Meng Yan's Transformation

"Tomorrow is the first day of the new year. I must dress the children well!" Yunqing thought as she quickened the work in her hands.

Zifeng's and Ziqiang's green military uniforms were all finished, but Zi'an and Zixun's blue school uniforms still needed the sleeves. Xiao Mengyan's floral cotton jacket only needed the cuffs to be sewn. Yingying's cotton jacket was refurbished from Yunqing's old clothes.

There were many children in the family, so there was no money to buy cloth, and there were not enough cloth coupons to buy cloth. Yunqing spent more than ten days painting propaganda posters for the supply and marketing cooperative to earn money from selling cloth. She wanted to borrow cloth coupons from Aunt Song...

The money for buying cloth was not enough for every child. In order to make more clothes, Yunqing had to buy enough white cloth for the children, because white cloth was much cheaper than colorful cloth. When the children first bought the cloth and brought it home, they heard that the white cloth was for making clothes for them, and they all pouted. One said disappointedly, "We won't have any new clothes to wear on the first day of the New Year!" Another said, "I would rather have no clothes to wear than wear clothes made of white cloth!" Zi'an said, "I don't want any clothes. This year's New Year is too boring!" "Yes, we definitely don't want any," Zixun echoed.

Yunqing boiled a large pot of water, put the green pigment into the hot water to melt, then put the white cloth into the water with the melted green dye, stirred the cloth repeatedly, took out the boiled cloth, squeezed out the water, and put it on the cloth drying rack to dry until it stopped dripping. After the cloth was dried, it was put back into the pot to start dyeing again, and the bottom of the pot was heated to make the color more solid.

Take out the dyed cloth and dry it. Then put it into clean water to rinse, the same steps as boiling cloth, rinse it twice, and then dry it. The green military uniform fabric was born. When Zifeng saw the green fabric, he jumped up and down in surprise, because Zifeng wanted to wear a green military uniform so much! Zi'an wanted a blue school uniform the most. After seeing Zifeng's green military uniform fabric, he said to Yunqing hopefully: "Mom, can you dye my blue school uniform fabric too?" "Who took the lead just now and said that we don't want any clothes? It's too boring to wear this year?" Yunqing said deliberately angrily.

Yun Qingzhen put a lot of thought and effort into making sure the children wore new clothes for the New Year.

After Yunqing's final sewing, the new clothes for the children in the family were all made. They each took their own new clothes. Yunqing looked at the children with endless tenderness as they tried them on one by one. The children lowered their heads to look, turned their heads away, looked up and down, left and right, and were happy no matter how they looked. Their faces were filled with happiness, as if every inch of their skin was jumping. They were excited and happy beyond words.

Xiao Mengyan took her flowery cotton-padded jacket away, happily carried it to an empty room, kissed the new cotton-padded jacket again and again, and danced lightly while holding the new cotton-padded jacket. The bright and colorful colors of the cotton-padded jacket made Xiao Mengyan's dreams fly like dancing butterflies in her heart, and her eyes were full of joy and glittering...

Zhan Yu prepared the sacrificial utensils: he took out the family tree, dusted it off, and hung it on the north wall. On both sides of the family tree were couplets for sacrificial offerings. The top couplet read "The golden furnace has been burning for thousands of years", the bottom couplet read "The jade lamp is always burning for thousands of years", and the horizontal scroll read "The ancestral heritage will last for thousands of generations". Under the family tree, there is usually a large wooden cabinet as an altar, with a pair of candlesticks, an incense bowl, and four pairs of red chopsticks.

Yunqing prepared food for the offering: cabbage cutters were soaked in a basin of water to make flowers, and then dyed red with red paper; vermicelli was fried into balls, and also dotted red with red paper; large pieces of boiled fat were spirally cut into pagoda shapes; a green and white scallion was inserted into the pig's stomach to make an elephant shape; (this is the pig's stomach inserted with a scallion to pretend to be an elephant) small carps of appropriate size were fried in oil until golden yellow; four bowls of millet rice were filled, two by two, and formed a round hill; a pot of steamed buns were specially steamed for the offering, and the top was decorated with red dots with plum blossom patterns using the tip of chopsticks dipped in red ink...

While Yunqing was preparing offerings, Zhan Zifeng led his younger brothers and sisters to make playing cards.

Everyone worked together, first looking for cardboard separately, and after gathering the spoils together, they picked out the good ones and cut out 54 cards of the same size with scissors. Then, Zhan Zifeng used potatoes or wood blocks to carve four convex patterns: "hearts", "plums", "squares", and "spades". For black cards, the patterns were pressed on the cards with black ink, and for red cards, the "stamps" were pressed on the cards with the "stamps" paint at home. After the patterns were pressed, the numbers were written. From "J" to "K" and the big and small trump cards had patterns. Everyone worked together to write and draw. Zhan Zifeng drew lions on the king and the little king. The lions he drew were really majestic and domineering... A deck of playing cards was completed. Playing with it was no different from buying playing cards. "Snap" a card and the feeling and momentum seemed to be particularly exciting.

The children thought that "J" was not a good person, so they deliberately uglier the little people on the four cards when drawing them. They drew them with distorted features, pointed cheeks, pockmarked faces, and messy hair...

He also took the opportunity to "vent his anger" by writing the names of the production team leader, his wife, and their two children next to the little man. Although it was a child's trick, it was an offense after all. Later, the production team leader somehow found out. When he saw the children of Zhan Yu, he glared at them and cursed: "You little bastards, I told you not to steal the melons, but I asked the butcher to kill the 'Marshal Black Sky Peng' and I became a criminal? Just wait and see how I will deal with you in the future!" The children of Zhan Yu did not dare to reply and scattered.

After Zifeng finished making playing cards, he started to make fireworks. There were no fireworks in the village, and you couldn't buy them even if you had money. A small firecracker with 100 bangs cost 45 cents. People with better conditions would buy a few double-kick firecrackers or firecrackers and set them off when welcoming the gods on New Year's Eve. After getting the small firecrackers with 100 bangs, you have to unpack them, wrap them up a lot, and put them under the kang mat to dry. When you go out to play, put some in your pocket and set them off one by one. If you encounter a firecracker that doesn't go off, pick it up and put it away. If you encounter a firecracker that has a "burned core" set off by others, pick it up too. The children of Zhan Yu's family wrapped these "burned core firecrackers" in plastic paper and put them in a place at home that is not easily affected by moisture. They gathered them together. These are the raw materials for the children of Zhan Yu's family to make fireworks. Zifeng first found an old blue brick, and used a saw blade and an iron awl to drill a small hole in the middle of the blue brick with a diameter of three centimeters and a depth of about four or five centimeters. Then he put the firecracker powder into the hole, covered the powder with tin foil from a cigarette box, and sealed the hole with semi-dry yellow mud. Finally, he used a thin wire to drill a hole in the yellow mud and inserted the firecracker core into it. Zifeng had made a firework.

You can set off fireworks after dark and after eating the New Year’s Eve dinner.