Chapter 5: , Expert

After doing all this, Li Lan grabbed a handful of pine needles from the woodpile to fool the oil stains on her palms, and then couldn't wait to pull out chopsticks and put a piece of meat in her mouth.

Lowering her head and chewing slowly, the more she chewed, the brighter her eyes became, thinking that she couldn't tell, this brat is usually as lazy as a pile of dog shit, but his craftsmanship is not bad.

So she took a second piece, a third piece...

Under his nose, she ate six pieces without knowing it.

Seeing that the situation was not right, Li Heng, who was stir-frying Chinese cabbage, twitched his face and couldn't help but speak:

"No, there are only twenty or so pieces of meat in total, can you wait until dinner to eat?"

Li Lan seemed not to hear, didn't look at him, and continued to eat.

"Wow! Brother, you guys are stir-frying bacon today!" Just at this moment, a clumsy voice came from the door, and the eldest sister, Li Yan, leaned over with a big belly.

He turned half-way and asked: "Eldest sister, have you eaten?"

Li Yan stared at the bacon with green eyes, shook her head vigorously, saying she hadn't eaten, hadn't eaten yet.

Dinner was two meat dishes and one vegetable dish, one smoked bamboo shoot bacon, one Chinese cabbage, and one bowl of jar peppers.

And white rice that made people drool.

This was a very luxurious meal for the old Li family in 1987.

Usually, it would only be this rich during festivals or when guests came to the house.

However, all the remaining bacon went into the eldest sister's mouth. She ate until her mouth was full of oil and ate three big bowls of rice in one breath.

Li Heng and Li Lan watched all this silently, without making a sound to interfere, and tacitly only picked up bamboo shoots and cabbage to eat with rice.

When there was only one last piece of bacon left at the bottom of the bowl, the slow-to-react Li Yan scratched her head and laughed foolishly, greeting with some embarrassment:

"I'm almost done eating, brother, sister, you guys eat too."

There's only one piece of meat left, what's the point of eating it.

How to eat?

Could it be that he and his second sister share it?

Li Heng secretly slandered like this, but there was no blame on his face.

Li Lan glanced at the eldest sister's pregnant belly, then glanced at Li Heng across the table, picked up two sour red peppers and put them in her bowl, got up, and carried the bowl to the eaves outside.

The second sister's fierceness, Li Yan was also afraid, and asked in a low voice with a beating heart:

"Brother, is your second sister angry with me? Blaming me for eating all the meat."

Li Heng picked up the last piece of meat in the bowl and gave it to her, comforting her with a smile: "No, eldest sister, don't think too much, we are biological sisters, how could she be angry with you?

When you came, Second Sister and I had already eaten a lot, you should have seen it when you entered the door."

Li Yan recalled the scene when she entered the door, and it seemed that she really saw her second sister eating meat, so she stopped blaming herself and lowered her head to put the last piece of meat in her mouth:

"Then I ate it, this meat is really delicious, so fragrant."

Watching her chew the bacon in big mouthfuls, Li Heng felt heartbroken and picked all the minced meat in the bowl for her.

The eldest sister married into a down-to-earth family. The eldest brother-in-law is currently an apprentice, learning craftsmanship from a carpenter master in neighboring Huaihua, and can only barely support himself on weekdays, without much wages.

And last year, the eldest sister's mother-in-law went up the mountain to dig herbs and was gored by a wild boar, leaving her disabled, and she is still taking medicine to recuperate. She owes a lot of foreign debt.

This is also the reason why the eldest sister runs to her maiden home frequently, because Tian Rune loves her, and every time she comes, she will make some delicious food to supplement her basic nutrition.

After dinner, the eldest sister, who was full, took the initiative to take on the job of washing dishes and chopsticks. Li Heng didn't let her, wanting to let her rest, but was pushed out of the kitchen by her.

The eldest sister is just like this, stubborn and stubborn to death. After eating the meat, she always wants to find something to make up for it, so that her conscience can be at ease.

Li Lan took a broom, swept the corner of the left room clean, laid a pig grass board on the ground, and chopped pig grass.

The family raised four pigs, two big and two small, the big ones were nearly 300 jin, and the small ones were about 70 or 80 jin.

There was also a yellow ox, used during spring plowing.

Don't look at the second sister as fierce, but she is a diligent person. As long as she is at home, the pigs and cows are all served comfortably, and her hands and feet are more nimble than Tian Rune's, looking like an old farmer.

Speaking of which, it's also a strange thing. The pigs she feeds grow faster and better than other families, growing wildly, and the piglets can usually be sold in half a year.

