Every time her second brother came back from the village, Gao Shufang felt happy and sad.
I am happy that there are delicious foods again, but I am sad that I have to be busy again!
Gao Mingcheng caught ten wild rabbits from the mountains, fed two to San Gou, gave two to Xi Nainai's family, one each to Zhang Chengyuan's family and Chen Dasong's family, leaving four. These four rabbits were not skinned. The fur was directly scalded with hot water, and then the fine hair remaining on the skin was burned off with fire.
As for the bullfrog, Gao Mingcheng has already prepared it. You just need to clean it and stir-fry it with chili peppers.
However, when Gao Shufang was busy plucking rabbit hair in the backyard, a very outgoing young man came over and started a conversation.
He is the nephew of Mr. Zhu next door. He is just 19 years old this year and was sent by his father to work as an apprentice for Mr. Zhu not long ago.
Boss Zhu is in the shoe business. His shop sells ready-made shoes as well as custom-made shoes. The so-called custom-made shoes are actually just measuring the length of the foot, selecting the style, and then agreeing on a date to pick up the goods.
As for styles, there are not many styles these days, and there are only a few styles over and over again.
However, compared to buying ready-made shoes, some people still prefer to buy customized shoes, thinking that the shoemaking craftsmanship of the store is visible and they are more assured of the quality of the shoes.
Therefore, Boss Zhu's store business is pretty good.
Boss Zhu’s nephew is called Zhu Yongjie. He is a good-looking young man with a rare eloquence. When he first came here to work, he dared to go door-to-door and deal with the surrounding merchants.
"Although rabbit skin tastes good to eat, the rabbit skin after being nitrated is also very useful! Let me tell you, you can also use rabbit skin to make shoes. The leather of the shoes made is very soft and very suitable for girls to wear." Zhu Yongjie squatted beside Gao Shufang, talking while watching her plucking hair.
Gao Shufang was also happy to talk to him. They were of similar age and in their youth, so it was inevitable that they would be attracted to the opposite sex.
Gao Shufang smiled and said, "My second brother is a great hunter, so we have plenty of rabbit skins at home! Besides, rabbit meat tastes better with the skin on."
"Your second brother is really awesome. He caught a wild boar not long ago. It would be great if I had the chance to go hunting with him." Zhu Yongjie said with a longing look on his face.
Gao Shufang heard this but just smiled and didn't say anything.
Gao Shufang knew that her second brother liked to go alone and didn't like to take anyone with him to go hunting, let alone take someone he didn't know well with him.
Zhu Yongjie noticed this and his eyes flickered, but he cleverly changed the subject. He was really good at talking, and soon, he made Gao Shufang laugh out loud.
In the shop, Xuanyue Meizheng and Gao Mingcheng were whispering to each other.
"Mingcheng, I think Zhu Yongjie next door has taken a fancy to Shufang. He comes over to talk to her every few days."
Gao Mingcheng looked at Zhu Yongjie with a critical eye. He didn't know this person in his previous life, but he was still quite accurate in judging people. He said with dissatisfaction, "This young man has not cultivated well enough and is still young. I didn't pay much attention to him before. It seems that I have to talk to Shufang tonight to prevent her from being fooled."
Xuanyuemei nodded thoughtfully, and then said, "You take Xiao Xuxu with you, I'll go over to help and distract them. I see Zhu Yongjie is getting closer and closer. He's really not a good person. He's getting so close, but he doesn't even lend a hand to help with the work!"
There was some dissatisfaction in Xuanmei's tone. In fact, most of the men in the village did not do housework. But since Gao Mingcheng often helped out, Xuanmei had gotten used to it.
Now seeing that Zhu Yongjie kept trying to please Gao Shufang with words but refused to help with the work, she felt a little dissatisfied.
She felt that this person was only good at talking and was not an honest person.
So Xuanyuemei went to the backyard and worked with Gao Shufang, saying, "Yongjie, it's already this late, your uncle should be cooking dinner, right? Why don't you go back and help light the fire?"
Zhu Yongjie naturally understood the intention of seeing him off, and immediately stood up and said, "Well, it's time to go back. I'll leave first."
Before leaving, Zhu Yongjie smiled at Gao Shufang. It was rare for a young man like him who grew up in the village to have fair skin, thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a mouth that was always smiling, which made him very popular with young girls.
After Zhu Yongjie left through the back door, Xuanyuemei secretly asked Gao Shufang: "Shufang, what do you think of Zhu Yongjie?"
Gao Shufang didn't know what her second sister-in-law meant, so she just smiled and said, "I think he's nice, and he speaks in a funny way."
