Chapter 20

cheese

In Umayyad in the winter, there is always a heavy snow at night, and you can't even open the door in the morning. But when the sun rises, the sky is so blue and the sun is so dazzling.

Nie Bozhao got up early in the morning and went to work.

Chen Lina had to sew cotton-padded clothes for her three children today. The three children were also looking forward to getting new cotton-padded clothes so that they could go out and play and make snowmen. They gathered around her, each eating a big apple.

"Big Egg, come out and play." Chen Tiantian, wearing a knitted woolen hat and a small red cotton jacket, was dancing outside the glass window with a few little boys, waving their hands.

Nie Weimin was so anxious that he kept stumbling over and over. "Comrade Xiao Chen, please hurry up, I really want to go out and play."

Chen Lina snorted, "I had a bad stomach yesterday and my hands are tired. I haven't finished sweeping the kang yet. I can't mend it until I finish sweeping it."

"Well, shall I help you sweep the floor?" Nie Weimin took the initiative to grab the bed brush and started sweeping it vigorously.

Although his hands were clumsy and he didn't sweep cleanly, Chen Lina wanted the child to help her. She smiled and said "sure". In return, she spread out her cotton coats, took out the largest one first, and started to sew it for him.

Erdan saw that he couldn't fall behind, so he picked up a broom, and started sweeping the floor with his little butt sticking out.

But the north is dry and the ground is dusty. When he swept, the whole room was covered with dust. Sandan, who was sitting and playing on the kang, started coughing first.

"Erdan, you have to sprinkle water before sweeping. If you don't, you'll sneer at your brother. Hurry up and bring in the half basin of water outside and sprinkle it on the ground little by little. Wet it, and wait until it's half dry before we sweep."

"Okay." The boy dragged in the basin and almost poured half of the water onto the brick floor. Chen Lina didn't blame him, but just watched with a smile as the boy picked up a broom and started to clean the mud on the brick floor.

"Hey, can you still get a child to help you with work?" Sister Wang walked in holding two socks.

"Of course."

"There are not all people like us in our base who don't gossip or stir up trouble. If others see this, they might say that you are a stepmother who is calling the child."

Most of the family members at the base do not have jobs. They usually clean the house, cook, take care of the children, and do chores such as mending clothes and sewing insoles. Sister Wang is very diligent and almost always puts down her needlework.

However, needlework also gave them time to chat.

Chen Lina has been here for several days, but she doesn't chat or get close to other family members. Apart from two neighbors, she has no contact with anyone else. The family members at the base are full of curiosity about her, and of course, they also want to gossip about her, but since she doesn't go out, there is no gossip now.

Chen Lina smiled and invited her to come in and sit down, saying, "Don't their own mothers ask them to do any work? I'm here to be their mother, not a nanny. Why shouldn't they do anything?"

It's hard to be a stepmother, but seeing that the children were having fun, Sister Wang didn't say anything.

After sitting for a while, I heard some noises outside, and then the sound of a bicycle. Chen Tiantian, who was playing in the snow outside, called out loudly, "Milk, milk, milk is here."

Sister Wang also stood up in excitement. "Oh, I forgot. We're pumping milk today. The milkman brought the milk from Mulan Farm. Do you want me to pump it for you?"

Halfway through her words, she sighed again, "Look at my memory. Your child doesn't drink milk."

"What's going on? Has everyone in our base ordered milk?" Milk is much cheaper than milk powder, and fresh milk is definitely more nutritious than milk powder.

Sister Wang said, "It's not an order. It's a welfare benefit distributed by our base. A family gets seven kilograms of milk a week. Your child doesn't like to drink milk. It must have been eaten by Sun Gong's mother."

Chen Lina thought to herself, how can this be called humane? Even the milk that the children give every month is snatched away.

She waited until the milkman came back after a round before rushing to the door of the family area to ask, "Comrade, is your milk rationed?"

"Of course it's a fixed amount, but there's always some left over. If your family wants more, they either have to pay or give you tickets."

The milkman is also from the base. He goes back twice a week to bring milk from Loulan Farm and distribute it to designated households and locations. Of course, there will be some left over at the end, but I don't know how much.

As he spoke, he shook the iron bucket behind him, and it was obvious that there was still milk in it.

Nie Weimin, with a green face and a chuckle, took the time to sneak out with Erdan. "Comrade Xiao Chen, we don't drink milk because it tastes fishy."

Chen Lina rolled her eyes at him and said, "It's because you don't drink milk that you don't grow tall. Look at Chen Tiantian, how much taller is she than you?"

Nie Weimin blushed immediately. Erdan was only four years old, but he looked taller than him because he had a strong taste for spicy food.

"Comrade, look at this. We have three children, and the food supply is so tight now. They all need milk to grow. I'm paying you to buy milk today, but I strongly request that you also give us some milk on the next milk delivery. Do you agree?"

The milkman flipped through the notebook and said directly, "But, the milk from Nie Gong's family was seized at Mulan Farm."

"Is it because of Sun Gong's mother that the child's grandmother withheld the money? Well, you just pump the milk. If she still wants to steal it, let her come to me and I will take responsibility." Chen Lina thought to herself, I still don't believe it. I can't cure an old woman.

When the milkman heard Chen Lina's determination, he didn't say anything. He gave her three pounds of milk at 1 cent per pound and rode away on his tricycle.

"We are definitely dead this time." After returning home, Nie Weimin saw Chen Lina busy in the kitchen and said uneasily.

The little boy with big eyes fluttering around is actually very handsome. Among the three children, he looks most like Nie Bozhao.

