Chapter 86
Old Lin has a nephew?
The battalion political commissar was also happy, patting Lin Yi on the shoulder and congratulating him, "Great, Old Lin, you were still alone yesterday, but today you have been promoted to an uncle. What, you have just become an uncle, you must give your eldest nephew a big red envelope!"
Lin Yi was in a good mood at the moment, his face was flushed, "That's right, I will send a red envelope to Doudou later!"
As an uncle, he not only wanted to give Doudou a big red envelope, but also planned to send the allowance in his hand to his sister. You know, Lin Yi has been in the army for ten years, and most of his allowances in the first few years were sent to Lin's father and mother.
Since Lin's father and mother passed away, Lin Yi has been holding money in his hands for more than two years. In the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang, he is reluctant to spend money even if he wants to, and he can't find a place to spend it even if he wants to.
"My sister is living alone at her husband's house. She can't live without some money."
Lin Yiyi recalled the little things he did with his sister when he was a child, with a smile in his eyes. When he was a child, he loved to pull his sister's pigtails, which made little Lin Yao so angry that she cried and chased him everywhere. More than ten years have passed, and the two siblings have grown up and are in different places. The sister has a family and a husband and a nephew. If something happens, he can't do anything in the Gobi Beach.
Although Gu's family is good, Lin Yi, as a brother, still wants to support his sister and send money back to her so that she and Doudou can live a more comfortable life and have more confidence when encountering problems.
The Gobi Beach is surprisingly cold in winter. Yesterday it was still a golden sand. Overnight, snowflakes fell. The next day, it was all white.
The Xinjiang Corps was short of supplies. Many young soldiers reclaimed land in the winter. In the ice and snow, they worked barehanded with shovels. Their hands were frozen like carrots. Not only their hands, but also their feet, ears and faces were frozen. The faces of the young soldiers were cracked by the strong cold wind and it itched terribly at night.
The young soldiers had no other choice but to get a basin of hot water and take turns soaking their hands, or warming them on the brazier. Many soldiers had their hands frozen to the wooden handle of the shovel after a day of work, and they broke them off with blood.
The dozens of pairs of labor insurance gloves and ten bottles of frostbite ointment sent by Lin Yao came in handy.
Although there were not many things, they were enough for the soldiers to take turns to keep warm. Moreover, the frostbite cream sent by Lin Yao was produced by the time-honored Tong Ren Tang. It was applied to the hands and feet with frostbite, and the effect was amazing. After using it a few times, the frostbite on the hands and feet was much better and not so itchy.
Lin Yi smiled with a big white tooth in response to the gratitude of his comrades in the army. Even the leaders of the army praised Lin Yao who was thousands of miles away.
Lin Yi went to the post office in the old city of Kashgar that day, mailed a letter and collected a sum of money.
*
On the first day of Ramin, Yunshui County had a heavy snowfall, and the sky and the earth were covered with silver. The winters in recent years have been getting colder year by year.
As soon as winter came this year, the moat outside was covered with thick ice. The ice was at least one meter thick. The children in the city went to play on the ice. When they went out and talked, their breath turned into frost.
Gu Shidong, the naughty boy, would go to play on the moat with Hutou and his friends after school in the afternoon.
The windlass well used in the big compound would be covered with ice in winter. It was slippery and you had to be very careful when you stepped on it to draw water. Gu Mancang and his son would go to draw water for the old Gu family.
There is a beehive stove in the old Gu family's house, and the doors and windows are hung with thick cotton curtains and straw felt. When you go out in the morning, you will see long icicles hanging under the eaves outside.
Gu Doudou is seven months old at home. The little fat boy has a better appetite. He eats a bowl of milk as soon as he opens his eyes in the morning, and is hungry again before ten o'clock. Lin Yao has to feed the little boy stewed fruit and vegetable puree.
Zhang Cuilan looks at Gu Doudou who can eat and drink, and the joy she feels is really sweet to her heart.
As a grandmother, she doesn't expect anything now. As long as Doudou grows up safely and healthily, she will be thankful.
It was snowing outside. Gu Shian got up early in the morning and shoveled the snow with a shovel. The fat boy was sleeping soundly on the small bed by the fence. Lin Yao tucked the quilt for the fat son, cleaned the beehive in the stove, made a cup of hot water, and went out of the house to stand in the yard to admire the snow.
