Manhattan Reborn 1978

Houston, Texas, in the south-central United States.

On a small farm next to the Brazos River in the western suburbs of the city.

At noon~

In the spacious front yard of the farm, the host, old Malkin, sat at the head seat at the long dining table. Next to him sat his wife Sena, old David and his wife, David, their daughters Manqi, Polly and Rudi, David's girlfriends Susan, Cui Yingying, Zina and Elena, old David's adopted sisters Malik, and Manqi and Polly's children.

Mr. Tianniu and Toby Olga realized that something might go wrong with today's lunch when they saw that the old David couple and the girls had actually followed Sena's mother back.

So the two of them discussed it carefully, quietly did their "waiter" work, and hid in the kitchen and didn't come out.

. . .

On the dining table

The food and drinks are ready and all the staff are in place.

Old Malkin picked up the wine glass in his hand, with a slightly stiff smile on his lips. He turned his head and glared at his old friend Old David who was sitting next to him. He cleared his throat and said a few dry toasts.

However, just as everyone was about to toast in the strange atmosphere at the table, old Malkin's wife, Senna, glanced at him with a faint smile on her face, and suddenly looked at David and said.

"Today, I invite you to our new home for a party. This is the decision that Sera and I made after discussing it."

“Our idea is very simple.”

"You and your parents have accepted the new members, and my husband, family and I will also treat them as our own family."

"Since we are all family, why can't we come together to attend the party and have some fun?"

"Um...OK!" David turned his head with his mouth open to look at his mother Sera. Seeing that the expression on her face was naturally calm, he smiled in a relaxed manner.

Old Malkin and Old David, the two old men who were "kept in the dark", looked at each other tacitly, and then looked at their wives respectively, wondering what the two of them were trying to do.

Soon~

David's mother, Sera, at the signal from Sena's mother, raised her glass high to everyone at the table and smiled.

"As you all know, my husband David and I have been married for more than 30 years and we only have one son, David."

"We love him..."

"Love him more than we love ourselves!"

"But my husband and I are not very good at expressing this love, so David rarely gets to feel this love from us when he is growing up."

When Serra's mother said this, she looked at her son David with gentle eyes full of maternal love and smiled.

“Now, my son has grown up!”

"He not only found a career he loved, but also found a lover who allowed him to experience the taste of love."

"Moreover, he taught us after he gradually matured."

"If you love someone, you should be brave enough to say it out loud, and express it in a more passionate, caring, and intense way."

"If we miss it, we may all regret it for the rest of our lives!"

“So, I want to thank you!”

"Thank you for giving my son David your love with all your heart!"

"Here's to you~ Cheers!"

"..cheers!"

After listening to the toasts from Sena's mother and Sera's mother, the "bosses" of the two families, everyone at the table raised their glasses with different expressions and drank the wine in silence.

As a "marginal outsider" at the table, Rudi looked around at the old Malkin couple and the old David couple and found that the two couples were communicating quickly through eye contact.

Then he observed with interest the expressions and reactions of David and his girlfriends Polly, Susan, Zina, Cui Yingying and Elena, and found that there was no tense atmosphere between these women. Instead, they looked at each other in harmony, talked and laughed, and chatted in low voices.

this? !

Emm. .

Rudi felt like he had guessed why Sena and Sera had specially organized this family dinner today!

But he would not tell anyone about his "blind guesses" and cause unnecessary trouble.

Watching a play, watching a play is so interesting!

David here~

After talking in a low voice with his mother Sera for a few words, he glanced at his mother Sena with an increasingly strange expression, and when he found that she was looking at him, he smiled.

"I plan to buy the nearby ranch and transform it into a comprehensive farm dedicated to providing us with daily food."

"Raise some chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cows, horses, and sheep."

"We can also plant some vegetables and fruit trees."

"what do you think?"

"Okay~"

"But, if you plan it like this... can you still make money?" Sena's mother was obviously not a "newbie" who knew nothing, and asked back with confusion in her eyes.

"It doesn't matter whether it makes money or not. I want to run it mainly so that we can eat more assured and healthier raw and pollution-free meat, vegetables and fruits."

David regained confidence on his face, and he deliberately raised his voice a little and smiled.

"In fact, decades ago in Germany, some people proposed the concept of organic farming and farm farming that relies on imported fertility."

"Before humans invented chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and before industrial modern production, the vast majority of the food we ate was natural and original."

"The rise of modern industrialization has led to rapid pollution of the farmland environment, especially the abuse of harmful pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, additives and antibiotics, which has enriched various agricultural products with many chemical components that are harmful to human health, and we cannot eliminate them through simple methods."

