Chapter 167: Sky Screen Live Streaming System (42)

On the evening of the Little New Year, we gathered at Uncle's house for a whole roasted lamb.

On New Year's Eve, the eldest cousin from Uncle's side treated us to the reunion dinner; at four in the afternoon, the entire Wen family split into several cars and set off together for the banquet hall of the Jinbi Huihuang Grand Hotel in the City Center.

Nowadays, whether in cities or the countryside, as life has become more affluent, more and more families go out to restaurants for their New Year's Eve reunion dinner.

Major hotels and restaurants began accepting reservations for New Year's Eve dinner a month ago.

If you don't book in advance, let alone get a large private room that symbolizes reunion, there won't even be seats in the main hall.

After a busy year, it is rare for the whole family to gather together and sit around for a reunion dinner, so naturally, they order whatever they want to eat; they might be reluctant to buy it on ordinary days, but on New Year's, no matter how expensive it is, they will order a portion.

They also buy the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks that everyone likes to drink.

The men drink white spirits, the women drink red wine, and the elderly and children drink warm Corn juice or freshly squeezed Watermelon juice or orange juice.

In the hotel's private rooms, every table is filled with the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter.

The servers are so busy their feet barely touch the ground:

"Hot dishes coming through!"

"Codonopsis-stewed chicken for a prosperous and fiery year!"

"Steamed mandarin fish for abundance year after year!"

"Steamed Scallops with vermicelli for the arrival of the five blessings!"

"Stir-fried rice cakes with Crab for rising higher step by step!"

"Teppanyaki beef short ribs for peace and smoothness!"

"Roasted suckling pig trotters for wealth and success!"

"..."

As the hot dishes are served one by one, Wen Dajiu, sitting at the head of the table, picks up his wine glass and gently taps the marble tabletop:

"Come, come, come! Before we start eating, let's clink glasses first. Yang Yang and A Ci's two children, Linbao and Jinbao, are spending the New Year with us this year, so this New Year is even livelier than in previous years. Children, I hope you treat this place as your own home, eat well, drink well, and have a good time. I also hope that in the years to come, you can always come back to spend the New Year with us!"

"Cheers! Cheers!"

"Happy New Year's Eve!"

Everyone raises their glasses together, standing up to clink them one by one.

The few children also scramble to hold their glasses filled with fruit juice high up, grinning and shouting: "I want to clink glasses too! I want to clink glasses too!"

"Alright, alright, alright, you clink glasses too! Everyone clink glasses!"

"Why are you all standing! Sit down and start eating!"

"Let's dig in!"

Outside the window, strings of fireworks are lit to match the occasion, and the dreamlike sparks illuminate the night sky of New Year's Eve.

In the warm hotel private room, everyone takes off their heavy winter clothes, wearing only sweaters and thin shirts, eating the sumptuous reunion dinner while chatting and laughing.

Another space-time beneath the Sky Screen is also celebrating the New Year.

But apart from the houses of princes and nobles where candles are bright and the dishes are extravagant and luxurious, for ordinary commoners, especially the poor, even on New Year's Eve, the dining table only has one or two meat dishes that are not usually seen.

In families with many people, there isn't even much meat to go around.

Everyone looks up at the Sky Screen, and the word "envy" cannot express their inner feelings.

【The people in the Heavenly Palace are truly happy! A table of people eating so many dishes! Not only are there big fish and meat, but also green vegetables that are hard to grow in winter!】

【It seems every household in the Heavenly Palace can afford such sumptuous wine and delicacies, unlike our Daliang, where only high-ranking and wealthy families can set up such a banquet; for small families, having one chicken dish and one meat dish is already quite good!】

【The firecrackers in the Heavenly Palace are so beautiful! Like blooming flowers!】

【Are the people of the Heavenly Palace actually eating their reunion dinner at a restaurant? Don't the restaurant managers and waiters close their doors and go home to celebrate the New Year?】

【Didn't you hear the waiter... oh, the girl the Heavenly Palace calls a server? Working on New Year's Eve and Spring Festival earns triple the wages! Anyone would be happy with that!】

【Perhaps next year's harvest will be much better. I heard the imperial court has developed a Water Wheel, and Biogas Digesters are also being popularized by people sent out.】

【I heard a village discovered high-yield Potato! The Emperor has already ordered people to plant and breed them at the Imperial Villa!】

【Our Yongan County has kept enough fish fry for the rice paddies next year, just waiting for spring to start farming Rice Flower Fish on a large scale! I hope this move can really increase rice production! By then, both fish and rice will have a bumper harvest!】

【That would be excellent!】

This year is a warm winter.

