Chapter 157

Of course Xu Wen and his second uncle also sat in the hard seats.

The remaining four women with four children asked for six sleeper tickets.

Sang Xiaoqing insisted on sleeping in the same bed with Chunsheng, Xu Qieda had to have one for himself, and Dongsheng and Yuanbao shared a bunk.

Actually, what Xu Wen meant was that each of the thirteen members of his family would get a sleeper berth ticket, and Lu Yuanzheng happened to be eligible, as Xu Wen had plenty of money.

In her view, money earned is used to improve the quality of life.

Since you have the ability, why don’t you make yourself and your family live more comfortably? !

Unfortunately, it was useless for the couple to talk their mouths off.

The Xu family obviously doesn't think so.

Once you get used to being poor, you will subconsciously try to save as much as possible.

Xu Wen knew that some deep-rooted ideas could not be changed all at once. There was a long way to go, so we had to take it slow.

I wandered slowly on the road for a few days.

Then from the north where snowflakes were floating, we arrived at Pengcheng in late spring.

The clothes on my body changed from bulky cotton-padded clothes to autumn clothes and pants, and I wore a single coat on the outside.

Several young men, who were energetic and not afraid of the cold, simply changed into simple clothes and pants.

The daytime temperature in Pengcheng at the end of February is around 20 degrees, which is a relatively comfortable season, neither too cold nor too hot.

This time, Lu Yuanzheng and Xu Wen no longer listened to the Xu family's opinions and insisted on booking a few better rooms in a better hotel.

The distressed Zhu Meizhen kept muttering that Xu Wen was squandering his family's money and couldn't make ends meet.

Xu Wen knew that she had no ill intentions, but was simply stingy because of her thrifty habits.

Xu Wen and his wife, Chunsheng, and his second uncle all had a place to stay in Pengcheng and did not stay in the hotel with them.

The remaining ones were Xu Wang's family of three, Xu Wen's family of three, Zhu Meizhen and her husband, and Xu Qie.

In view of Xu Qi's age, a standard room was booked for him and Yuanbao, and Dongsheng also went to join in the fun.

We booked four rooms in total, and each room cost fifty yuan a day, which is two hundred yuan a day.

For a frugal housewife like Zhu Meizhen, this price is really sky-high, and it is unnecessarily high.

It would be strange if you didn’t mention Xu Wen!

Xu Qiushi and the others felt the same way. They all thought that spending 200 yuan to stay a night was a waste of money.

But he knew that the room had already been booked and could not be canceled. He kept complaining that it would only make his daughter and son-in-law unhappy. He even pulled Zhu Meizhen and signaled her to stop complaining.

On the first day, everyone did nothing and rested for most of the day.

The next morning, the family went to a coffee shop for morning tea and toured Pengcheng.

On the third day, Xu Wen and his wife and his second uncle were ready to open for business.

Xu Wen and Lu Yuanzheng rented a relatively spacious yard not far from them for Xu Qiushi, Zhu Meizhen and Xu Wang's family of three to stay temporarily.

Hopefully, since they have just arrived, it will not be possible for them to rent a shop and do business right away.

They also have to try out what kind of career they are suitable for.

Xu Wen had no objection, and before returning to the island, he secretly left one thousand yuan for Xu Wang.

Of course Xu Wang refused.

"Sister, I said the same thing when my second brother came last year. You don't have to use the money, and you can pay me back when you make money, but you can't refuse it. There are gains and losses in business. It's okay if you make money, but how can you live if you lose money?"

"We came with capital." Xu Wang still refused to accept it.

"I know. You have never been the head of the family, so how much money can you bring in? If you make a profit, everyone will be happy. If you lose, won't your in-laws blame you to death? And although you are husband and wife, but..."

I'm afraid that if I really lose money, my brother-in-law will blame me.

Xu Wen hadn't finished speaking, and Xu Wang knew it, so he didn't refute it.

"Sis, since I can call you here, I will not let you go back in a horrible state. This money is for you to hold in your hand just in case. Believe me, our family will definitely live better and better! We can all make a lot of money."

