Year 1979: Eating meat with my wife and children

The next day has passed, and today is the day to report for duty.

Li Xiangdong, who was still sleeping, was woken up by the crowing of roosters. He felt that there were several roosters crowing in the yard, as if they were fighting!

He struggled to open his eyes, got up and sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) to recover for a while. After he gradually became more awake, he rubbed his face and looked at Zhou Yuqin, who was sitting on the kang dressing her daughter.

"what time is it now?"

"It's not even six o'clock yet."

Zhou Yuqin helped her daughter get dressed and started braiding her hair. Seeing that her husband looked like he hadn't woken up yet, she said, "If you're sleepy, you can sleep a little longer. I'll wake you up when it's time to eat."

Li Xiangdong squinted and saw that the sky outside the window was already bright. He yawned and was about to say that he would sleep a little longer when the rooster in the yard started crowing again.

He was annoyed by the crowing of the rooster!

"Is our rooster going to step on an egg? It keeps crowing and won't stop. I'll slaughter it sooner or later!"

Seeing his wife smiling at him, he suddenly snapped out of it!

"Wait a minute! We only have a few hens, so where did this rooster come from?!"

"It's your son imitating a rooster's crow with his brothers in the yard."

Zhou Yuqin tied her daughter's braids, hugged her chubby body to keep her from crawling around on the kang (a heated brick bed), and then started helping her put on her shoes.

"These brats are really causing trouble!"

Li Xiangdong gave a wry smile. He said that among the crowing of the roosters outside, there was a tone that sounded so familiar!

He got dressed, got off the kang (a heated brick bed), took out a few sheets of straw paper and put them in his pocket, bent down, picked up the chamber pot on the ground, and walked outside.

Zhou Yuqin glanced at him in surprise, then smiled. Her man had really changed. He used to dislike the chamber pot and never touched it, but now he was starting to empty it on his own initiative.

Li Xiangdong came out of the house carrying a chamber pot and saw his nephews and son running wildly in the yard, still yelling and screaming.

"Are you all acting like Zhou Bapi (a notorious exploiter)? You're even crowing like roosters. With so much energy this early in the morning, can't you be like Xiaomei and Xiaolan and help with some chores around the house?"

The three nephews and Li Xiaohai watched Li Xiangdong stand there without saying a word until he walked out of the yard. Then the four of them got together again and started playing around, but they stopped shouting and yelling.

After relieving himself, Li Xiangdong returned to the yard, rinsed the chamber pot, and put it in the corner of the wall after returning to the house.

He walked to the washbasin stand and began to wash his face. The washbasin had a red rim and a white base, with a large red "囍" (double happiness) character on the bottom and two red carp next to it.

He rubbed his face a couple of times to wash it, then picked up a towel hanging on the rack, wet it, and wiped his neck as well.

Feeling refreshed, Li Xiangdong saw his daughter lying on the kang (a heated brick bed), her eyes fixed on him. He leaned over and tugged at the little braid on her head.

Li Xiaozhu wrinkled her little face, unhappy that others were touching her braids. She waved her hands and started to pull them apart, but when she couldn't get them apart no matter what she did, she shouted anxiously, "Hit...hit you!"

Li Xiangdong looked at her and said, "If you hit your father, I won't play with you anymore."

Hearing her father's words, Li Xiaozhu paused, then opened her mouth and said, "Hit...hit...dede..."

Zhou Yuqin was amused by her. She walked over, sat on the kang (a heated brick bed), and gently patted her bottom twice. "All you ever say is that you want to hit people. You're always talking about hitting this or that. Can't you say anything else? You little rascal, you're so clever. You're so young and you already know how to cause trouble."

Li Xiaozhu crawled over, grabbed her mother's clothes with her little hands, grinned at her mother, and climbed onto her mother as she laughed.

Afraid that she would fall, Zhou Yuqin quickly picked her up from the kang (a heated brick bed).

Li Xiaozhu sat on her mother's lap, nuzzling her head into her mother's arms and slipping her little hands inside her mother's clothes, "Nai Nai..."

"Didn't you already eat? Why do you want to eat again?"

Zhou Yuqin took her daughter's hand out of her clothes; she didn't have much breast milk left.

Besides, her daughter is reckless and her baby teeth can bite really hard.

"Go wash up, I'll hold her for a while."

Li Xiangdong walked over and took his daughter.

Li Xiaozhu twisted her body, not wanting to be hugged by her father, and reached out her arms to her mother, "Drink...drink...Nai Nai..."

"Let your mother rest for a while, how about Dad plays with you?"

Li Xiangdong picked her up and walked outside, saying, "Daddy's carrying you, let's go out and beat up your brother."

"Hit...hit...da da..."

Upon hearing that her brother was going to be hit, Li Xiaozhu stopped crying for milk and started clapping her hands and giggling.

Several children who were running around in the yard saw Li Xiangdong carrying Li Xiaozhu out and all gathered around.

"Third Uncle, aren't you going to sleep?"

"Third Uncle, why are you emptying the chamber pot today?"

"Dad, I want to hold my little sister."

Seeing her brothers gathered around her, Li Xiaozhu stumbled and tried to get down, babbling, "Play...play...da-da!"

How come you're so strong now?

Li Xiangdong bounced his daughter a couple of times before holding her properly again. "We're not going to play with them. Look how dirty your brother and the others are. They smell awful. We're ignoring them."

"Clatter...stinks..."

Li Xiangdong saw Li's mother come out of the main house with a bowl in her hand, walk to the chicken coop between the main house and the west wing, open the wooden door and go inside.

He said to his daughter in his arms, "Grandma went to collect eggs. How about Daddy takes you to see the old hen?"

When Li Xiaozhu heard that they were going to see the old hen, her eyes lit up. "Look...cheep cheep..."

Li's mother chased the old hens out of their coops, squatted down, and looked at each hen one by one. She found a total of five eggs in the two coops.

It turns out that a hen laid an egg today. She hasn't seen so many eggs since her third son came back from the countryside!

She carefully took the eggs out of the henhouse and gently placed them in the bowl.

When Li Xiangdong came in, he saw his mother squatting on the ground, looking at the eggs in the bowl with delight. He exclaimed, "Wow! So many eggs today!"

"How come you walk so quietly? You scared me!"

Li's mother glanced up at him, and in the blink of an eye, several grandsons who had followed her third son in came over and reached for the eggs. She quickly stood up with her bowl.

Looking at her clumsy grandsons, she said irritably, "What are you doing? If you break the eggs, I wonder what you'll eat later. Get out of here right now! Who let you in? Don't scare my old hen!"