Perhaps because the temperature is too low at night, the amount of snowfall at night in Oulothai is generally several times higher than during the day.

It was past eleven o'clock, and the sun finally burst out of the middle of the clouds, surrounded by a yellow edge, and the naked eye could not feel the glare.

The scattered light snow finally stopped, and only the cold wind blew from time to time, bringing up the snow on the ground.

The snow particles hit the face and felt nothing, because the face had long been blown unconscious by the wind.

This section of the road is the old part of Oulothai, commonly known as the slum, and even taxis are rarely visited.

After all, it is better to save a taxi for eight cents to buy a pound of meat for the family.

In the slums, there are some workers in the state-owned factories at the beginning, and many of them have made money from their own business after the reform and opening up, bought commercial houses and moved away, and the rest have no way out.

It is said that after the beginning of spring, the houses in this area will carry out the slum transformation proposed by the secretary of Wu.

It really needs to be demolished, the image here is incompatible with the entire small city of Oulothai, like going to another place, a street that does not belong to the northern frontier.

The road was a bit potholed, and finally a taxi pulled up.

"Beauty, do you want to take a taxi?" Seeing the young woman with a delicate face, the driver's eyes couldn't help but shine.

"No, thank you." At this time, Zhou Jingqiu finally returned to his senses from his lost soul.

She wrapped her head and face in a headscarf again and went onto the sidewalk.

On the edge of this residential area is a slightly larger vegetable market, and some vegetable sellers rent or buy houses. It's also a place where everyone meets, even if they can't name names. There are also some familiar faces.

"Sister of the Zhou family, come to buy vegetables?" A chubby sister-in-law asked politely.

She knew that the good-looking little daughter-in-law in front of her had never bought vegetables before, and she always picked up some rotten vegetable leaves on the ground and went home when the vegetable market was closing.

This kind of thing itself is very embarrassing, when Zhou Jingqiu came. There are basically no people in the wet market. It was also a coincidence that this fat sister-in-law saw it when she came back here that day.

"I want to buy some." Zhou Jingqiu felt that the people around her were looking at her, and some were even whispering.

When she spoke. He didn't raise his head, and his voice was like a mosquito.

"Girl, do you want to buy stir-fried vegetables or stew?" The fat sister-in-law's face was immediately full of smiles: "If you stir-fry vegetables, cabbage, green beans and chili peppers are good." ”

"If you want to stew." She enthusiastically introduced: "Tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes are all okay. ”

So there are vegetables in the winter and summer too? Zhou Jingqiu was taken aback. I don't remember buying groceries in a long time.

In my memory, since Commissioner Wu, no, Secretary Wu came to Ouluotai, what greenhouse vegetables, there are people in the whole northern Xinjiang, and it is not difficult to eat fresh vegetables in winter.

Her mind is still stuck in the time when she was a girl, going to the grocery store in the winter to buy groceries. In addition to potatoes, which are cabbage, they have to be supplied in limited quantities.

"I don't know." I saw my sister-in-law's smiling face. Zhou Jingqiu suddenly felt that the people around him were not looking at him, and he was busy bargaining.

"Can you tell me which dishes are cheap and tasty?" She added: "Can you eat it noisily, or can you eat it stewed?" ”

After getting married, although the two families had a new house, they didn't go to live in it, and they have been living in two houses.

At that time, the factory was booming, and the monthly salary and bonus were not less.

The two of them don't know how to manage money, and every time they pay their salary, they hand it over to their families.

With the restructuring of the factory into a company, the efficiency has deteriorated.

Living in my mother's house, I rarely see the smiling faces of the past, and even my parents, who have always been very good to their two families, have been cold to each other a lot of time, and even Zhang Hui has no one to look at.

Zhang Minghui didn't know why, and he quarreled with his younger brother Zhou Jingqin and insisted on moving back to his own house.

When the two of them were in love, there was only one blind father left.

Before he got married, the old man also died, leaving behind a new house that was converted into a new house.

When other people's children jumped up and down to the nursery, the mother said that she would save money and watch it.

