Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

The more he thought about it, the more upset he became. In a fit of pique, he threw the wooden stick he was using to stir the pig feed into the corner, picked up the heavy wooden basin with both hands, and walked towards the pigpen in the backyard, cursing all the while.

When they arrived at the pigsty, Ergaizi endured the pungent, sour smell and poured the entire basin of pig feed into the stone trough.

As soon as the two big white pigs saw the food, they immediately rushed over, smacking their snouts loudly, and unceremoniously splashed swill all over Ergaizi's trouser leg.

He shook his hand dismissively, walked to the well, rinsed his face casually, straightened up, and was about to take a deep breath and go back to the house for a nap.

"Are you done yet? If you're done, don't just leave it standing there like a telephone pole!"

With an apron tied around her waist and a greasy empty glass bottle and half a bag of soybeans in her hands, Ga Zi's mother came out of the kitchen in a hurry.

She shoved the empty bottle and cloth bag into Erga's arms and instructed, "Go to the general store at the village entrance, buy a pound of soy sauce and two boxes of matches. On the way, stop by Old Li's tofu shop and exchange this half bag of soybeans for tofu. I'll make you some flatbread and stewed cabbage for lunch."

Upon hearing the recipe, Ergaizi's face immediately turned as bitter as a bitter gourd.

"Still eating cabbage? Mom, we've been eating the same cabbage in our cellar since winter started. My burps smell like rotten cabbage stalks, and my farts are greenish! Last night, Da Niu and I managed to make two pounds of pig's head meat under the big elm tree! We're finally starting to live a better life, can't you go and get half a pound of pork belly to treat yourself? Or at least you could fry a couple of eggs!"

Gazi's mother's eyes widened, and she grabbed a broken broom handle from the corner of the wall:

"Scrambled eggs? You look more like an egg than a holiday! Why would we eat meat when it's not a festival? Do you think it falls from the sky like a gust of wind? We'd be lucky to get a piece of tofu. Are you coming or not? If you don't, you won't even get cabbage for lunch, and you'll be eating bran with those two pigs behind you!"

"Go away! I'll go, okay?"

Erga was terrified that the broom bristles would actually hit him, so he shrank back and slunk out of the courtyard with his things in tow.

Walking on the bumpy dirt road in Kaoshantun, the early spring sun had just risen, and it felt a little warm on people's skin.

As I was looking around with my head down, just as I reached the fork in the road by the old locust tree in the middle of the village, I heard a lively shout coming from the direction of Da Niu's courtyard.

Erga looked up and was immediately stunned.

The gate to Da Niu's house was wide open, and a large truckload of brand-new red bricks had been unloaded on the open ground outside the gate at some point, with a huge pile of yellow sand next to it.

Da Niu, his head covered in white ash, was leading five or six bricklayers with trowels at their waists, eating breakfast around a large wooden table in the yard.

On the table sat a large, steaming aluminum basin filled with thick millet porridge, next to which were baskets of plump, white steamed buns. Most strikingly, in the center of the table sat a large bowl of braised pork with vermicelli, along with two plates of glistening, oily scrambled eggs with scallions.

The aroma, a blend of meat and egg fragrance, drifted along the early spring breeze straight into Ergaizi's nostrils.

Da Niu was eating half a steamed bun when he looked up and saw Er Ga Zi staring intently into the yard from the roadside. He immediately called out at the top of his lungs:

"Gazi! Where are you going? Have you had breakfast yet? Come over here and have some with me!"

Erga was seething with resentment, but when he saw the scrambled eggs with scallions on the table, his eyes lit up. But...

Thinking of the broken broom in his mother's hand, he swallowed hard and stubbornly said:

"What's there to eat? I still need to go to the general store to buy soy sauce to exchange for tofu! If I'm late, my mom will really make me eat bran like a pig for lunch!"

Da Niu knew this kid's temper all too well, so he deliberately pulled the pot of braised pork and vermicelli in the middle of the table closer to himself and teased him by raising his voice:

"You really don't want any? Then we won't be polite! We'll devour these huge slices of fatty meat in no time, and you won't even get a sip of soup!"

Ergaizi panicked upon hearing this, and all his previous concerns vanished instantly.

"Who said I'm not eating!"

Erga Zi put the empty soy sauce bottle and half-full bag of soybeans he was carrying against the wall, pulled out a bench and plopped down, grabbing two large white steamed buns from a basket and shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Make some room for me!"

A bricklayer squatting on a bench nearby, slurping up rice noodles, chuckled, pointed at him with his chopsticks, and grinned, teasingly saying:

"What's wrong, Brother Ga Zi? You've made a lot of money working for Boss Zhao outside, and now that you've finally come home, didn't your mother make you something nice to eat to help you recover?"

Erga took a big bite of the white steamed bun in his hand, and mumbled a complaint between chews:

"Don't even mention it! Aside from making a pig's head meat dish last night after we got our share of the money, we've been eating rotten cabbage from the cellar every day! Before dawn, my old lady drags me out of bed with a fire poker to clean the pigsty, feed the pigs, or run errands like buying soy sauce. This work is more tiring than working at the Red Star Machinery Factory!"

Da Niu couldn't help but grin and laugh as he listened to the man's endless complaints.

"Give me a break!"

Da Niu tapped the rim of the large bowl with his chopsticks, and irritably retorted, "Is your aunt being stingy? We grew up together, practically naked. When you were little, you had a high fever, and your aunt would kill the old hen that was laying eggs to make soup for you, but she wouldn't eat a single scrap of meat herself! The older generation is just terrified of poverty; they're used to hard times. Now that you suddenly have a few hundred yuan in your pocket, you practically walk sideways. If you dare to spend it recklessly, wouldn't it hurt your aunt more than if her heart were ripped out?"