The snow in the yard had accumulated overnight, bending the slender branches of the pomegranate tree by the window. Gu Shidong, wearing a gray cotton jacket, was screaming in the yard.
Zhang Cuilan yelled at her old son.
"What are you doing, you bastard? It's almost seven o'clock. Come and eat!"
Gu Shidong said "Oh", went into the house, ate a bowl of sorghum rice, hurriedly put on his backpack, put on his mother's cotton shoes, and walked to the children's primary school with a crunchy step on the snow.
In another year, the boy will go to the county middle school to study in the first grade. These days, when children go to school, they usually bring two pieces of charcoal from home and burn them together at school. Of course, there are also families with poor conditions who can't take out coal, but they can take a few pieces of wood or corn cobs. In short, even if the conditions are not good, the children can't be left to freeze.
The wind outside Yunshui County was howling like a ghost, and it felt like a knife cutting on the face. Lin Yao gathered the cotton and made a pair of knee pads for each family member with flannel. The flannel was an old cloth used at home, and the cotton inside was very thick. It was very warm to tie it on the knees when going out in winter.
Zhang Cuilan and her husband, one of them had a broken waist from carrying pigs all year round, and the other had cold legs. When the coldest days of winter came, her knees hurt like needles. It hurt when she walked or lay down. She could only feel comfortable when she lay on a heated earthen kang.
Zhang Cuilan now had a waist protector, which she could use when feeding pigs in the pig farm.
Lin Yao ate a bowl of rice, put on a Lei Feng hat, wrapped himself in a military coat, only showing his white jade-like face, and stood in the yard to watch Gu Shian work.
Busy until after eight o'clock, the snow in the yard was shoveled out. Gu Shian pushed the snow under the wall, and his head was steaming from his busy work.
He blew on his hands, put down the shovel and went into the house. Lin Yao quickly brought him an enamel pot of ginger sugar water. Ginger tea drives away the cold, and brown sugar warms the body. Gu Shian was not afraid of the heat and drank it all in one gulp.
Lin Yao was so scared that he came over to pull him.
"What are you doing? It's ginger sugar water that's just out of the pot. Aren't you
afraid of it getting hot?" Yi Xuan Gu Shian smiled and said, "When I was in the army, I was used to using hot and cold water."
Lin Yao felt sad. Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Gu Shian leaned over and kissed her.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Yao's eyes were red, and she didn't know what to say. She knew that life in the army was hard. When she thought of Gu Shian's life in the barracks before, and her elder brother in the Xinjiang Corps thousands of miles away, her eyes were sour and she wanted to cry.
"Do you miss your elder brother?"
"Yeah."
"It's okay. Your brother is very strong and can live well wherever he goes."
This is true. Lin Yi is just like an indestructible cockroach. Ugh!
Lin Yao laughed at her own thoughts. Seeing this, Gu Shian hugged her and the couple went back to the house to see Gu Doudou.
In the east room, Gu Doudou had slept for two hours. He had woken up now. Maybe he felt hot. The little guy kicked off the quilt, chewed his hands and looked around with his big black eyes.
Seeing that the fat son was well behaved, Lin Yao smiled and picked up the little guy. Gu Doudou could already raise his head and turn over neatly. He was more lively than the kids of the same age in the alley.
Zhang Cuilan and Gu Mancang were very excited when their grandson made some progress.
Gu Shidong even stuck his neck out and yelled at others in school, comparing whose nephew was fatter, whiter, and whose poop was stinkier.
Little Gu Doudou won the title because of his excellent pooping skills, which made the whole family feel bad.
Gu Shidong came back triumphantly and lied on the crib to report the good news to his nephew.
Gu Doudou: ???
Lin Yao was kissing her son, while Gu Shian went to wash the diapers for the fat boy and put them on the bamboo cover that had been wiped clean. This bamboo cover was used to cover the cigarette holder and was made of bamboo. It was passed down from the Republic of China. In the old society, this was how ordinary people raised their children.
It was cold and windy in winter, and Gu Doudou's diapers were changed frequently. They would not dry even if hung outside for several days. So Gu Mancang made one for his eldest grandson and put it on the chimney. It was clean and warm, and very convenient to use.
Gu Shidong came back from school at noon.
