Starting a new chapter in life

Jingyan obediently stepped forward, offered her her hand, and greeted her with a smile: "Happy New Year, Grandma."

"Oh, good, good, this tall guy is really good, with a round face, he looks like he's blessed, so good." The old lady's wrinkles gathered as she smiled, but strangely she didn't look old at all, but rather very loving. Jingyan subconsciously felt that she liked her grandmother.

"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. You must be exhausted from the journey to get back today. Hurry up, put your things back inside, wash your face, eat something, and get some sleep. We'll have dinner together tonight."

He Zhijun also stepped forward and greeted his grandmother respectfully: "Grandma, it's been a long time. Have you missed me all this time?"

Grandma smiled and stretched out her thin arm, tapping his forehead with her finger. "You little rascal, you've always been the most clever one. I can't help but miss you. You've finally grown up. You've chosen a good wife; she's clearly blessed. Live a good life. Getting into university shows how smart and hardworking you are. When you have children, don't be as irresponsible as you are now, or the younger ones will learn from you."

He Zhijun squatted down in front of her, rested his forehead on her legs, and said with great affection, "I know, Grandma. I'm very mature and steady outside. If you don't believe me, ask Jingyan. I only show my true nature in front of you. No matter how old I am in front of you, I'm still a child. You have to spoil me."

Grandma smiled and hugged his head, patting his back affectionately: "Okay, you'll always be little kids in front of Grandma. Alright, stop being so lovey-dovey. Get up and take your wife back to your room to tidy up and catch up on some sleep. You couldn't sleep well even on the sleeper train, but you're finally home. Go get a good night's sleep."

He Zhijun obediently got up, pulled Jingyan and said to his grandmother, "Grandma, let's go to sleep for a while. Even if we're not awake by dinner time, please wake us up, okay?"

Grandma waved her hand: "Okay, go to sleep now."

Jing Yan followed He Zhijun into a bedroom, looking somewhat bewildered at the room's strong masculine atmosphere: "This is your old room? Your family has quite a few rooms, it's really big, but it's a bit cold."

"This is the military family housing complex. My family specifically chose a first-floor apartment because of this garden. My dad sealed off the normal entrance, so we got a door from the back garden. I remember when I was little, we didn't have this many rooms. This apartment seemed to have three bedrooms and a living room. After I was born, they sealed off the small balcony and turned it into a room, which is ours."

"Our room is already quite warm, with good natural light, so it's relatively warm. The reason you feel cold is because we don't have heated walls or kang beds like in Northeast China. If you're cold, we'll add more blankets. Later, when we renovate our house, we'll see if we can install a heated wall or something."

"Okay," Jingyan said, taking off her outer clothes and getting into bed. The coolness of the blankets immediately woke her up. She looked at He Zhijun in surprise and asked, "Are you still going to sleep?"

He Zhijun also felt a bit of a headache: "You stay in the room, I'll go ask my mom if there are any IV drip bottles at home. If not, we can use the IV drip bottles filled with hot water to warm the bed."

Jingyan nodded. It wasn't convenient for her to go find hot water right now, so she decided to stay inside.

He Zhijun had just opened the door when he saw Cui Hongru, who was about to knock: "Mom, what are you doing?"

Cui Hongru glared at him: "Have you been away for too long? You've forgotten how cold it is inside in winter. Here, I filled two thermos bottles for you and wrapped them in woolen covers so they won't burn you. You two can hug these to sleep and stay warm."

He Zhijun quickly took it. Jing Yan, hearing the two talking at the door, also got off the bed and smiled at Cui Hongru, saying, "Thank you, Mom, you've worked hard."

"It's not hard work, it's not hard work. It's different here than in the Northeast. In your area, it's so comfortable at home in winter, all warm and cozy. But here, it's warmer outside than inside on sunny days. I guessed you wouldn't be used to it. Just make do with this for now, it'll be fine in the spring."

Jing Yan smiled and nodded. Cui Hongru didn't say anything more, handed the bottle to He Zhijun, and closed the door, letting the two of them rest.

The couple placed one bottle under Jingyan's feet and the other on her stomach. With the heat source, Jingyan gradually became sleepy and then fell asleep.

