Double Life: My whole world is you

Cheng Qiao excitedly followed everyone to run towards the elementary school. When they were halfway there, Cheng Zhu rushed in front of everyone. He excitedly called everyone and said happily, "I'm finally home."

Cheng Qiao looked at the little boy who was half a head shorter than her, with high nostrils, small but round and bright eyes, a cherry mouth, fair and tender skin, and a melon-seed face with a little baby fat. Isn’t this a pretty little girl’s face? Except for the thick short hair, Cheng Zhu looks like Cheng Ma. But, this doesn’t match Cheng Qiao’s memory of Cheng Zhu’s childhood appearance! ? In her memory, Cheng Zhu was short, thin, and dark, with frowning eyebrows and forehead wrinkles, and a pretty pointed back of the head. The picture in her memory was a group photo taken with Cheng Zhu when she graduated from elementary school, so in her impression, her brother always looked like this when he was a child, as ugly as a monkey. When she grew up, she often joked with him about this matter. Cheng Zhu was very angry, but he couldn’t argue with her, because she had pictures and the truth! Unexpectedly, Cheng Ma changed so much after taking care of him at home for a year...

Cheng Qiao was lost in his thoughts when his aunt took over the two bags in his hands. Cheng Qiao also took over the school bag behind him. His uncle asked, "Where's your mother?"

"Mom is still behind." He unloaded the goods and rushed to the school. His two uncles followed him. Cheng Qiao handed the schoolbag to his aunt and followed. As soon as they arrived at the school, they saw Cheng's mother from a distance. She was thin and had a big gray backpack on her back. The backpack was bulging and almost reached her knees. She also had a cement bag on her left shoulder. Cheng Qiao shouted with red eyes, "Mom."

Hearing the sound, she slowly put down the cement bag, looked up and smiled happily at Cheng Qiao. At this time, the eldest uncle had already run to her side and took over her big backpack. The younger uncle also came over to carry her cement bag. He tried twice before putting it on his shoulder. He complained in a low voice as he walked, "What did you buy?"

"I went to Tongye Market to grab some vegetables this morning." Cheng's mother replied with a smile.

"Did you walk back from Lijiazhuang?" asked my uncle.

"Yes! It's snowing this year and the roads are hard to walk on. We didn't see a single car on our way back." After Cheng's mother said this, she saw her grandmother from a distance. She happily rushed over, stood in front of her grandmother, held her hand and said with a smile, "Mom, I'm back."

Grandma held back her tears and trembled as she replied, "I'm glad you're back."

A group of people happily came to the living room of the uncle's house with their things. Cheng's mother first opened the cement bags that were tied with several layers. The first one was a white bag filled with peppers, both green and red. Next to it was fish balls. There was also a small bag filled with red pepper skins, peppercorns, star anise and other seasonings. There was also a black bag filled with three carps weighing two or three pounds. Next to it was a white bag filled with a small frozen fish. Cheng's mother took out a red bag of sausages and introduced with a smile, "This sausage was given by their aunt. She bought the meat herself to stuff the sausage."

Below is a large bag of potatoes and two red bags of lotus roots. Cheng Ma introduced that one bag is vegetable lotus root, which can be stir-fried, and the other bag is pink lotus root, which can be stewed into soup.

After Cheng's mother took out all the things from the cement bag, she took up a quarter of the small living room. Grandma looked at Cheng's mother's cracked hands and said distressedly, "Your brother was going to pick you up on his motorcycle, but I stopped him because of the weather."

Cheng's mother said as she took the bag and divided the things into three parts, "Fortunately, we didn't go! This road is too difficult to drive on. The bikes slipped. When we were in Lijiazhuang, we heard someone say that several bikes were ridden into the fields, and someone broke his leg pretty badly."

After Cheng Ma quickly divided the food, she gave one portion to each of her two uncles and kept one for herself. The two uncles saw that Cheng Ma's portion was smaller and wanted to exchange it with her. Cheng Ma smiled and said, "We won't be able to eat much in the next few days. You have many guests coming and going during the New Year."

Finally, Cheng Ma insisted and kept the small portion. Cheng Ma happily opened her backpack and brought a set of warm clothes for grandma. The clothes were all wool. Grandma smiled and said, "They feel warm to the touch."

She bought a pair of leather boots for each of the three children, all of which were furry inside. The three children tried them on happily. Except for Yingying's shoes which were a little big, Yangyang and Xiaoyanzi's shoes were just right. Finally, she took out a cotton-padded jacket for Cheng Qiao. Cheng Qiao looked at the bright red cotton-padded jacket and pouted. Cheng's mother really preferred bright red. She remembered that there was a pair of bright red pants and two big rubber bands with bright red decorative flowers inside. She was ten years old that year. On the first day of the new year, she happily wore the bright red pants and used the bright red flowers to tie two pigtails to go out to pay New Year's greetings. As a result, many people laughed at her clothes and said that they were made of red cloth left over from her uncle and aunt's wedding, and also said that the flowers on her head were left over from her uncle and aunt's wedding. Because her uncle got married that year, she hated red when she was a child, especially bright red...

"Come on, Qiao, try it on. Your yellow cotton jacket is too small." Cheng's mother didn't care about Cheng Qiao's pouting mouth and happily asked her to try on clothes.

Cheng Qiao put away her thoughts and tried on the red cotton jacket from the hood to the cuffs with Cheng's mother, saying against her will, "It looks really good."

After looking around, Cheng's mother said, "It's just a little bit too big. It will be just right for next year."

[Not just next year, I will wear this bright red cotton jacket at least until I earn my own money.] Cheng Qiao complained in her heart, and in the end it became Cheng Ma's work clothes for cooking at home...

After the family worked for two hours, all the dishes were served. Cheng Qiao counted them and found that there were twelve dishes and a soup, almost all of which were meat dishes. Even the cabbage had meat in it. Grandma took Yangyang to sit at the main seat, and the two uncles took their aunt and cousin to sit on each side. Cheng Ma took Cheng Qiao and Cheng Zhu to sit opposite grandma. The eldest uncle lit the firecrackers and closed the door. Grandma took the first bite, and then everyone started to eat the New Year's Eve dinner. Grandma said that the New Year's Eve dinner should be eaten slowly. The adults talked about their experiences outside during the year while eating. After eating for nearly two hours, Yangyang and Yingying really couldn't sit still. Finally, everyone got down from the table with satisfaction, announcing that the year was over and looking forward to the new year.

Mom always has a lot to talk about with everyone. After grandma looked at the time and urged her twice, she got up and took Cheng Qiao and Cheng Zhu to the room where grandma was sleeping. In addition to Cheng Zhu's own school bag and two bags of his own clothes and shoes, Cheng Qiao also packed his own school bag with homework, as well as a change of clothes and shoes. It was a big bag full of clothes. There are really a lot of winter clothes! But Cheng Qiao looked at the two big baskets and a backpack that grandma had packed for them. She stroked her forehead. How could she go back three or four miles without a car with so many things?