Seeing her come out, Lin Hui immediately smiled, took two steps forward and was about to take her arm, but Yin Xiaoman turned aside and avoided her.
She showed a little embarrassment on her face, but still smiled and said, "Sister-in-law, you may not remember me. I am Lin Hui, Secretary Lin. We met at the train station before."
Yin Xiaoman nodded: "What's the matter?"
His expression was obviously cold.
Lin Hui seemed to be completely confused. She still smiled and pointed at Liu Chuang standing aside, patiently explaining: "This is Section Chief Liu from Province C. He is Ning Gong's assistant. The group asked me to send him over to work with Ning Gong."
Hearing her say this, Yin Xiaoman nodded. She didn't say that she and Liu Chuang knew each other before, nor did she continue to ask questions.
Instead, he just stood at the door without moving, with no intention of inviting them to come in and sit down.
The smile on Lin Hui's face finally faded.
She stopped smiling and her voice became quieter.
"We heard that Ning Gong and Mr. Hua are now sharing meals at your house, so we brought Chief Liu to meet you first. Tomorrow, when his food is approved, we will have the young soldiers deliver it to you. Chief Liu is a section-level cadre. In addition to the normal food standard, the regiment will also specially approve five catties of fine grains and one catty of oil. How much can he eat? Then we can also help support the family."
Although these words sounded pleasant, the underlying meaning was extremely disgusting, and it clearly implied a sense of almsgiving.
Even Wang Jun, who was standing aside, showed a surprised expression when he heard it.
Yin Xiaoman's face immediately turned cold.
She ignored Lin Hui and turned to look at Wang Jun: "Captain Wang, who is this person? Why is she rushing to deliver food to someone else's house? Is there something wrong with her brain? Stop standing at my door. Take her to see Liu Chang. If she gets seriously ill one day, she'll bite anyone she catches."
After saying that, he turned around and closed the door.
"You!" Lin Hui was so angry that her face turned pale.
After all, she was the most beautiful girl in the group and was praised wherever she went. But now she was compared to a mad dog by a rural woman.
When had she ever been treated like this?
The whole person is about to jump up!
She took a step forward to argue with Yin Xiaoman, but was stopped by Liu Chuang, who had been standing aside silently with a leadership attitude.
Liu Chuang reached out and pulled Lin Hui aside, then quickly grabbed the courtyard door, making it impossible for Yin Xiaoman to close it.
He forced a smile and said to her, "Comrade Xiao Yin, have you forgotten me? I'm Lao Liu. We've taken the train together before! It's like this, you know I'm Ning Gong's assistant, so I have to be wherever Ning Gong is. He and Mr. Hua are living together in your house, so naturally I have to follow."
Although Liu Chuang didn't have a good impression of this young rural wife, he was not stupid.
Although he had never eaten the food cooked by this person on the train before, judging from Ning Gong's attitude towards her, the food must be delicious.
Besides, the food standards of Ning Gong and Hua Lao are much higher than those of a section-level cadre like him.
With the two of them here, even if this woman is a little greedy and stingy, she can still feed herself, and the food is definitely better than that in the cafeteria.
Of course he had to follow.
Yin Xiaoman was completely annoyed because he couldn't close the door.
She naturally would not argue with an outsider, so she could only continue to look at Wang Jun: "Squad Leader Wang, I have to ask, when did the camp stipulate that visitors must be received by their families?
Mr. Ning and Mr. Hua came to my house for dinner because I treated them as guests. Just because of this, anyone can come to my house to eat if they want to? !
What is my home, the canteen in the camp? I am a helper in your kitchen? How much did you pay me? ! ”
Wang Jun is very familiar with Yin Xiaoman. She always looks very kind. When has he ever seen her get so angry?
I was so frightened that I broke out in a sweat.
He quickly put down the food on his shoulders and waved his hands at her in grievance: "Sister-in-law, it's not like that! I didn't lead them here! We just met at the intersection, and they asked a few questions and insisted on following me. I don't know anything about the situation!"
