Chapter 3 003 Why did such a good thing happen?
When Shu Jinyue heard the word dumplings, his mouth couldn't hold back his saliva and his stomach started growling again.
She had been starving for the past three years and her stomach had been damaged, causing her to suffer from frequent bowel rumbling. She rubbed her stomach and decided to take good care of her body after she had taken care of the top priority. In her previous life, she had been troubled by gastrointestinal problems. When it was most serious, she would faint from the pain in the fields. She couldn't eat well and had poor digestion, which led to severe malnutrition. During a fight with a scoundrel, she fainted and fell to her death. Therefore, her tragic death was really caused by her weak body.
"How many meat coupons are left at home?" Shu Linong pulled his wife into the next room and asked in a low voice.
“No more.”
Shu Linong frowned, "It was the eldest brother who came back to get it again? I've told you so many times that he and his wife are both regular workers, and they don't have children. They are better off than us even if they eat as much as they want. I told you not to give it to you in preference. Now the second brother hasn't started a family, and Wen Yun's boyfriend is no longer in love. We still have to find a way to keep Jin Yue here. There are always places to spend money..."
Zhao Wanqiu sighed, it’s hard to be a stepmother.
"I'll go next door and ask Aunt Zhao to borrow half a catty. They have more workers in their family and are better off than us." Although Aunt Zhao also lives in a slum, her old man Zhao is a welder in a machinery factory and earns a level seven salary, which is 90 yuan a month! Her five sons are also workers in the machinery factory. Their lives are better than those of ordinary workers' families. They have four large houses.
Unlike the Shu family, there are two small rooms in total. The one on the left is the parents' room, and the whole family eats and entertains guests on their big kang; the one on the right is poorly lit, and the middle is divided into two small compartments by a curtain made of old sheets. The second child sleeps in the outer room, and the sisters Wenyun and Jinyue sleep in the inner room.
***
"Jin Yue is awake now, come and warm him up first. When your brother and sister-in-law arrive, we'll make dumplings." Zhao Wanqiu and Shu Wenyun were wearing aprons, and a curtain of neatly arranged, evenly sized, white and plump dumplings had already been placed on the kang table.
The big kang was warm. Shu Wenming didn't say anything, but he moved his butt to make room for him.
"When your second brother heard that we were going to eat dumplings, he specially set aside half a pound of celery. It was still green and fresh."
Green vegetables are very precious at this time of year. If Shu Wenming didn't work in the vegetable store, they wouldn't be able to buy them even if they had money. Dumplings with celery and pork filling are Shu Jinyue’s favorite.
She glanced at Shu Wenming, who had changed from sitting to lying. In her previous life, she had often quarreled with this second brother. He had a bad temper and was not very popular in the alleys or in the vegetable store. Later, he had several blind dates, but they all fell through because he had no house and no job. In the 1980s, he could no longer stand the strange looks from people around him and went to the south alone.
Apia cannot leave the city of Yangcheng, so she has never seen her second brother again. She only learned from the plot in the book that he had no news in the south for the first two years, but suddenly came back after Zhao Wanqiu had a stroke and hired a nanny to take care of her.
From then on, he was the only one who paid for his parents' medical expenses and the nanny's salary.
Of course, by then he had already become a big boss in the South.
Perhaps he noticed her gaze, Shu Wenming put his hands behind his head, "Shu Jinyue, you little idiot, if you look at me again, I will dig your eyes out... Oh, dad, why are you hitting me? Whose real father are you?"
"If you keep talking nonsense, I'll tell you to find a kang master, but there's still no news after so many days." The kang in the children's room next door was old and not warm enough. Jin Yue was weak, so Shu Linong asked him to find a master as soon as he sent the telegram, but there was still no news after so many days.
Shu Wenming pouted, "Xiao Cao... Shu Jinyue's return has made the already small house even worse."
If Shu Jinyue in his previous life heard this, he would definitely be furious, but the current Shu Jinyue nodded in agreement, "Yes, it is quite crowded. Why don't you go find a friend to stay with you? You don't have any friends who are willing to let you stay for a few nights, do you?"
Shu Wenming was so angry that he wanted to hit her. The room was filled with laughter and noise. The eldest brother and his wife walked in at this moment.
"It's too cold outside. The newspaper said this year is the coldest winter in Yangcheng City." Shu Wenyan rubbed his hands and got on the kang. The woman behind him was about thirty-four or thirty-five, carrying a net bag.
"Mom and Dad, these are the fish my dad caught from the glacier. He asked me to bring two for you to try. Now that Jin Yue is back, let's make some fish soup, shall we? Here are some wood ear mushrooms I picked in the Northeast. We can stew them with chicken someday." She even took out a ginseng as thick as her little finger from her pocket. "This was given to me by a fellow villager who gave me a ride on the road. He said it was wild ginseng. I don't know much about it, but I think it should be a good thing. It's just right for Jin Yue to replenish his body."
The old couple was polite and happily accepted it. "You have to rest for a few days after you come back, right? It's a good opportunity to go back and see your dad. He misses you a lot, too."
The eldest daughter-in-law Liu Huifang has a very rare occupation, and her gender is even rarer - a truck driver.
Half of every month I spend traveling outside the province, and the remaining half is spent within the province, and the days I spend at home are very few and far between. The old couple also felt sorry for her going through wind and rain, and they were reluctant to accept the canned brown sugar malted milk she brought back from other places. But they couldn't refuse, so they divided it into two portions, one for her father-in-law and one for themselves.
