Time flies, and New Year's Day has arrived in the blink of an eye. It has officially arrived in the Gregorian calendar, 1988.
It snowed heavily today. The snow started falling last night. The ground was already covered with white snow early this morning, but there was still continuous heavy snow falling from the sky.
With such heavy snow, not only were there no traces of birds or animals, the world was completely silent. Even few people went out, and the children just played in the snow for a while before retreating into the house.
The fireplace in Lin Heng's living room was burning brightly, making the entire living room extremely warm.
But at this moment he was not in the living room with his wife and children, but in the study.
There was a small ceramic stove on the desk. The charcoal fire inside was red, and a small kettle burning on it was emitting a little white smoke.
Lin Heng was holding a brush, writing on rice paper with great concentration, copying his favorite poems. He was wearing a black cotton jacket with some white fur edges showing at the collar, and he was very focused and immersed in it.
Outside the window, heavy snow was falling.
These days he made many trips to the town, county, and city, met many people, was featured in newspapers, and became a promising young man of the new era.
Unlike before when he only occupied a corner of the newspaper, this time he occupied a large section of the newspaper and got a lot of attention.
After reading the newspaper, his relatives and friends expressed their blessings and envy for him, and his parents also felt proud of him.
But when he got home he didn't think about these things, instead he started writing and thinking about some things.
After finishing writing his ten favorite poems, Lin Heng stopped, took down the ceramic kettle with boiling water, then took some local green tea, brewed a pot of tea, and poured a cup.
Looking at the steaming tea, the poems pressed under the red toon wood, and the heavy snow outside, Lin Heng's heart gradually calmed down.
He was not too excited about the fame and fortune he had gained, because he knew very well that it was the east wind that had come, not because of how great he was.
He was thinking about how the future would continue and how people could avoid getting lost in money and desire. He also thought of his grandmother Li Xiaoying who had just passed away.
Finally, he slowly and neatly wrote four characters in regular script on a new piece of white paper - Be content and you will always be happy.
He only knows how to write regular script and running script, both of which just look good and cannot be considered calligraphy, but this kind of writing can bring a kind of spiritual peace.
After drinking the tea, Lin Heng stood up and walked to the fish tank. The big golden catfish in the tank had adapted to the life and did not swim much.
After watching for a while, he went to the window again and looked at the heavy snow falling outside.
Finally he opened the door to the study and walked out, the heat from the living room hitting him in the face, instantly making him much warmer.
The door of the main room was open, and the cold air was blocked by a transparent plastic door curtain bought by Lin Heng, which could block most of the cold air.
Xiaoxia, Luming and Du Heng were lying on the sofa near the fireplace playing Gobang. Xiulan was sitting beside them watching them play. Two dogs and a cat were lying on the ground not far from the fireplace, taking a comfortable nap.
"Have you finished practicing your calligraphy?" Xiulan said with a smile when she saw him come out.
"Finished practicing." Lin Heng nodded.
Hearing this, Xiulan handed him a beige sweater that was placed beside her and said, "This is a newly knitted sweater. Try it on and see if it fits you."
"It will definitely fit." Lin Heng said as he took off his coat and thermal underwear and put the sweater on over his autumn clothes.
"How is it?" Lin Heng turned around and asked.
Xiulan came over and tidied it for him, nodded and said, "It's pretty good, it suits you very well."
"Thank you, my wife." Lin Heng leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Her rosy oval face was very attractive.
"Put on your coat quickly." Xiulan said as she opened his cotton jacket. Although the living room was warm, it was not warm enough for him to not wear a cotton jacket.
"Didn't you knit one for yourself?"
Lin Heng asked as he put on his coat.
Xiulan spread her hands and smiled, "With all the clothes you bought for me, there's absolutely no need for me to knit them myself."
She originally had very few clothes, but Lin Heng often bought her clothes in recent years, and now her closet is full of them.
"Dad, come and play chess with me. My brother can't beat me." Xiaoxia ran over and said to Lin Heng.
"I don't want to play chess with my sister. Let's play alone, brother."
Lu Ming pulled Du Heng and said that he and his sister had played several games but they never won a single game. Both of them were no match for his sister alone.
"Okay then, let's do it together."
Lin Heng nodded and said, he went to get a game of Go and played it with Xiaoxia, treating it as Gobang.
When playing with his daughter, Lin Heng naturally showed mercy and often reminded her, but Xiaoxia still lost to him frequently. After losing several games in a row, she started to cheat and refused to let him play to the place with five pieces.
