Lin Qile spent the Spring Festival of the second year in Beijing.
Her eldest aunt's family lived in a narrow alley on the North Third Ring Road, with a small doorway. Next door was a barber shop that also provided shaving services.
When Lin Qile had nothing to do, she would bring a small stool and sit at the door of the neighbor's house to watch people get their hair cut. Seven or eight times out of ten, the customers would give her candies and peanuts.
The family was picking chives to prepare dumplings for the New Year's Eve dinner. Lin Qile ran home, walked around her mother and aunt, sat on the high mattress, and ate the small sugar horse she had just bought.
A TV series called "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin" is being broadcast on TV.
The eldest aunt and Lin Qile's mother sighed: "It's a good thing that you didn't let your brother-in-law go to the Beijing Thermos Bottle Factory. Look, what's good for him?"
"It's hard to do anything right now," said my mother. "We said last year that the house in our provincial capital headquarters would be divided up, but it hasn't been allocated yet."
"Haven't they divided it yet?" The eldest aunt put down the leeks in her hand.
Lin Qile was concentrating on eating candy. Her mother looked back at her, and Lin the Electrician was not there either. She frowned and said to Lin Qile's aunt, "We won't be able to work at the Qunshan construction site for a few more years. I originally wanted to get a share of the headquarters house and let Yingtao go to the provincial capital to study in junior high school—"
My aunt said, "She should go! You can't let her study at the construction site anymore. You have to hurry up when the child goes to middle school!"
Mother Lin looked miserable and helpless.
"Sister, don't you see what kind of personality your brother has?" Mom smiled through her bitterness. "He gave in to others when it came to distributing houses, but he was the first to work overtime. If anyone is left at the construction site, I think it will most likely be him!"
Lin Qile's aunt's face changed: "No, he has always been willing to suffer losses. Let him suffer by himself. You two can't suffer with him. I'll talk to him when he comes back!"
"If you can really convince him," Mother Lin said as she took a small basin of leeks she had picked to the kitchen to wash them, "I will respect you!"
Electrician Lin took Lin Qile's cousin to the street to buy fish. Lin Qile sat on the mattress and looked at Zhang Daming for a while, eating most of the small candy horse in his hand.
"Cherry!" The aunt called her suddenly, in a low voice, "Cherry!"
Lin Qile glanced with his big eyes and found that his aunt was in his cousin's small room. She closed the door, waved at her, and quietly asked her to come in.
Mom was still chopping chives in the kitchen. Lin Qile walked into his cousin's room and was pulled to the bed by his aunt.
My cousin's room is not even as big as Lin Qile's small bedroom in the mountains. At least Lin Qile has a desk, but my cousin has to read and write in bed.
"Cherry, how did you do in this year's final exam?" asked the aunt with a smile.
Lin Qile bit his lip and said, "Not good."
The eldest aunt pinched Lin Qile's little face with her fat, wrinkled hands, and followed the red string hanging around Lin Qile's neck to pick the small piece of red amber out of the collar of Lin Qile's cotton-padded jacket.
"It's really beautiful, like a cherry, isn't it?" The aunt smiled, holding Lin Qile's amber carefully in both hands. "Aunt still remembers the day you were born. It was just April!"
"I was working in Beijing when I received a call from your father, saying that Cherry was born! As soon as I got off work at noon, I called your uncle and we went to Panjiayuan together! After looking around there, I fell in love with this one!"
Lin Qile couldn't help but smile as she listened to her own birth story.
"When other children are born, people give them gold ornaments," the eldest aunt raised her eyes and looked at Lin Qile with a loving and pitying look, "I can't afford to buy a lot of good gold ornaments, so I gave Yingtao an amber. I heard that amber is a good thing, it can bring good luck and avoid bad luck, and it won't change for thousands or tens of thousands of years!"
Lin Qile nodded seriously.
The eldest aunt glanced outside the door, as if she was on guard against the appearance of her younger brother and sister-in-law. She took out a small red paper package from her palm and stuffed it into the pocket of Lin Qile's cotton-padded jacket.
"This is given to you by your aunt," she said. "Don't let your parents see it, or they will take it away!"
Lin Qile blinked: "Is it New Year's money?"