When she woke up, it was already nightfall. Jingyan felt around and found that no one was beside her. After getting up, she fumbled around on the bedside table for a while and found the light cord. She turned on the light, which was dim but still usable. Just as she was about to get out of bed, she saw a stack of ten-yuan bills on the pillow next to her. She then realized that this must be the money she had carried with her all the way, but it was obviously kept in two different places. She couldn't help but laugh: "In the end, some of it was still in my underwear pocket."

He put the money into his small bag, put on his coat and trousers, tidied his hair, and then opened the door and went out.

There was a small clay stove in the living room. Cui Hongru held a small flat pan in her left hand and a pair of chopsticks in her right. Her sister-in-law brushed some oil on the bottom of the pan, then poured in a little egg mixture. Cui Hongru swished the pan to make sure the egg mixture spread into a uniform circle. Her sister-in-law then scooped out a little of the mixed meat filling and placed it on one side of the egg pancake. Cui Hongru used the chopsticks to cover the other side of the egg pancake with the side without meat filling, pressed the edges lightly, and flipped the pan over. An egg dumpling fell onto the large wooden board, or rather, the cutting board. The two of them continued with the next one.

He Jiaoxu, who was standing next to her, waited for the egg dumplings to cool down before transferring them to an iron basin. He arranged them very neatly, and once he finished one basin, he took it to the kitchen to replace it with the next one.

When Jingyan came out, she had just finished filling a basin. He Jiaoxu greeted her as he passed by, "Jingyan, you're awake? We're preparing dishes for the New Year's Eve dinner. Go sit with your mother; we don't need you here."

Jing Yan had no choice but to withdraw her outstretched hand. She walked to Cui Hongru's side, pulled up a small stool, and sat down. "Mom, is there anything I can do for you?"

“We don’t eat dumplings for New Year’s Eve dinner here, but we do eat egg dumplings. This is the only one that can be prepared in advance. You probably don’t know how to make them. If you want to learn later, I’ll teach you. You can just watch from here. We’ll have one meal tonight, and we’ll eat the rest tomorrow and the day after. This is your first time celebrating the New Year in the South, so just focus on eating. You don’t need to help.” Cui Hongru said, but her hands moved quickly and efficiently.

The eldest sister-in-law also laughed and said, "Jingyan, don't interfere. Making these egg dumplings is not easy. I'm a local, but I can't make egg dumplings now. Making egg dumpling wrappers requires too much skill. Only Mom in our family can do it. You can't see that I can only help out. Putting in the filling and brushing on the oil, that's all the work I can do."

"How long are we going to eat these egg dumplings? And why are there so many?" Jingyan asked curiously.

"Not much, not much. We have a large family. You'll see when you eat it; it's delicious. We should stay home until the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. We'll go to work, and you two can accompany Grandma back to Haishi. Your house is where Grandma used to live. Later, Grandma went to a nursing home, and the house was lent to the neighborhood committee to house employees from nearby factories."

"We just brought it back, and the inside was in a really mess. I originally wanted to renovate it and paint it white, but your dad wouldn't let us do anything. He said we should come and see for ourselves, and it's up to you two to decide how to change or renovate it. We'll just pay for it." Cui Hongru was in high spirits. It was a rare opportunity for a family reunion during the New Year, and everything seemed particularly pleasing to her.

"I'll listen to Zhijun. I'll discuss it with him later. But, I don't think I've seen Zhijun since I woke up," Jingyan said, looking around.

Both brothers were sent to the supply and marketing cooperative. You have no idea how hard it is to get pork right now. Yesterday, your sister-in-law and I only bought four catties of pork. Look, we mixed it all into the filling for egg dumplings. And even then, we added a lot of water chestnuts. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to make any egg dumplings.

But we also need to make lion's head meatballs and braised pork for the New Year's Eve dinner. We women can't get any, so only the young men can. I don't know how much we can bring back. If we don't get at least five or ten pounds, we won't have enough food for the next few days.

Jing Yanyuan didn't expect pork to be so hard to buy here. At this moment, Cui Hongru said with some emotion, "You two must have had it even harder back in the Great Northern Wilderness. Even though you had it so hard, you still saved up your food coupons and meat coupons to send back to us. Sometimes I really feel sorry for you. How can you be so sensible?"

Jing Yan… could she say that since arriving in the Great Northern Wilderness, she rarely used meat coupons to buy meat, and that the grain she received was already sufficient, so those coupons weren't saved, but were extra? However, seeing her mother-in-law's extremely moved expression, she wisely kept quiet, smiled somewhat guiltily, and dared not respond.