When I was in kindergarten, I could only leave my child alone at home.

If it weren't for Zhang Minghui and Cui Xuyi's quarrel, the child wouldn't even have five yuan to go to elementary school.

Seeing the vegetables on the vegetable rack, Zhou Jingqiu was a little dumbfounded and didn't know how to choose.

"Then you should buy Chinese cabbage," the fat sister-in-law's enthusiasm did not decrease: "You can stew and stir-fry, and the leaves and cabbage can also be used to make soup." ”

"What's more?" Zhou Jingqiu's hand touched the five ten-yuan bills close to him, and his heart was faintly tingling.

"One dime and two," the fat sister-in-law herself is a very enthusiastic person: "Come, I'll help you pick one." What do you think of this one? It's big, and a family can eat it for two days. ”

In this way, Zhou Jingqiu, who hadn't bought vegetables for a long time, took a turn in the vegetable market and actually spent ten yuan, three cents and five cents.

I usually pick up vegetable leaves when it's dark, take them home, wash them, boil them in a pot and sprinkle them with a little salt.

Since you have money, you have to buy a little meat, and you have to buy a pound of oil. What about spices?

She was heartbroken, she bought lean meat, fatty meat, pork ribs, and big bone sticks, and she couldn't stand the pouting of a beef seller, and she also bought a pound of beef.

Zhou Jingqiu held the remaining thirty-nine yuan and six cents and five in his hand tightly, and began to think about the use of the remaining money again.

These meats and spices can fully support the year after the year.

Huihui's clothes, shoes and scarves cost at least ten yuan, and the marriage of her younger brother is a big deal, and thirty yuan is what it should be.

Left and right, there is still a difference of three cents and five cents.

Is it really necessary to let that hateful man sleep again? She shook her lips so hard that she almost bit out blood.

No, not to die. It's this time, I'm already sorry for Minghui and Huihui, and if I do it again, I don't even have the face to live.

According to Minghui's temper, knowing that the surname Cui had bullied him, he might pick up a kitchen knife and fight him immediately.

She didn't know how to explain to her husband the origin of the money on her body, and tell the truth. The husband will definitely be arrested and sentenced by the Public Security Bureau, and if he kills someone, he will be shot.

Don't say it? And what lie should I tell to settle the past?

For a while, Zhou Jingqiu's heart was in turmoil. I didn't notice a small puddle in front of me.

There is a small restaurant next to it, because the sewer pipes in this area are often blocked, the people in the hotel do not dare to pour dirty water into the sewer channel, so they simply pour it here.

The terrain is relatively low-lying, and in summer, the smell is unbearable.

It's winter, and the dirty water of the first day condenses into ice. The next day, the water came in again, and the excess water flowed down the cracked pavement into the drainage ditch a hundred meters away.

Hearing only the sound of "pop", Zhou Jingqiu fell into the sewage all of a sudden. The restaurant is the mouth of the meal, and there are several buckets of hot water poured into it.

The things I bought just now were all soaked with sewage, and even the money in my hand was full of sewage.

She looked at this qiē in a daze. Stuff the drenched money in your pocket.

Zhou Jingqiu seemed to hear someone laughing in the restaurant. I hurriedly put away my things and ran home with a rolling belt.

"Mom!" Xiao Huihui had been waiting at the gate of the yard, and when she saw her mother, she couldn't wait to greet her.

"Don't, don't come near me!" Zhou Jingqiu looked like a mad tiger: "I'm dirty, I'm dirty!" ”

Hearing her mother's roar and seeing that her face was still in tears, little Huihui was at a loss, and ran home crying.

"Dad. Daddy, Mommy is back! She ran and shouted as she cried.

Zhang Minghui was looking at a yellowed madman's diary in his hand. Seeing her daughter's appearance, I was a little inexplicable.

"Autumn, what's wrong with you?" He didn't ask anything else, rushed out to take something from his wife's hand, and saw that she was still dripping with sewage.

"No, nothing!" She said, "Don't touch me, I'm dirty!" ”

Then a gust of wind entered the kitchen, threw things into the sink and sink, and rushed into the bathroom.