The eldest aunt smiled and said, "Yes!"
Lin Qile couldn't hide the excitement on her face, she loved the Chinese New Year the most!
My aunt said, "Don't spend it recklessly. Save the money and buy what you want later!"
Electrician Lin and his cousin came back from outside with fresh carp. Lin Qile went to watch his father kill the fish, and then went to the street to watch people kill chickens.
It gets dark early in Beijing. Lin Qile's mother came out of the house and took Lin Qile back home.
This place is definitely not like a construction site in the mountains. In this small alley in Beijing, there are all kinds of residents, good and bad people are mixed together. If Lin Qile, a little girl from another place, gets lost or taken away by someone, it will be impossible to find her.
Before entering the house, Mother Lin suddenly squatted down and said to Lin Qile seriously: "Cherry, if your aunt and uncle want to give you New Year's money this year, you must not accept it, do you understand?"
Lin Qile was stunned.
Mom said, "If you want anything, Mom and Dad will buy it for you. Your cousin is going to high school this year, and your uncle is sick again, so you can't ask your eldest aunt for money."
Lin Qile squatted at the kitchen door, peeling garlic and putting the raw cloves into a bowl. She heard her mother and father talking quietly in the kitchen.
"One thousand, just one thousand," Dad said with a smile, "It's not easy to come here."
The mother said: "Then give it to the child secretly, don't let the eldest sister see it!"
While the Spring Festival Gala was being broadcast, Lin Qile was still thinking about the New Year's money his mother had mentioned. What should he do? What should he do with his aunt's money
The phone at my aunt's house kept ringing, interrupting the TV program. They were all calls from relatives and colleagues wishing you a happy new year.
There is also my cousin’s classmate who called him to make an appointment to go out and play after the New Year.
Lin Qile suddenly wondered what Jiang Qiaoxi was doing in the provincial capital now.
At nightfall, only a small number of houses in the Qunshan construction site were still lit. Not many people stayed at the construction site to celebrate the New Year. Du Shang and his mother brought their homemade meals to Yu Qiao's house to share the table and eat New Year's Eve dinner together.
Yu Qiao was watching Zhang Ziyi singing at the Spring Festival Gala. His father called him, "Yu Qiao! Come over here and answer the phone!"
"Who is it?"
"Jiang Qiaoxi."
Yu Qiao raised his eyebrows, walked past Dushan, stood up and answered the phone.
Yu Qiao had never expected Jiang Qiaoxi to call from the provincial capital. Although they had been studying together for half a year and were deskmates, their relationship outside of class was not as close as that between other boys.
Jiang Qiaoxi was a quiet man who studied all day, didn't play games, and didn't like to joke around. Yu Qiao and he actually had nothing in common.
"Hello?" Yu Qiao said.
Jiang Qiaoxi said on the phone: "Happy New Year."
Yu Qiao heard Jiang Qiaoxi was quiet, as if Jiang Qiaoxi was staying in an empty house, not like the New Year. He said, "Happy New Year."
The atmosphere of this New Year's greeting call was a little awkward. Yu Qiao was having a good time, and Du Shang asked from the dinner table: "Uncle Yu, who is Zhang Ziyi?"
Jiang Qiaoxi asked: "Are you having New Year's Eve dinner together?"
Yu Qiao looked back at Du Shang and said, "Du Shang's father didn't come back, so my father called him and his mother to have dinner together."
Jiang Qiaoxi asked: "Are there only your two families?"
Yu Qiao held the receiver of the landline phone and used his brain a little.
"Lin Yingtao went to Beijing," Yu Qiao said, "to spend the New Year at her aunt's house."
Jiang Qiaoxi was quiet for a while.
Yu Qiao was kind-hearted and said, "Come back on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year."
He then asked, "How are you doing in the provincial capital? Is Cai Fangyuan keeping up with the cram school there?"
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled and said, "His books were also confiscated by the principal here."
Yu Qiao also laughed: "Are you going to go back to school when school starts?"
"Go back." Jiang Qiaoxi said firmly.
Yu Qiao said, "Then lend me your homework so I can copy it."
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Lin Qile was sitting on the train leaving Beijing for home, listening to music with headphones on.