After saying that, he hurriedly turned to look at Lin Hui and said, "Secretary Lin, the camp has a rule that outsiders need to register at the camp headquarters first. Those who have not registered cannot wander around at will. You are running around with Comrade Liu, and the guards of the security platoon will catch you later."
As he said this, he ignored the food on the ground and reached out to pull Liu Chuang who was still holding the door: "You two come with me to the camp first, and tell our leader if you have anything."
As he spoke, he pulled the two people away.
Yin Xiaoman did not pick up the food at the door, but closed the door directly.
She thought that after rejecting Liu Chuang like this, the two elders would have some reaction. At the very least, Shen Qingyun would come back and ask something. But when it was time to get off work in the evening, none of the three came back.
Instead, Gao Chong sent the food back and brought her Shen Qingyun's words. He said that he and Ning Gong would have to work overtime tonight, so he asked her to prepare some convenient dry food for Gao Chong to take over.
I was also specifically told that if I wasn’t afraid of it getting cold, I could just hold it and eat it.
This clearly shows that he is prepared to stay up all night.
It just so happened that she had made cornmeal pancakes tonight, so she simply blanched some vegetables and clams in water, mixed them together and poured pepper oil on them, and also gave her a bowl of the same kimchi she had had for lunch.
Although Shen Qingyun said that we should be prepared to not be afraid of the cold, the weather at the seaside is always damp and cold at night.
Yin Xiaoman thought about it and decided to make some tomato egg drop soup, put it in a thermos, and asked Gao Chong to take it over.
Yin Xiaoman didn’t know what time Shen Qingyun came back that night, but she was woken up by him the next morning.
Yin Xiaoman was startled when she felt someone patting her face, and she became even more panicked after she saw that the person was Shen Qingyun.
He immediately sat up from the bed: "What's wrong? What happened?"
This was the first time a man entered this bedroom while she was asleep. At this moment, Yin Xiaoman had no other thoughts at all, only one thought in her mind - something big must have happened!
Seeing that she was obviously frightened, Shen Qingyun showed an apologetic expression.
"Are you scared? Don't be afraid, it's nothing serious."
As he spoke, he subconsciously glanced at Erniu who was still sleeping soundly beside him, and lowered his voice: "I just came to tell you that I have to go for training for a while, and I have to leave now. I probably won't be back until the end of the month."
Today is the 3rd, and we will be back at the end of the month, which means this person will be gone for almost a month!
Yin Xiaoman's confusion disappeared and he woke up immediately.
"Where are you going? What are you doing? Why did you leave so suddenly?" She felt that this was related to Liu Chuang's visit yesterday, and she started to worry again.
"Don't ask so many questions."
There was a hint of laughter in Shen Qingyun's tone.
He rubbed her head with his hand and explained with a smile: "There is a confidentiality order, so I can't tell you, but it's a good thing anyway, don't worry."
It was still dark outside, but even in this dim light, Yin Xiaoman could still see starlight in the man's eyes.
The excitement and joy could not be suppressed.
She felt a little relieved.
She nodded: "Okay, go ahead, and be safe."
As he was about to get up, he said, "I'll go get you something to eat."
"No need." Shen Qingyun stopped him: "We are about to leave, it's too late."
At this point, he seemed to have just remembered something, and added: "Don't bother with Section Chief Liu. I have arranged everything for him to eat in the cafeteria. But you have to help me take care of Engineer Ning and Mr. Hua. These two old men are great contributors to the country, and we have to take good care of them."
Yin Xiaoman nodded again.
Shen Qingyun suddenly sighed, leaned over and hugged her tightly, rubbing his face against her hair: "Xiaoman, you don't know how happy I am now! But I can't tell you, anyway, you just stay at home and wait for me to come back, and take care of yourselves."
