There is a local custom of worshiping the kitchen god during the winter solstice, with a small worship during the winter solstice and a big worship on New Year’s Eve.
After rolling the glutinous rice balls, Lin Xiuqing cooked them and put them in four bowls, two bowls under the stickers of the Kitchen God and the Kitchen Goddess, and two bowls at the door.
There are also oranges and olives, gold ingots, three cups of tea, three cups of rice wine, and two flowers in the incense burner.
There is a saying: "Oranges are round, olives are pointed, and if the Kitchen God and his wife eat them, they will go to heaven."
In the past few years, in order to break the feudal superstition, the village dared not do anything. However, after the reform and opening up in recent years, it has revived from the ashes and some old customs have been slowly picked up again.
After arranging all the offerings, Lin Xiuqing lit eight incense sticks, bowed three times, and then inserted three incense sticks into the incense burner in front of the Kitchen God and the Kitchen Goddess, still using her left hand to burn incense.
Then he went to the door and saw a small bamboo pole inserted next to the stool with two bowls of dumplings. After bowing three times, three more bamboo poles were inserted.
The remaining two should be inserted into the door, one on the left and one on the right.
After finishing, she asked Ye Yaodong to set off firecrackers.
At this time, the sound of firecrackers could be heard intermittently in the village.
Ye Chenghai from next door excitedly took over the job of setting off firecrackers, but he didn't expect that when he set off the firecrackers, he didn't run too far, and the firecrackers exploded directly on his clothes, burning a hole.
That was it, the chaos and the noise began again.
"Fortunately, I didn't say I wanted to set off firecrackers..." Ye Chenghu patted his chest and said thankfully.
Ye Yaodong patted the back of his head and said, "Go inside, it's time to eat."
After the meal, Lin Xiuqing took the Tianjin Yuanbao that had been offered for a while to the door and burned them in a discarded small iron pot. The ashes left from the burnt Tianjin Yuanbao could be sold for money.
It is also burned on the eve of the Little New Year and New Year’s Eve.
The sacrifice lasted until dark. After all the incense had been lit, Lin Xiuqing put away everything and brought the pot containing all the ashes into the house.
The two children followed behind, waiting to eat, "Mom, are the olives ready to eat?"
They used to eat oranges every day some time ago, so they are no longer rare to them.
"Eat, eat."
"What about the dumplings?"
"I'll put some cabbage and shrimp in the pot later and cook it again for your midnight snack."
That’s right… the glutinous rice balls are cooked salty, there’s no filling in them, and they taste great even when cooked salty.
Both children nodded happily.
For two consecutive days, Ye Yaodong saw that his two sisters-in-law looked worried.
Are you worried now
Fortunately, he stopped them from continuing, otherwise they would have been even more unable to eat or sleep.
There has been a lot of gossip in the village these days, with people speculating on what kind of business Ye Yaohong is doing outside. Why did he beat someone up when he heard that his wife had reported being a millionaire? And why did he beat her so badly and leave the next day without waiting
Although there were many people speculating there before, the villagers expressed few doubts and more envy. Now only some of those who have invested money are actively speaking up for Ye Yaohong.
We have to help them. They have invested money. If something really happens, they will be in big trouble.
Helping others by speaking up can also bring me some psychological comfort, even though I am actually quite unsure.
What is more likely is that everyone is deeply regretting in their hearts but still pretending to be strong.
Ye Yaodong strolled around the village as a morning exercise before going home for dinner. Just then, the postman was delivering a newspaper to his door, so he took it.
During this period, he has developed a good habit of reading the newspaper every morning. Even when he goes out to sea, he will read the day's newspaper for a while when he comes back in the evening.
As he walked into the house, he opened the newspaper and was surprised by the eye-catching headline.
“The first corruption case of reform and opening up!”
"XXX death penalty!"
Is this the beginning of a crackdown on the "smuggling wave"
After the reform and opening up, the country, which had been silent for a long time, suddenly opened its doors. At that time, everything was in ruins, but people were full of expectations and hopes for the future. So in terms of living expenses, people no longer just considered food and clothing as before, but also began to pursue variety and fashion.
However, the embarrassing thing is that there was a severe shortage of various daily necessities at that time, such as black and white TVs, VCRs, watches, motorcycles, etc. Many of them could not be bought even if you had money, which made many criminals see "business opportunities".
So, the southeastern coastal areas went crazy.
The situation of "workers not working, farmers not farming, students not attending classes, and cadres not pursuing personal gain" has become a reality. Some regions even traffic in pornographic videotapes from overseas, and various (sex) entertainment venues are growing rapidly in secret.
He paused and took a quick look around until Lin Xiuqing called him several times, asking him to have breakfast, then he slowly walked to the table again.
"What are you looking at? You're so fascinated."
"The first corruption case since the reform and opening up was publicly tried yesterday and was directly published in the People's Daily today. You guys eat it first, and I'll take a look first."
Lin Xiuqing said nonchalantly, "What does it have to do with us? We are just ordinary people, why do you care so much? You haven't even learned all the characters yet, but you keep reading the newspaper all day long."