"Let's stop playing, Dad. Let's change the game." Xiaoxia said to Lin Heng after playing more than ten games.
She felt that Gobang was no longer interesting, and the most important thing was that she always lost to Lin Heng.
"Then let's play Go. I don't know how to play it either. Our levels are the same." Lin Heng said to his daughter.
"Dad, I want to learn Go too."
“I want to learn too!”
Lu Ming and Du Heng were both there to join in the fun, and they all gathered around Lin Heng.
"Well, let's all play Go."
Lin Heng smiled and nodded, saying that he did not tell the children any complicated Go rules, and he himself did not understand them very well. He only knew that Go pieces must have Qi, which was the most important point.
Just tell the children this, and after they understand, they can start playing. They don't know how to play, and we are all newbies, so we have fun playing. You eat my piece and I eat your piece.
“This is fun, this is fun.”
Xiaoxia cheered, and soon they filled the Go board.
"I want to play here." Lu Ming picked up a chess piece and moved it randomly. His younger brother Du Heng did the same. He just wanted to participate and didn't care about anything else.
The three children each had a chess piece and were having a lot of fun playing the game. Xiulan was standing by and giving them advice from time to time.
Before they knew it, it was already noon. Lin Heng went to help Xiulan, and they made a simple sour soup noodle with chopped green onion for dinner.
After dinner, Lin Heng came under the eaves. The snow was still falling outside, but a little lighter than in the morning. The yard that had been swept in the morning was piled with 20 centimeters of snow again. The snowmen made by the children were so thick that they could not be seen clearly.
"Honey, let's go pick the oranges. It's snowing so heavily and I'm afraid the oranges will be frozen." Xiulan said to Lin Heng.
There are several kinds of Rutaceae fruit trees planted on the back mountain, including sugar mandarin oranges, ordinary large oranges, and navel oranges. They are in the Qinling Mountains, which is the southernmost part of the north, so these fruit trees can also be planted.
"Okay, then let's pick them all." Lin Heng nodded and went back into the house. He reached out and took a kiwi from the fruit plate.
The kiwi fruit at this time of year is completely soft. After peeling the skin, you will find the emerald-colored flesh. It is sweet with a little bit of sourness, with a rich taste and delicious flavor that will leave you with an endless aftertaste.
They packed up the baskets and the children wanted to run out too. Lin Heng did not refuse but only asked them to hold an umbrella.
When we arrived at the backyard, these evergreen plants looked even greener in the heavy snow. There were only a few fruits on the golden marble tree this year, but they looked very beautiful.
A thin layer of ice had formed in the pond, and Lin Heng used a stick to break it. After a few years, the fish in the pond have grown a lot bigger.
There are now thirteen koi here. The largest one is a bright red koi, more than eighty centimeters long and round.
The smallest one is 30 centimeters long, and now they all look plump and cute. I originally bought a lot of them, but they have been phased out over the years, leaving only the most beautiful ones. The bad ones were fed to the turtles.
When raising this kind of koi, quality is more important than quantity. Raising an ugly one will not only waste your time, but will also affect the water quality.
Now, apart from these koi, there are some stream groupers and black carp in this fish pond. The mandarin fish and other fish are all gone.
Of course, this is just what Lin Heng Xiulan thinks is beautiful, and she played with it herself without referring to any external standards for koi.
"Let's pick the flowers from the tree in the backyard first." Xiulan said to Lin Heng.
"Well, pick this first."
Lin Heng nodded, took a stool and came to the side of the tree. After his trimming, the tree was only about two meters tall, and the crown width was also controlled to prevent it from growing too fast and too large.
There were about a hundred oranges on this tree, all of them were sugar oranges. Lin Heng picked one and tasted it. It tasted very sweet and not too sour.
"not bad."
Lin Heng nodded and started picking the oranges quickly, cutting them directly with scissors so that the oranges could be stored longer.
Xiulan held a basket and caught the fruits for him. The three children gathered around and ate the oranges like greedy cats.
After a while, Lin Heng had picked all the oranges from the tree. He took them home, warmed himself by the fire, and then went to the back mountain to pick more oranges.
The tree canopy on the back mountain is larger and has more fruits. Lin Heng usually only picks about half and leaves the rest for his eldest brother's family.
There are many fruit trees, with at least two fruits of each variety. Now they have all grown up, so even if we pick only half of them, we can still pick more than 200 kilograms of tangerines and oranges.
Most of the time, both families could not finish eating all the fruits they picked, and they would give many of them to relatives.
Although it was snowing, they were all very happy picking fruits. The joy of harvest was irresistible.
