Tian E returned to the room and put down her things, and saw that her husband Niu Yonghou had coaxed her son Niu Gengmu to sleep after a while, and she was a little relieved. Today they set off after lunch, tossing and turning on the road for a long time, at the moment they are very tired, finally arrived home, can take a break, she doesn't want these two boys to wake up at this moment.

Niu Geng walked in with a bowl of noodles, and before he could speak, Niu Yonghou took the bowl.

"Yunyun, go and bring it to your mother, and tell your aunt that your mother is uncomfortable, don't put spicy seeds in the noodles."

Tian E glared at her husband lightly, "You know that when you call the child, I will go to the kitchen to serve the food by myself." ”

Cultivator followed his mother Tian E to the kitchen, and the fourth aunt Niu Xiaoxia was scooping noodles in the bowl, and when she saw them, she said, "Second sister-in-law, you and your second brother have been on the road for a day, and you just came back, why did you come to the kitchen?" When the noodles are ready, I will let Yunyun come to the room, and you and the second brother can rest a little more. ”

Tian E sighed and said with a smile: "Xiaoxia, I know you have a good heart, your second brother can rest in the house and let people bring him food, but my sister-in-law can't, the old people in this family are all watching." ”

"Second sister-in-law, my mother is like that, in fact, she has a good heart, don't take it too seriously."

"Silly sister, sister-in-law is not such an easy person to remember. It's that you have to pay more attention to your mother-in-law's house, it's nothing if you just got married now, but after a long time, you will understand. ”

After the family finished dinner, Tian E helped Niu Xiaoxia clean up the kitchen, their daughter-in-law and sister-in-law were different from others, they had no suspicion of each other, they talked about everything, like sisters.

Among the five sisters of the Niu family, Niu Xiaoxia only has a close relationship with her sister Niu Xiaoli. The other three sisters, the youngest third sister Niu Xiaomin is also nearly ten years older than her. Such an age gap does not have much intersection between their sisters, plus the three sisters got married early, and the third sister Niu Xiaomin married thousands of miles away in Jiujiang, Jiangxi. Later, her sister Niu Xiaoli followed her third brother Niu Yongqiang back to her hometown in Hunan, and it has been almost ten years since then.

In the year when the second sister-in-law Tian E was welcomed into the door, Niu Xiaoxia had just passed her eighteenth birthday, and she saw the bride with a red hijab being carried by the second brother from outside the gate to the kang of the new house. When the hijab was removed, her eyes lit up, the second sister-in-law was so beautiful!

Niu Yonghou and Tian E were introduced to each other to get married, the man's introducer was Niu Yonghou's uncle Ye Shifang, and the woman's introducer was Tian E's uncle Zhou Jimin. The man and woman went home to prepare for the marriage after seeing only one face, and a month later, on an auspicious day, Tian E was welcomed into the door of Lao Niu's house.

One day four years later, when Niu Xiaoxia, who was also going to get married, jokingly asked Tian E, why did she marry her second brother Niu Yonghou when they met? Tian E's answer was very simple, "Your brother is an honest man!" ”

Niu Xiaoxia married Yan Zhangfu after four years of love, and it is a coincidence that the two met at the wedding of her second brother and sister-in-law, so Niu Xiaoxia regarded Tian E as her matchmaker and nobleman.

Guests come to the house, which is also a good thing for cultivation, saving you from reading at night. But on this big night, he has nowhere to play. In Grandma's room, my father-in-law, my father-in-law, my father, and my fourth aunt were talking. Mom also pulled the fourth aunt and chatted softly. Only he was the only one on Grandpa's side.

When the cultivator entered, the old man was filling the electric kettle with boiling water, only to see that he was facing away from the door, the incandescent light in the room was only 25 watts, and the dim light illuminated the old man's lonely back. Somehow, a little sad feeling could not help but rise in the young heart. For as long as I can remember, I have the impression that my grandfather, Niu Chuanqing, lives in this house alone. Although the house is also an upper room, it is a separate room, completely separated from the side of the hall.

There were six electric kettles next to the stove, five of which had been filled, and Niu Chuanqing ordered the cultivators to carry one pot after another to the hall. In the winter, as long as Niu Chuanqing's stove is set up, he seems to have a task every day, which is to provide boiling water for the whole family. Cultivating knows that these five bottles of boiling water, in addition to being used for drinking, are mostly used to wash their faces and burn their feet before going to bed at night.

Cultivating drank tea with him in his grandfather's room for a while, chatted a few words, and washed his face and feet with the old man here by the way. He saw Niu Chuanqing get up and grab a piece of coal, and knew that his grandfather was preparing to seal the fire and rest. He said hello to his grandfather and came to the hall.

It was almost nine o'clock in the evening, and Yan Zhangfu suddenly remembered that there were still things in the car that had not been unloaded, so he pulled his second brother Niu Yonghou together, cultivated on the side with a flashlight to help, and watched them move six snakeskin bags from the carriage.

It was five bags of fine coal, which the fourth uncle used to make honeycomb coal for his grandfather. There is also a bag of sweet potatoes brought by her mother Tian E from her mother's house, and it is also thanks to the fourth uncle to remember it. After finishing the work, Yan Zhangfu saw that it was not too early, so he asked the cultivator to call his aunt Xiaoxia, and it was time to go back.

Niu Xiaoxia came over and greeted her uncle Ye Shifang and her mother Wang, saying that she was going back. The little couple couldn't resist the old lady's enthusiasm, so they had to reluctantly say goodbye at the door under the send-off of the family. When she got into the car, Tian E filled a bag of sweet potatoes and stuffed them into Xiaoxia's hands.

