Back To The 80s-Chapter 197: Buzz (Ask for Monthly Ticket)_1
Lu Zhanguo was somewhat helpless against Gu Xiaobei’s teasing, put on his coat, touched Xiaobei’s little face and said, "Okay, you and Jiujiu wash up and go to sleep first, I’m going to the barracks."
Gu Xiaobei was awakened early by Ding Guihua’s loud voice.
"What time is it, and you’re still not getting up? In the countryside at this time, the chickens have crowed three times already. Which daughter-in-law is still lying in bed at this hour, it’s embarrassing..."
Gu Xiaobei looked at the dark sky outside the window. Most importantly, Lu Zhanguo, who was lying next to her, hadn’t left yet. She wailed inside, ’Is this some kind of savage wake-up call? Waking people up at the call of a rooster?’
She rolled over, burying herself in Lu Zhanguo’s arms, and grumbled, "Has the wakeup call been blown yet?"
"Not yet, it’s only five o’clock, there’s still half an hour." Lu Zhanguo patted the back of the person in his arms, took his watch from under the pillow, and looked at the glow-in-the-dark hour and minute hands on the dial.
"Why so early?" Gu Xiaobei complained, sleep-deprived people tend to be grumpy.
Lu Zhanguo initially wanted to say she could sleep a while longer, but hearing the continuous noise outside, he had to soothe Gu Xiaobei, "I’ll talk to old Guo later, you have nothing to do during the day, you can catch up on sleep at home."
"Well, the old lady is probably used to shouting in her own yard, it’s hard to change her habits." Gu Xiaobei, with her face buried in Lu Zhanguo’s chest, sighed.
"It’ll be better once we move to the family residential building, just bear with it for now, and don’t aggrieve yourself." The underlying meaning of Lu Zhanguo’s last sentence was ambiguous.
Gu Xiaobei lifted her head and looked at Lu Zhanguo’s dim face in the darkness, laughing, "Aren’t you afraid I might impulsively bring you big trouble?"
"You’ve said it before, that you won’t let others bully you, is that right? But keep in mind the manner in which you do it." Lu Zhanguo knew that Gu Xiaobei could sometimes be impulsive.
"Don’t worry, I am the wife of the squad leader after all, I am very aware of the stakes." Gu Xiaobei said, proudly.
"Yes, the wife of the squad leader." Lu Zhanguo was amused, he lightly pinched Gu Xiaobei’s nose and said, laughing.
The noise outside didn’t stop, the two played and laughed some more in the room. Eventually, when the wakeup call sounded, Lu Zhanguo patted Gu Xiaobei’s back and said, "Alright, I’m off to exercise, you wait for a bit and sleep more once it quiets down."
......
When Gu Xiaobei got up to fetch water from the water room, she saw Ge Chunling and another army wife both yawning and fetching water. It seemed everyone on the second floor had not slept well.
Ding Guihua came in to fetch water too, looking at everyone, she sighed and said, "Look at you young people, getting up so late, is this acceptable to your in-laws?"
Gu Xiaobei and the others exchanged glances - she was really sticking her nose into everything.
Ding Guihua ignored them and continued, "You all are fortunate now. You all don’t know the hardships I faced as a daughter-in-law. In the morning, upon hearing my mother-in-law cough from her room, I would have to hastily get up, empty the night pot, sweep the courtyard and prepare breakfast."
Gu Xiaobei remained silent, thinking to herself: ’This is what happens when a long-time daughter-in-law becomes a mother-in-law. Once you are in power, you immediately take up the mantle of the mother-in-law’.
"Especially you army wives, no need to serve the elders at home or do farm work, really living a lady’s life." ’ Ding Guihua showed no signs of stopping her incessant chatter.
"Auntie, how many meals does your family have in a day?" Gu Xiaobei suddenly asked.
"Three meals, why?" Ding Guihua was somewhat taken aback by the sudden question.
"Oh, we have two meals. We only prepare something to eat at noon for those who go to school." Gu Xiaobei said, somewhat sighing.