Erga was scooping meat slices from the basin with his chopsticks when he heard this, and he paused for a moment.

"I didn't say my mother treated me badly."

He stuffed the piece of marbled pork into his mouth, chewing until his mouth was greasy, and mumbled indistinctly, "I just can't get over this! Before, we were dirt poor, and we had no choice but to be frugal. Now that we're with Brother Shanhe and have money, do we still have to eat rotten cabbage three times a day? We patch our cotton pants three times when they're torn, and we patch the windows with newspaper to block out the draft!"

At this point, Erga pointed to the pile of new red bricks in Da Niu's yard, looking utterly dejected:

"Take building the house for example, look how enthusiastically you've been building it! Last month, after receiving my paycheck, I slammed a wad of cash on the table and told my dad, 'Let's tear down those two dilapidated mud-brick houses that leak from all sides, and build three big red brick houses instead, and I'll pay for them all!' And guess what my old man said?"

Da Niu took a big bite of a scallion and chimed in cooperatively, "What can I say?"

Erga Zi put down his chopsticks, squatted down on the bench, and mimicked his father's slow, half-dead posture as he usually squatted by the wall smoking his pipe, drawing out his words in a drawn-out voice:

"The house hasn't collapsed, and the roof isn't leaking, so why build it? If you have so much spare money to burn, you might as well save up some manure and spread it in your own plot..."

The group of bricklayers at the table burst into laughter as he mimicked the characters so vividly. Even Da Niu couldn't help but slap his thigh with joy.

Everyone was laughing, but Ergaizi became more and more aggrieved, slapping his thighs loudly.

"My mother is even more outrageous! I suggested going to the supply and marketing cooperative to get her some new fabric to make a thick new cotton-padded coat. She absolutely refused, insisting that the old one was too soft and could be patched up and worn for another three years! I suggested buying my father a new pair of leather shoes, but the old man glared at me and said that if he got muddy from working in the fields, he'd ruin everything, so he'd only wear his old, worn-out slippers with exposed heels!"

"Later, I gritted my teeth and said, 'Sure, I'll buy you a Golden Deer bicycle, then I won't have to walk to the commune market anymore.' But when the old couple heard the price, good heavens, they almost grabbed the door bolt and gave me a double beating on the spot!"

The bricklayers at the table laughed until tears almost came to their eyes, and they kept pointing at Erga and shaking their heads.

Erga sighed, turning his grief and anger into a hunger, stuffing the remaining half of the steamed bun into his mouth, and then grabbing a large mouthful of vermicelli.

Having eaten his fill and finally satisfied his cravings, he had a moment to look around the yard.

Looking at the piles of red bricks and yellow sand outside the door, which resembled small mountains, and then at the bricklayers sweating profusely as they ate, Ergazi nudged Da Niu with his elbow in envy:

"So you're really something, kid. You pulled off a big heist without making a sound! Da Niu, with all these red bricks, are you really planning to tear down your dilapidated mud-brick house and rebuild a little villa?"

Da Niu, holding his bowl of porridge, swallowed the rice in his mouth, wiped his mouth, and said:

"What's the point of building a small villa? We'll just tear down the dilapidated house I live in now and rebuild three large brick houses. You know my old house, it's an adobe house that the production team gave us back then, it's been around for ages. Whenever there's a strong wind, it leaks air everywhere, and the plaster keeps crumbling off the walls. The worst part is the kang (heated brick bed), the kang hole inside has long since collapsed and is completely blocked. In winter, no matter how much firewood you put into the stove, the kang won't get warm, sleeping on it is like sleeping in an ice cellar, it can wake you up freezing in the middle of the night."

Da Niu sighed and continued:

"So, taking advantage of the spring season now, when the ground has thawed, and with the large sum of money Brother Shanhe just received, I thought, why not go all out and build a bright, spacious brick house! I'll even build the courtyard wall with red bricks!"

Old Zhao, sitting across the table, chuckled and chimed in, "Brother Ga Zi, Brother Da Niu really went all out this time. The whole house is made of red bricks, and they're even building two new, well-ventilated heated brick beds inside. This bright, spacious tile-roofed house will have everything, but there's still something missing..."

Brother Zhao deliberately tapped the rim of his bowl with his chopsticks, drawing out the sound to keep everyone in suspense.

Several bricklayers nearby chimed in, "Old Zhao, what's missing?"

"I'm missing a wife!"

"Da Niu must be almost twenty-six this year, right? That's quite an age for this area. Before, his family wasn't well-off, so he couldn't afford to take care of himself. Now he has everything, and even built such a grand brick house. It's time to get down to business! How about I introduce you to someone? I know all the villages around here, and I guarantee I can find you a strong, capable woman who's good at working and has a lot of children!"

Da Niu was drinking porridge when he heard this and almost choked on his porridge.

His face, dark from years of exposure to the wind and sun, flushed instantly to the roots of his neck, even his large ears felt hot. He quickly put down his bowl, rubbed his rough hands on his trouser legs, and stammered in a gruff voice, "Brother Zhao, you...you're teasing me! What wife or anything..."

Seeing Da Niu's obvious embarrassment, Brother Zhao chuckled and changed the subject, his gaze falling on Er Gai Zi, who was eating with gusto beside him: "By the way, Brother Gai Zi, you're not young anymore, are you?"