The ups and downs of life in the Siheyuan

The young woman standing on the steps is Zheng Xia, a military wife, with two children, the eldest Liu Xiaowu, an 8-year-old boy, and the second eldest Liu Xiuru, a 4-year-old boy.

The year before last, Zheng Xia was bullied by Buddha near the purchasing station. Stationmaster Wang, who was passing by after get off work, heard the noise and drove away the two Buddhas.

While chatting, I found out that she was a military wife, and her man, Liu Jiefang, was in the same army as Station Commander Wang.

As a veteran, I took the initiative to help my comrades take care of their children.

But Zheng Xia's family was very brave and sent them directly instead of accepting them at all.

Finally, I thought that the buying station was full of old men, and one of them was disabled, so I simply entrusted Zheng Xia to help with cleaning, washing, and sewing.

This also counts as an equal exchange.

Zheng Xia is not pretty, but she has a very good figure. She is the type who wants to commit crimes behind her back, but calls herself eldest sister in front of her.

At this time, Xiao Wu showed a smiling face from the door curtain and greeted Li Yuan happily.

"Xiao Li, it's snowing so heavily, come inside quickly."

Passing the bamboo basket to Xiao Wu, Xiao Ru also ran into the house with the bamboo basket and her brother.

Li Yuan stamped his feet on the steps, and then rubbed the soles of his shoes on the threshold. Zheng Xia kept helping to hold the door curtain.

He hurriedly entered the house sideways, lowered the door curtain, and the room suddenly became much warmer.

"Sister-in-law, please tell me if there are enough briquettes. We don't have any other briquettes at our purchasing station. The briquette tubes are enough."

"That's enough. The ones you sent last time can probably be used until spring."

"Xiao Li is here, a woman's voice came from the back room."

Li Yuan knew that the owner of the voice was Liu Jiefang's mother, who had always been in poor health, especially in winter and spring, and basically stayed on the kang (the side near the stove).

"Auntie, it's me," she said, opening the thin curtain between the back room and the main room, and walked in.

An old man with silver hair sat up from the kang, his legs covered with a shabby military coat.

Li Yuan sat on the edge of the Kang, his right hand held by the old man.

"What a good young man. Whoever follows you in the future will be a blessing to the ancestors."

"I'd like to lend you your kind words!" Li Yuan responded with a smile.

Zheng Xia, who followed, wanted to say a few words, but she held back after looking at the smiling Li Yuan.

Every time she came, the old lady basically kept nagging about this matter. Zheng Xia was also afraid that Li Yuan would be bored, so she hurriedly followed in.

In this life, Li Yuan's mentality is very strange. He talks about living a good life, but in his subconscious, he always has a game-playing mentality, and the people around him are more like NPCs.

The original owner was honest, but he had a mentality problem, and he had a sense of uninhibitedness about playing a role.

"Auntie, there is meat in the dish today, you are always in luck." Li Yuan was at a loss for words.

"Auntie and Xiao Wu are blessed. With your help, life is much better now and they have hope." The old man's eyes were full of memories.

"Mom, sister-in-law, if you need anything, come find us." Li Yuan felt that it was almost time and said goodbye.

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law did not try to persuade him to stay, knowing that he had come here without food and was still hungry. I wanted to stay, but he never agreed, so he said goodbye with a smile.

When they arrived at the main room, Xiao Wu had already poured the food into other bowls, and the two large porcelain bowls were also washed clean.

"Xiao Wu and Xiao Ru are really capable."

"Goodbye, uncle", the second child also knew the 'process' and helped his mother with the work very obediently.

"Hey, Leader Wang is such a good person. Without him, we as a family would be in a difficult situation. We can barely make enough food, salt, sauce and vinegar by making paper boxes."

After Li Yuan left, Liu's mother took the bowls and chopsticks brought by Zheng Xia and whispered.

"Yes, the buying station is a good person. I occasionally help with the laundry. They often bring food over. I can only rely on his father to repay this kindness."

Zheng Xia helped Liu's mother press the cotton coat to prevent air leakage.