After saying that, he kissed Yin Xiaoman hard on the top of her head, patted her face, then turned around and strode towards the door.
Looking at the man's back, Yin Xiaoman seemed to be infected by the excitement. She became happy and no longer felt sleepy.
She got up and took a walk, then she realized that it was no wonder that the man didn't let her get up. It was only a little past five in the morning and the wakeup call hadn't even sounded yet.
There was really nothing to do, so she just went back to bed.
She originally wanted to lean back and take a nap, but what she didn't expect was that she actually fell asleep again this time.
Not only did she fall asleep, she also had a dream.
Although she said she was dreaming, she was actually still conscious in her dream. She knew that what she was immersed in at the moment was the original owner's memory, and these scenes were things that had happened in the past.
In the dream, a group of people broke into her old house and stood in the middle of the yard, pointing at her nose and saying a lot of things.
There was no sound in the dream, but I could feel how scared the original owner was.
Then, those people started smashing the windows with tools, and soon, the doors, windows, stoves, tables, chairs and benches were all smashed. They even dug countless pits in the land in front and behind the house.
In addition, they dug up the trees in the backyard and even set fire to the dry well that had long been out of water.
The original owner didn't dare to resist at all. After being beaten by those people, he could only hide in the corner of the hut with Dabao and Erniu, covering his mouth tightly, not even daring to cry out loud.
The hideous faces of those people kept flashing back and forth in front of her eyes...
Yin Xiaoman was suddenly awakened by the fright.
She sat up, gasping for breath, her heart pounding so hard that even breathing became difficult.
Yin Xiaoman sat on the bed in a daze for a long time, unable to understand why he had such a dream.
In fact, she had vaguely seen the scenes in the dream when she first came into this world, but now her life is becoming more and more comfortable, and she has not thought about them for a long time.
Yin Xiaoman reached out to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead and got out of bed again.
After putting on her clothes, she smoothed her hair, and then a light bulb went off in her head, and she suddenly understood why she had dreamed about these things.
Just now when the man said goodbye to her, he said he would be back at the end of the month.
——If she was not mistaken, according to her memory, those people should find the old house and ransack it at the end of this month!
Thinking of this, cold sweat rolled down Yin Xiaoman's forehead.
Although she was very clear that the things in the dream had not happened in this life, she could empathize with the fear and sadness that the original owner had felt at that time.
She couldn't let the same thing happen again!
But perhaps it was because the original owner was too scared at the time, too scared to remember the scene.
Whether in dreams or in memories, the words those people spoke were always silent, so Yin Xiaoman had no way of knowing what they said?
What are you looking for at all this trouble?
Without knowing this, she couldn't find a real solution.
After thinking for a long time, Yin Xiaoman decided to start from the simplest place.
She took out a pen and paper and began to write a letter to her father-in-law Shen Mancheng.
In the letter, she asked about the two elderly people's well-being and described their situation here. Then she said that she had caught some fish and shells while fishing here, and now they had been dried, so she was going to send some of them over along with the letter.
Anyway, I just wrote a bunch of random words that the elderly would like to hear.
It was not until the end of the letter that she pretended to be casual and said that she left in a hurry and had not thought about what to do with her old house.
After staying here for a long time and receiving education from the army, I now understand more and more the importance of keeping everything in line with the organization.
So she decided to lend the house to the brigade for free so that they could use it to house the female educated youth.
She said that this was something she had been thinking about for a long time and had thought it through clearly, so no one should try to persuade her.
Besides, such treatment will be good for his prestige in the brigade, and the villagers will only respect him more.
Finally, he asked Chen Mancheng to help deliver the letter he had enclosed to the old village party secretary and urge him to complete this matter as soon as possible.
In another letter to the old branch secretary, she expressed the same idea, using words that were even more red and professional.
He expressed with the greatest enthusiasm his decision to move closer to the revolutionary organization.
He said he would show his determination by helping the team solve its difficulties.