Xu Wang finally accepted Xu Wen's kindness, and the two sisters whispered for a while.

On Saturday, the Rainbow came to deliver the goods as usual.

Before the New Year, her second uncle returned home a month later than her, so other people were responsible for delivering the goods.

This time during the Chinese New Year, we spent another month shopping and accumulated a lot of goods. My second uncle's cart made two trips.

Xu Qiushi and Xie Dechun happened to be there, and they assisted in transporting the items back.

It took Xu Wen most of the day to settle the accounts. Only after everything was sorted did he and Lu Yuanzheng take Dongsheng and Xu Qie back to the island.

Originally, Lu Yuanzheng and Xu Wen invited Xu Qiushi and Xu Wang and his wife to go to Rainbow Island together, but they refused to go.

Firstly, they think that the place of residence, even if it is an island, is a very sacred place and is not suitable for ordinary people to visit.

Secondly, I wanted to help my children take care of their children.

Xu Wen is living a comfortable life on the island. She is still a few months away from giving birth, so there is no need to worry for the time being.

But Xu Wen and his team still have to run their business, so they are worried that they may not be able to handle the situation.

Especially Xu Wang, he has just arrived and has a lot of things to do! How can parents just ignore him?

Xu Wang also brought Yuanbao over, so Zhu Meizhen had to take care of the two children alone.

After all, it’s not time for school to start yet.

Yuanbao also wanted to go to the island, but Xu Wang didn't let him.

Xu Wen was pregnant and brought three wild boys with her, and she still couldn't rest well without making a fuss? !

The reason why Xu Qie was allowed to go was because he was already eleven years old and could help with some work.

As soon as they returned to the island, Xu Wen and Lu Yuanzheng were still busy with various things.

Lu Yuanzheng needs to hand over his work to Shi Lei and prepare for the defense change again.

Many warriors who left the island last year will be back this year, and some warriors who have never left the island will have to be replaced.

What is different from last year is that fewer and fewer people want to leave the island, and more and more people want to come back.

So who should leave and who should stay became a headache for Shi Lei and Lu Yuanzheng.

Xu Wen was also busy, as he still had to dry the moldy bedding and clean the house first.

But she had two little helpers, Xu Qie and Dong Sheng, so she only needed to conduct with her mouth.

After tidying up the bedding, she went to see her private plot as usual.

In fact, before we left, Song Baoying and her friends were the ones who helped take care of the vegetable garden.

Xu Wen usually comes to her farm to check on her durian trees and squeeze some milk.

"Mom!" Dongsheng, who was the first to arrive, walked around the private plot, ran back, and excitedly reported to Xu Wen: "Dahuang has given birth to a baby. It's black and white!"

It took Xu Wen three seconds to realize that Dahuang was his own dairy cow.

Dongsheng was young and often gave cows names, then forgot them and gave them new names, or simply changed them when he thought of a new name.

This time the name is less like a cow and more like a dog.

Last year, the cow gave birth to a calf, but for unknown reasons, the fetus died in the womb, and Xu Wen did not tell Dongsheng.

Xu Wen touched Dongsheng's head and said, "Dongsheng, can you give the cow a fixed name? If you do that, it won't know who you are calling it."

Dongsheng said "oh" and started thinking of a new name with a frown on his face.

As they were talking, Xu Wen also came over and saw the calf.

Compared to its mother, the calf is very small. Just as Dongsheng said, it is a black and white baby cow.

Xu Qie and Dong Sheng were both very curious. They went in and walked around it, trying to reach out and touch it from time to time, which made Mother Niu look at them frequently.

Xu Wen knew that Mother Niu was pregnant, but he didn't expect that she would give birth to a baby ox during the Chinese New Year.

Xu Wen had released cows and sheep before, so he knew them fairly well.

Sheep are social animals, and breeding does not require special attention from the breeder.

Sheep can give birth to two litters of babies a year, at least one at a time.

The most lambs Xu Wen had ever seen was a sheep giving birth to six babies.

Cows give birth once a year. When they were in heat, they had to be taken to the "mate pen".

Peilan is the local dialect of Wei Zhuang, which means breeding.