Of course, when the story was published in the newspapers, the trial was held, and the execution was carried out, many young people did not believe that such a well-mannered and handsome young man could be a gang leader.

Chen Lina smiled and asked, "Why? Are you afraid that I'll steal your grandmother's milk and she'll come and make trouble?"

Nie Weimin said, "We don't like to drink milk, but my uncle likes to drink milk and eat cheese, so we give it to him. He is the hope of the Sun family. All my aunts' hopes are on him."

That's right. With many sisters, a big baby was born in the end. Huang Huacai doesn't want three big grandchildren because she already has a big baby son.

And she must have brainwashed all the girls into supporting their younger brother when her son was still young, to the point that Sun Gong even gave several kilograms of his own milk to his younger brother to drink.

"Why don't you like drinking milk?" Chen Lina went straight to the point and wanted to find out the reason.

Erdan thought for a moment and said, "Because it smells fishy. Hey, it smells like iron."

Chen Lina understood. Milk should be cooked in an aluminum pot, and Daylily probably cooked milk in the small iron pot at home. She couldn't clean the pot, and she didn't wipe it after cleaning it. In the morning, she would cook half a pot of rusty water for the children to drink. Who could stand the rusty smell?

"Today, Mom will make something delicious. I promise that starting tomorrow, you will like drinking milk," she said.

Nie Weimin was curious when he heard this. "Then you can do it quickly and we will watch, okay?"

"No, put on my flowery cotton jacket, pick up the coal bag, and go outside to pick up coal. After you're done, don't grab it with your hands. Wash it and watch here, and I'll do it for you."

"Oh, let's go pick up coal." Little Nie Weimin put on his flowered cotton jacket, turned around and ran.

If she wanted to boil milk for the children in an aluminum pot so that they could taste the original aroma of the milk, that would be fine. But Chen Lina herself was a picky person and she wanted to do everything to perfection.

It just so happened that I bought a bottle of rice wine from a Kazakh trader yesterday.

Boil the milk and filter out the residue in the rice wine. The milk is boiling in a small aluminum pot.

At this time, pour the rice wine in, stirring while pouring. Soon, the milk in the pot will start to floc. As more rice wine is poured, more and more flocs will appear.

When it's almost flocculent, turn off the heat, use gauze to filter the excess water back into the pot, then pour it into a bowl and deliberately mix in white sugar that looks like snowflakes in front of three children who can't stop drooling.

It’s so sweet! Just looking at the white sugar, the three children are already drooling.

They are not given any food at this time.

Put it outside the window and let the natural refrigerator outside freeze it for a while. Wait until it is frozen before bringing it in to eat.

"Mom, what is this called?" Erdan licked his little lips, his head was so anxious that smoke was about to come out of his head.

"It's called cheese, but it's different from the cheese made by the Uyghurs or the Kazakhs. This is the cheese of us Han Chinese. Mom guarantees that even if you hate fishy smells, you won't be able to taste the fishy smell in it," said Chen Lina.

Nie Bozhao went to Oil Well No. 2 today and happened to pass by Loulan Farm.

The people in Mulan Farm are all farmers who migrated from the mainland. They mainly grow soybeans and cotton and raise dairy cows. Compared with the mainland, the farm is quite good.

Because the land is vast, there is no tax, and the products are abundant, the larger the population is, the less worried about hunger, so it is considered very good.

However, there are always some people who are greedy and want more.

For example, Sun Zhuannan's mother Huang Huacai, because of Sun Zhuannan's accumulation in previous years and the placement of his brothers-in-law in various departments, is now the bully of Mulan Farm.

But that wasn't enough for her.

Because Sun Zhuanan died, she had no one to rely on at the oil base, so she wanted to marry her youngest daughter Sun Duoyu to Xiao Chen.

Xiao Chen's father is the director of Shanghai Automobile Factory. Even if he was demoted, he was only there to do gold plating. How could he look down on a Sun Duoyu?

So, the old lady tried to sell her to Fu Yongdong, a clerk in the Human Resources Department, but Fu Yongdong didn't dare to take her. The old lady settled for the next best thing and did not ask for the same family name, so she kept trying to sell it to her neighbor Hagong.

But because she was too aggressive, even though her neighbor Harbin Institute of Technology was somewhat interested in Sun Duoyu, he did not dare to marry her.

When the big Jiefang bus passed by Mulan Farm, Nie Bozhao saw Day Huacai standing at the farm gate.

Seeing the big truck coming, she just raised her hands, not afraid that the big Jiefang truck would crush her to death. "Xiao Chen, let me ask you, has your base paid wages this month?"

When the driver, Xiao Chen, saw that Nie Gong was sitting in the back, he lied, "Xue Da, the accountant hasn't gone to Umay to send the registered letter yet. Please wait a little longer."

Huang Huacai craned her neck to look, but the truck was too high and she couldn't see Nie Bozhao sitting in the back.

Half believing and half doubting, she said, "Xiao Chen, I heard that your Nian Gong has married a new wife from his hometown. Is that true?"

Xiao Chen was so frightened that he broke out in a sweat. He turned around and took a look. In fact, in the second row, behind a thick cotton curtain, Engineer Nie and two oil well testers were sitting in the back.

Nie Gong looked depressed and waved his hand. Xiao Chen quickly said, "I, I don't know either." Then he stepped on the grease and ran away.

Huang Huacai stood there, very angry. She thought that if she couldn't get the registered letter tonight, she would rush to the base tomorrow to find out the truth.