Let the water from the faucet wash over her body, and her tears flowed silently.

Of course, there is no water heater at home, and this faucet is Minghui who has no teacher, so he asked his classmates for an iron pipe to release the heating water privately.

As for the sprinkler head in the rain, he used a plastic bag to pierce holes of different sizes with a needle, put it around the head of the iron pipe, and tied the plastic bag tightly with hemp rope.

There is not even a soap at home, and there is only one bar of soap in the bathroom.

She scrubbed her private parts with soap over and over again, and they were a little swollen and felt too dirty.

In the middle of the night, she came out of the bathroom, her face already calm.

"I fell in the stinky ditch just now," Zhou Jingqiu Muran said, "I'm going to buy something." ”

There are bungalows in this area, and at the gate of the yard a man surnamed Xiong has opened a grocery store, and she occasionally comes when she buys salt.

"Brother Xiong, do you have rat poison here?" There was no expression on her face.

"Rat poison?" Boss Xiong usually laughs a few words, and when he saw such a look, he knew that it was not a joke, so he rummaged through the cabinets and found it.

"I said, sister of the Zhou family, aren't the rats extinct here with us?" He finally found a packet of rat poison with a pungent smell in a corner.

There was no name for rat poison written on it, and when I opened it, it was yellow particles.

This should be the scientific name of zinc phosphide, she smelled it, and there was a smell of garlic.

When I went to the countryside in the past, I used it on the farm, and it tasted like this.

"How much?" As she spoke, she took out the money that was still a little wet: "Call your phone." ”

Public telephones are not a new term in Oulothai, and many homes have even installed telephones.

When the efficiency in the factory was good, I also installed one for my mother's house.

It rang twice, and the phone was connected.

"Hey, who's that?" It was his father's voice, who often liked to show off that he had a phone at home in front of his neighbors, and would even complacently tell others that it was his daughter and son-in-law.

However, since the transformation of the factory, he just likes to answer the phone and no longer talk about his aunt's family.

"Dad, it's me." Zhou Jingqiu was returning home during the Mid-Autumn Festival and hadn't seen her father for a few months.

"In a while, you ask your brother to come to my house and get thirty yuan. She is getting married, and she doesn't have much power to be a sister, and she can only help him so much. By the way, you must drink less alcohol in the future. Where's our mom? ”

She has been on the phone for more than half an hour, and Boss Xiong looked at the money in her hand and was not in a hurry.

"Okay, brother, you have to honor our father and mother." Zhou Jingqiu said earnestly: "Don't worry about us, there is still money." Don't you have our key? Open the door yourself. ”

Seeing that his wife was unhappy, Zhao Minghui didn't ask anything.

He just quietly picked vegetables, washed vegetables, and washed meat, and by the time she went out, it was almost done.

This guy is just a nerd, and when he was in the factory, he silently studied ink matching technology.

Later, he asked him to cut paper, and began to think about how to sharpen the blade of the paper cutter and use it longer.

I don't have bad habits in life, I don't smoke or drink, and when I was rich, I bought a lot of science and engineering books.

Most of the books in the family are his books, some of which were bought in Oulothai's bookstore, and some of which were bought by people from Wushi and Beijing in the past.

A pair of black-framed glasses that looks polite.

The atmosphere in the kitchen gradually became warmer, and in Zhang Minghui's eyes, his wife seemed to be the girl with big braids back then, listening to his story, and looking at herself with her cheeks fixed.

Finally, after nearly an hour of busy work, Zhou Jingqiu shouted: "Husband, get ready to eat!" ”

Seeing her husband go out with a rag to wipe the table, she took out the rat poison from her pocket with trembling hands.

Hearing his daughter's cheers, he hesitated for a moment, his hand shook, and yellow particles rolled down two or three dishes.

Tears swept silently across her face, and she quickly wiped them away.

More than two hours later, Zhou Jingqin's cry came from Zhang Minghui's house: "Sister, Huihui, brother-in-law!" What's wrong with you guys? (To be continued......)