"It's so nice to have my own orchard." Xiulan said while picking oranges.
Lin Heng smiled and nodded: "Growing fruit trees is very cost-effective, especially variety fruit trees."
These fruit trees in the back hill have made their family's sense of happiness soar in recent years. Since the second year when these fruit trees started to bear fruit, they have basically achieved fruit freedom.
From fertilizing and thinning fruits at the beginning of the year to picking fruits when they are ripe, every step has a family memory. Eating the unpolluted fruits at home is also safer and more enjoyable.
"Let's go home quickly. We are freezing to death."
After picking the fruits, Lin Heng rubbed his hands and said, the wind in the back mountain is still quite strong, even Kun Kun and the others huddled in the chicken coop and were unwilling to come out.
"Go back quickly, I can't stand the cold anymore." Xiulan said, stamping her feet.
Carrying a few baskets of fruit back to the house, they roasted some to warm themselves up and then tasted a few more fruits. The large tangerines and oranges that had just been picked were a little sour, so Lin Heng placed them in a dustpan. These were durable and could be eaten until after the Chinese New Year.
After arranging the tangerines and oranges, Lin Heng went to his eldest brother's house and told them to pick them as soon as possible to prevent them from freezing.
There is no need to give the fruit to your parents. There are also some grown on Hongfeng Mountain. Father and Mother Lin can’t finish eating them all.
It was impossible to go hunting in such a heavy snow, so Lin Heng continued to stay at home in the afternoon, playing with his wife and children. During this time, Lin Wei, Lin Tao and others also came over to play.
The snow continued to fall until early the next morning. Although it stopped snowing, the sun was not out, so the snow could not melt.
The children built a big snowman and had a snowball fight in the snow. Lin Heng also teased Xiulan with a small snowball and played with her, but she caught him in the end.
The children were enjoying it very much. When Lin Heng had nothing to do, he made snow bricks with the three children and built a small snow house, which made the three of them jump for joy. In the afternoon, he went out and found many friends to visit his snow house, and he showed it off to everyone he met.
This indeed made other children extremely envious, but they could only build it by themselves, and their parents would not help at all. People like Lin Heng were very rare.
"Dad, can we build a few more?" Xiaoxia said coquettishly while pulling Lin Heng in the afternoon.
"Let's build another doghouse for Xiongba!" Luming also said coquettishly.
"Dad, build a dog house, build a dog house!" Du Heng grabbed Lin Heng's trouser leg.
“Ouch!!”
Xiongba in the yard seemed to understand and went back to the main room, as if to say, "I don't need a snow house. Isn't it nice to live in a house? " "Let's not build a dog house. I'll build you a slide to play on."
Lin Heng looked at the children and said with a smile.
"A slide is fine too." Xiaoxia nodded quickly, and Luming and Du Heng also thought it was okay.
Lin Heng took out the wooden mold for making snow bricks that he had made in the morning and called Xiulan to make snow bricks together.
"You really dote on your three children." Xiulan smiled as she helped.
Lin Heng smiled and said, "When it's time to play, you have to play well. Don't play without playing and study without learning. That's the most uncomfortable thing."
With the help of two adults, they made a beautiful slide that was more than five meters long in two hours. The children were very excited when they saw the slide and some of them couldn't wait.
"Let me try it on you first." Lin Heng took a piece of cardboard and put it under his butt, then he slid down in one go.
"Wow, I'm coming too!"
Seeing her father going down, Xiaoxia found a piece of cardboard and slid down. Luming and Duheng just paddled down directly, ignoring Xiulan's shouting and rushing down with cheers.
“I love the slide!”
"Dad is so awesome!"
The children cheered as they played back and forth on the ice and snow slide. For them who had never been to an amusement park, this was the best slide they had ever played on.
"Xiu Lan, come and play too, it's very interesting." Lin Heng said while pulling Xiu Lan.
"No, it's not worth it to get my clothes dirty." Xiulan shook her head and didn't look at Lin Heng, a grown-up kid.
"It's okay, just do it once."
Lin Heng pulled her to the slide, and Xiulan couldn't resist and finally had a go.
"What?"
Looking at his wife playing, Lin Heng asked with a smile.
Xiulan blinked and said, "We can do it again."
As she said this, she lined up behind the child and played on the slide twice more. The slide really had an extraordinary magic and it brought her pure joy to play on it.
The children played for a long time, and the slide was polished to a white and translucent color. After playing enough, they went back to the house to warm themselves for a while, and then they couldn't wait to run to the next door to show off. (End of this chapter)
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