Year 1979: Eating meat with my wife and children

Li Xiangdong remained silent, Zhou Yuqin remained silent, and the two old men and women, Li, were also at a loss for words.

The room fell silent instantly.

Li Xiaozhu waited for a while, but no one answered. She looked up and asked, "Why are you all silent like my brother?"

Li Xiangdong grabbed her ear and pulled it off, saying, "Because you really leave us speechless."

"I do not have."

Li Xiaozhu shook her head and broke free, saying, "My brother has more money than me."

"Your brother has a lot of money because he saved it for over a year. You should learn from your brother, and over time yours will also increase."

Li Xiangdong presented the facts and reasoned with Li Xiaozhu, but Li Xiaozhu didn't want to take things slowly and wanted to get it over with in one step.

"How long will it take to save up? Dad, I love you the most, please just fill it up for me, okay?"

Li Xiaozhu stood up, handed over the piggy bank in her hand, her face full of hope.

“No, the point of buying you a piggy bank is to teach you how to save money. If you don’t want to save, give the piggy bank back to me and I’ll give it to your older brother or sister.”

When Li Xiangdong said these words, his hand was already outstretched in front of Li Xiaozhu.

"No, this is mine."

Li Xiaozhu wouldn't be stingy if she had two piggy banks, but she couldn't stand having only one, since she had just gotten it and wasn't even tired of the novelty yet.

She turned and ran, but bumped into Li Xiaohai at the door. She stopped and stared intently at the piggy bank he was carrying.

Li Xiaohai changed from lifting him to hugging him, creating distance between them, and quickly walked to the table. "Dad, help me write down my name."

Li Xiangdong smiled as he took the piggy bank and pen, "Wow, not bad, you even knew to put on a piece of white tape."

"We have to put them on, otherwise it's hard to tell the difference."

Li Xiaohai has been cheated and taken advantage of too many times, and he already knows that he needs to be on guard in some matters.

"Give."

Li Xiangdong wrote his name on the white adhesive tape.

Li Xiaohai took it, pointed to the white tape with his name written on it that was pasted on the piggy bank, and asked his younger sister, who had come over, to take a look.

"See? This way our piggy banks won't get mixed up."

Li Xiaozhu stared at the white tape for a while, then her chubby face lit up with a smile, "Dad, I want one too."

"You don't need to write your name on yours, but your brother's is. You can already tell whose piggy bank is whose."

"I do not."

Li Xiaozhu turned to Zhou Yuqin and said, "Mom, put on the tape."

“You have to learn everything. Give me your piggy bank, and I'll go put the tape on for you.”

Zhou Yuqin complained, but she generally wouldn't refuse such a request that didn't cost her any money.

"Mom is so good, I love you."

Li Xiaozhu chuckled as she handed over the piggy bank, then followed Zhou Yuqin to the doorway. "Mom, hurry up, I'm waiting for you here."

A few minutes later, Li Xiaozhu waited for Zhou Yuqin to return. After getting her piggy bank back, she didn't go to Li Xiangdong to write her name on it. Instead, she hugged her piggy bank and started grinning foolishly.

Holding a ballpoint pen, Li Xiangdong waited in vain for anyone to come, and then spoke up, "Come over and write my name here?"

Li Xiaozhu shook her head and refused, "I won't let you write it. I want to wait for Grandpa to come back."

Li Xiangdong didn't insist, and handed the ballpoint pen to Li Xiaohai, saying, "Put it back where you took it from."

...

...

"Dad, Mom, I'm going to Grandpa and Grandma's house. I'll be right back."

Li Xiaohai figured his older siblings who were in school should have already returned, so he went to Zhou Yuqin, who was cooking dinner in the kitchen, to let her know.

"I'll be back in a bit."

Li Xiaozhu, carrying her piggy bank, followed happily behind Li Xiaohai.

"What a show-off."

Zhou Yuqin glanced at Li Xiangdong, who was chopping vegetables in front of the cutting board, muttered something under her breath, and continued cooking.

"It's so beautiful. It depicts twelve different ethnic minorities."

After Li Xiaomei looked at it, she passed it on, and Li Xiaolan, who was standing next to her, took the piggy bank.

She shook it a couple of times, but heard no sound. She looked at Li Xiaozhu, who was smiling, and asked, "Tell me, how much money is inside?"

Li Xiaozhu stood on tiptoe, gesturing as she replied, "Eight cents."

Li Xiaolan asked in surprise, "Is all that money you earned by bringing customers to the restaurant at noon?"

"Yes."

Li Xiaozhu's toes lifted higher.

“I earned nine cents, but my dad cheated and took one cent.”

"Great!"

Li Xiaolan knew what the chubby girl in front of her liked to hear, and she didn't hold back her praise.

As for learning from her younger sister to solicit customers and earn money, she hadn't thought about it, mainly because she was too embarrassed.

"Hey hey hey."

Li Xiaozhu smiled so wide her eyes disappeared.

Li Xiaomei pointed to the blank tape on the piggy bank, "You were planning to write your name on it, right? Why didn't you write it?"

"Grandpa is not home."

"I'll write it for you."

"Okay!"

Li Xiaozhu immediately nodded in agreement.

Li Xiaomei sat down at the table with her piggy bank in hand. Just as she picked up her pen, Li Xiaozhu, who had followed her over, tugged at her clothes twice.

"what?"

"Sister, please don't write my name."

Upon hearing Li Xiaozhu's words, Li Xiaomei's face was filled with confusion. "If we don't write your name, whose name should we write? Mine?"

"I won't write about you, I'll write about my brother."

"Your brother, Li Xiaohai?"

"Ah."

Seeing Li Xiaozhu nod, Li Xiaomei remembered that when the other party came over to show off her piggy bank, she said that there was not as much money in it as there was in Li Xiaohai's piggy bank.

She quickly understood the other person's intention and couldn't help but laugh as she began to rub Li Xiaozhu's head.

"Aren't you afraid that if you put your brother's name on the piggy bank, both piggy banks will belong to him?"

"Humph."

Li Xiaozhu twisted her body, broke free, and put her hands on her hips. "I'll remove the tape after I change it."

Li Xiaolan raised her left and right hands and grabbed Li Xiaozhu's ears respectively. "I know you're smart, but you have to use your intelligence for good. If you really do this, we won't play with you anymore. I'll ask you again, whose name is written on the tape?"

"mine."

Li Xiaozhu pouted, looking unhappy.

"Well, good."

Li Xiaolan let go of her hands and took out a penny from under the quilt before going back to the kang (a heated brick bed).

After Li Xiaozhu took the piggy bank with her name written on it from Li Xiaomei, she folded a penny and put it in.

"Sister is so kind!"

The unhappiness on Li Xiaozhu's face was instantly replaced by joy.

"come over."

Li Xiaomei waved.

Li Xiaozhu stepped forward with her piggy bank in her arms, and when she saw that another penny had been deposited, she jumped up and down excitedly!

She was a master of flattery, and one pleasing compliment after another flowed from her lips.

To cheer up her two older sisters, Li Xiaozhu carried her piggy bank out of the house and turned to walk into the north-facing room.

"Brother, I really like Sister Xiaomei and Sister Xiaolan, do you know why?"

Looking at his younger sister who had come to him, Li Xiaojiang was unsure what she wanted, so he asked, following her lead, "Why?"

Li Xiaozhu patted the piggy bank she was holding in her arms and handed it over with both hands.

"Because Sister Xiaomei and Sister Xiaolan put a penny into my piggy bank."

Li Xiaojiang: "..."