Three or Two Things about Rebirth

Qiu Luming had a very restless sleep that night. His nose was filled with the smell of hairspray. When he turned over, his bangs rubbed against the pillowcase, making a rustling sound, and his scalp was itchy.

She vowed never to have her hair done again.

Early in the morning on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, Qiu Luming took a nap and felt that his body was getting hotter and hotter. He thought it must be because his mother got up early to cook and heated the kang.

Just as I was feeling happy, I heard a loud banging of pots and pans. I wondered how big the feast was. My mother sang affectionately, "The red sun shines on the border, the green mountains and clear waters are covered with rosy clouds, and fruit trees stand in rows at the foot of Changbai Mountain. Dangd ...

Qiu Luming sighed and climbed up from the warm kang. Tonight, his family had to make a pot of dumplings with sauerkraut stuffing and a pot of radish stuffing. Besides, the fried food was already done, and his mother had to go to the public bathhouse to take a bath in the morning.

Qiu Luming carefully put the collar of the turtleneck over his bangs, and then dared to pull it down hard, pulling it so hard that it hurt his ears. This kind of close-fitting turtleneck is very practical in the Northeast. It looks good with any round-necked sweater in white or black. The white one needs to be washed frequently. In addition, a loose collar will make the neck look untidy, and a tight collar will make the head hurt when putting it on and taking it off.

It was a freezing cold morning at the end of January and I really didn’t want to go out!

Qiu Luming envied his mother for having winter and summer vacations, especially the long winter vacation, when students could rest for two months and teachers could also rest for one and a half months.

But she had to support herself. She put on her clothes and took her lunch box to go to work. She put the lunch box in the front basket of the bicycle, patted the seat hard a few times, and put on the woolen seat cover. The thought of sitting on this cold seat again made her butt feel cold.

Mother came out of the warehouse, carrying a large tin washtub in her hand.

"Mom, what are you doing with it?"

"I'll wash it in a minute. I'll boil a pot of water for you to take a bath tonight."

"Oh. Be careful when you go to the bathhouse. Wear a thick hat so you don't catch a cold when you come back."

"I see. You really care about me!" He Manshu said happily.

Public bathhouses are usually visited by married women for bathing. Unmarried girls rarely go there. They wash themselves in basins at home. The basins are small and it is difficult to change the water, so they cannot wash comfortably and end up making water all over the floor.

Not to mention taking a shower, even washing your hair in the winter requires special care. Not many people have hair dryers at home, so everyone just sits by the fire to warm themselves.

This has been the condition for generations, and everyone has made do with it, and no one complains. When the water warms up in June, people rush to the riverside to swim and bathe to their heart's content.

He Manshu didn't allow Qiu Luming to take a bath in the public bathhouse. Besides the fact that she disliked the large bathhouse with few shower heads, many mothers always took their sons to the women's bathhouse. Some of them were already seven or eight years old, and they still took them in! You say that these half-grown children are not too big or too small, which makes people disgusted. Even He Manshu herself rarely goes there.

Speaking of bathhouses, Qiu Luming recalled the first time she took a bath in the Normal University bathhouse half a year ago. She almost got scared. When she entered the bathhouse and saw the white young bodies, she was so frightened that she almost turned around and ran away.

Fortunately, she quickly calmed down. She saw that others were taking off and dressing as usual, and some girls were applying lotion on their slender thighs. She also chose a small cabinet and began to take off her clothes slowly. She followed others, holding the plastic bath bag and the key of the small cabinet, and followed an older girl who was also a sponsored student into the steaming hot bath.

There were several elderly women soaking in the square pool, splashing water on themselves and chatting loudly. They seemed to be family members of teachers.

The young female students did not go into the pool. Instead, they crowded together under one shower head to take a shower, and some of them were rubbing each other's backs.

She was a little embarrassed.

When she went the second time, she got used to it and even rubbed backs with a female classmate. When she went the third time, she was already very calm and slowly wiped water stains off her body and applied lotion in the changing area.

Qiu Luming pushed the bicycle down the steps at the door with some difficulty. She turned her head and saw a woman standing diagonally across the street, holding a泔水桶 and seemed to be looking at her.

When I looked at her face clearly, it turned out to be her.

She greeted him as usual, "Aunt Xia, come out and pour out the swill!"

Aunt Xia is in her forties. Her full name is Xia Yanjing. Some people nicknamed her Blind Eyes. She is a music teacher in a primary school. Her husband is Liu Changhai, who is also the vice president of the county hospital, but he is the executive vice president.

Their family and the Qiu family were allocated new houses on Binjiang Road at the same time. At that time, the county gave four quotas to the cultural and educational sectors, and the hospital would take two of them. When drawing lots for the houses, it was Qiu Luming who drew number eight, and the Liu family's son drew number ten. As a result, both families lived in the east end of their respective houses, separated only by the home of the deputy director of the Education Bureau.

Aunt Xia came over wearing cotton shoes, carrying a swill bucket. Although this area was a newly built area, there was only one public toilet at the eastern end of the street. Every family dumped their swill buckets and garbage onto the mound next to the toilet. There was a thatched house in the backyard of the Qiu family, and Qiu Luming never had to empty the swill bucket. Therefore, Qiu Luming had never taken more than one step to the east since he came back from Harbin.

"Luming got a new job and doesn't come to Aunt Xia's house anymore!" Xia Yanjing walked up to Qiu Luming, disdained the cold handle of the swill bucket, and put the bucket on the ground, "Your bangs look great! How's Luming? Is it fun to work at the library?"