Finally, he made a special point that he was willing to sign a housing loan contract with the village for a period of ten years, and guaranteed not to charge the public a penny during the period, allowing the brigade to use the house free of charge.
The only requirement is that the village be responsible for the repair and maintenance of the house and that no one living there or anyone else be allowed to damage the house.
When it is returned in the future, it must be ensured to be exactly the same as it is now, so that people can move in at any time.
I would like the branch secretary to help bear witness to this.
After all, this is her ancestral home, left to her by her parents, and she will take it back in the future.
After finishing the letter and reading it carefully again, Yin Xiaoman went to Shen Qingyun's drawer, took out an empty envelope, and put the letters in it.
I planned to find time to go into the city in person as quickly as possible and send the letter and the dry goods together.
This was the only way she could think of at the moment, the most effective way to prevent others from occupying and destroying the house.
The house belongs to a single girl who lives with her two little kids who know nothing. The house is managed by the production team and is populated by educated youth who went to the countryside to support rural construction and make revolution. It is easy to imagine who has a more important position.
And if the brigade signed a loan agreement with her and agreed to help her take care of the house, then if someone wanted to cause damage, they would have to lend a hand to stop them, right?
At worst, in order to prevent the educated youth from being left homeless again, we couldn’t let those people dig holes everywhere in the house.
At least it wasn't like in the dream, where there was not such a big commotion. It happened in the village, but from beginning to end there was not a single person who even lent a hand to help stop it or say a word of persuasion.
After finishing this task, Yin Xiaoman felt much more relieved, and the day was already bright.
She quickly cleaned up and washed up, went to the backyard to pick two newly grown eggplants, and started to make breakfast.
Boil a pot of cornmeal paste, and put the pumpkin and eggplant in it when steaming pancakes.
Then cut the cabbage and the jellyfish that Dabao and the others picked up from the beach into shreds and mix them together with the salad.
Then I mashed some garlic juice and poured it on the steamed eggplants.
These things sound complicated, but Yin Xiaoman is already familiar with them. Although I wasted some time writing letters in the morning, it only took me half an hour to do all this.
By the time Engineer Ning and Mr. Hua rushed over with tired looks on their faces, she had already finished her work and even arranged the dishes on the small square table in the yard.
The night before, the two old men worked overtime for half the night and forgot everything when they were busy. It was not until I woke up in the morning that I suddenly remembered what Wang Jun had told them yesterday, that Liu Chuang had come to their house to cause trouble.
I suddenly felt uneasy.
Especially Engineer Ning. After all, Liu Chuang was his assistant and he went to the Shen family to make trouble under his name.
He was afraid that Yin Xiaoman would be unhappy.
So I felt very uncomfortable all the way to breakfast.
What he didn't expect was that the first thing he saw as soon as he entered the door was Erniu's smiling face.
"Grandpa, come and eat quickly. Mom made a lot of delicious food and even boiled eggs for you!"
Erniu is now familiar with them and is no longer as polite as she was at the beginning. I saw the two elders running over to me affectionately, pulling my sleeves and pulling me towards the table.
After they sat down, he leaned over to their ears and whispered, "Mom didn't let us take it out to eat. She said that she would let you keep it after dinner so that you can use it to fill your stomach in case you get hungry when you are busy."
"Mom also said," the little girl imitated Yin Xiaoman's expression and said seriously, "People who study use their brains and get hungry easily. Grandpas are busy, how can they run home when they are hungry like you guys?"
After saying this, Erniu blinked her big eyes and looked at the two of them with admiration: "When Erniu grows up, she will learn from grandpa and become a learned person! Then she can eat eggs every day!"
These two old men, who were so moved that their eyes were hot, couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Mr. Hua smiled and stroked Erniu's hair: "Eating eggs alone is not enough. From now on, Erniu has to eat one fried dough stick and two eggs every day!"
