◎First update◎
Sun Zhiqiang was so annoyed by the harassment in the compound that he went to a department store early the next morning and bought a Zhongshan suit and black trousers. As the saying goes, clothes make the man. He then went to a barber to have his hair cut shorter and his beard shaved. He felt much more energetic.
"This...is this okay? Isn't it too petty bourgeois?" He was a little uncomfortable with dressing too formally.
"Brother Sun, this is simply amazing!" Wei Haisheng also went to the department store to buy some fruit candies and hurried back to give them to everyone to celebrate his promotion to level 4 worker. Seeing Sun Zhiqiang suddenly seemed like a different person, his eyes lit up, "This blind date will definitely be a success. Set up two tables in the yard so that we can also share in the joy."
"Oh." Sun Zhiqiang showed a shy smile, scratching his head and feeling a little embarrassed, "I'll give you good wishes, I'll give you good wishes."
After lunch, everyone was busy with their own business. Xu Shengjie carried out a few pieces of high-quality yellow wood and placed them against the wall to dry. Liang Baozhen and Zhou Yun were making tomato sauce. They worked for most of the day and put it into the infusion bottles.
Bright red tomatoes are boiled into a sauce with a sweet and sour taste. It can be stored in a bottle for a long time and becomes a delicacy in winter when vegetables are scarce.
The Fang family next door is educating their children, and the noise is quite loud.
Liang Baozhen was standing in the middle of the yard washing her hands when she heard Fang Hongming's loud voice.
"Look at how you did on the exam?" Fang Hongming threw his son Fang Zhibin's test paper on the table, furious.
Fang Zhibin stiffened his neck and defended himself, "Like father, like son, like daughter. Like son, like daughter, like son. A mouse's son will dig holes."
Fang Hongming was stunned. He and his wife were not stupid, so why was their son so bad at studying? Oh, that's not right!
"You're still making excuses, aren't you? You're really being unreasonable with such a low score."
There was chaos next door, but Liang Baozhen looked at Xu Shengwei and Xu Shengya who had returned with their midterm exam papers today, and felt that they were relatively worry-free.
I was only one point away from getting 100 in both Chinese and math, so at least I passed both.
The one who scored 100 points twice was quite humble, thinking that she did not perform well. She was just one point short. Xu Shengya read the question wrong, otherwise she would have scored 100 points twice. She was so upset that she didn't even eat a few bites of her food.
The one who passed all the exams was quite proud, and he walked around Xu Shengjie with a flattering face, "Brother, I have made great progress this time, can you give me a reward?"
"You're really nice!" Xu Shengjie's brother was so confused that his brain exploded. He didn't have any regrets about the 60 and 61 points.
After all, he had done his best!
After lunch, the family of four packed up and went out. Xu Shengjie and Liang Baozhen had to send their younger brother and sister to the Children's Palace for swimming lessons first, and then they would go to the movies. After the movie, it was just in time for them to pick up the two of them and take them home.
Xu Shengwei and Xu Shengya also wanted to watch a movie, but in the end, the idea of going to swimming class won out over watching a movie.
"You should study hard and listen to the teacher. If you encounter any difficulties, ask for help. Got it?"
"knew."
It was Xu Shengjie’s first time to visit the Children’s Palace. He saw that the small building was decorated in a grand style. Every employee was neatly dressed and had a smile on their face. It was really different from other places.
The swimming class teacher was a young man who was teaching a group of children of different sizes. The class looked very professional. There were two employees standing by the swimming pool, watching the children as they entered the water to prevent anyone from drowning and to facilitate timely rescue.
"This place is indeed quite formal." Xu Shengjie concluded.
"Of course, they are professionals." After all, the tuition for a semester is not cheap, so the services and facilities are naturally good.
The two crossed the street and headed straight for the cinema. There was a revolutionary war movie showing in the afternoon and it was said to be very popular. They had to ask their neighbor Fang Hongming to help buy the tickets, otherwise they would not have been able to buy any.
Sitting in the cinema seat, Xu Shengjie saw the war scenes on the screen, and his thoughts seemed to go back to the time when he joined the army. He had also participated in several battles, experienced life and death moments with his comrades, fought off the enemy, and tasted the hard-earned victory.
The raging fire seemed to take him back to the past, and the murderousness and passion in the soldier's body were ignited...
However, there was some sobbing sound coming from the side. Xu Shengjie turned his head and saw that his wife Liang Baozhen had tears on her face and her eyes were shining.
Liang Baozhen usually has a high tear point, but every time she sees a movie about patriotism or a war movie, she can't help but have tears in her eyes, especially when the hero's comrades died and he was the only one who returned to the army with serious injuries. She was so excited that she couldn't stop crying.
In the past, when she watched open-air movies in the commune, she would quietly shed tears in the crowd. This time, she wanted to hold back her tears next to Xu Shengjie, but...
A hand suddenly reached for her shoulder bag, and a beige floral handkerchief was taken out of the bag and soon pressed against her cheek.
Xu Shengjie came over with his head down and whispered, "Stop crying, wipe it off."
"Yeah." Liang Baozhen hurriedly took the handkerchief and put it to her eyes.
After a heart-stirring movie ended, Liang Baozhen walked out of the cinema with two red eyes. When she came out, she saw that many people had red eyes. It seemed that no one could hold back their tears. She was finally relieved.
However, when the Children's Palace picked up Xiaowei and Xiaoya, the two children were a little surprised to see their sister-in-law looking so sad.
"Brother, why did you make sister-in-law angry?" Xu Shengwei quietly walked away with his brother and sternly criticized Xu Shengjie, "I'm going back to complain to grandma."