"It's OK, not too busy, but there's no break at noon and I have to bring my own lunch."

"Little girl, you are lucky at first glance, and you have landed a great job! I tell you, I am the best at judging people, and I can tell at first glance that you are the kind of lucky person who doesn't have to do any work in your life and can eat ready-made meals every day. In the future, you will be able to find a partner who will care about you and love you very much!"

Qiu Luming felt uncomfortable listening to Aunt Xia. She had heard Aunt Xia speak like this before and she didn't feel awkward at all. Instead, she thought she was very fashionable and could get along well with young people. But why did she feel inexplicably uncomfortable listening to her words today?

"Oh, I'm going to be late, Aunt Xia, I won't talk to you anymore, I'm leaving!"

"Oh, right! Luming, my friend brought me some pop music tapes from Harbin. You and Meifen can come to my house and listen to music when you have nothing to do during the New Year!"

"Oh, let me see what happens!" Qiu Luming got on his bicycle and ran away.

***

As soon as she got home in the evening, Qiu Luming started to chop dumpling stuffing. After blanching the carrots in water, there was an unpleasant smell, but no matter how much she disliked it, she had to chop it into stuffing. She rinsed the blanched radish slices with cold water twice, squeezed out the water gently, and placed them on a large chopping board. With one cut, a few slices of radish jumped high and fell to the ground.

"My dear, why don't you just cut the radish into strips first and then chop it slowly? How can you just come up and chop it?" He Manshu seemed to be used to her daughter not being able to do anything right, and turned to sigh at her daughter-in-law, "What should I do with this child? What will happen to her in the future will piss me off to death, and I will suffer in the future!"

The eldest sister-in-law laughed, "Luming is so beautiful, and she has a good job and family. I don't know how many old ladies are vying to have her as their daughter-in-law. Even if someone really dares to bully Luming, these three brothers will not agree!"

He Manshu smiled with satisfaction.

Qiu Luming thought of Aunt Xia whom he met in the morning, and asked He Manshu, "Mom, Aunt Xia said she could read faces, and said that even if I don't know anything, I can still eat ready-made food every day."

"My silly girl!" He Manshu's eyes went dark. "Didn't I tell you not to go to her house? Why did you go?"

"I didn't go. I saw her pouring swill this morning and I said a few words to her."

"That woman is not a decent person! Don't pay attention to her in the future!" He Manshu glared at Qiu Luming, "Can you remember this?"

"Remember." Qiu Luming also remembered that her mother had told her many times not to go to Liu's house to listen to music or borrow books, saying that the woman had bad intentions. Because one of them was surnamed Xia and the other was surnamed Liu, the third brother nicknamed them "the obscene couple."

The two families work in the same unit, but their relationship does not seem as harmonious as it seems.

The eldest sister-in-law also said, "Luming, you are still young, there are many things you don't understand. Anyway, your parents and your brother and sister-in-law will not harm you. If they tell you not to contact them, then you must not contact them. Remember!"

"I'm not a kid anymore, you might as well explain it to me so I don't get confused."

The eldest sister-in-law paused while kneading the dough, looked at her brother-in-law who was chopping the meat, and then looked at her mother-in-law, "After the Chinese New Year, let mom tell you, come, you knead the dough and I'll chop the meat!"

"No, I'll do it!"

He Manshu said, "Don't try to show off. By the time you finish chopping, your third brother will be home!"

The eldest sister-in-law laughed, "Mom, the third child won't be back until tomorrow at noon!"

Qiu Jiashu interrupted, "Sister-in-law, Mom is telling us what is an exaggerated rhetorical device!"

He Manshu also laughed, "Get lost!" Then she said to Liu Xiaomei, "Mei, you should teach Lu Ming more in the future. She has a stable job now, and she should have a girlfriend in a few years. You can't really know nothing. You should teach her well!"

"Okay! No problem!" Liu Xiaomei agreed readily.

Qiu Jiashu let out a dry laugh beside him.

"What are you laughing at?" He Manshu and Qiu Luming asked at the same time.

"No, no!" Qiu Jiashu held two knives in his hands and increased the speed of chopping the meat, chopping to the rhythm of a drum.

If you ask why He Manshu didn't teach her daughter how to cook, but asked her daughter-in-law to teach her, it's because cooking is always the weakness of the versatile teacher He!

This year, He Manshu prepared to make 1,000 frozen dumplings. They couldn't eat dumplings every meal, but these were enough for the family to eat until the 15th day of the first lunar month. Most families made 2,000 to 3,000 dumplings. When they were too excited to play mahjong and too lazy to cook, they would go to the warehouse to count a pot of dumplings and cook them for a meal.

The Qiu family does not make too many frozen dumplings every year. One reason is that the dumpling skins will dry out if they are frozen for too long, making it easy for the filling to come out when cooking, and also affecting the taste of the dumpling soup.

Second, He Manshu’s dumpling filling is not tasty!

Qiu Jiye is okay at cooking, but he is too busy at work and can't be relied on at all. I also can't bear to see him cook for the family when he comes home after a tiring day.

Qiu Huaixin and Qiu Jiashu both learned to cook at the age of twelve, and both brothers have decent cooking skills.

After Liu Xiaomei married into the Qiu family, the food quality improved. The family loved Sunday the most, because it was not only a day for rest, but also a day for family gatherings!

Qiu Luming also admired her. Even so, her mother did not let her, the only girl in the family, learn how to cook, and no one in the family would compare with her.

Qiu Luming smiled bitterly.

——Yeah, who would bother with a moron!