Dong Jiahui lay on the bed for three days, and today she got out of bed feeling less limp and weak, and saw the whole picture of Dong's yard clearly for the first time.
There are five adobe houses, the main hall faces south in the middle, and there are two wing rooms on the east and west sides. The yard is neatly tidied up. There is an old well, a pomegranate tree, and a peach tree. There is a small vegetable field in which cabbage, leeks, green peppers, garlic and other vegetables are planted. Next to the vegetable field is a chicken coop with three hens clucking inside.
This is a courtyard with a very rural style. This kind of mud house is rare even in rural areas in the 21st century. Dong Jiahui saw such well-preserved historical sites when she was a child and traveled with her parents to the revolutionary base.
After breakfast in the morning, all the labor force of the Dong family went to the field. The older children went to school, and the younger ones were taken to the field. Dong Jiahui was the only one left at home.
"Then the Lu family is really wicked. When Jiahui came back, they found a new daughter-in-law. This new wife is a powerful one. If you want to welcome her in, you must first obtain a certificate. After obtaining the certificate, the Lu family will think about divorce. It will be difficult."
"Hey, this marriage can't be divorced at will. It's not because Jiahui is too honest and was punished by her mother-in-law at her husband's house. How much dowry did Lu's new daughter-in-law spend?"
"Because of Jiahui's incident, their family's reputation has been bad. Everyone said that Mrs. Lu is too powerful, and the new daughter-in-law has to suffer when she enters the house. Mrs. Lu gritted her teeth and gave 38 yuan as a gift money, 30 eggs, and five catties of soybean oil."
"Hey, so generous! Back then, Jiahui only got 20 yuan as a bride price when she came in."
"Hey, poor girl Jiahui. Chen Guixiang probably knew that the Lu family's new daughter-in-law had come in, and she was busy finding someone for Jiahui these two days, but it's hard to find a girl with a yellow flower, and those who have been married are always worse."
"No, it's either a poor bachelor, or a dead wife who is old. It's fine if you leave for other reasons, and it's because you can't have children. Isn't a man marrying a wife these days just to have children and carry on the family line?" Well, how can a man be willing to have a child if he can't have children? How can Chen Guixiang be willing to marry his daughter to an idiot?"
"That's why it's a pity. They are all girls who grew up watching them. Regardless of their appearance, they have a really good temper."
"It's like this for a woman's family. If you have a good life, you can live a good life, but if you have a bad life, you can only suffer for a lifetime."
"Okay, let's just gossip. Don't say nasty things in front of Dong's family, especially Jiahui. She has a tender face and a heavy heart, so she can't listen to it."
"I know. You need to remind me? I have no grievances with her. Why do you deliberately say bad things in front of her, thinking that she has lived too long?"
Sitting in the yard basking in the sun, Dong Jiahui suddenly listened to gossip about the original owner. The sound came from the neighbor's courtyard wall to the east.
She didn't fully inherit the original owner's memory when she passed through. She only remembered some important people and things, and she couldn't remember the bits and pieces.
She is not the original owner, so naturally she doesn't care whether Lu Chengyuan finds a new wife or not, she only cares about herself, and as an abandoned woman like Dong Jiahui, it is impossible for her to stay in her mother's house and not marry for the rest of her life.
But the reality is just like what the neighbor said just now, an abandoned woman is still barren, what kind of woman can she find in this age!
She is not the original owner, and she is not an aborigine who can be satisfied by filling her stomach in this era. She is from the 21st century, has received higher education, has ideals and pursuits, and has her own aesthetics for the other half. She really can't imagine marrying an uneducated , a man who doesn't like cleanliness, smacks his mouth when he eats, and smacks his mouth as soon as he opens his mouth, that would be better than jumping into the river again and dying.
Dong Jiahui was basking in the sun worriedly, when she heard the chiming clock in the main room strike ten, Dong Jiahui got up and went into the kitchen to see if she could help cook a meal.
When she was a child, her parents were busy with work, and they would send her to her grandmother's house in the countryside every summer and winter vacation. She often helped her grandmother light the fire, so she knew how to use the old stove in the countryside.
Dong Jiahui walked around the kitchen and found the rice vat where the rice was placed, and the sweet potatoes piled in the corner.
In the past few days she has been here, seeing Dong's family cook, they will always add some sweet potatoes to the rice. These days, rice is only eaten during Chinese New Year and festivals and ancestor worship.
Dong Jiahui copied half a gourd of rice with a homemade gourd ladle in the countryside, and picked six sweet potatoes from the corner of the wall to the well to wash them. Put it into the pot together with the sweet potatoes, add an appropriate amount of water and cover the pot.
The preparations went smoothly, but it took some time to start the fire because I was not used to the matches of this era.
After this incident, the bell rang again, and half an hour had passed.
After the rice was cooked, Dong Jiahui went to the vegetable field again, picked a cabbage from the vegetable field, pinched half a bamboo basket of leeks, and washed it with well water after choosing the vegetable. She didn't know that the Dong family usually How to cook, I am afraid that I can't handle it well, so I put the washed dishes in the kitchen and wait for Chen Guixiang to come back to cook.
At eleven o'clock, Chen Guixiang came back from the field first. The production team also had a time limit for working, from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon.
