HCB Chapter 36 Celebrating the Lunar New Year with Family Reunion (Part 3)
Chapter 36 Celebrating the Lunar New Year with Family Reunion (Part 3)
On the morning of Lunar New Year's Eve, the whole family got up early and ate a quick breakfast. Then the old lady took over, and everyone had their own tasks and things to do.
The men busied themselves using large iron pickaxes to dig a small hole in the iceberg buried in front of the window of the east wing. Then they reached in an arm and took out about seventy or eighty pounds of pork from the ice hole.
A few more people joined the family, and finally the whole family was together to celebrate a reunion for the New Year. The pork they slaughtered themselves was enough to eat.
After removing the meat, fill the ice hole with the shaved ice, then pour water over it and freeze it again.
Then I cleaned up the yard and removed a few snowflakes, and went to the wheat field outside the yard to the large kitchen to fetch corn stalks and firewood.
Liu Shulan and Xu Fengying were busy burning firewood under the stoves of the two large iron pots in the kitchen.
Yang Zhanbei was the head chef in the main kitchen, while Yang Yuqiu and Yang Yuhan were in charge of chopping vegetables.
The old lady assigned tasks based on the people she met, judging who was best suited to do what she was good at.
She assigned the task of pasting Spring Festival couplets to Diao Yan and Yang Yumei, mother and daughter, in the west wing. Diao Yan took the small white iron basin containing the paste of flour and water that she had prepared beforehand, a sorghum stalk brush, and some Spring Festival couplets to the large wooden door and waited for Yumei to come out and paste them.
Diao Yan glanced at the door of the west wing, but Yu Mei still hadn't come out. So she had to start pasting the horizontal scroll on the main gate by herself. After pasting the left side of the scroll, she immediately pasted the right side.
Yu Mei pushed open the door and slowly walked out, admiring her new clothes as she went.
Diao Yan looked up and saw Yu Mei just a few steps away. She said impatiently.
"Hurry up and walk a few steps. You're so slow. Haven't you ever worn new clothes before? Every year, the old lady makes the same style for you. I can't stop looking at it. My hands are red from the cold. The paste will freeze into ice in a minute and I won't be able to use it."
"Why are you still applying plasters to your hands when they're red from the cold? Why should Yu Han and the others work inside while we have to freeze outside?"
Yu Mei grumbled as she slowly approached, snatched the brush from Diao Yan's hand, and quickly applied paste to the right side of the gate. Diao Yan immediately pasted the Spring Festival couplets on the right side.
Yu Mei started pasting the "Fu" character between the two large wooden doors. She glanced absentmindedly at her red and white floral shirt and dark blue twill trousers, then carefully brushed the paste onto the center of the door panels, keeping the brush as far away from her body as possible.
Diao Yan rubbed her hands, which were red from the cold, and then brought them close to her mouth to warm them with her breath, which provided some relief.
It took Yu Mei half a day to finish applying the paste to one side of the door panel, and she didn't even apply it to the middle, so she got paste all over the door panel. She was so angry that she immediately scolded, "Can't you apply the paste properly? Look where you've smeared it! Look at your tattered clothes, as if you've never seen anything like it before."
"You complain that I didn't do it well and that I was slow, so you can do it yourself. I'm not doing it anymore." With that, she angrily threw the brush in her hand into the batter bowl and stormed off.
"You brat, you can't even stand being told a few things off? You call yourself my sweet little cotton-padded jacket? You're nothing but a piece of trash."
"Mom, you're saying no one matters. Mom, Yu Mei stormed out of the house in a huff. She's not going to help you put up the couplets anymore?"
"Look at how lazy she is, she's practically being fed. And she's putting up couplets? She just put up a few, then I said a few things to her, and she got angry and ran away."
"Mom, I'll help you put it on. Mom, don't be angry with her. In a few years, marry her off to someone far away, and she won't be able to bother you anymore."
"Alright, let's take the express train, my hands will freeze off in a bit."
"Mom, go inside and warm up before you come out."
"Dazhi, let me tell you, when you're in school, focus on your studies and don't date girls. Have you finished your winter break homework? Why did you go hunting in the mountains with your fourth uncle Yang Chong and the others? What if you got eaten by a big black bear? You're my only son!"
"Mom, don't you still have a daughter named Yumei? How come you only have one son?"
