After the rain, everything is bright and clean, even the mud on the mountain road is surprisingly delicate, as if the clay master of the ceramic factory has been trained, and it glows softly in the warm afternoon sun. Looking at the whole Jiushan, although there are also many pine trees and evergreen trees such as pines and cypresses, they are still as green as the plastic Christmas trees in the Christmas factory at the moment, enough to provide greenery after eye exercises, but most of the trees have become bald, there is no wind in the afternoon, and the world is not moving, like a movie suddenly stuck in a winter picture, desolate and still.

I stood in the center of the courtyard, facing a special two-story small western-style building: red brick walls, white windows, two floors of roofs are covered with antique resin green tiles, the decoration is incidental, the main role is to use air-dried meat dishes: under the eaves of the first floor on the left hangs a row of long strips of sauce-colored bacon, on the right is a pig's small intestine full of swollen dark red sausage, under the eaves of the second floor from left to right hanging in turn are kohlrabi, daylily, long beans, five-color mushrooms, dried radish, dried sweet potatoes, red peppers, and the far right is eggplant, Most of the Taozhen people are accustomed to cutting the eggplant into four petals, hanging on the penny to dry, sister-in-law is always different from others, she likes to use twine to string the eggplant handle one by one, like a cannon to dry, in the winter to cut the dried eggplant, a fragrance comes to the nose, and the tempeh shredded meat is stir-fried together, that fragrant! My mouth is full of saliva when I think about it.

The front and back of the small building stretch out two large terraces seven feet wide, looking at the water in front and the mountains in the back. In summer, you can drink tea to enjoy the coolness, and in winter, you can eat wine and barbecue, but according to your will.

The root of the wall is a tree hibiscus with a height of a few feet, and there are a few pink hibiscus flowers hanging on the branches, most of the wood hibiscus in Guangdong is thin, and most of them are single-petaled and double-petaled, however, the wood hibiscus of Taozhen is layered and intertwined, delicate and moving, and the peony petals stretch to the stamen, while the Taozhen wood hibiscus is free and casual, the petal direction is chaotic, self-contained, and there is a beauty, needless to say, this must be the eldest brother for the sister-in-law who loves pink. The backyard has carved out a vegetable garden, climbed about half an acre along the hillside, in which shallots, garlic, coriander, Chinese cabbage, cabbage, carrots, white radish, fragrant and fragrant, full of vitality, and the nine mountains outside the garden are like two worlds, just like a barren loess slope that emerges an oasis for no reason.

If you look closely, there is still a slope of withered and yellowed sweet potato vines on the hillside.

"Second brother, it's time to dig up sweet potatoes, right?" I say.

It happened that my sister-in-law Yingxiang came back from outside and answered my words: "It's time to dig, just wait for you to come back and dig!" ”

I looked back and saw that my sister-in-law's big bag and small bag were all bags on both wrists, and only a head was left on the outside of the entire upper body, and the second brother hurriedly stepped forward to help: "Sister-in-law, give it to me!" ”

"These are on the laundry counter first!" The sister-in-law gave the thing in her left hand to the second brother, and her chin was raised to the right side of the courtyard door, and I noticed that there was a triangular shed in the corner of the courtyard, and there was a ten-kilogram automatic washing and drying washing machine under the shed, and a pressurized water well was dug against the courtyard wall, and a three-and-a-half-foot wide square cement cistern was built next to the well, and there was a half-person-high natural bluestone laundry table on the side of the pool.

I also took a step forward, took off half of my sister-in-law's right wrist, and said with a smile, "Sister-in-law, you shouldn't have moved half of Taozhen back!" So much, where do you put them? ”

"Where? Put it in your house! You're not coming back anyway, and it's empty. The sister-in-law said half-jokingly, half-seriously.

I hurriedly grabbed my sister-in-law's arm and coquettishly said: "Don't! Sister-in-law! Am I not coming back? ”

When the second brother joined the army, the eldest brother was too busy to be busy, and at that time, Sister Yingxiang, who was still a girl, came to the house to help in three days, Tofu Lao Wang, that is, sister-in-law, her father was afraid of outsiders gossiping, in his own words: Although he was not satisfied with this family business from the bottom of his heart, not to mention that our family was so poor that there was no half of a good tile, and there was no half of a good couch, and the eldest brother's Muna temperament who couldn't let out a fart for half a day also made him look at how unpleasant, but his daughter liked it, and he couldn't help it. Another reason is that the sister-in-law is three years older than the eldest brother, and at that time, the girl's family has reached the age of marriage at the age of twenty-four, and she will become an old girl after two years. I was only ten years old when my sister-in-law got married, and for me, my sister-in-law is not only a sister-in-law, but also a half-mother.

