Zhou Huaian and his companion picked up Zhou's mother, watched the monkey show for a while, and then walked back together. As soon as they arrived at the entrance of the department store, they met Xu Hongbing and Lin Xiaofang looking out the door.
Zhou Huaian patted him and said, "Old Xu, you two are coming to the city!"
"Hey! You're here too!" Xu Hongbing pulled him aside in surprise and whispered, "I brought Xiaofang here today to see Doctor Wang to check on her pulse and see if the baby is okay. Who would have thought that after not coming here for more than half a year, this place would be like this."
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "They moved the clinic diagonally opposite the bus station. Just come with me."
Xu Hongbing nodded repeatedly, "Oh! Then let's go together."
Lin Xiaofang greeted Zhou's mother, and the two of them followed Zhou Huaian and the other two.
When Zhou's mother saw that Lin Xiaofang was pregnant, she thought that Xu Hongbing was the only child in the family and her son was also the only child. She already understood what the two were planning and started talking to her without saying a word.
Zhou Huaian glanced at Xu Hongbing and said, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I'll be waiting for you at the entrance of the village!"
Xu Hongbing whispered, "I never thought about coming. I thought I had finished my work in the fields. Xiaofang's eldest brother is having a wedding today, so I thought I would go to the wedding and pick her up.
Who knew that she was bumped by a kid running around this morning and felt a little uncomfortable in her stomach. We didn't dare to ask anyone else to see her, so we brought her to the city to see Doctor Wang."
Seeing his anxious look, Zhou Huaian comforted him, "It's okay, just take two pills of pregnancy-preserving medicine and you'll be fine."
"I thought so too." Xu Hongbing turned around and glanced at Lin Xiaofang who was walking with Zhou's mother. "You and your aunt are the only ones coming to the city?"
"Chunyan came to see her younger sister, so she brought my mother and Jiuer with her. We'll go directly to Wang Zhen's house to check his pulse later." Zhou Huaian hesitated for a moment, but still didn't tell him that his family had bought land and built a house here.
Xu Hongbing said gratefully: "That's great. Thank you very much!"
"You're being polite to me!" Zhou Huaian said with a smile, "The millet harvest will begin in a few days. After that, Yiding and I will go to the forest farm and then go into the mountains to collect herbs. What are your plans with Brother Li?"
Xu Hongbing grinned and said, "Of course I'm following you two! Lao Li said yesterday that he would go to your house one day to ask you and Yiding if you are going to the mountains to harvest the crops this year?"
"Go back later and tell him."
"Okay! When are you going back?"
"We'll eat here and then leave. Will you come with us?"
"Forget it, we still have to go back to my mother-in-law's house. Let's go back after dark. Otherwise, if those evil-minded people in the village see us and report us, we'll be in trouble."
"That's true." Zhou Huaian also found it strange. He didn't know why, but in every village, there were always a few annoying guys who were doing trouble behind the scenes.
Over there, Lin Xiaofang saw the look in Zhou's mother's eyes and whispered to her that she was pregnant with her second child. "We thought that if we don't take care of our children, when we are old and gone, we will have someone to discuss things with our two children."
"I still think two kids are not enough. Look at my family. If it weren't for Huai'an's brothers, we wouldn't be able to take on the work in the provincial capital."
Lin Xiaofang nodded. "As the old saying goes, fathers and sons fight together in battle, and brothers fight together to fight tigers. If the superiors don't care, of course three is better. But now it's good enough to hide and have one child."
"That's right. Fortunately, the boss changed someone, otherwise it would be difficult to have one more person."
Mother Zhou hesitated for a moment, but still said, "Xiaofang, you have to be careful. Your current figure is obvious to those who are older."
"I don't go out when I'm at my mom's place. My nephew is getting married today and my family is too busy..."
Several people returned to Wang Zhen's home. He and Yang Dongmei were already at home. After Zhou Huaian told him about Lin Xiaofang's condition, Wang Zhen took her pulse and prescribed two pregnancy-preserving pills. He told her to walk less and not lift heavy objects during this period, and that she would be fine after resting for a while.
Xu Hongbing was relieved to see that the child was fine. He followed him to the clinic to get some medicine, and then took Lin Xiaofang back to his mother-in-law's house on the bus.
The weather was too hot, and Yang Chunyan and Zhou's mother were worried that the pig intestines would become smelly, so after having them cleaned by Yang Dongmei, they froze them in her refrigerator. Then it was time for lunch.
The group went to Huang Yongcai's Douhua Restaurant, and he happily came out to greet them, "If you don't come, I will go and call you."
Zhou Huaian looked at Huang Yongcai, who was white and fat like a Maitreya Buddha, and said with a smile: "Brother Huang, you are fat again! I think you can't even see your toes now."
Huang Yongcai lowered his head and said, "I can't see! Oh! I weighed myself yesterday and it was 180 pounds. Doctor Xiao Wang also said that I can't keep getting fat like this and told me not to eat after 7 o'clock, but I just can't help eating."
Wang Zhen smiled and shook his head. It is indeed difficult for people who cannot control their diet to lose weight.
Yang Chunyan also felt that it was quite rare for Huang Yong to become so fat in this era when everyone seemed to have a standard body shape.
Zhou's mother smiled and said, "Boss Huang, I think it's good. It looks so prosperous like this!"
"If Auntie says it's good, it must be good!" Huang Yingcai happily pinched Xiao Jiu'er's cheek, "Little darling, Uncle Huang fried some sandworms and loaches for you. They are crispy and delicious."
Xiao Jiuer didn't hide either, but looked at him curiously with his round eyes. Zhou Huaian asked him to say "Hello, uncle" and he said it obediently. Huang Yongcai was so happy that he carried him to the private room to get something to eat.