"What are fried dough sticks? Are they delicious? Grandpa, have you ever eaten them? What do they taste like?"
After spending a long time with Yin Xiaoman, Erniu is now a typical foodie. When she hears that something is obviously delicious, her little face lights up.
Only then did Mr. Hua realize his slip of the tongue.
Nowadays, people can’t even afford oil, so who would fry dough sticks?
He was afraid that if he said too much he would cause trouble for Yin Xiaoman, so he just laughed it off and never dared to mention the fried dough sticks again.
Yin Xiaoman walked out of the kitchen holding a wooden board with two bowls of corn porridge on it for the two elders.
Seeing his daughter clinging to the two elders, whining and complaining about something, he couldn't help but glare at her: "Hurry up and get up, don't disturb grandpa's meal!"
Hearing her say this, Mr. Hua quickly smiled and explained: "It's okay, Erniu and I are chatting."
As he spoke, he subconsciously turned his head and looked at Yin Xiaoman.
Upon seeing this, the smile on the old man's face suddenly froze, and his eyes were fixed on the old wooden sign hanging around Yin Xiaoman's neck.
As the weather was getting warmer day by day, Yin Xiaoman had been busy in the kitchen for a while, so he was too hot to wear an outer coat. He only wore a small lapel shirt that he had modified like Cui Yan.
The collar of the shirt was open a little too wide, revealing half of her fair neck and a wooden sign hung with a red rope.
Old Hua's gaze lingered on the wooden sign for a long time, his expression becoming more and more solemn, and he even looked a little dazed. Even when Yin Xiaoman gave him the bowl of porridge, he was still in a daze.
He only reacted after being pushed by Engineer Ning next to him.
"Oh, thank you." He took the bowl of porridge, but did not joke with Yin Xiaoman as usual. Instead, he lowered his head and drank it in silence.
The old friend's behavior was so abnormal that Ning Gong couldn't help but look at him twice.
But this behavior was normal in Yin Xiaoman's eyes. She knew that the two old people must have stayed up half the night yesterday, so it was reasonable for them to be exhausted.
After the meal was served and everyone sat down, Yin Xiaoman discussed with the two elders, "Mr. Ning, Mr. Hua, I want to go to the county town today. I haven't written to anyone in such a long time. I want to send a letter to my parents and send some things home."
She said this with the intention of discussing the lunch issue with them, but she was interrupted by the Chinese worker before she could even finish her words.
"Xiao Yin, where are you from? Are your parents still alive? Are they still in the countryside? Are you all locals?"
The barrage of questions made Yin Xiaoman stunned.
She paused and said nothing. But she found that Mr. Hua was staring at her with a somewhat persistent gaze, as if he was waiting for her answer very seriously, and not just looking for a topic to chat out of politeness.
Fortunately, there was nothing to hide in the questions he asked, so Yin Xiaoman didn't take it too seriously.
She shook her head and said, "My parents are both dead. The parents I mentioned just now are Qingyun's parents, my parents-in-law."
These words made the Chinese worker's hand holding the chopsticks tremble.
"Then, are your parents both native to Province C?" he asked again.
After that, as if afraid that Yin Xiaoman would get suspicious, he laughed and explained, "Don't worry, Xiao Yin, I'm just a little curious after hearing what you said. According to what you said, your family is from Province C. We know that Province C is a plain, and there is not even a big river around it. Who did you learn this skill of cooking seafood from? You can actually go to the sea and know so many seafood products?"
Hearing him ask this, the doubts in Yin Xiaoman's heart disappeared, and she had already thought of the answer to his question.
So I didn't hide anything and gave a very straightforward answer.
"My ancestors were not native to Shuanggui Village. My parents fled there from other places before liberation. My mother's family used to be fishermen. Although I was born and raised in Shuanggui Village, my mother loved to tell me stories about her hometown since I was a child. She also drew many pictures of seafood for me and taught me how to distinguish them. She also taught me how to cook the food."
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