"Sister-in-law."
"Hey, Jin Yue has suffered." Liu Huifang rubbed her hands to warm them up before touching Jin Yue's face. "This little face is so thin that it's not even as big as my palm. It needs to be healed."
Shu Jinyue really liked this sister-in-law. She was warm and generous and loved to joke around. She treated her and Shu Wenyun equally and didn't call her by a nickname like others. When she was a child, she even thought that Liu Huifang was not a sister-in-law, but a sister. Unfortunately...
On the other hand, Shu Linong still had a bad face towards the eldest brother and was too lazy to ask about his business. He only asked his daughter-in-law where she was going to drive this time, how many days she drove, and whether the journey was smooth. While they were chatting, the dumplings were served on the table.
Zhao Wanqiu’s cooking skills are pretty good, and she’s especially good at making dumplings. Each one is white and plump like little ears, with chewy skin and juicy fillings. Dip them in a little bit of balsamic vinegar, and the men’s dumplings are served with garlic. They’re so delicious!
Shu Jinyue ate more than twenty in one breath, and the three Shu brothers and sisters were all scared: "Don't eat too much, little straw bag, or you will have to pay for medical expenses later."
"I never expected that Jin Yue has such a big appetite despite his small stature."
"You guys should say less. Jin Yue has suffered a lot this time. For three years, while you were living a good life in the city, she was working on the farm with an empty stomach. Look at her hands, she is suffering for you, especially Wen Yun." Shu Linong put down his chopsticks and looked at his three children seriously.
The three siblings were quite moved. Everyone knew that it should have been Wenyun who went down instead of the youngest Jinyue.
"Let's not talk about the past. Just remember the sacrifices Jin Yue made for this family. I asked you to come back for a family meeting today to discuss Jin Yue's future arrangements."
Shu Wenyun stood up and said, "Jinyue, I am sorry for you. We agreed to let you come back in a year at most, but who knew that plans could not keep up with changes, and Mr. Liu did not keep his word..."
It turned out that when he was dating that girl, seeing that Shu Wenyun had a job, he secretly sold his job at home to someone else, and was planning for Wenyun to marry him with a ready-made job. This made Shu Linong furious, and he immediately went to argue with her. After they had said some unpleasant words back and forth, it was hard to take back what had been said.
"Sister, have you broken up with Liu Dong?"
"We just split up last month. It was too late. I'll beat up that bastard every time I see him."
"That's wrong. Liu Dong's father is an official in the street office. It is said that the county magistrate is not as good as the current manager. In the future, we will need people to buy winter vegetables and get a letter of introduction. Second brother, you should stop it." Shu Wenyan took a sip of sorghum wine and said with a sigh.
"Come on, I don't believe that we can't buy winter vegetables without him. At worst, I can buy them from the vegetable store."
"That's wrong. You don't know, right? His third uncle is still in the district, and his third uncle's brother-in-law is a leader in the Light Industry Bureau. Do you think everyone in this alley is like our family? No one in three generations has been an official, and the mud on our legs is still not clean..." He knew all the aunts and uncles who were officials in other people's families by heart.
Even Liu Huifang couldn't stand listening to this, "Shu Wenyan, are you done yet? Do you think everyone is as obsessed with power as you are?"
Shu Linong also glared at him, and used his old teacher's ability to summarize and generalize: "I called everyone back today for two purposes. One is that your sister is back and we can get together as a family. The second is about Jin Yue's blind date."
"Jin Yue is going on a blind date?"
"If I can find a job, I won't have to go back to the countryside."
"Who are you with?"
Shu Linong coughed heavily and straightened his back. "The son of Director Xu of the Machinery Factory."
"Ouch!" Shu Wenyan jumped off the kang and walked around with his hands behind his back. "Is it really that Director Xu, the Xu Ping who just resumed work?"
Shu Wenming was also surprised. "They only have one son, named Xu Siqi, who was a few grades lower than me when he was in No. 3 Middle School."
Shu Jinyue observed Shu Wenyun quietly and found that her eyes moved when she heard Xu Siqi's name. She became more and more certain of her guess. Her sister knew his identity. No wonder she offered to accompany her in her previous life. She dressed up more attentively than herself and even left her contact information that day, saying that she had said hurtful words and she wanted to apologize on her behalf.
Shu Wenyun snatched away the job opportunity that belonged to her. Knowing that marriage was her only chance to return to the city, she still snatched away her blind date... Why didn't she see this in her previous life?
Although he is the male lead, is Xu Siqi really that good that she should get him despite the opposition of her parents and brother?
In her previous life, Shu Linong and Shu Wenming strongly opposed her marriage to Xu Siqi. Shu Linong even severed the father-daughter relationship with her, and looked down on her for stabbing her sister in the back.
If it's really that good, then... she has to meet him. He's just a man. The more Shu Jin thought about it, the more she felt that she couldn't suffer the same fate for two lifetimes, no matter if he was the male protagonist or not.
Suddenly, Liu Huifang interrupted and said, "I'm not saying that our family is bad. I'm just wondering, with the Xu family's financial situation, how could they want to go on a blind date with our family?"
Then, Shu Jinyue discovered that Shu Wenyun looked at her mother nervously.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