Father Lin sat next to him, took Lin Qile's headphones and listened, then hummed along: "Deep in the Pacific Ocean..."
"Dad." Lin Qile suddenly called him.
"What's the matter?" said Lin's father.
Lin Qile said solemnly: "I took the 200 yuan that my aunt gave me."
When Electrician Lin heard this, he took off his headphones and looked down at her.
Lin Qile confessed: "My aunt gave me 400 yuan."
Electrician Lin asked, "Where did you put the two hundred yuan?"
Lin Qile rubbed her fingers and said, "Before I left, I secretly put it in my cousin's pencil case."
The train traveled for almost a whole day, swaying and finally stopped at the Gunsan Railway Station. Lin Qile was carried down from the train by her father and onto the platform. She wanted to sleep while standing, but was woken up by her mother.
"Cherry, we're home!" Mom said with a smile, "Look who's here to pick you up?"
In the middle of the night, all the buses in the city stopped running. Team leader Yu drove a small van to pick up Lin the electrician and his family to go back to the construction site. Lin Qile sat in the car, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
While talking to Lin the electrician and his wife, Team Leader Yu asked with a smile, "Cherry! How is Beijing?"
"Okay!" Lin Qile replied.
"So which is better, Beijing or the mountains?"
Lin Qile replied: “The mountains are beautiful!”
As soon as she entered the house, Lin Qile ran into the small room she hadn't seen for a long time, carrying her small schoolbag. Squad leader Yu said, "Cherry, go to Grandma Zhang's house tomorrow to pick up your rabbit."
"Okay!" After checking her pot of evergreen on the windowsill, Lin Qile turned around to visit Poppy the Elf who was spending the New Year alone at home.
Ah. Lin Qile just remembered it at this moment.
The elf spent the New Year in the provincial capital this year.
It was the New Year I spent with Jiang Qiaoxi.
I don't know what Jiang Qiaoxi is doing in the provincial capital now. It's so late, he should be sleeping. Lin Qile put her schoolbag on the bed and opened it, taking out the candies that her aunt had filled it with, as well as the colorful hairpins and pictures bought at the temple fair.
There is also a thin comic book "Saint Seiya" in the middle of the picture.
Lin Qile remembered that she had seen this book before she left. Before she finished reading it, Athena stood by the water, waiting for her heroes to rescue her. This was the only comic book in her cousin's house, and Lin Qile had no other choice.
She accidentally brought this book back and called her cousin to tell him about it.
The comic book opened and a note fell out.
"Sister," my cousin wrote in a neat and square handwriting, "Use this five hundred yuan to buy some snacks. Don't just eat snacks, study hard and make your parents and us proud."
It’s incredible!
At noon on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Lin Qile discovered that his net worth had soared and he suddenly became a "thousand-dollar millionaire"!
Her cousin gave her five hundred yuan, her aunt gave her two hundred yuan, and Uncle Yu gave her one hundred yuan, which added up to eight hundred yuan in New Year's money!
When Lin Qile went to Grandma Zhang's house to bring back her beloved little white rabbit, Grandma Zhang mysteriously gave her a small red envelope, which contained another two hundred yuan.
Lin Qile felt that the money was too much to handle!
Late at night on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, Lin Qile was sleeping soundly when he vaguely heard an urgent knock on the door.
Uncle Yu called out from outside the door: "Lao Lin! Lao Lin! Get up!"
Electrician Lin and his wife hurriedly got up, put on their coats, ran out and opened the door.
Uncle Yu said: "Du Yongchun is back and beat his wife and children again in the middle of the night!"
Electrician Lin was stunned for a moment. He walked out the door and asked, "Where is Duchamp?"
Lin Qile put on thick cotton pants and a cotton jacket over her pajamas, and followed the adults out of the house, taking advantage of the darkness, and walked forward. The door of the Qunshan construction site staff hospital was open, and several young nurses seemed to have received a call in the middle of the night and hurriedly got up and rushed over.
Lin Qile walked into the ward surrounded by adults.
Dushan was sitting beside the bed crying with his back to the door and a bandage wrapped around his head. The nurses were comforting and coaxing him.
Du Shang collapsed and cried, "Kamehame School Qigong... Six Meridians Divine Sword... It's useless... I can't beat him at all!!"