Fenglu City only had a few small snowflakes before the Little New Year, and once the sun came out the next day, they all melted without a trace of snow left.

From after the Little New Year until the eighth day of the first lunar month, there was bright sunshine every day.

With the good weather, everyone loved going out.

On the afternoon of the first day of the first lunar month, there was a performance by the Xiao Baihua Yue Opera Troupe at the town's central park. Xie Yang took the two children and went to watch the play for half a day along with her uncle, aunt, eldest aunt, uncle-in-law, and a group of other elders.

I originally thought only the older generation loved watching operas, but unexpectedly, the ones sitting on the long benches, focused intently from beginning to end, and reluctant to leave even after the Yue Opera actors took their bows, were the niece and nephew.

Xie Yang: "..."

Children of similar ages from other families had bottoms that seemed greased not long after the start—they couldn't sit still, shouting for candied chestnuts one moment, and crying for water or to pee the next.

The two children in her family sat with good posture and watched the play seriously; even when fed food or water, their eyes never left the stage.

After watching the half-day play, they became the "other people's children" in the mouths of the parents:

"Look at those two little friends, the older one is about the same age as you, and the younger one is even smaller than your younger sister, yet they watch the play so seriously! Unlike you, you make a fuss after not even ten minutes; if this continues, I won't bring you out again!"

The uncles and aunts, on the other hand, were smiling from ear to ear, boasting to everyone they met: "Our children are truly well-behaved! Taking them out to play is so worry-free! They carry their own water bottles and backpacks, and when they see snack stalls, they don't make a fuss asking for food; if we buy it for them, they sensibly wave their hands and say they have some at home, no need to buy..."

"..."

It really is true that comparing people makes one want to die, and comparing goods makes one want to throw them away!

The uncles and aunts, however, seemed to have flipped a switch and were very willing to take the two children out to play everywhere.

On the second day of the first lunar month, both aunts even wanted to take the two children with them when they returned to their maiden homes, and they almost argued over it.

In the end, Xie Yang said she wasn't going anywhere, which finally made them give up the idea.

Thus, the final winner became the aunt who had returned to her maiden home.

After playing with the two children for half the day, the aunt announced with a beaming smile, "Tomorrow we're all going to soak in the hot springs together. Your second cousin managed to get a few hot spring tickets, so we're all going!"

"Is it a warm spring?"

Xie Jilin thought of his home in ancient times.

His family's Farm outside the city had a warm spring, and in previous years when winter arrived, his father and mother would take them to stay at Warm Spring Manor for a while.

Thinking of his father and mother, the little nephew's eyes dimmed.

Xie Yang sighed inwardly, held him as she sat him down in front of the computer, and clicked on the browser: "Auntie will teach you how to look up useful knowledge. For example, with hot springs, if you want to understand their origins, their distribution, and their benefits, you just type the two characters 'hot spring' here... look, they popped up."

After a semester of reading with the help of a dictionary and practicing essays, Xie Jilin already knew many characters and recognized most conventional ones; his originally dejected spirit was instantly drawn to the various pieces of knowledge about hot springs that popped up in the browser:

"Can you grow vegetables and raise livestock around geothermal hot springs? Auntie, is this true?"

When he read this point, Xie Jilin's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Does this mean that in... poor and backward places, even if they can't build a Glass Greenhouse, they can still rely on warm springs to grow melons, fruits, and vegetables that are scarce in winter?"

"Of course," Xie Yang nodded with a smile.

Throughout Great Liang: 【!!!】

They couldn't afford to build a Glass Greenhouse, but warm springs—they had those!