When Chen Guixiang came back, she saw her daughter got up from the bed and cooked for everyone. She was afraid that her daughter would not be healthy enough to be brave, but she was also happy for her thoughtfulness and understanding.
"I'm still in a hurry to come back, are you ready to cook?"
"I've prepared the rice, but I haven't got the dishes yet. I'll wash the dishes and wait for Mom to come back and make them."
Chen Guixiang lifted the lid of the pot and saw the white rice mixed with sweet potatoes in the pot. It was not a good appetite, so she nodded in satisfaction.
"It's very good, you've got it all done, and I can fry it up quickly."
She turned around and took out a small bowl of river prawns from the cupboard. These were cooked prawns that had been oiled, and she put a handful of them in when she was about to fry the leeks.
Besides the prawns, she also took a small earthenware pot with lard in it. She bought suet and boiled it. There was only half a pot left when the entire earthenware pot was full.
"The Chinese cabbage is fried with some lard, and there is no oil residue in the house. It would be greedy if there is oil residue."
Dong Jiahui has seen the power of lard before. When she was a child, her grandmother often made lard noodles for her to eat. She is so small, and she can eat a whole bowl every time. Grandma likes to watch her eat and say look at her Everything tastes better.
When Chen Guixiang was cooking, Dong Jiahui lit the fire, and secretly observed Chen Guixiang's cooking techniques, planning to learn from her, so as to save herself from showing her flaws in her future work.
The old stove cooks very quickly, the pot is very hot, and the dishes are cooked after three or two strokes, and the fragrant smell spreads in the air. After the rice is cooked, Chen Guixiang takes two more eggs from the cupboard and beats them. When it is scattered, add some chopped green onion and salt, and put the bowl directly into the rice cooker to steam.
For today's meal, the vegetables are grown in my own land, and the shrimps are fished from the river with my own net.
Daewoo Village gathers water in front and mountains in the back, which is a very suitable place for living.
As the old saying goes, "Eat the mountains by relying on the mountains, and eat the water by relying on the water." Although the rice is not enough to eat, the fish and shrimp in the river and the game on the mountain can be eaten from time to time.
Therefore, the most valuable part of this meal is the two eggs. Eggs can be exchanged at a low price these days, and there are supply and marketing cooperatives that specialize in collecting eggs. An egg costs five cents, which is money that rural people can get by themselves in addition to work points, so Very precious.
In the memory of the original owner, the condition of the Lu family, eating a bowl of white rice and a bowl of scrambled eggs is considered excellent, a life that makes the villagers envious. Of course, even if the Lu family has white rice and scrambled eggs, the original owner will not be treated The daughter-in-law I met couldn't eat it, otherwise, how could the original owner be skinny, and she was considered thin in the 1970s when everyone couldn't eat enough and there were no skinny people.
At nearly twelve o'clock, the Dong family came back from the field one after another. Tian Niu and Xiao Man were hugged by the eldest and the third, wearing thick cotton clothes, with two spots of plateau red on their faces, Xiao Man seemed to have caught a cold, and his two lines were blue. The snot hung under the nose, sucking and sucking like two green vegetable worms.
"Jiahui is up, is she feeling better?"
The person who asked the question was Dong Jiahui's sister-in-law Zhou Yindi, the wife of Dong Jiahui's elder brother Dong Aihua.
Zhou Yindi gave birth to her eldest nephew, Huzi, and Dong's only daughter, Tianniu. She has a square face and a strong temper. She is the most proud daughter-in-law of Chen Guixiang. shot.
When all the people are together, they start to eat. Men have a big appetite and work hard, and each person has a large bowl of rice and sweet potatoes. Women's bowls are smaller, and children's bowls are even smaller.
Chen Guixiang scooped a large spoonful of steamed eggs for Tianniu and Xiaoman, and a spoonful for Dong Jiahui.
There was nothing left in the bowl after digging it out with three spoons. Chen Guixiang handed the bowl to her husband Dong Dagui. , to the youngest grandson Xiaoman.
The second daughter-in-law, Liu Xiuyun, felt a little uncomfortable. Her two sons, Hammer and Junzi, had gone to school and were not at home, which meant that today's eggs were cheaper than those of the eldest and third sons.
Not to mention that her own child didn't eat eggs, but her sister-in-law Dong Jiahui had the face to eat them, which made Liu Xiuyun extremely annoyed.
In fact, Dong Jiahui had some thoughts in her heart when she went back to her natal family, Liu Xiuyun, but she just kept suppressing her little thoughts.
At the beginning, she also felt that the divorced woman who was kicked out by her husband's family was very pitiful. She sympathized with her sister-in-law. Later, Dong Jiahui jumped into the river again and was carried back dying. Liu Xiuyun's sympathy for her reached its peak.
But everything in this world obeys the law of "extreme things will be reversed, and when they are full, they will lose". After this kind of sympathy reaches its peak, it begins to decline little by little.
Even if she pretends to be generous for the time being, she still cares in her heart. What Liu Xiuzuo thought in her heart was why she, who earns work points in the field all day, can't eat a bite of eggs. Dong Jiahui, an aunt who has been married once , not only lying on the bed all day long and doing nothing, but also providing food and drink for him. Even if he asked the 16 production brigades of Shengli Commune, he couldn't say that.