Therefore, people gave her the nickname "Expert at Raising Pigs."

Even several families with very good conditions had ideas about her, repeatedly coming to do Tian Rune's ideological work, wanting to plot to make her a daughter-in-law.

But Li Lan didn't look down on those three melons and two dates at all, and a sentence of "I want to be a city person" rejected them.

Of course, people have ideas about her tirelessly, and beauty is also a big bonus.

She and Tian Rune were almost cut from the same cloth when they were young, born beautiful, and everyone who saw her in the surrounding villages had to praise: this girl is good-looking.

The two sisters were doing things, and Li Heng didn't rest either.

First, he burned a pile of half-wet and half-dry firewood in the stove, then blocked the stove door with a board, placed an iron wire net on top, spread the fish and shrimp he got back today on it, covered it with a few old newspapers, and finally pressed the edges and corners of the newspapers with firewood.

This is considered a great success.

Fish and shrimp smoked overnight will be seven or eight parts dry, and they must be checked every one or two hours in the middle to prevent them from being smoked and scorched.

In the evening, the broken window cracks "woo-woo" poured cold wind into the room, blowing people's faces with pain.

Damn it!

This thief heaven changes its face when it says it will, and the ghost weather is here again.

Picking two intact old newspapers and finding a dozen thumbtacks from the corner of the drawer, Li Heng cursed and started to be a mender.

The heartless Li Yan ran to the Chen family across the road, watching the play while, like everyone else at the crossroads, remembering the bowl of noodles at 12 o'clock in the morning.

According to custom, like this kind of funeral, the host family will provide free noodles at 12 o'clock every night to let the neighbors have a taste.

This era has no entertainment activities, and everyone is short of food and clothing, living a tight life. When encountering such a good thing, naturally the whole family, old and young, goes together, not being polite, and those who can eat can eat three big bowls.

Even a child as big as a fart doesn't have the gentleness of later generations, and one bowl is more than enough.

Not to mention that the Chen family is a famous wealthy family in the village. This afternoon, they not only killed pigs and slaughtered cattle but also generously bought 4 goats. The toppings were so rich that everyone didn't even want to sleep, and they were all looking forward to it.

Looking at the eldest sister's happy look in the crowd, Li Lan twisted her face and wanted to call her back, but glancing at the round pregnant belly, she swallowed the words several times.

Finally, Li Lan muttered "another one without backbone" and returned to the room.

Three earthen houses housed six people, and Grandma was now picked up by the eldest aunt.

When they were young, Li Jianguo and Tian Rune lived in one room with Li Heng, and Grandma lived in one room with the two granddaughters.

Later, when they grew up and grew taller, Li Heng and Li Lan were forced to the narrow second floor, and the siblings were separated by wooden boards against the wall, making simple single rooms.

And the main things piled up between the two single rooms were some firewood and grass. There was also a black, terrifying coffin.

The coffin was Grandma's.

Li Heng bent down and drilled into the simple room, sitting on the hard bed, feeling very stifled, unable to sleep. Having lived a comfortable middle-aged life, it was very difficult for him to adapt to this old era of not being able to eat or dress warmly.

He felt the task was arduous: to change the living conditions, to earn money to treat his father's illness, to win back the face his mother lost in the Chen family, to let the whole family live a good life, all of which required money, a lot of money, and he was so panicked that he didn't want to wait for a minute.

This poor scene, looking at it for one more glance makes one feel ugly.

Time waits for no one, every second counts.

Holding this belief, he began to try hard to scrape various novels and magazines he had read from his memory.

In his previous life, he was a civil servant, and later he was in the education industry, with plenty of time. Influenced by his father, his biggest hobby on weekdays was reading books and newspapers.

Of course, he also played badminton, basketball, and practiced boxing from time to time.

In order to please Song Yu, he even learned piano halfway.

It can be said that he had a wide range of interests, and he had read no less than a thousand famous books and literary works from ancient and modern times, filling the entire study.

It's just that according to the current social conditions and his living environment, he started to have trouble again, picking and choosing, not knowing where to start?

He didn't even consider submitting to newspapers.

He was a person with tens of millions in savings in his previous life. Now reborn, a few dollars or a dozen dollars in manuscript fees, chicken feathers and garlic skins, had no energy, and Li Heng couldn't raise any spirit.

Don't want anything but masterpieces.

They all say that fame should be early. Knowing what a flourishing era the later generations are, and the down-and-out situation at home urgently needs to be changed, he doesn't have so much time to waste.

Thinking and thinking, his mind finally settled on three novels.

They are "Ruined Capital," "Life Ocean," and "To Live."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 6 =====