The group entered the private room and heard the lively drinking and playing finger-guessing games in the private room next door.
Soon, the waiter brought in a large plate of fried golden sandworms and loaches, and placed a layer of chili noodles on the side.
Huang Yongcai gave one to Xiao Jiuer and said to everyone, "It's freshly fried, eat it while it's hot. It won't taste good if it gets cold."
Several people picked up one of their favorites. The taste was neither salty nor bland, and it was crispy and just right as a snack.
Huang Yongcai said to Wang Zhen: "I heard a piece of news that some employees of state-owned stores said that we, the self-employed business owners, have taken away their business, affecting their turnover, and their bonuses are getting smaller and smaller. They want to report the problem to the higher authorities.
I have been getting blocked by them recently when I went to wholesale cigarettes. For popular cigarettes like Daqianmen, I had to buy one pack with Chungeng, which is not popular. Some time ago, they even gave me two kilograms of sweet potato flour with one pack.”
Although Wang Zhen knew about this news a long time ago, he did not expect that it would also affect restaurants, tobacco and alcohol. "Thank you, Brother Huang. I have already adjusted some of the goods. After they react and see how the higher-ups deal with it, we will adjust it back."
Huang Yongcai nodded repeatedly, "It's the only way. I came from the same unit myself, and I know their character. They never look for the reasons in themselves, but only put the blame on others."
Zhou Huaian said with a smile: "Brother Huang, Chun Geng is not easy to sell, so you can sell it to me. Ding Dingmao, Lao Xu and I all smoke this."
Huang Yongcai was surprised, thinking that he usually got Daqianmen. "Why are you still drawing Chungeng? It's not like you can't afford Daqianmen. Why are you so stingy?"
Zhou Huaian smiled and took out a pack of Chun Geng, and then took out a pack of Da Qian Men. "One for guests, one for myself. I think Da Qian Men is similar to Chun Geng. One pack costs two yuan more, which is not worth it."
Huang Yongcai rolled his eyes at him, turned his head and said to Yang Chunyan with a smile: "Sister-in-law, you are so lucky! Your youngest child may seem lazy, but he actually cares the most about the family."
Yang Chunyan smiled and nodded, "Thank you, Brother Huang, he is a very family-oriented person."
Yang Weiguo was also very happy. They had an idea of how much money Zhou Huaian had earned in the past few years. They had originally worried that his old illness would relapse, but they didn't expect that he would earn more and more money and become more and more steady in his work.
He still got up early and went to bed late every day, working diligently, and never went out to hang out like before. Only then did he and his mother and husband feel relieved about him.
Especially the aunts and uncles in the family, none of them who used to look down on Chunyan are here anymore. They all said that they had long seen that Chunyan was a person with good taste, and that Zhou Laoyao was a good man in every way.
Zhou's mother was also very happy. She, the youngest child who had never been very ambitious, has now become the one who brings the most honor to the family. The whole family, young and old, are proud of him wherever they go.
The dishes were served one after another, including a portion of Douhua Restaurant's signature dish, tofu pudding, cold shredded vegetables, stir-fried meat with black fungus, sweet and sour fish, chicken stewed with matsutake and morels, and lotus root with oil residue. After all the dishes were served, Huang Yongcai ate two bites with the waiter and then went to socialize at another table.
Yang Chunyan scooped up some matsutake chicken soup for Xiao Jiuer to drink. "Don't be busy. Go into the mountains and look for matsutake when you have time. I haven't found any yet!"
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "Matsutake mushrooms can only be found in higher mountains. We can go up the mountain to look for them when we have time."
Yang Chunyan nodded and said, "After we harvest the millet, let's go to the pine forest in the forest farm to have a look."
Yang Dongmei: "Sister, Wang Zhen and I want to go to your place to pick mushrooms, but grandpa is gone and we don't have time to go."
Yang Chunyan: "Don't even think about going there for the next two years. You have to wait until the child is about the same age as Xiao Jiuer before you can go out."
Brother Yang smiled and said, "When the child grows up to Jiuer's age, let mom come to help you take care of him. You can go and have fun with Chunyan and Huai'an for two days."
"It's only two days at most. If it's longer, I'll worry about the kids!" Zhou's mother ate two pieces of tofu pudding. "Boss Huang's tofu pudding dipping sauce tastes really good. The ones we make ourselves are not as good as his."
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "The glutinous rice peppers they use for dipping sauce are first soaked in hot water until they become mushy when pinched, then scooped out and pressed with a grinding wheel, the water is filtered out and put into a pestle, and spices such as peppercorns, star anise, etc. are added in proportion and pounded into a pulp... It's very troublesome."
Yang Dongmei took over the conversation, "I think it's better to chop a handful of green and red chili peppers, add two spoons of lard and rapeseed oil, stir-fry the bean paste with scallion oil, and then add some pepper oil, sesame seeds, and chopped green onions. It will taste better."
Zhou's mother listened carefully and said cheerfully, "I'll go pick soybeans and grind tofu pudding when I get home, and I'll make the dipping sauce the way Dongmei said."
Yang Dongmei gave Zhou's mother a thumbs up and said, "Aunt Nian, tofu pudding made from fresh beans tastes the best when served with fresh chili peppers!"
Zhou's mother smiled and said, "I like to eat tofu pudding made from fresh beans. Let's go back and peel some more beans and put them aside. I'll grind them tomorrow morning and ask your brother-in-law to bring you a bowl."
Yang Dongmei was not polite either, and nodded repeatedly, "Okay, I won't be polite!" (End of this chapter)
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