Sheng Xiping dropped these words and turned around to wash his hands, not caring about the sad eyes of his younger brother behind him.
On the other side, Zhang Shuzhen held back her laughter, pushed open the door to the west room, and called the second and third children out to eat.
"Hey, you two, stop reading. The lights are not on at night. It will hurt your eyes."
Sheng Xian and Sheng Xikang put down their books when they heard their mother's greeting, came out of the west room and went to the east room to eat.
On the kang in the east room, there is a rectangular kang table.
The head of the family, Sheng Liancheng, sat in the innermost seat on the Kang head. To his left was his wife, Zhang Shuzhen, and outside were his two daughters.
The old pimple Sheng Xitai is on the right hand side of Sheng Liancheng, followed by Sheng Xiping, Sheng Xian, and Sheng Xikang.
Sheng Liancheng is from Qilu, and his hometown is in Shancheng. The Sheng family has little land and many children, and life at home is difficult.
In the 1950s, a relative of the Sheng family worked as a worker in the Sanchazi Forest Works Bureau and said life was better there.
Sheng Liancheng took the money he borrowed from his wife and took a car to the northeast.
When I arrived in Northeast China, I found a job and was assigned to work in a forestry farm affiliated with Linjiang Forest Industry Bureau.
Linjiang Forest Industry Bureau is the earliest forest industry enterprise developed here. Its predecessor was the Linjiang Branch of Tonghua Lihua Forestry Company during the Japanese puppet period.
After the fall of the RB Japanese, it was renamed the Linjiang Branch of the Andong Forestry Bureau in 1948, and later the Linjiang Branch of the Liaodong Forestry Bureau.
In 1953 it was renamed Linjiang Forestry Bureau, and in 1961 it was renamed Linjiang Forestry Bureau.
The forestry development in those days involved construction and production at the same time, developing along the forest railway.
The same is true for forestry workers. Wherever the logging area is, the workers will work.
After finishing work in this work area, we will move to the next work area.
Sheng Liancheng went from Linjiang Bureau to Dashahe Forest Farm, then to Manjiang Forest Farm, moved to Shuguang Forest Farm in 1963, and moved to the innermost Qianchuan Forest Farm in 1965.
Qianchuan Forest Farm is very close to the Changbai Mountain Reserve. It was developed the latest. It is rich in forest resources and is considered the largest forest farm on the northern line.
Sheng Liancheng has worked on the forestry front for many years, starting as a forest clearer and working as a tractor assistant, chain saw operator, and tractor driver.
Up to now, he is the work captain of the second work team of the forest farm, and also serves as the director of the minor repair shop, which is considered very powerful.
Zhang Shuzhen and Sheng Liancheng are from the same place. It should be said that among forestry workers, most of them marry their wives from their hometown.
There is no other way. The northeastern forest area is vast and sparsely populated, and these workers cannot see a woman all year round.
They all took advantage of the opportunity to visit relatives in their hometowns to find a daughter-in-law, bring her from their hometown, settle down, and have children.
In those days, any young man who worked as a worker outside and returned to his hometown wearing "rehabilitation cloth" overalls was the focus of everyone's attention.
Don't worry about your height, shortness, fatness, or ugliness. As long as you are a worker who earns wages and eats from the national treasury outside, you can get a tall, handsome wife when you return to your hometown.
Sheng Liancheng worked in Northeast China for four years and finally found time to go back to his hometown to visit his parents and relatives.
When the old lady of the Sheng family saw that her son was back, she quickly told her son to marry him.
After being introduced by someone, I met Zhang Shuzhen.
The two met and fell in love with each other. Sheng Liancheng bought a sheep for the Zhang family and gave him dozens of yuan, which was considered a marriage agreement.
A few days later, the two went to the countryside to get a marriage certificate and got married in the new house that Sheng Liancheng had sent back to his parents to build.
Not long after their marriage, the couple set off back to the Northeast.
From then on, Zhang Shuzhen, like other young wives, followed her husband to take root in the northeastern forest area, give birth to children and take care of the housework.
Sheng Liancheng and his wife gave birth to four sons and two daughters.
The two of them didn't have much education, so they just wanted their children to be safe and healthy.
It just so happens that the children of this generation are ranked according to the character "Xi", and the first three are called Sheng Xiping, Sheng Xian, and Sheng Xikang.
In those days, children were closely packed, and after three sons were born one after another, Zhang Shuzhen became pregnant again, and it turned out that they were two daughters.
My daughter’s name was given by her primary school teacher with help, and it was not arranged in the order of Greek characters.
When the child was born, it happened to be spring, the time when peaches and plum blossoms flourish.
So the teacher named the two girls Sheng Yunfang and Sheng Yunfei.
In the end, Lao Pupa was born, and he was named Sheng Xitai by someone else.
At this point, the four brothers of the Sheng family are safe and healthy.
Sheng Xiping looked at the family of eight in front of him, and the memories of his previous life were rolling in his mind, and he felt hard to calm down for a while.
"Second brother, how is your school going lately? Are you tired from studying?"
Sheng Xiping took a deep breath to calm down, then picked up the dish with chopsticks and put it in his brother's bowl.
"Brother, studying is very interesting and not tiring."
Sheng Xi'an raised his head, smiled at his brother, then lowered his head and continued to eat.
In early June, there weren’t actually many edible vegetables.
Wild vegetables such as mother-in-law, shepherd's purse, celery, Cantonese vegetables, monkey legs, etc. are all out of season, that is, the Chinese cabbage, water radish, chrysanthemum, and spinach in the vegetable garden.
On the table of the Sheng family, there is a small pot of pickled chrysanthemum and a small pot of cabbage stewed with tofu.
In addition, there are some radish, radish leaves, lettuce, green onions, a bowl of homemade miso, and that's it.
Anyway, the cabbage stewed with tofu has some oil and grease in it, which is the oil residue left over from oil refining, so it tastes quite delicious.
It was still winter when the oil was stained. Sheng Xiping followed his master into the mountains and killed a black blind man. When he came back, he divided a lot of fat meat into meat for refining.
The employees and their families depend on the supply of food and oil. For a family of eight, the little oil supplied every month is not enough to do anything.
Zhang Shuzhen lived a careful life and was not willing to give the children a few pieces of oil-soaked food, so she directly mixed it with the oil and put it in a jar, saving it for cooking.
Sheng Xitai's greedy little cat's favorite thing to do is to take advantage of the fact that there is no one at home, secretly take the chopsticks and pick out the oil stains from the oil jar and eat it.
In spring, these dishes require oil and water, and when the children are growing, Zhang Shuzhen has to carefully weigh the dishes.
It just so happened that the oil in the jar was almost at its end and there were a lot of oil stains on it, so I put a few extra pieces in the cabbage and tofu stew tonight.
Sheng Xiping ignored the longing look in his eyes and put the last grease-stained piece into Sheng Xi'an's bowl.
"Eat more. Your eyes are tired from reading and studying. You must eat some oil."
"Yeah, um, I understand, thank you brother."
Sheng Xi'an, who was dull and inarticulate, could only nod his head repeatedly, and then continued to eat with his head down.
Sheng Xiping looked at the second child and couldn't help but sigh.
Sheng Xi'an loves reading and studying, and her grades have always been very good when she was studying.
When the college entrance examination resumed in 1977, Sheng Xi'an also signed up and was admitted to Tonghua Normal University.
Ordinarily, Sheng Liancheng comes from a poor background and has been rated as an advanced model several times over the years, so there should be no problem.