"Can a girl be compared to a son? If they were the same, why would Aunt Yuhan be on the run all over the place just to have a son? You better study hard, do you hear me?"
"Mom, I think Yumei loves reading. She's a bit lazy and doesn't like to do chores, but she studies very hard. She even said she has to study hard so she doesn't want to do farm work for the rest of her life."
“I’m talking about you. Why are you talking about her? Are you still in contact with Liu Sanbao from the East Campus? Let me tell you, if you dare to date her again and don’t study properly, your dad and I will break your legs.”
"Keep nagging, I don't care if you're cold or not. You keep nagging, no wonder Yu Mei won't help you put it up. I'm going inside."
"Get out! I can't live without you guys."
By this time, the two had finished pasting all the couplets and the character "福" (good fortune) in front of the houses. Diao Yan was pasting banners on the two chicken coops in front of the window of the east wing. After pasting the four large red characters of blessing on the chicken coop of the thin hen ("金鸡满架"), she went to paste the same four large characters on the fat hen that had been dead for a few days.
She had just finished applying the white paste to a small red banner with four characters on it, and was heading to stick it on the grass nest of the yellow hen that had been dead for a few days.
Suddenly, the door to the east wing was pushed open, and the old lady tiptoed over, tearing the banner off the fat hen's coop.
Then he scolded, "Didn't you see the chicken coop is empty, not even a single chicken feather? And you still put up couplets with golden chickens all over the coop. Didn't you know the fat yellow hen died? You've been taking so long to put up the couplets; you're deliberately avoiding doing other chores in the kitchen, aren't you?"
"Mom, this whole courtyard, and the wheat field outside, you assigned me to put up all the decorations. I'm feeling really overwhelmed. Can't you at least offer some comfort..."
"I'm trying to comfort you. Did I make you do it all by yourself? Isn't it the two of you, mother and daughter, who are supporting the family? You're unwilling to ask Yu Mei to do anything, yet you complain that I'm being unfair."
"Yu Mei, she..."
Diao Yan was about to complain a little more to the old lady when Yang Hong suddenly came out of the house. He glared at her and said, "It's the New Year, so keep your mouth shut." She was so frightened that she immediately swallowed her words.
She felt so frustrated. Her own sweet little girl wasn't sweet at all, and her son Yang Zhi was disobedient. He didn't study properly at school and insisted on dating a female member of the same village.
They were freezing while putting up the Spring Festival couplets, but no one cared, and they even got scolded by these old folks.
With that temper of hers, she couldn't tolerate anyone. When she was a young woman, she even cursed her own mother. After she died, her mother had nowhere to curse her anymore. That's why they say, "A wife in heaven is not as good as a girl who suffers mistreatment."
Diao Yan and the two elderly people were in a stalemate when suddenly, a voice came from the large kitchen on the west side, "Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, dinner's ready."
Diao Yan paused for a moment, then carried the batter straight to the main kitchen.
"You old fool, you're quite powerful. If you don't come out, I think she'll start talking back."
“Go ahead and talk back, I think she’s going to curse and hit you. If it weren’t for the fact that the third son insisted on marrying her back then, we would have a wife who beats and curses her parents. She knows that I opposed them getting together back then. If she doesn’t change her nature now, I will make Zhanxi divorce her and then let the third son marry someone else.”
"Heh! You old codger, what's wrong with you? Weren't you always so kind?"
"Let's go to the main kitchen for our family reunion dinner on the 30th."
The large dining table in the kitchen was already laden with twenty dishes showcasing Yang Zhanbei's culinary skills. In addition to the meat and vegetable dishes, there was also a pot of ginseng, wolfberry, and chicken soup.
A bowl of white rice, the staple food, is placed on the large iron pot on the stove.
Plain rice is rarely eaten normally; it's only eaten during holidays like Chinese New Year.
After finishing this afternoon's dinner, we'll have to make dumplings to eat at midnight when we welcome the gods.
Everyone was enjoying their meal when suddenly a hurried shout came from outside the gate...
Yang Yuhan put down her chopsticks and ran to the front door immediately. It turned out to be the young man in military green who had delivered the letter last time.
The postman immediately handed a letter to Yu Han and then hurried away.
Yang Yuhan saw that the envelope was an urgent telegram from her elder sister's family in another city.
She pondered for a moment. What urgent matter could her elder sister's family have that would warrant sending an urgent telegram to her family on New Year's Eve?