his mood was not quite right.
"Brother Da Niu, have you run into something lately?" Shi Zhen asked him.
Shi Daniu hesitated for a moment before saying, "Azhen, do you think my son... isn't his family spoiling him too much?"
Shi Zhen didn't speak, but at this moment, silence meant certainty.
Shi Daniu said, "My wife also thinks the child is wrong and wants him to change his bad habits, but my parents keep stopping him... Just before, I saw him spending money recklessly and said something, and my parents even scolded me."
Shi Zhen didn't speak, but Shi Daniu kept nagging: "This kid spends more money than our whole family has ever spent. He won't let anyone else touch any of the good food at home, really..."
Shi Daniu works away from home and only sees his son during the Spring Festival. He adores him and initially doesn't care what his son does.
But after Shi Xingchao's wedding banquet... he felt something was off. Would his son end up like Fang Miyan's younger brother?
He had inquired with Fang Miyan over the past few days and even felt that his son might be more seriously ill than Fang Miyan's younger brother!
What should we do?
“Brother Da Niu, the education here is quite good. If your child studies here, he might be able to get into university in the future. You should talk to your parents and have your wife bring your child to live with you. Your wife can also work here,” Shi Zhen said.
Shi Daniu seemed to be deep in thought.
That evening, Shi Daniu went to Shi Dalin's place to call home. Unfortunately, his parents couldn't bear to let their grandson leave the village. They kept repeating the same thing: Shi Daniu's wife could go out to work, but their grandson had to stay at home.
They can't live without their precious grandson.
Afterwards, they even had a fight with Shi Daniu's wife, feeling that it was Shi Daniu's wife who instigated him to take his son out, and that she disliked them and didn't want them to see their grandson.
Shi Daniu was at a loss in the face of the situation and could only turn to Shi Zhen again.
Shi Zhenting was speechless: "That's your child. If you can't even discipline him yourself, what can others do? Take this matter for example... If you let your wife bring the child directly to you, do you think your parents will sever ties with you?"
Shi Daniu's son is not even old enough to start primary school yet. Although he is spoiled by his grandparents, he has grown up with his parents since he was little and is very attached to them.
When Shi Daniu went back this time, he wanted to pester Shi Daniu every day.
Shi Daniu's wife coaxed the child, saying she would take him to find his father and just bring the child out. What could Shi Daniu's parents do then? They would have no choice but to accept it.
Shi Daniu was a little dumbfounded: "My parents will be unhappy..."
Shi Zhendao said, "So your son is just something you use to please your parents? You don't care about his future?"
If Shi Daniu had continued living in the mountains, he wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with his son studying there.
But when he came to Anshan Town, he liked to go to Shi Dalin's place to sit when it rained. He had seen how the children here studied and how hard Shi Ting worked.
And then there's the fact that... after seeing the world, he envied those who had respectable jobs in town.
He has to work himself to the bone to make money, while others can make money just by sitting in an office.
No matter what, as a father, he absolutely did not want his son to end up like him, doing manual labor every day.
But his son, who studies in his hometown, will likely follow the same path as most people, dropping out after graduating from junior high school.
Not studying is fine, but if you're also lazy and gluttonous...
Shi Daniu searched around Guanjia Village, rented a room, and then about ten days later, his wife came over with their son and some other women from the village.
The women from those villages also came out to work.
Shi Zhen doesn't need female workers, but he used to build factories for others, and those factory owners needed workers.
He talked to people, asked for some job openings, and notified the villagers.
At present, big cities may lack workers, but small places like Anshan Town do not lack workers because many rural people nearby are still unemployed.
It was probably not until the early 2000s that factories began competing for workers.
Of course, that wasn't many years ago.
Shi Daniu's wife arrived in the evening, asking people along the way to reach Guanjia Village, where she first met Shi Xingchao.
She was fine at first, but when she saw Shi Daniu, she immediately burst into tears. Shi Daniu didn't know what had happened, but the women who came with him told him, and he learned that his son had been making a scene the whole way.
The journey was tiring, and the child couldn't eat or sleep well. At first, the child cried for his grandparents, but later he started punching and kicking his mother and swearing at her.
In the past, in the village, although Shi Daniu's children did not listen to their mother, they would at most shout things like "Mom, you are bad," and never hit their mother like this.
Shi Daniu's wife was stunned after being beaten this time.
Shi Daniu never expected his son to do this.
相比于自己的父母，石大牛虽然疼孩子，但没那么严重，当场揍了自己儿子一顿，还特地找到石振，问石振要怎么教育孩子。
Shi Zhen: "..." He really doesn't know how to raise children...
But since the child has already been brought along... Shi Zhen said, "Why don't you and your wife take him to the construction site? Let him see how you do your work."
When Shi Daniu remembered that Shi Ting used to be carrying bricks on the construction site, he immediately brought his wife and children to the construction site and made the child carry bricks one by one every day.
This child is quite heavy, weighing over fifty pounds. Carrying one brick at a time doesn't tire him out much.
Shi Zhen didn't know if this method would work, but with his parents watching over him, the child gradually stopped causing trouble. Shi Daniu and his wife started saving money to send their son to the town's kindergarten for a year in the second half of the year.
Actually, this child is old enough to start primary school in the second half of the year, but the town's primary school has a rule that children who have not attended kindergarten cannot attend primary school.
If he wants to attend primary school here, he must first attend kindergarten for a year.
These matters have little to do with Shi Zhen. What Shi Zhen is most concerned about now is the road construction and land sales in Anshan Town.
This is not only related to the Shi family building houses, but also to his career.
There are quite a few projects available for us to take on here.
Finally, at the end of March, the news was confirmed.
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