On New Year's Eve, the air was filled with the atmosphere of the approaching New Year.
Around noon, it started snowing heavily again.
It is said that a timely snowfall promises a good harvest, and the snow at the end of the year always brings joy. Listening quietly to the laughter and playful sounds of children outside, my mood also brightens.
She cleaned the house inside and out until it was spotless, changed the bed sheets and duvet covers, and even used ten points to redeem a pair of Spring Festival couplets, which she pasted on the door frame.
She wasn't planning on being too extravagant for her New Year's Eve dinner, so she prepared just enough dumpling filling for one person, fried a pot of pork meatballs, and stewed a bowl of pickled cabbage and pork bone soup.
The day before yesterday, Grandma Xu gave her a bowl of crispy pork, so she filled a bowl with pork meatballs and delivered it to Grandma Xu.
Grandma Xu tasted the pork meatballs she fried and kept praising her cooking skills, saying they were almost as good as the head chefs at state-run restaurants.
As night fell, Shen Honggang came by and invited her to come back to the Shen family home for dinner, but Shen Jingyan politely declined.
Shen Honggang didn't press the matter further, but he felt a sense of emptiness in his heart.
Anzi, however, kept her appetite to herself. After eating a few dumplings at home, she ran off to Shen Jingyan's place.
While helping Chen Jingyan tend the fire, he ate walnuts, hazelnuts, dates, peanuts, and candy.
“Sister Jingya, I’ve been helping you with the fire, chopping wood, and cleaning the house every day. Please let me stay here.”
He smiled calmly and said, "Okay, but we need to add one more thing."
"Sister, you said I could do it."
“You’ve grown up, you’re a little man now, you have to protect your sister’s safety.”
Anzi thumped her chest loudly, her big eyes shining with excitement: "No problem! I'll see who dares to bully my sister, I'll smash them into the snow with a shovel!"
The siblings chatted and laughed as they made dumplings.
The dumplings had just come out of the pot when Old Xu pushed the door open and came in.
He patted the snowflakes off his shoulders and called out in a loud, enthusiastic voice, "Jingya, look at you! You've come all the way to the forest farm, and you're still eating New Year's Eve dinner alone? Come on, come on, come to my room, it'll be more lively there!"
Shen Jingyan politely declined, saying, "Grandpa, I won't go. Anzi will stay here with me. He's very talkative, and it'll be quite lively for the two of us together."
Old Xu grabbed Anzi, who was tending the fire, and pulled him up.
"Why don't you just take Anzi with you? Kids don't take up much space!"
Without giving Anjing a chance to refuse again, he pulled Anzi outside.
"Grandpa, Comrade Gu, Comrade Yang, they're all here. It's a bit inconvenient for me to go..."
She calmly revealed the truth behind her refusal to go.
If it's just Old Xu and Grandma Xu at the New Year's Eve dinner table, Shen Jingyan is happy to spend the New Year with them.
However, three other educated youths will also appear at the New Year's Eve dinner table.
Zhou Zhengqing was frivolous, and Shen Jingyan hated his lecherous gaze;
Yang Zinuo disliked her very much. Whenever he saw her, he would glare at her as if he had a deep-seated hatred for her.
Gu Zhiyun, on the other hand, is aloof and cold. He always has a straight face and doesn't show any extra expression, what a waste of his handsome appearance.
Not to mention that Chen Feng once caused a disgusting injustice between the two of them.
Although neither of them mentioned the matter again on the surface, it was still a knot in their hearts that couldn't be untied in a short time.
During the Lunar New Year, Shen Jingyan didn't want to upset others or be upset by them.
“Jingya, look at what you’re saying. Your grandma and I just don’t want to keep looking at those three brats. With you there, having a girl at the table makes your grandma and I feel more comfortable.”
Chen Jingyan: "..."
Now that things have been said to this extent, how can she refuse?
“But the dumplings are already cooked.” Shen Jingyan pointed to the cooked dumplings.
"That's easy, just take it and eat it together, right?"
Old Xu didn't stand on ceremony at all. He immediately brought out the plate of dumplings and pulled Anzi outside.
Anzi, being young and fond of lively gatherings, kept urging, "Sister, let's go!"
Unable to refuse such a kind offer, Chen Jingyan could only smile and agree.
"Grandpa, Anzi, you go ahead first. I'm just getting something and I'll be there in a bit."
When you go to someone's house for a meal, you can't go empty-handed. So Shen Jingyan brought a bag of hazelnuts, a bag of pine nuts, a bag of walnuts, a pound of White Rabbit milk candy, and two jars of hawthorn preserves.
Canned food was a rare commodity in those days. Many parents would only spend five cents to buy a bottle to cool their child down when the child was sick.
After thinking for a moment, Shen Jingyan redeemed another bottle of baijiu from the system space.
The table was mostly filled with men, and when men sit at the table, drinking is inevitable.
When Shen Jingyan arrived at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Xu carrying her things, Grandma Xu was busy setting up the table.
The kang (heated brick bed) was warm and cozy. Two kang tables were pushed together, and on the table was a large bowl of sauerkraut stewed with blood sausage, crispy fried pork, fried meatballs brought by Shen Jingyan, and a plate of boiled peanuts.
There aren't many varieties, but the quantity is large.
Old Xu had already invited Anzi to sit down. When he saw Shen Jingyan walk in, he quickly went forward to take the things from her hands.
"Come on, why bring so much stuff? You don't know, those three lads have bellies bigger than the ocean, they'll eat as much as you bring."
Before he finished speaking, Zhou Zhengqing walked in carrying two plates of dumplings.
"The dumplings are ready!"
The moment he saw Shen Jingyan, his eyes behind his glasses lit up.
"Jingya is here too? What a wonderful surprise!"
"Comrade Zhou." Chen Jingyan nodded politely but indifferently.
Zhou Zhengqing put down the dumplings, found the most comfortable spot, and said to Shen Jingyan with fiery enthusiasm, "Jingya, sit here!"
His seat was right next to her. The thought of having a New Year's Eve dinner next to the beautiful woman made Zhou Zhengqing instantly realize that this year would be the most meaningful one in his twenty-one years.
Shen Jingyan shook her head indifferently: "Grandpa and Grandma haven't sat down at the table yet. It's not appropriate for me to sit down first."
Rural people value respecting the elderly and caring for the young. There is a specific order to eating at the table; the younger generation cannot eat until the elders have started.
Shen Jingyan's use of this reason to refuse Zhou Zhengqing was neither abrupt nor unreasonable.
However, Zhou Zhengqing's face didn't look very good.
He didn't understand why Shen Jingyan wouldn't even give him a smile when he had been so enthusiastic.
Shouldn't a country girl like her feel proud to be noticed by an educated youth from the city, or even offer herself to him?
The little girl must be too shy.
It's alright. The little girl will be staying at the forest farm permanently in the future, so he'll have plenty of opportunities to get close to her and fawn over her.
Not long after Zhou Zhengqing came in, Yang Zinuo and Gu Zhiyun also came in one after the other, carrying dumplings.
Grandma Xu assigned the three educated youths the task of cooking dumplings.
However, Zhou Zhengqing liked to be lazy. After lighting two fires, he quickly carried the first batch of dumplings into the house as soon as they were cooked.
The remaining dumplings were cooked by Gu Zhiyun and Yang Zinuo.
Yang Zinuo was initially very happy, her face beaming with joy, but as soon as she saw Shen Jingyan, her expression immediately fell.
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