"I haven't bought it yet! Look, this is the list your eldest brother gave me. My sister-in-law took out a small folded white square from her trouser pocket and handed it to me. I opened the small square, it was a piece of paper torn from a math homework book, and the words on it were very tense, and the strokes were strong and powerful, and the eldest brother wrote it correctly. The eldest brother doesn't read much, he looks at Mu Na and speaks silently on the outside, and his belly is full of splendor, not only the handwriting is excellent, but also the watercolor painting is also a good hand, and the eldest brother said that it was all taught by his father. In the past, the third brother said that I don't need to study hard, and I replied: "A lot of things are not just hard work, you look at our eldest brother, many calligraphy words are not as good as his, what does this mean?" It shows that learning things depends on talent. For this reason, I was also reprimanded by the second brother, "Who told you that the eldest brother is useless?" When the eldest brother was practicing calligraphy and painting at the entrance of the cave alone, you were still licking your nose and peeing your pants! ”

I looked closely at the contents of the paper, and saw that it was swaying vertically and horizontally:

Cuisine:

1. Stewed bamboo chicken with red ginseng and wolfberry, add more red dates

2. Two pork ribs, add ginger, garlic, and tempeh and stir-fry, add five-color mushrooms and simmer thoroughly, and be sure to sprinkle a handful of chopped green onions before cooking

3. Cut the taro into finger-thick triangle slices, wrap the egg noodles and fry them, then adjust a bowl of soy sauce chili noodles, add minced garlic, pay attention to less spicy and more minced garlic

4. Stir-fry the yellow buds and white garlic cloves with lard residue

Fruit:

1. Apples, the redder the better

2. Southern oranges, choose small ones with thin skin

Snacks:

1. Xiao Ma Yuan, bought by the willow mother-in-law on East Street, to be fried

2. Hair cakes, do not slice, but cup-shaped

3. Osmanthus cake, mung bean cake, Xidukou camel family buy

4. Cat ears, buy them from the shop next door to your mother's house

5. Corn on the cob, popcorn, buy it from the black dick by the bridge, half yellow and half magenta, and add a few white ones

6.……”

The red dates in the chicken broth, the green onions in the five-color mushrooms, and the sweet yellow buds are all things that I liked when I was a child. Southern oranges choose small ones, not only because of the small sweetness, but also because of the same weight, the same price, the number of small oranges, one a day, can be eaten for many days; The small hemp balls of the willow mother-in-law's house, the fragrant and crispy little round balls are wrapped in dense black and white sesame seeds, five in a string, one for each of the brothers, and two for me.

I pulled out three corn cobs, one white, one yellow and one poinsettia, from a sealed bag and took a big bite.

"It's delicious!" I say.

If this is put aside, it is difficult to eat it on weekdays unless it is a New Year's holiday. When the Chinese New Year was approaching, the master who made popcorn shouted at the market: "Corn on the cob, popcorn!" Popcorn tweed! After a while, there was a long queue in front of the black naval cannon-like popcorn machine, some people carried rice in their hands, some people carried corn, ranging from half a catty to two catties, some liked popcorn, some liked rice bubble cones, corn cobs, and those with better family backgrounds would bring two more spoonfuls of sugar, and those who did not have conditions could only add a little saccharin more or less by the mood of the popcorn master. When it was my turn, I would always run far away before the cannon exploded, and only after the loud "bang" had passed, I would run back and watch the master put the cannon barrel or rice flower into a large nylon bag, and then carry it home with the third brother.

People who have come over in hard times eat as much as they want, and never waste it, but today's eldest brother has made a lot of money.

"Sister-in-law, has our family made a fortune?" I asked with a smile.

I looked at the gap in the list, and my sister-in-law has already classified the big bags and small bags, the room that should be put in the room, and the room that should be put in the hall.

"I also asked your eldest brother in the morning, and he was reluctant to spend half of his son on weekdays, why are you so arrogant today?"

I said seriously, "Big brother must have made a lot of money!" ”

My sister-in-law slapped my shoulder blade mercilessly, and scolded with a smile: "You heartless!" It's good to think of your big brother like this! The bigger it is, the less conscience it is. ”

"Sister-in-law, look at what you said, conscience is not wrinkled, can it grow with age?" My sister-in-law and I have a poor mouth.

The words that the eldest brother often says are, "Why do you buy so much?" How many stomachs do you have? "He has been frugal all his life, but as long as he can, he has never saved me and my third brother.

"Co-author: You have no conscience since you were a child?" The sister-in-law sighed and said, "Your eldest brother said that you are so skinny that you haven't slept all night, so you sit at the head of the bed and make this big list, let me make up for you with delicious food!" You came back late last night, I didn't see it, come! Let my sister-in-law take a good look. ”

My sister-in-law took a look at my face, took a step back and looked me from head to toe, and suddenly pinched my arm. "You said you're such a big person, why can't you even eat well!"

"Oops! Hurt! Hurt! I screamed exaggeratedly and crossed my elbows to my chest.

"You know it hurts! All bones are left, can it not hurt? My sister-in-law rubbed the place where I was pinched again, "Hungry!" What do you want to eat? My sister-in-law will do it for you. ”

I shook my head and said, "The second brother came back from buying rice noodles with oil residue, and he just had a full meal, so he said to take me around to have a look." ”

"Then go! Recognize the way well, and when you go back and go out to find a home, you will make a joke. In the past few years, this place has changed a lot! ”