The cows and bulls need to be kept together separately until they are done with their intercourse, and then separated.

The same goes for the dairy cow. Last year, when it was in estrus, it was sent to Pengcheng and a strong black and white cow was found to complete the "mating".

The calf looks healthy and has the same fur color as his father.

Xu Qie and Dong Sheng excitedly circled the calf for a while and agreed on names for the mother and baby.

They call young cows black and white, and big cows yellow and white.

Xu asked: "..."

Xu Wen was a little bit uncomfortable with this name. After thinking about it, he discussed with them, "Although the name Black and White is okay for now, what will you call it if the cow mother gives birth to a black and white calf next year?"

This question stumped Xu Qie and Dong Sheng.

"Think about what you have seen in daily life. Is there anything in black and white?"

"Piano keys!" Dongsheng raised his hand first.

Xu Qie: “Eyes.”

Dongsheng: “Football.”

Xu Qie: “Chess piece.”

"Panda!"

"Zebra!"

“…”

The two talked a lot.

Xu Wen suggested: "So, do you want to choose a suitable name for the little cow from these? Or change it appropriately, because it is a 'little girl'. For example, the chess piece can be called Qiqi, and the panda can be called Panpan."

This is definitely not okay with eyes.

Finally, they decided on the name Panpan, and the two also agreed that if they had another baby next year, they would name him Qiqi, and the bull baby would be named Qiqi.

The cow's name fixed the bend.

Because her horns are curved.

The Lantern Festival is here in the blink of an eye.

The kitchen staff still took care of all the soldiers and cooked dumplings and glutinous rice balls for them.

This is not like a few decades later, when refrigerators were still a rarity, so there were no frozen dumplings or glutinous rice balls on Rainbow Island.

They are all made by the sisters-in-law working together.

Sisters-in-law in the south make glutinous rice balls, while sisters-in-law in the north make dumplings.

The soldiers in the kitchen helped to knead the dough, cut the fillings for the dumplings, and make the fillings for the glutinous rice balls.

Xu Wen had nothing to do, so he came to help roll out the dumpling wrappers.

As she was wrapping the dumplings, she thought, Xu Wen and Sang Xiaoqing mainly sold dumplings.

If I buy a refrigerator and freeze the dumplings, can I deliver them to customers?

However, given the temperature in Pengcheng and the current traffic conditions, there is a fear that the frozen dumplings will melt when they are delivered to the door.

And you can’t order food by phone. Even if Xu Wen can make a phone call, most people don’t have one.

It's still inconvenient.

How to solve this problem?

While Xu Wen was deep in thought, the other sisters-in-law were busy working and chatting.

Actually, there is not much to talk about on the island. We have lived here for a long time and have lived together for such a long time that there is basically no new topic to talk about.

But many sisters-in-law, like Xu Wen, had just returned home to celebrate the New Year, so when they came, they naturally had new topics to talk about.

The sisters-in-law who stayed on the island also shared their interesting experiences during the Chinese New Year.

"Come to think of it." Wang Lingling looked at Xu Wen with gratitude, "I really have to thank Sister-in-law Wen Wen. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be where I am today."

Both of them were in the dumpling-making group and could see each other when they looked up.

Xu Wen laughed: "Sister-in-law, you are exaggerating! I thought this sentence was usually given to a lifesaver or a mentor."

Xu Wen has nothing to do with either of these.

Wang Lingling thought about it seriously and said, "Then I think you are both my lifesaver and my mentor."

Probably seeing that Xu Wen disagreed, she got a little anxious, "I'm not saying this to flatter you or please you, it's true! We are poor and backward there, and girls are the least valuable."

It seems that most families give birth to girls just to raise them up and marry them off in order to earn money as a betrothal gift to the boys in the family to marry.

Wang Lingling is the same. She grew up in such a bad environment and married into a family with similar ideas. She has always been timid and humble.

Being someone else's daughter-in-law is actually worse than being a girl at home.

No matter how partial your parents are, they are still your parents, not as cruel as your mother-in-law.