"Hey, it's hard on you too," Mother Liu said with emotion as she looked at her virtuous daughter-in-law.

"Mom, I'm not miserable. With the money his dad sent back and us doing some temporary work, we can survive. Besides, his dad is here to protect the motherland."

After coming over for a while, Zheng Xia said weakly: "How about we accept the subsidy from the street?"

The old man looked south and said with difficulty, "My child, we can't! We have to be able to survive now, and we can't increase the burden on the country."

. . . . . .

Facing the heavy snow, Li Yuan ran back to the purchasing station and went directly to the kitchen.

The four of them were already seated, the dishes were not moved much, and the stove in the kitchen was burning hot.

Li Yuan patted the snow on his body at the door, cleaned his feet, and walked in. He was pulled to an empty seat by Liang Zhixiang, and he sat at the bottom seat.

The two of them struggled with each other several times over this matter, and finally had to obey him.

According to his age, Li Yuan should sit at the bottom of the table, but every time Liang Zhixiang refused to let Li Yuan sit at the bottom of the table because of his lack of education.

In the end, it was the webmaster who spoke up and the current seats were fixed.

The chief stationmaster is Song Shu, the chief on the left, Zhang Bing, the chief on the right, Li Yuan, the second on the left, and Liang Zhixiang, the last.

Nowadays, in many places in the north, people are still very concerned about where they sit. If you sit in the wrong place, you may end up unhappy.

There are two types of tables in the north, one is the kang table and the other is a round table placed on the ground.

The kang table is square, about one foot high and about one meter long on each side. As the name suggests, the Kang table is placed on the Kang.

The main seat with his back to the window, and the last seat at the edge of the Kang.

If it is a round table, the person facing the door will be the main seat, and the person facing away from the door will be the last seat.

At banquets, such as marrying a daughter-in-law, the uncle is the oldest, so he usually takes the main seat, regardless of age.

If the arrangement is wrong, it will generally be considered a great shame and humiliation, and those with a bad temper will immediately overturn the table and turn around and leave.

Even now, there are similar rules in the north.

"Okay, everyone is here, one or two per person. During work hours, just warm up and don't get drunk." Wang Shengli raised his glass first and set the rules.

Everyone responded in unison.

Li Yuan saw that the wine bottle was chrysanthemum white, so he looked at Uncle Song. Uncle Song winked secretly. Li Yuan understood and raised his glass in response.

Several people took a sip lightly and did not dare to take a sip.

"Okay, it's okay today. Let's drink and eat." Stationmaster Wang picked up the cup again.

"Okay!" The person who cheered must have been Chen Bing, without even looking.

They were all gentlemen, and they were not too particular. They were eating and drinking with steamed buns in hand and a large stew.

Everyone is also a show-off person, and they only eat meat after watching others eat it. There is no such person who breaks the rules.

In today's world, materials are scarce and wages are not high. Most people live on a daily basis and want to sell some fat meat to refine oil.

I didn’t dare to eat the oil residue, so I put it in a jar with lard. On holidays or when guests come over, I would put a little bit of the meat residue in the dishes.

Then this dish is definitely a meat dish.

The meat buns at the entrance of the alley are not pork at all, and the meat filling is only a small amount of oil residue. If you want to eat big meat buns, you can only go to a restaurant, which not only requires money, but also food stamps and meat stamps.

In this era, notes are more important than money most of the time and have more purchasing power.

The previous article mentioned that in the ghost market, food stamps were sold at 5 cents per pound, which is the current price. In the next few years, the price of food stamps exceeded more than ten yuan.

Many valuable antiques sometimes cannot be exchanged for 10 kilograms of food stamps.

If there was no sign-in system, he would have taken the risk of slowly hoarding some pork and sheep ribs or going into the water.

There wasn't much meat, only three or four pieces per person, but the other dishes were ok. Everyone was so excited that they even wiped the soup on the bottom of the basin with steamed buns several times.

The dish basin is so clean that it requires almost no scrubbing.