Fortunately, not long after, He Zhicheng and He Zhijun returned from outside carrying a sea bass and two pieces of pork belly. Just then, Cui Hongru finished cooking the last egg dumpling. She was pleasantly surprised to see the fish: "We actually managed to buy a sea bass! This fish is so fresh, it would be delicious to make braised fish. Oh, this meat is also good. Sure enough, you need strong young men to snatch things."

He Zhicheng's face turned slightly red: "Mom, today there were only the two of us men who went to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy things. The rest were all aunties. You have no idea how much I was taken advantage of. When I was squeezing in, I always felt someone touching my chest and butt. I really lost out. By the way, Zhijun, were you touched?"

He Zhijun glanced at Jing Yan furtively, hesitated for a moment, and said in a low voice, "She probably wasn't...touched, right?" His tone lacked any confidence, and He Zhicheng glared at him, saying, "You're spineless."

Cui Hongru waved her hand dismissively: "It's nothing for young men to be touched a couple of times. It just means you guys have good figures. But you haven't been touched by young women or wives, have you? It's one thing for older women to touch you, they're too old to be daring. But it's different for young people, right?"

He Zhicheng's mood had improved considerably by this time. He shook his head and said, "It seems like there weren't any young people who went today."

"That's settled then. Hurry up and take the fish and meat to the kitchen. We'll keep it simple tonight. We'll make some stir-fried shrimp, steam some egg dumplings, stir-fry some greens, and have a big bowl of braised dried bean curd. That should be about it. We'll have white rice tonight, that's all." Cui Hongru had already arranged dinner.

Seeing everyone start moving around, Jingyan was completely bewildered. What was she supposed to do? He Zhijun noticed her unease, handed the fish to He Jiaoxu, and walked over to Jingyan: "The food we eat for Chinese New Year here is different from the North. It's okay if you don't know. We'll be celebrating the New Year on our own most of the time. We'll make some Yangzhou dishes to mark the occasion, and dumplings will still be our staple food. You can come visit your parents on the second day of the Lunar New Year. Don't be shy, just sit here and wait to eat. If you're really embarrassed, you can do the dishes after the meal?"

Hearing this, Jingyan nodded: "Okay, I'll do the dishes. I really feel uncomfortable if I don't do anything. By the way, Mom told me before that Grandma's old house is for us to live in, but it needs to be renovated. Let's take a look and discuss it together later?"

He Zhijun also thought it was a good idea and nodded: "Then let's go take a look after the New Year."

Dinner went very well. Although Grandma is old, her teeth are still good. The meat filling with water chestnuts had a crunchy texture, and Grandma ate happily. After dinner, Jingyan took the initiative to wash the dishes, and her sister-in-law also rushed to help. The others cleaned up the dining table in the living room and tidied up the living room before sitting down around the table to drink tea. It was literally drinking tea. Grandma was used to drinking tea after meals, so He Jiaoxu also developed this habit. Over the years, tea has become a necessity in their lives.

Jingyan was drinking green tea for the first time. It had a slightly bitter taste, but a sweet aftertaste. He Zhijun quietly asked her if she liked it. She smiled and said, "I don't know much about this. I don't really care whether I like it or not. I can drink it or not. But if I had to choose, I would still prefer to drink sweet soup."

He Zhijun smiled and nodded: "I was thinking that if you liked it, I would ask my dad for two packs to bring to Shanghai for you to drink at home. But since you don't really like it, that's fine. My dad doesn't need to worry about it."

Jingyan suppressed a smile. "You're a grown man now. Stop thinking about taking things from home all the time. Don't annoy your dad."

He Zhijun chuckled: "It's alright. I've always been hard to discipline since I was a child. My dad is used to being annoyed by me."

Jing Yan's eyes widened: "You, you weren't like this before. You were so serious back then, how come you've changed so much since you came back?"

“I have to maintain a certain image when I’m out, but at home I’m still a child. You’ll get used to it, you’ll get used to it.” He Zhijun didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

Grandma looked at the two of them and said with a smile, "Jingyan, don't you think Xiaojun is too different from the person you know?"

Jing Yan nodded repeatedly, thinking to herself, "The difference is huge. They're like two completely different people. If she had met him like this back then, even if he was a battalion-level officer, she probably wouldn't have dared to marry him."