Many beauties stared at her, but didn't see any clues, so they stopped talking about it.
However, Xu Mimei was not mentioned. After dinner, Gao Mingcheng specifically found Gao Shufang and talked about Zhu Yongjie.
"Zhu Yongjie is a guy with a sharp tongue and good ways of dealing with people. He is a good material for doing business, but he is fickle-minded and has a unstable personality. You should just be ordinary friends with him and talk to him occasionally." Gao Mingcheng made his words quite clear as soon as he opened his mouth.
Gao Shufang was stunned for a moment, but soon blushed and said embarrassedly: "Second brother, what are you thinking? I don't have any feelings for him!"
Gao Shufang was an unmarried young lady who had never had any emotional experience before. After meeting Zhu Yongjie, although she could talk to him, she really had no other thoughts.
The most important thing is that the two parties have not known each other for long enough, and Gao Shufang has also seen Zhu Yongjie talking intimately with other people, so when Zhu Yongjie talked to her, she didn't feel that Zhu Yongjie was special to her.
Instead, I think this is Zhu Yongjie's character.
After hearing Gao Shufang's opinion of Zhu Yongjie, Gao Mingcheng couldn't help laughing. He said, "Shufang, we think alike! Now that you know what kind of person he is, that's enough! By the way, I went to see grandma today, and she is recovering well. In five days, it will be dad's birthday, and that day happens to be his day off, so he wants to invite you home for a meal."
"I have taught Mingli to drive a tractor before, but he is not very good at it yet. I will teach him again in the next few days. Then I will let Mingli drive my tractor and help me get the eggs and vegetables I have saved from Niuweiling."
Gao Shufang calculated the days in her mind and found that her father's birthday was indeed approaching.
It’s just that life was hard at home in the past, so no one took birthdays seriously. Being able to eat a boiled egg on the birthday was considered good enough.
Gao Shufang was actually happy to go back, but according to her second brother, he and his wife would not go back.
She wanted to persuade him, but after opening her mouth, she ended up saying nothing.
Gao Mingcheng really didn't plan to go, mainly because his father's words seemed to indicate that he didn't want him to come. He didn't want to do something that would get him rejected, so he simply didn't go.
So these few evenings, after Gao Mingli got off work, Gao Mingcheng took Gao Mingli to a relatively wide road and let Gao Mingli practice driving a tractor.
The skills of driving a tractor are not very complicated. You just need to remember the function of each function, and when driving, keep your eyes and ears open and operate steadily.
Gao Mingli performed very well and learned very hard. In just two days, he could drive very steadily.
Gao Mingcheng was happy after teaching Gao Mingli how to drive. This way, he didn't have to go back to the village every now and then to get things. On his days off, he would call Gao Mingli back to the village to visit his parents, help with some work in the fields, and get him eggs, vegetables and firewood.
Otherwise, it would be a shame to have such a large labor force in Gaomingli lying here without being put to any use.
Soon it was Gao Yuanjian's birthday. Early in the morning, Gao Mingli drove a tractor, took his wife Zhang Jinling and sister Gao Shufang, and went to Gao Mingwan's home. They picked up Gao Mingwan and his wife, and returned to Gaojia Village together to celebrate Gao Yuanjian's birthday.
Gao Mingwan was the driver of the sports car, but because Xiao Jinfeng had notified him in advance, he arranged a shift for Gao Mingwan, and he happened to be free that day.
As soon as they left, Gao Mingcheng felt that the whole store became a little deserted.
There were few staff in the store and the tractor had been taken away by Gao Mingli, so Gao Mingcheng didn't run around. He just helped sell clothes and take care of little Xuxu in the store.
Today is a day off and also the busiest day of the week. Many fashionable young people come into the store to buy new autumn clothes. The autumn styles in the store are selling very well and the inventory has been visibly reduced.
Gao Mingcheng was busy selling goods while counting the inventory, and then he found that he had to go to Yangcheng to purchase goods again!
Well, that's how business works, it's all about hustle and bustle.
There were only three adults and one child eating in the restaurant at noon, so the meal was prepared very quickly, unlike usual times when a large table of dishes had to be prepared.
While Gao Mingcheng was having a simple lunch, the people in Gaojia Village were also having lunch, with the dishes from Gao Yuanjian's family being the best.
Gao Yuanjian was not celebrating his first birthday, so the event was not announced to anyone else. The family just gathered together for a meal.
In the morning, when the sound of a tractor came from outside the door, Gao Yuanjian was still happy in his heart when he thought that it was his children and daughter-in-law coming back together.
But when he saw that it was Gao Mingli who was driving, he was stunned.