The saying that a daughter-in-law eventually becomes a mother-in-law after many years of being a daughter-in-law is still applicable to Wang Lingling and her family. In their place, the mother-in-law is still the head of the family.

A new bride has to be set rules when she enters the house.

Wang Lingling also suffered a lot from her mother-in-law. Her husband was not at home all year round and no one spoke for her. She suffered a lot and was beaten and punished from time to time.

Especially since she had not been able to give birth to a son, she was often scolded.

After coming to the island, I learned a lot of words and even did simple arithmetic by following Xu Wen and Wang Ying's blind reading class.

He also followed Xu Wen in doing business, and with the allowance from accompanying the army, he could earn about thirty yuan a month on average.

Coupled with Xu Wen's subtle influence, she realized that women really can hold up half the sky.

My thoughts, experiences, culture, etc. have changed a lot since before I came to Rainbow Island.

When she went home with her man this time, everyone in her family looked at her with new eyes, and both her parents' and her husband's families praised her.

She refuted her mother-in-law's criticism.

The first time she resisted, her mother-in-law was not used to it and wanted to beat her. But when she was protected by her own man, she felt more confident.

After a quarrel or two, the son and daughter-in-law were of one mind, and the mother-in-law got scared.

Before she came, her mother-in-law was always polite to her.

Wang Lingling usually doesn't talk much, and most of the time she gives people a feeling of inferiority and cowardice, always hunching over, and rarely looking people in the eye when she talks to them.

This time, I am indeed more confident and can actually say so much.

Everyone also talked about their own experiences, and most of them were asked by Xu Wen.

Especially those sisters-in-law who misunderstood Xu Wen last year, they apologized very much.

Xu Wen had vented all his anger, so naturally he was no longer angry with them.

Wang Lingling came to Xu Wen and whispered, "Sister-in-law, I'm pregnant too!"

Xu Wen exclaimed in surprise, and then congratulated her: "Congratulations."

After all, Wang Lingling went to the island to have a child, but she failed to do so.

As early as last year, Wang Lingling and her squad leader Wang went to the hospital for a checkup at Xu Wen's suggestion. The doctor said that both of them were fine, and Wang Lingling might have been unable to get pregnant because of too much mental pressure.

Thinking about this all the time and still wanting to have a son, how could it not be stressful?

The fact that she was able to get pregnant shows that Wang Lingling has really broken through herself!

Xu Wen was truly happy for her.

After the Lantern Festival, it’s time to go back to school.

Dongsheng goes to kindergarten and Xuqie attends elementary school on the island.

All the female students that Xu Wen recruited who were supposed to come back have come back, and those who didn't want to come back no longer come back.

Of the twenty or so people who came before the New Year, less than half have returned.

Part of the reason is that they feel that life on the island is too hard, and part of the reason is that they feel that they have already learned to study on their own and there is no need to go to the island, as they can study just as well at home.

Xu Wen respected their choice. After all, in half a year, those single warriors who were able to create sparks had all found a pair.

However, Xu Wen still couldn't rest.

The second group of female students came to the island. This time there were 32 female students.

As Xu Wen's belly grew bigger and bigger, she rarely did anything.

Most of the time he was teaching students, and then playing with Dongsheng and Xu Qie.

Go to the sea, catch fish and shrimp, pick up shells, and study food.

The warriors still enthusiastically help the new girls to adapt to the island life.

In their spare time, they worked together to quarry stones and cut trees to build houses for the girls.

Only Lu Yuanzheng and Shi Lei were busy and exhausted.

The rotation list was finalized, and another group of soldiers left and another group came, and the rotation continued in this way, ship after ship.

After changing, practice again.

And this time the training mission is more intense, because we have to select the top fighters with comprehensive abilities to participate in international competitions.

Because of this, the long journey makes me particularly worried.

With Lu Yuanzheng's ability, he was of course one of the members going abroad to participate in the competition, and he was the one in charge of leading the team.

He was afraid that if he really went abroad or went to closed training, he would miss the opportunity for Xu Wen to give birth.

Even if I catch up, I'm afraid I won't be able to take care of you during the confinement period.