"Who told you that I made your sister-in-law angry?" Xu Shengjie grabbed his brother's head, feeling that the short hair was piercing.
"Why is my sister-in-law crying?" Xu Shengwei is not stupid. That is clearly the look of a woman who has just cried. "We are men, masters. We cannot make women cry!"
He was different. He had only made his sister cry, and that was when he snatched her food when she was three or four years old, causing Xiaoya to cry loudly. After that, he never dared to touch his sister's food again.
"You know a lot, don't you?"
“That’s it!”
Xu Shengya took her sister-in-law's hand and asked her if she cried because of the movie. Only then did she feel relieved. "Sister-in-law, everything in the movie was acted out. It's all fake. Don't take it to heart."
"Yes, sister-in-law knows." Liang Baozhen secretly told her sister-in-law, "I just can't hold back my tears when I see this. It's like a faucet has been turned on and off, and I can't hold it back."
My sister-in-law is still the best. She always comforts me.
"Sister-in-law, I understand. It's just like when we want to sneeze, we can't help it."
Back in the yard, Xiaowei and Xiaoya, who had just learned to swim, excitedly told their grandmother about their struggling in the water. The two of them chattered around Zhou Yun, talking about how they had learned how to hold their breath underwater and how to do the breaststroke today.
"Oh my, you've learned it really well." Zhou Yun looked at the two noisy sparrows and smiled so hard that his eyes were not visible. He felt that the money was well spent.
"It's a pity that I can't transfer to another school." Xu Shengjie asked the workers in the factory and learned that he couldn't get into several key schools nearby because they didn't accept outsiders. It seemed that his younger brother and sister's wish to learn more courses in the Children's Palace would not be realized.
A pot of water was boiled for the two children to take another bath. Liang Baozhen didn't know what the swimming pools were like these days, but they should be relatively clean. However, after all, a group of children went swimming, so they still needed to take a good bath when they came back.
Xu Shengwei was simple. Like other children in the yard, he just stood in the yard, took off all his clothes and rinsed himself with a bucket of water. Everyone was familiar with the image of him turning his back with his bare butt.
Xu Shengya was taking a bath in the house. Xu Shengjie had prepared a large wooden tub for her, so it was quite convenient for her to sit or squat in it barefoot to take a bath. After closing the door, she left her grandmother to help her add some hot water.
"I'm going to visit Sister Hua." Liang Baozhen came out of the house. Xiaowei had just finished taking a shower and went out to play. Xiaoya needed to take a shower for a while, and she happened to have nothing to do.
"Okay." Xu Shengjie was thinking about moving the house. Xiaowei and Xiaoya were getting older and older, and they couldn't live in the same room. But the house was limited in size, so they had to plan carefully.
——
Liang Baozhen went to the west room. There was no one in front of Liu Nianhua's stove. Only beehive coal was burning. There was an iron pot on the stove with yellow corn paste bubbling inside.
"Sister Hua? Are you home?" She shouted into the house and helped put the iron pot on the stove to cool down. If it was boiled for a while longer, it would dry up and the bottom of the pot would be burnt.
The corn porridge is still simmering, so this person must be at home, right?
"Baozhen, you're here?" Liu Nianhua opened the door and then remembered that she was still cooking food on the stove. She poured it into the house and let Xiaolong eat first. She complained to Liang Baozhen with an unhappy look on her face.
It turned out that today she found that there was less money at home. She had put some living expenses at home, a total of more than 30 yuan, for food and shopping in the next few months. She was a careful person and would count it every night to know how much she had used and how much was left, and she was determined not to live a muddled life.
But now she has to work every day and is too busy to count money. Since she is in charge of it all by herself, she doesn't take it seriously and just counts the money from time to time. But today, when she counted the money, she found something wrong.
Originally there should have been twenty-three yuan and fifty cents left, but in the end there was only eighteen yuan and fifty cents left, a full five yuan less!
What does five yuan mean? Liu Nianhua is now a regular employee of the transportation company. As a ticket seller, she earns 28.5 yuan a month. This is one-fifth less. In addition, her family was robbed of money. She was so frightened that she broke out in a cold sweat!
Her two children would never do such a thing, and she suspected that a thief had entered the yard.
She had seen Yao Haoyu stealing cabbage a while ago, and this was the first person she thought of. It was no wonder she was imagining things, as he had a criminal record and was not a clean person, so he was the first one to be suspected.
Just as she was about to go find Master Wei to talk about this matter, saying that thieves in a large compound were no small matter and had to be investigated seriously, her little son Xiaohu jumped out, hugged his mother's calf, and prevented her from going to find Master Wei.
"You mean, Xiaohu stole money?" Liang Baozhen couldn't believe it. Xiaohu looked like an honest and cute child, how could he steal money?
Liu Nianhua was so angry that her face turned blue. She called her youngest son over. She had been interrogating the little bastard for a while, but he kept making jokes.
"Zhou Hu, let me ask you again, why did you steal the money? Did I ever teach you not to steal? Where did you learn such an unclean behavior?" Liu Nianhua's face was unusually serious. She was really angry. Whether the child would have a bright future or not was secondary. She could not accept that her son had become a dishonest person like Yao Haoyu. There was something wrong with his ideology and work style!
Zhou Hu pouted, his cheeks puffed up, his eyes rolled around, looking left and right, and said aggrievedly, "I didn't steal the money! I really didn't steal the money!"
"You're still being stubborn with me, aren't you?" Liu Nianhua wanted to find a feather duster at home after hearing her son's cunning excuses. A good son is made under the stick. She has always been gentle and good-tempered, but now her son is raising him alone, she has to be strict!
"Mom, I'm giving money to Dad, that's not stealing!"
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