"Hey... stop making noise... let me finish watching first..."
He even turned his back to her.
But after a while he turned around again and asked, "What is this word?"
Lin Xiuqing rolled her eyes. "You still complain about my nagging, don't you? Now you ask me again."
"Hey, what's this word?"
"Profiteering!"
"knew."
"Hey, wait..." Lin Xiuqing grabbed his sleeve again, "There's a saying circulating along the coast of Guangdong Province: whatever new model of car arrives in Hong Kong today, it will appear on our streets tomorrow..."
"Let me watch first, you eat yours, I'll show you later."
Ye Yaodong turned around and continued reading.
Lin Xiuqing had no choice but to feed the child first.
After he read it over and over again twice, he put the newspaper down and had no intention of reading the contents of other sections.
In his previous life, he had only heard that smuggling was rampant in this coastal area in the past decade or so after the reform and opening up, but he was illiterate and didn't pay much attention to current affairs, so he didn't know it was really so crazy.
No wonder Linji’s family was so rich in their previous life and was the richest in the village.
I guess you'll be more restrained in the future
I also wanted to ask him to make a net-lifting machine, but I don't know if it is easy or not. At present, the main focus is on developing heavy industry, and engines are not yet popular. Fishermen in small boats basically rely on manpower.
We can only talk about this later. Anyway, he won't go out to sea before the New Year, so we have to wait until at least the fifteenth day of the first lunar month after the New Year.
It would be a lie to say that he was not tempted by the huge profits. But he never had any big ambitions. He had never had any ambitions in his two lives. He only wanted to have a wife and children and be content with a small fortune.
Greedy thoughts are only temporary.
Think about it, I have earned a good amount of money through my labor in the past few months, so there is no need to take risks. If I am caught during the crackdown, I will spend the rest of my life in jail.
Why bother? Did he come back to life just to go in and curl yarn
It's good to take the right path.
Although he is sometimes nonchalant and a little bit unserious, his values are still positive.
After Lin Xiuqing finished feeding the child, she picked up the newspaper beside him and read it. After reading it, she whispered, "Is it Linji?"
She poked at the paper...
"Shh... Just know it, don't say it."
When she first sent a watch to their house and talked to her husband in a mysterious way, she was very confused.
Then she saw that he always delivered sewing machines and bicycles to her in the middle of the night, and she felt mixed emotions in her mind, but she just didn't ask.
"No wonder it involves so many people, they are all making huge profits, and they are all trading in silver dollars. We can only blame the current situation where supplies are too expensive and scarce, and many people have money but nowhere to spend it."
"Well, just take a look. It's none of our business. It should be the New Year soon, so they executed him before the New Year, and they will definitely crack down on him severely next time."
Speaking of this, he thought of Ye Yaohong again.
I don't know what he did with all the money he collected. He couldn't just hold it in his hands and spend it.
"What does your cousin do with all that money? Maybe he's also doing smuggling?"
"It's hard to say. Let's see."
He took the newspaper back and planned to look at other sections, but he saw a corner saying that a "rat club" had appeared in Taiwan, warning people to be more vigilant and not be deceived.
What "rat clubs" fear most is a broken capital chain. As long as the capital chain is not broken, they can cheat new money to pay old debts, and this cycle will continue over and over again, with more and more money rolling in.
There is only a small section left in the newspaper, what's the use of it
There are many illiterate people nowadays, and not every family can subscribe to a newspaper, so it is easiest to cheat the uneducated rural people out of their money.
Ye Yaohong's behavior is almost like a pyramid scheme. Fortunately, he has a "smart" wife, otherwise there might be more unlucky people in the village.
After he understood the situation, he didn't plan to report it.
I guess if the village committee saw this pyramid scheme in this issue of the newspaper, they would have some idea of what was going on and would know that they had been cheated.
For normal loans, who would give such high interest rates
Before, Ye Ersao had only done a small-scale promotion, and no one in the village committee took it seriously, and everyone was not that idle. However, the incident of the ten thousand yuan household a few days ago was undoubtedly another advertisement for Ye Yaohong.
He was in the limelight and more people gave him money, so of course there was more talk about him in the village. With him being at the center of the storm, it was hard for the village committee not to think too much.
Sure enough, someone from the village committee went to Ye Yaohong's home that afternoon, wanting to find out about the matter, but was stopped by Ye Yaohong's mother, who had been stopping people from visiting him in the past few days.
Of course they didn't stop her in the end. As soon as the village committee member entered the room, he was startled by Mrs. Ye who was lying in bed.
It was obvious from the bruised and swollen face that he was beaten severely. I heard that the eldest daughter was taking care of him for the past two days. The eldest daughter, who was standing by the bed, also had a swollen face on one side.
I heard that a few of the younger ones were running around outside at the time, but they didn't know anything and weren't beaten.
The injury that had been covered up by Ye Yaohong's mother was suddenly exposed.
The words "rat club" spread all over the village, and some people who had invested money were so angry that they went to the door to curse and force them to pay back the money...
Ye Yaodong could hear the whole village in an uproar even when he was sitting at home.