Lin Yao had just steamed a bowl of egg custard, put shrimp skin in it, and sprinkled a few drops of sesame oil on it. She brought it into the house and fed it to Gu Doudou one spoonful at a time. The little boy ate it with relish.
Seeing that her son was eating so relish, the mother poked the fat boy's fat face with itchy hands.
Gu Doudou was dissatisfied and cried out twice.
Gu Shidong also looked over to complain.
"Sister-in-law, Doudou is so young, how can you bully him?"
With his uncle supporting him, the little fat boy blew bubbles at his mother.
Lin Yao was amused, scooped a spoonful of egg custard with a small spoon, fed it to her son, and apologized, "Okay, mommy apologizes to Doudou. Do you want to eat it?"
The egg custard was tender and smooth, and the fragrance was enough to make your tongue fall off.
The fat boy was very aware of the situation, opened his mouth wide and swallowed the egg custard in one go.
After eating the egg custard, Deputy Director Gu also went home.
The fat boy was clamoring to go to the yard to see the snow. Zhang Cuilan sighed, "It's cold outside. It would be bad if I go out and freeze."
It was the first time for the little boy to see snow. He was very happy. He held the fence of the crib tightly with his chubby hands. He was reluctant to let go even though he was screaming. He stretched his neck to look outside.
Lin Yao came over to hug him. The fat boy turned his head and buried himself in Gu Shi'an's arms, leaving her with a fat butt.
Okay, it seems that we can't stop the little boy from going out.
Lin Yao put a flowered cotton jacket on Gu Doudou, put on a tiger-head hat, and wrapped him in a small hoodie. Gu Shi'an put the fat boy in his military coat, protected him tightly, and walked around the yard.
This made the little fat boy very happy. He danced in his father's arms. He went back to the house and hugged Deputy Director Gu, chewing his face with saliva.
On the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, the rural production team killed the pigs that had been raised for a year. Half of them were kept by the team and the other half were sent to the county grocery store. The county supply and marketing cooperative was crowded with people queuing up to buy pork early in the morning.
Gu Chunmei also carried a basket and called Lin Yao. The two sisters went to the grocery store to buy meat together.
The pork this year was well-raised. There was a long queue in front of the meat stall of the grocery store. The people who arrived early went in with meat tickets in their hands and left with a small piece of fat and trembling pork with a smile on their faces.
We bought the meat, and we can have a good year this year.
The crowd saw the meat in the hands of the old lady, and they all started to discuss it.
"The pork this year is good, look at the fat, so fat."
"Yes, how much is the fat per pound?"
"Fat is first-class meat, 78 cents per pound."
"78 cents, why is it so expensive?"
"It's not expensive, we only eat it once a year, we must have some meat during the New Year."
There was a lot of discussion in front, and Lin Yao looked at the whole pork on the counter with eager eyes. If she bought the white fat back home, it would be so delicious to make meat sauce.
Gu Chunmei laughed at her.
"Your expression is exactly the same as Doudou's when he was breastfeeding."
Lin Yao was not embarrassed at all, shaking her head and saying that food and life are inseparable, and tasting food is like tasting life, and that's how she is.
The two sisters chatted and laughed, and soon they lined up in front of the counter.
These days, first-class meat is 78 cents per catty, second-class meat is 73 cents, and third-class meat is 66 cents. First-class meat is the fat meat of later generations, the kind with fat.
Gu Chunmei ordered 1.5 catties of first-class meat and 50 cents of second-class meat.
Lin Yao really couldn't eat fat meat full of fat, so she only ordered 1 catty symbolically, and bought 1 catty of second-class pork belly with the rest. The family had saved up the tickets for these two catties of meat for several months.
After getting the fat meat, the two sisters went home.
Gu Doudou sat in the walker and walked with his chubby legs. Lin Yao put the little fat boy aside, washed her hands and started to render the fat.
Lin Yao had been married to the big courtyard for more than a year, and she was already very familiar with rendering lard. She heated the bottom of the pot, put the meat in with a sizzle, added water over low heat and put the pork fat into the pot, and then added half a bowl of clean water, boiled it over high heat, and boiled the water in the pot dry. After it was boiled dry, she turned to low heat and slowly rendered the lard. For a while, the backyard was full of fragrance.
At the same time, Sun Jialiang, who was far away in the town, was looking at his granddaughter who was sitting in a wheelchair and going to the toilet with a headache.
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