Chapter 316: A fool watches the boundary wall during the New Year

Li Xuewu frowned, staring blankly at the ceiling.

From time to time, the sounds of bugle calls, drill commands, and artillery shells still echoed in his ears.

He tilted his head and glanced at the calendar on the wall. November 15, 1965, Friday.

If he remembered correctly, he should tear off one more page.

That is, November 16, 1965, Saturday.

He still wasn't used to not having a mobile phone to remind him of the date and time, and his right hand groped around the pillow in vain.

Although it was only early November, the capital had already had two snowfalls and was very cold.

He had heard from the elderly that this era was colder than later generations.

Li Xuewu listened to the cold wind howling, making a "woo-woo" sound through the window cracks, and cherished the little bit of warmth in the quilt.

It wasn't that Li Xuewu didn't want to get up, it was really that Li Xuewu had been kidnapped by the cotton quilt.

Li Xuewu looked at the dark sky outside the window and couldn't tell what time it was.

Remember the date.

Since getting off the train, he didn't know how long he had slept; now the kang was still shaking like the train.

Li Xuewu knew he was used to the rhythm of the train and needed to adapt for a day or two.

Li Xuewu was no longer as confused as when he first transmigrated. Memories were like raindrops on the eaves, dripping into his mind bit by bit, slowly recalling the past of this body.

He had arrived in this world for more than two months, and this was the first morning after being transferred back home. He had spent most of the two months since he transmigrated in a hospital bed.

The original owner of this body was also named Li Xuewu, nineteen years old, joined the army in '62, and served in a certain place in the Southwest.

Li Xuewu himself knew that the original Li Xuewu was gone at that time.

He only left a scar on his face.

He was a transmigrator, an old loafer who had been drifting in state-owned enterprises in middle age, playing with everything but mastering nothing.

Fortunately, the memory part of this body was integrated, and some were told to him by comrades.

Li Xuewu realized that he seemed to have arrived in that hateful yet yearning plot.

Considering Li Xuewu's situation was not suitable for continuing to serve, the army sought Li Xuewu's opinion and arranged a small award ceremony and a transfer/demobilization ceremony.

Li Xuewu retired and went home, carrying his luggage, taking his household registration information, and found his home in the capital.

Because he arrived home at night, they didn't talk much, and he just ate a mouthful of rice porridge and lay down to sleep.

The original body lived in a large compound near Nanluoguxiang in the capital, with three rooms, totaling more than sixty square meters, housing nine people in Li Xuewu's family.

Li Xuewu scanned the room; it was originally a side room in the courtyard, partitioned into three rooms. The north room had two kangs built on the east and west sides. The east side was where Li's father, mother, and younger sister lived, and the west kang was where Li Xuewu's grandmother, third brother, and mother's father, Grandfather Liu, lived. Li Xuewu's sudden return squeezed the grandmother onto the east kang.

The middle room was used as a living room, dining room, and kitchen, and the south room was originally where the eldest brother Li Xuewen and Li Xuewu lived, but now it was occupied by the eldest brother Li Xuewen and his wife.

Last night, when Li's mother saw her second son return suddenly, she nagged quite a bit.

Li Xuewu's father, Li Shun, had a cold face and said, "Unpromising, go to sleep early, I'll arrange work for you tomorrow."

Li Xuewu also roughly understood the current family situation.

Li Fu Shun was 40 years old this year, a doctor at the Capital Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. He entered the hospital in '54 during the "dedicating medicine and prescriptions" campaign, relying on a fourth-grade, 12th-level salary of 79.5 yuan to support a family of nine.

Mother Liu Yin had no job and stayed at home to manage household chores and serve the elderly.

From Li Mu's nagging, he learned that many things had happened this year, and Li Mu also nagged about why Li Xuewu didn't tell the family when something happened in the army.

In the middle of this year, the eldest brother Li Xuewen graduated from university and stayed at the school to teach, working as a physics instructor, already earning a salary, and had married his classmate Zhao Yafang, who also stayed at the school to teach as a mathematics instructor.

Mentioning the eldest brother Xuewen and his wife, Li Mu's proud and joyful expression was overflowing.

Li Fu also held his head slightly high.

The third brother Li Xuecai was also particularly promising this year, getting into medical university, which gave Li Fu a lot of face. The stubborn Li Fu showed a relieved expression for the first time.

Because among the three sons, the eldest was addicted to academics and had no interest in medicine, the second was causing trouble and injuring countless people, so saving people was out of the question, and the third, although also mischievous, was promising, getting into medical school, so the family's medical tradition had a successor.

Younger sister Li Xue was in her second year of high school this year, also a top student in her class, with excellent grades, and Li Mu was incredibly proud.

No wonder Li Mu was proud; in this era, who could afford to support four students, two of whom were already university-educated, and one a prospective university student?

Even the least promising second son was a high school graduate.

Moreover, the eldest daughter-in-law who entered the family this year was also a university student, and the couple were both university teachers. People who met them would praise Li Mu for her capability.

This had restored quite a bit of the family reputation that Li Xuewu had ruined back then.

In July of this year, a letter came from his hometown saying his mother had passed away. Li Mu took the whole family home to mourn, and looking at her old father living in misery, she could only shed tears.

Since the day he married, Li Shun had never bothered with household affairs, pushing everything onto Liu Yin, raising four children, serving his old mother, and managing the family in an orderly manner.

Li Shun didn't know where his salary went or if there was a surplus, but even if it wasn't enough, his wife never complained.

The father-in-law was to be brought to the city home.

Seeing Li Shun speak, Liu Fu said he wouldn't go no matter what; how could he go to his son-in-law's house to be supported in his old age? It would make his daughter look too bad.

It wasn't until he saw Li Shun's firm attitude, and Xuewen and Xuecai carrying him out the door, that he agreed to follow his daughter and son-in-law to the city.

Liu Fu was a carpenter in the village. On this move, Li Shun brought back a large cart of carpenter's tools.

Liu Fu had the intention that as long as he could move his legs, he wouldn't add any burden to his daughter and son-in-law.

This Li family lived in the side room of the front courtyard of the quadrangle.

Because of Li Xuewu's special situation of needing to retire due to injury, and being a combat hero, the army wrote to the local authorities to arrange proper placement. The neighborhood office coordinated with the armed forces department to arrange for Li Xuewu to work in a factory.

Li Xuewu raised his hand to touch the scar on his face and used the dim light to look at the room he was in again.

The ceiling was pasted with yellowing old newspapers, the walls were spotted with gray stains, and the window glass was also in small pieces, gray and dull.

Between the two kangs was a row of cabinets, on which were placed a small table clock, a mirror, and several bottles and jars. They shouldn't be traditional Chinese medicine; Li Fu's medicinal materials and books were in the room to the south.

The room to the south only had a kang on the east side, and on the west side were several cabinets against the wall and a desk.

The middle room had a stove near the south room, so the kang in Xuewen's room was warmed when cooking, and the two kangs in the north room were both heated by the door stove.

In the middle of the main room was an eight-immortal table, against the wall was a row of cabinets, and in the corner was a sewing machine.

Li Xuewu really couldn't sleep anymore; third brother Xuecai was snoring wrapped in a quilt.

For Liu Fu, Li Xuewu called him Grandfather, and the family called him Big Grandfather.

Big Grandfather was a light sleeper, he should be awake by now, coughed twice, and got up to put on his clothes.

Li Xuewu looked at the brightening window, finally overcame the shackles of the quilt, got up, put on his cotton-padded clothes, and followed Big Grandfather off the kang.