When he found out that Gao Mingcheng and his wife hadn't come, the smile on his face disappeared. He said with a sullen face, "Where's the second son? He didn't even want to come to my birthday party?"
After these words were spoken, everyone fell silent, not knowing how to respond.
Gao Shufang's eyes rolled. She felt that her second brother was a very good person. Last time when grandma fell down, it was her second brother who ran around to help. This time her second brother didn't come back, it was very likely that there was something wrong with her parents' attitude.
But now Dad is questioning why my second brother didn’t come!
What went wrong?
No matter what, Gao Yuanjian is the elder and also the birthday boy, so everyone quickly changed the topic and started congratulating Gao Yuanjian.
And everyone prepared birthday gifts for Gao Yuanjian.
Of course, most of these gifts are practical, such as Gao Mingwan brought two bottles of Si Te liquor and a pack of cigarettes.
Gao Mingli brought two kilograms of meat and two bags of snacks.
As for Gao Shufang, she was the most thoughtful in her gifts. She brought gifts to almost everyone! She gave a silk scarf to Grandma Gao, Luo Xiaohua, and her eldest sister-in-law Huang Su'e, a toy to her eldest nephew, and a pair of Jiefang shoes to her father.
She remembered that when she came back last time, the pair of Liberation shoes on her father's feet had a hole in it, revealing his big toe, so she had been thinking about buying her father a new pair of shoes.
These gifts were evidence that his children valued him, so Gao Yuanjian became happy again and talked to people cheerfully.
It is said that things smell better when they are far away than when they are near. We haven't seen each other for a long time. Now that we meet, we are all very happy. As we talk and laugh, it seems that some of the previous conflicts no longer exist.
Zhang Jinling also behaved very well and went to the kitchen to help. However, when she saw the chickens that she once raised in the backyard, she felt a little sad.
She bought these chickens with her own money, but the rice bran and chopped vegetables they ate were from home, so she was not very confident when she quarreled with her sister-in-law Huang Su'e.
Later, when she went to the county, she no longer had the chickens.
At the dinner table, Luo Xiaohua frequently picked up food for his two pregnant daughters-in-law, which inevitably neglected Zhang Jinling, which made Zhang Jinling feel a little uncomfortable.
She touched her flat belly secretly and felt a little anxious.
She was anxious, and in fact Wang Xiuxiu was also a little uneasy, because Luo Xiaohua said that if she wanted to take care of her during the confinement period, she would have to come home to give birth to the baby.
Luo Xiaohua had to do a lot of things at home, and her eldest daughter-in-law was also pregnant, so she naturally couldn't leave. In order to show that she would treat everyone equally, she asked Wang Xiuxiu to return to the village to give birth to the child.
But for Wang Xiuxiu, instead of seeing her equal treatment, she only saw favoritism.
Her sister-in-law got pregnant two months earlier than her. By the time she gave birth, she had already finished her confinement. Luo Xiaohua could go to the county to take care of her.
But Luo Xiaohua asked her to return to the village to give birth to the child, which made Wang Xiuxiu feel uncomfortable.
She was used to living in the county and preferred to go to the hospital to give birth, so she was unwilling to return to the village. Besides, Gao Mingwan had to drive a car and could not be by her side to take care of her. Once she returned to the village, she would face the same situation as Zhang Jinling!
Wang Xiuxiu felt a little timid when she thought of the scene when Zhang Jinling was left alone at home.
After dinner, Wang Xiuxiu found an opportunity to talk about this with Gao Mingwan.
"Ming Wan, I'm going to go back to my parents' home first to see if my mother is willing to come and take care of me during the confinement period. If my mother doesn't want to come, then we can learn from my second brother and his wife and hire someone to take care of me and the child. What do you think?"
Gao Mingwan agreed to Wang Xiuxiu's request without even thinking about it.
It is said that no one knows a son better than his mother, but the reverse is also true. Gao Mingwan knows what kind of people his parents are like. As the third son in the family, he did not receive much more care than his second brother.
The reason why he has some status in his parents' hearts is that he knows how to cater to his parents. Unlike his second brother, he has a stubborn temper and likes to cause trouble outside. This makes his parents dislike his second brother since he was a child.
Gao Mingwan said, "Let's invite Aunt Hu, who was invited by my second brother and his family! She takes good care of my second sister-in-law and Xiao Xuxu, and she knows them well. If I invite her, I will feel at ease even if I am not at home."
Wang Xiuxiu recalled her impression of Hu Yinchen, then nodded in agreement.
This is the case when you hire someone to do something. It's all about word of mouth, so the reputation of the person doing the work is very important. (End of this chapter)
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