"So it should be said that the rapid growth of the world's total population and the large-scale breeding of animals and plants are the main reasons why traditional agricultural food production is becoming unfavorable to human survival."

"But this process will gradually develop in a direction that is beneficial to mankind as society develops and technology advances."

"For example, more than half of the food ads I used to see on TV when I was a kid have disappeared now."

"Those sweet foods with added sugar substitutes, canned foods with excessive preservatives, cooked foods with added artificial synthetic colors, etc., they will gradually disappear!"

"Especially in recent years, experts in nutrition, medicine and biology have begun to fiercely criticize on television those unscrupulous businesses that add various chemical elements to food."

"People are paying more and more attention to food health issues."

"There are also those women who only eat a small amount of food every day to maintain their figure, and they are gradually realizing the huge potential risks of ignoring food safety."

"so.."

When David reached this point, he noticed that everyone at the table was looking at him, and he smiled and raised his voice a little.

"Modern agriculture has doubled the output of crops, meat, eggs, fish and other foods. This is achieved by investing large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides."

"The consequence is not only the depletion of soil organic matter due to the overuse of chemical fertilizers, the gradual reduction of biologically active substances in the soil, and the significant reduction of the soil's ability to retain water and fertilizer, but also the increased risk of soil erosion and the outbreak of drought and flood disasters."

"The abuse of toxic pesticides, while preventing and controlling pests and diseases, also kills many beneficial organisms, causing the balance between biological diversity and a good ecosystem to be destroyed."

"To solve these problems, we need to transform the current energy agriculture and chemical agriculture into the original ecological agricultural farming production method, fundamentally solve the problems of ecological balance and environmental pollution, and ensure that we can eat safely and with peace of mind."

"So I plan to turn this new integrated farm into an original ecological food experimental base to ensure that all agricultural products and meat products are not contaminated by any chemical products, and to establish a complete original ecological pollution-free food quality management and quality evaluation system, so that we and the next generation can eat pollution-free, high-quality, and delicious food."

"..." Except for a few children who were eating quietly at the table, everyone else stared at David quietly without saying a word after listening to David's "impassioned speech".

Polly quickly found the "entry point" from David's "speech" just now and tried to ask.

"The pollution-free organic food you mentioned should be very expensive, and the price in the market should be much more expensive than ordinary food, right?"

"Of course!"

David smiled and picked up the cutlery, holding a piece of onion in his hand with a fork: "The production of raw ecological food without any fertilizer and pesticide pollution will definitely be greatly reduced, and the cost will also increase accordingly~"

"But the pesticide residues in the food we come into contact with on a daily basis not only have direct toxic effects on the human body, but also have serious indirect harms."

"These trace amounts of toxic substances will not cause harm to our bodies after we consume them once or twice."

"For health reasons, we must stay away from foods that may contain harmful substances."

After David answered the question raised by Polly, he saw his mother Sera looking at Susan with an expression of serious thought. His mind moved slightly and he changed the subject.

“I met a guy at a bar once who shared something with me that really stuck with me.”

"He said, 'There are many things in life that are far more important than acquiring amazing wealth.'"

"But having said that, many people will still be confused~"

"The wealth of the super-rich is beyond anyone's imagination, but they cannot buy health, time and the love of their loved ones with money."

"At the time, I didn't fully understand what they said, and I didn't quite understand their deep meaning. I thought that truly wealthy people could do whatever they wanted, and there was almost nothing that could stump them."

"But now, I don't think so."

"Because I understand that any effort and gain must be paid at a corresponding price."

“As for how to judge whether it is worth it, you need to give me your own opinions.”

"..."

Tell us what you think?

Everyone at the table fell silent again. Everyone looked at each other and was silent for a while.

After a few seconds, in order to avoid a dull silence, David could only turn his gaze to his "social mentor" Zina, hoping that she could stand up and break the silence.

Zina, who had been keeping a low profile just now, was very sensitive to David's gaze. She gave him a casual "reassuring" look and spoke with a smile.

"In the first few years of my life in New York, I couldn't understand why people around me always liked to wear ridiculous masks."

"They clearly don't like it but they pretend to like it. They clearly can't do it but they try to save face by saying they can do it."

"I thought it would be terrible if I had to live my life like this."

"But after I witnessed more incredible experiences, I began to understand their thinking."

"Because the person who can make them make a decision against their will gives them a reward far beyond their psychological expectations."

Zina finished speaking in a very infectious voice, looked at the old Malkin couple and the old David couple sitting in the main seats, raised her glass with a slightly melancholy smile, and said.