Xiaoxia wanted to be polite, but her mother Wang opened her mouth and said, "Your sister-in-law gave you, don't push it away, it's just a bag of sweet potatoes, and it's not a rare thing." Xiaoxia complained to her mother and got into the car with the bag.

Seeing the car drive across the bridge and have already walked to the vicinity of the lime kiln uphill on the side of Hegu Road, the family turned around and came in, washed their faces and feet, and went to sleep on the kang.

Niu Gengqian grew up on the kang of his grandmother Wang Ying since he was a child, and when he slept, he and the old lady had a quilt, and his father-in-law Ye Shifang himself was a quilt. The place where the kang was against the wall was made of wooden planks and raised half a foot, and two wooden boxes were placed side by side. Ye Shifang slept next to the box, there was a little embroidered black pig pillow in the middle, grandma slept on the other side against the wall, the rope of the light switch was on this side, she pulled the lamp rope, only to hear the sound of "click", and the house fell into darkness.

Outside the grandmother's window, against the wall of the corridor, the chicken coop was covered, and occasionally there was a few "clucking" sounds of the chicks squeezing each other. The winter night was extraordinarily quiet, and the father-in-law and grandmother who were asleep on both sides of the plough soon began to snore slightly, and he saw the moonlight shining on the dark shadows cast on the curtains on the vines on the grape trellis outside the window, and the blurs were randomly intertwined, just like his heart at the moment, he only felt that there were thousands of things that he didn't understand, and he couldn't understand.

"Maybe you'll know when you grow up!" Cultivating thought to himself, his eyelids became heavier and heavier, and he gradually fell asleep.

It's 1989 after New Year's Day, and there is still more than a month before the Lunar New Year.

Early in the morning on New Year's Day, Niu Yonghou and his wife Tian E moved two sacks of Chen Mai out, and her mother Wang instructed them to dig up the wheat in the past two days, and when it cooled down, they went to grind the flour to be eaten for the New Year in advance.

Since it is New Year's Day, and it is a weekend, Uncle Niu Yongfeng and Aunt Niu Xiaoling will come back. After ploughing and reading a few paragraphs in the morning, his father-in-law Ye Shifang let him rest for a day. Since adding new memorization content to the cultivation, he has not been stumped, but has become more and more in tune with his current state.

Ye Shifang asked the cultivator to recite "Three Hundred Tang Poems" or "Liweng Rhyme" is a simple memory, and he does not let him understand anything. On the contrary, after reciting it, he will ponder what those verses say. He also asked curiously what the recited things meant. Ye Shifang never told him, but he would just say that you should memorize all these things, and when you grow up and go to school, you will naturally know.

Cultivating is looking forward to growing up, and when he took two milk bottles to make milk powder for his younger brothers, he thought so, but at the moment he was thinking that his younger brothers would be able to play with him when they grew up.

The younger brothers drank Guanshan whole sweet milk powder, and most of the bags were transparent, except for a small part of the green Guanshan grass printed on the bottom, and there was a black and white cow on the grass. The milk powder inside is in small bags, and the cultivators will occasionally secretly take a bag and eat it dry, which is accompanied by the sweetness of the milk fragrance, which is better than the feeling of drinking it.

The two younger brothers can drink it by themselves, they will also eat some millet porridge or corn treasures every day, and their mother will also steam two small bowls of egg custard for them every once in a while, dripping some sesame oil, and adding a little salt. Every now and then, the cultivator will always be by the side to help, after all, the egg custard can also be rubbed for a bite or two, he likes the tender feeling, and the saltiness with the smell of sesame oil, faintly melts in the mouth, leaving a little aftertaste.

Niu Yongfeng, the eldest uncle and aunt Niu Xiaoling, entered the door with front and rear feet, Niu Yongfeng is used to riding bicycles, and people are more meticulous, his twenty-eight permanent has been riding for almost three years, and now it looks like it is still seven or eight percent new, and the spokes and steel rims are still shiny. Niu Xiaoling came back by bus, her home is in the city of Dou Ji Shilipu, the road is relatively far, this winter cycling, and against the northwest cold wind, she naturally will not do this.

As for the eldest brother Niu Yongfeng is willing to ride sixty or seventy miles back and forth in the cold wind, Niu Xiaoling naturally knows, in addition to the fact that he is indeed used to riding, there is also a son and a daughter in the eldest brother's family who have two children to go to school and have to be supported, and the sister-in-law is a sanitation worker, with a pitiful salary, and the family mainly depends on the income of the eldest brother. Her eldest brother works in a railway unit, just an ordinary worker, and the salary is not very high.

When Niu Yongfeng entered the door, the old lady Wang was holding a bamboo cover and filtering it in a large aluminum basin to scoop the washed wheat into the dustpan. Tian E squatted on the edge of the dustpan, picked out some visible wheat mangs or small sundries with her hands and threw them away, and when the dustpan could not fit inside, she carried it to a few mats not far from the yard to spread it out.

"Mom!"

Niu Yongfeng shouted, and he parked his bicycle next to the firewood shed, where a black leather bag with golden "Shanghai" words and pictures hung on the handlebar, and a bag of fruit in the basket in front of him.

"Big brother!"

Tian E raised her head and shouted, and her mother-in-law Wang Ying beside her also looked up and immediately put down the work in her hand.

"Oh, my eldest son is back."

Niu Yongfeng said "um" and answered the two people, he took something from the car and walked into the hall. Cultivating heard the sound outside, and took advantage of the time when his younger brothers were not making trouble on the kang, he lifted the curtain from his parents' room and called "uncle".

Niu Yongfeng answered, put the leather bag and fruit in his hand on the large round table in the middle of the hall, looked at the cultivation, and asked, "Yunyun, where is your father-in-law?" Why didn't you see anyone? ”