"Why only two meals?" Ding Guihua asked curiously.
Seeing Ding Guihua taking the bait, Gu Xiaobei lamented, "As you just said, we don’t have fields to tend to here and army wives are at home idle, with only the man earning, of course we need to be thrifty, right, auntie?"
Ding Guihua nodded, "Isn’t that the truth, men have it hard."
"Who’s denying that? So, since it’s getting colder and daylight is shorter, we eat two meals a day, waking up later and eating later than usual. This way we can save one meal a day. Over a winter, we save quite a lot of grain, don’t we?" Gu Xiaobei kindly asked Ding Guihua.
"Yes, during heavy snowfall, we also used to eat two meals. It indeed saved a lot of food during winter." Ding Guihua nodded in agreement, as in rural areas during winter, when there’s no farm work to do, most families ate two meals a day.
Gu Xiaobei sighed, "Auntie, but because of your shouting this morning, we had to get up early and thus have breakfast, making it three meals for the day."
Abiding by this Ge Chunling and the others they also understood now, and began to nod in agreement.
At this point, Ding Guihua finally understood what was going on and her facial expression froze slightly. Hurrying to fetch water, she went back.
The people in the water room looked at each other and laughed. Ge Chunling laughed and said to Gu Xiaobei, "Sister-in-law, I guess we’ll have some peace and quiet tomorrow morning."
Gu Xiaobei sighed, "Let’s hope so. Otherwise, we won’t get any rest this winter."
Indeed, the next morning, Ding Guihua didn’t get up so early to yell anymore. Not because she realized she was disturbing the neighbors’ rest, but because she rationalized that getting up too early would lead to an extra meal, thus wasting grain.
Therefore, Ding Guihua also began to prepare only two meals a day. Xiangmin couldn’t stand it anymore, she was carrying a baby, how could she only eat two meals a day? After three meals, she even wished she could get up in the middle of the night to have another one.
Ding Guihua saw Xiangmin preparing her dough soup by herself and angrily said, "Didn’t you just eat? Why are you eating again?"
Xiangmin didn’t look up, she was stirring the noodles and said in an unpleasant tone, "If I don’t eat, the baby in my belly will still have to eat."
"You’re just being pretentious, when I was a daughter-in-law, I had to pick wheat even during my confinement period. I had to eat sweet potato leaves and cornmeal porridge, all watery, and nothing happened to me." Whenever Ding Guihua opened her mouth, it was all about her struggling past.
Xiangmin remained silent, only the clinking of dishes could be heard.
Ding Guihua pursed her lips, took a small cloth bag out of her pocket, opened it to take out a strip of newspaper and some tobacco, then began rolling a cigarette. She then spat some saliva on the newspaper to seal it, then used a match from the table to light it.
This hand-rolled cigarette was much more suffocating than the filter cigarettes available nowadays.
Enraged, Xiangmin said, "Mom, can you go outside if you want to smoke? I’m pregnant and really can’t stand the smell of smoke."
Ding Guihua, cigarette in hand, squinted at Xiangmin, "Look at you, such a delicate thing, always using my grandchild as an excuse." Despite saying this, she got up and left the room.
Gu Xiaobei was cooking in the corridor. Ding Guihua, cigarette in hand, stood in the doorway, and called out to Gu Xiaobei, "What’s for dinner at your home tonight?"
"Flatbread." Gu Xiaobei politely answered.
Ding Guihua took a puff of her cigarette, then started rambling again, "Look at you, you’re fortunate now. Back in our day, we didn’t even eat white flour for a whole year. Hungry as we were, we even ate Gua Yin soil." After this, she took another hard puff of her cigarette and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.
"Yes, life is good now, Auntie. It’s time for you to enjoy your life, don’t always think about those unpleasant past experiences." Gu Xiaobei realized that Ding Guihua always loved to reminisce about her tough past. As soon as she starts talking, there’s always a reference to ’back in our day’. This showed she had some unresolved issues, and wasn’t able to vent her feelings.
