Now that the coal stove was settled, Yan Sisi felt a lot more relieved. She said goodbye to the enthusiastic Aunt Liu, took her breakfast home and closed the shop. She walked briskly on the ground covered with ceramic tiles and brick heads. Fortunately, she and her brother paved the road yesterday, otherwise her shoes would have been covered with mud when she went out and came in today.
After finishing breakfast, Yan Sisi looked at the wet soil in the yard. She couldn’t grow vegetables for the time being and could only wait until the soil dried up before planting.
Yan Sisi looked at the wooden frame with a roof that had been built in the yard during the previous renovation. She walked over to it and transplanted two grape trees of different varieties from the space.
Yan Sisi carefully planted the roots of the grape vines next to the wooden frame, and then roughly placed the long branches that were dragging on the ground on the wooden frame. After carefully arranging them into shape, she tied the branches of the grape vines to the frame one by one with strips of cloth.
The redundant branches and leaves were trimmed with scissors. After all the operations, Yan Sisi was sweating from exhaustion. Finally, she poured the spiritual spring water to the roots of the grape vines. The rest depended on whether the grape vines could adapt to the outside environment.
In the afternoon, Tang Mingze came again, and this time he brought a puppy with him. "Hey, this is a little wolfdog I got from a friend. After raising it for a while, it can guard your house."
Yan Sisi looked at the puppy wagging its tail. It was all black, and its small eyes didn't show that it was a wolfdog at all. She couldn't help but touch it with her hand. She took it into her arms and saw that it didn't resist. She thanked her brother, "Thank you, brother. I like it very much. It seems that it likes me too."
After Tang Mingze delivered the puppy, he picked up a lot of rice, grain, oil and noodles in large and small bags and put them in the kitchen. "When you finish eating these, tell me and I'll deliver more for you."
Yan Sisi looked at the crowded kitchen. She didn't know when she could finish eating so much by herself.
Tang Mingze delivered the things and prepared to leave. Before leaving, he turned back and said, "By the way, Grandpa asked you to visit him more often when you have time to spend time with him."
Yan Sisi nodded and said, "I understand."
After sending the people away, Yan Sisi, who had nothing to do, lay down at home again. In the evening, Gu Jingping brought her a lot of food, as if he was afraid that she had not eaten outside.
For the next two days, Yan Sisi ran to her grandmother's house for meals every day and did not go out until the soil in the yard was dry.
Yan Sisi first used a rake to finely break up the soil that had been dug previously, and then scattered the seeds in the space on the soil. Then she covered it with a layer of black soil dug out from the space, and finally watered it with diluted spiritual spring water.
It took her nearly two hours to plant the crops in the yard. After all the crops were planted, Yan Sisi's back was so bent that she could hardly straighten herself up.
Yan Sisi lay down on a chair and rested for a while, staring at the empty courtyard wall in front of her. She remembered that among the roses she had transplanted at her cousin's house before, there was a climbing rose. She could transplant some of them there. When the roses grew vines and climbed up the wall, it would prevent someone from climbing over the wall. Secondly, she would feel comfortable looking at the flowers in the garden.
Thinking of this, Yan Sisi took a pair of scissors and a basket and entered the space. She started to cut the only climbing rose in the space with a snap. After a while, she cut off a lot of side branches. She left the space only when the basket could no longer hold them.
Yan Sisi poured all the cut rose stems on the ground, cut them diagonally at the bottom with scissors, and trimmed the excess leaves and branches on the top. In the end, she left about 15 cm of branches. After trimming them one by one, she buried them under the courtyard wall and covered them with black soil and spiritual spring water.
"Xiao Yan, are you home?" There was a knock on the door accompanied by a voice. Yan Sisi sounded familiar and answered loudly. Then she washed the mud off her hands, walked to the door and looked out through the crack. Only Aunt Liu was outside.
He opened the door and asked, "Aunt Liu, what's up?"
"Didn't you want that coal stove before? I asked, and it costs thirty yuan each. Do you still want it?" Liu Lan asked tentatively. She didn't know if Xiao Yan could accept this price. You know, her relatives gave her two yuan each as an introduction fee.
Yan Sisi thought about it for a moment. Thirty for one, sixty for two, seemed a bit too expensive. She asked hesitantly, "How about twenty-five each?"
Her mother always has to spend a lot of time bargaining every time she goes out to buy something. This is her first time bargaining and she doesn’t know if she can succeed.
Liu Lan frowned and said, "You cut too many. I can't explain to my relatives. I see you are a straightforward girl. Twenty-eight for each. If you want, I will send it to you in the evening."
Yan Sisi thought that it was better to be short of two pieces than to have nothing, as they were things she needed anyway. She was alone here, unfamiliar with the place, and if she missed this opportunity, she didn't know where to buy them.
In recent days, she has also been shopping in the nearby supply and marketing cooperatives and department stores. A coal stove costs about 33 yuan, and it is a good deal to be able to buy it at such a low price now.
Yan Sisi thought about it for a moment and agreed, "Then I want two. Aunt Liu, do you know where you can buy beehive coal?"
Her family's charcoal certificates and charcoal tickets are all in her hometown, and there are none here. It would be great if she could find one that doesn't require tickets.
"Yes, but it's a little more expensive than the one sold at the coal mine, only one cent a piece." Liu Lan was very familiar with honeycomb coal. She sold it frequently and was very familiar with it.
Yan Sisi thought for a moment and said, "Then buy one yuan first."
Liu Lan smiled and said, "Okay, just wait at home and I'll bring it to you in the evening."
"Okay, thank you Aunt Liu."
"We are neighbors, we should help each other. You are busy and I have something else so I will leave first." Liu Lan said and was in a hurry to go out for something. She turned around and left without waiting for Yan Sisi's response.
Yan Sisi locked the door again after seeing that the person had left. Unexpectedly, the door rang again after a while. "Sisi, are you home?"
Yan Sisi listened to Gu Jingping's voice, put down the wood in her hand, ran over to open the door, and asked in surprise: "How come you have time to come here?"
"You just moved, I was a little worried so I came to check." Gu Jingping moved the rice, noodles and meat he was carrying to the kitchen and found that there was already a lot of rice and noodles in the kitchen. He asked curiously, "Who sent these?"
"My brother came here a few days ago. He also gave me a cute puppy. Look at that one." Yan Sisi said to the puppy running around in the yard, "You came at the right time. I was just about to make a doghouse for the puppy, but after I took out all the things, I realized I didn't know how to do it. Can you do it?"
Gu Jingping said uncertainly: "I'll give it a try."
Seeing that he had agreed, Yan Sisi hurriedly pulled him to the place where the wood had been placed. Gu Jingping looked at the mess of sticks and asked, "Do you have a saw?"
Yan Sisi nodded and ran to the tool room to get out the saw. Gu Jingping took the tool and started sawing the neatly arranged sticks one by one.
The two men took one hand and sawed, and soon they had sawed all the sticks. Gu Jingping then used nails to hammer the sticks together one by one, and soon the bottom of the house was made.
The two of them spent an entire afternoon in the yard studying how to make a doghouse. Yan Sisi helped pass tools, then poured water for Gu Jingping to drink, watching a rough doghouse gradually take shape under Gu Jingping's hands.
Finally, a doghouse was successfully made. Yan Sisi put the puppy in the doghouse. Seeing it walking around obediently inside, she couldn't help but reach out and touch its body.
In the evening, in order to thank Gu Jingping for making the doghouse, Yan Sisi followed her mother's method of making braised pork and successfully cooked a bowl of shiny red braised pork.
I originally thought that the taste would be weird because I made it for the first time, but it turned out to be quite delicious, sticky and with a hint of sweetness.
Yan Sisi was eating the sweet braised pork when she suddenly thought of growing some condiments in the yard so that she could pick fresh ones directly from the yard in the future.
Gu Jingping had been making dog kennels for the whole afternoon and was already hungry. He ate meat and vegetables in big mouthfuls and soon finished a bowl of rice. Yan Sisi served him another bowl and asked, "Is it delicious?"
Gu Jingping nodded. This cooking skill was at least better than his. He could only cook the dishes well, and it was impossible to expect him to cook deliciously. While eating the rice in the bowl, he couldn't help but look forward to the days after they got married.
After dinner, Yan Sisi sent Gu Jingping back and took advantage of the moonlight to transplant the onions, ginger, garlic, chili peppers and other spices in the space into the soil. After a while, Aunt Liu delivered the coal stove and honeycomb coal as agreed.
Yan Sisi watched people bring all the honeycomb coal to the kitchen. After paying the bill to Aunt Liu, she locked the door and checked the doors and windows before washing up and returning to her room to rest.
The next morning, Yan Sisi woke up early to the sound of the alarm clock. Thinking that today was the first day of school, she hurriedly took out the admission letter from the drawer, ate breakfast outside with the letter, and then slowly walked towards the school which had already arrived on time.
Before getting close to the school, Yan Sisi saw that the entrance was full of people carrying bags of various sizes. There were at least dozens of people coming and going.
Yan Sisi suddenly regretted coming so early, but since she was already here, she had to go back. Yan Sisi and the others went in a little bit before walking to the door and following the people in front of them to squeeze into the school, listening to all kinds of dialects around them.
After Yan Sisi entered the school, she saw two long queues not far away. When she approached and asked, she found out that those queues were all students who came to register. She took a look at the long queue in front of her, and obediently lined up at the end and followed the queues forward.
Yan Sisi waited in line for more than an hour before it was her turn. Under the guidance of her senior, she filled in all her information on the form, paid the money and got a receipt. "Junior, do you want to live on campus?"
Although Yan Sisi was a little curious about dormitory life at school, she still shook her head and said, "No."
The smiling senior said in a sweet voice, "Okay, take the receipt and go to class to have a look!"
Yan Sisi said politely, "Thank you, Senior."
After saying that, he took his receipt and looked around the school building according to the class written on it, and finally found his class.
Yan Sisi pushed the door and walked in. There were only five or six people sitting in the entire class, most of them were boys, with only one girl.
The girl sitting in the seat saw that a girl finally came over, and she waved and walked over to greet her: "Hello, my name is Guo Lan, are you also in our class?"