In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 19 Years Ago
Since the old man came, the car repair process has been much faster.

The hydraulic hoses were all replaced on the tenth day. If Yu Dawei had done it alone, it would have taken at least half a month.

Not only that, the father and son also repaired two excavators outside the yard during this period, earning more than a thousand yuan.

Yu Laonian would always quietly remind Yu Dawei in the shed to bring some New Year's goods for Duan Dahai when he bought them before the New Year. He was burning someone else's coal and taking up someone else's space, so he was indebted to him.

Yu Dawei readily agreed, and then, a week before the Lunar New Year, after all the Hitachi excavator parts had arrived, he stopped in town to buy New Year's goods.

Eight boxes of fruit, three 10-pound bags of sunflower seeds, three 10-pound bags of peanuts, a large box of firecrackers, three large bags of candy weighing five pounds each, two large carp, ten ribbonfish, and various vegetables for the New Year, etc.

Before heading home for the Chinese New Year, Yu Dawei put the parts in the small house and then went to Brother Liang's parts shop in town to deliver two boxes of fruit, one box of apples and the other of oranges.

There was also a bag of sunflower seeds, a bag of peanuts, and a bag of candy.

Duan Dahai's is the same.

I also took Boss Liang and Brother Duan to a small restaurant for their last meal of 1992.

A group of people were eating and chatting in a warm restaurant serving pork stew, sharing their experiences and thoughts on the past year, as well as their hopes for the coming year. Occasionally, they could hear the laughter of children playing outside and the crackling of firecrackers.

In this festive atmosphere, where the New Year was not yet over but was already in full swing, Yu Dawei went home with Yu Laonian.

When the four watchtowers of the Yu family were still standing, and when the surrounding thousands of acres of fertile land were still theirs, there was a customary rule for celebrating the New Year: on New Year's Eve, the first day of the New Year, and the second day of the New Year, they would eat vegetarian food and invite the gods (ancestors) at midnight.

Nowadays, families with the surname Yu in Yujiatun celebrate the New Year separately, and fewer people eat vegetarian food. To this day, only two families in Yujiatun have family genealogies and hold a grand ancestral worship ceremony every year.

One family lived in the very center of Yujiatun, namely Yu Quan, and the other family lived in the east of the village, namely Yu Laonian.

Yu Quan was the eldest brother among Yu Laonian's generation. Back in the old society, he was a real foolish son of a landlord and enjoyed the treatment of a landlord for a period of time.

Moreover, he is a person with great personal charisma and a mysterious, legendary aura.

These were things Yu Dawei had secretly heard from Yu Laonian when he was a child, but few people in the village knew about them. Even when they saw each other on a daily basis, they would only regard the other person as an ordinary old man.

When Yu Dawei saw the other man, he addressed him as "Grandpa Yu," because Yu Quan was the oldest and most senior among all the grandpas, turning eighty-three this year, a truly long life.

"I'm home." Yu Dawei stood at his doorstep; it was already dark.

"Are you coming back with your wife for Chinese New Year this year?" Old Yu took his things off the bus and straightened his dog-skin hat.

"No, that old, dilapidated house will collapse in a couple more days." Yu Dawei said, holding two boxes of fruit and exhaling a puff of white breath.

Yu Laonian remained silent, and Yu Dawei also fell silent. The two of them stood in the courtyard, looking at the room with its flickering candlelight, and sighed helplessly at the same time.

The year Han Jingfan married into the family, everyone celebrated the New Year together. However, for some reason, the whole family split into two factions and started fighting.

On one hand, there's support for my mother's argument: "Can a woman who doesn't have children after marriage be considered a woman?" On the other hand, there's support for the argument: "It's not necessarily true that you have to have children right after getting married."

Although there wasn't a real fight, the atmosphere during the New Year was strangely eerie. Even Yu Laonian, who was wholeheartedly offering sacrifices to his ancestors, couldn't stand it anymore, but he didn't want to get involved in women's affairs.

So, Yu Dawei, Yu Laonian, and Yu Dasheng quietly performed the ancestral rites in the kitchen, listening to the ongoing debate inside. These past few days, Yu Laonian had already told Yu Dawei about Han Jingfan's "applying what you've learned," and now Xiaofan's way of speaking and acting was completely different from before.

But Yu Dawei didn't want to see that New Year's scene again. In his family, as far back as he could remember, they had never quarreled during the New Year.

He didn't want to see his wife being bullied by his mother. His second sister couldn't stand it and spoke up, while his eldest and youngest sisters stood by their mother's side to help.

There's only one reason why my mother disapproves of her daughter-in-law: she's standing up for her silly son and feels sorry for him.

Sigh, being a son to one's mother and a husband to one's wife, this feeling can really tear a person apart.

"Dad, Big Brother, you're back?" A boy with naturally curly black hair came out of the house, his voice deep and his face smiling.

"Hmm." Old Yu tossed some of the New Year's goods to his second son. "How have Mom and your sister-in-law been these days?"

"That's great!" Yu Dasheng said, his expression showing some surprise. He quietly moved closer to his elder brother and grandfather, "How come my sister-in-law has changed so much in the past year? She still speaks as little as before, but her words are much gentler, and she smiles more often now."

Upon hearing this, Yu Dawei and Yu Laonian subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Laonian glanced sideways at his second son, who was wearing a wool sweater.

If he knew that his sister-in-law had only read a few books and had become like this in just two or three months, he would probably want to smash his head against a wall. I think it's better not to provoke him.

Yu Dasheng's learning ability was very average, and he actually failed the college entrance examination in his first year.

The following year, he was two points short again, but with the help of his uncle, who was also a mutual relative of Yu Dawei and Yu Dasheng, he managed to get into a university in Hohhot.

The New Year's goods were placed in the kitchen. When I entered the house, I saw Dafeng, Eryan, my younger sister, Han Jingfan and my mother were all there.

Several women were sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed) making bean buns. Northeastern bean buns are mostly made with millet dough and red bean paste filling. Today is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, and in the countryside, every household steams bean buns at this time.

Then the steamed bean buns are frozen and eaten as dry food on weekdays. Some families with many members can even fill a large jar, which is 1.3 meters high, but it can only last until about the following spring.

In Northeast China, winter temperatures can drop to minus 30 or 40 degrees Celsius, making it a natural cold storage facility where steamed buns won't spoil.

The biggest fear was that rats would steal the food from the storeroom, so each family had to put a lid on top of the sticky rice cakes they made.

Some were covered with a gauze curtain (Author's note: A gauze curtain, also called a comb curtain, is a round object made of sorghum stalks in rural areas, often used to hold dumplings. In modern society, bamboo woven ones are more common, and sorghum stalk ones are rarely seen anymore.)
Some people use old pot lids, which are simply placed on top, without needing to be covered with anything like a curtain.

"Hey! Big brother's back!" Yu Fang, with her short hair, jumped off the kang (a heated brick bed) when she saw her brother carrying all sorts of delicious food. "What did you buy?"

"You're the one with the biggest craving, here's some candy." Yu Dawei took out a big bag of candy from his floral cloth bag and handed it to his little sister. "Eat less, or you'll get worms in your teeth."

"Okay!" Xiaofang opened the bag and saw a lot of colorful candies. Her big eyes immediately narrowed into crescent moons with happiness.

She is only 14 years old this year, which is the age when she can't resist delicious food.

Most of the candy in the bag was loose fruit candy, a small portion was sorghum syrup soft candy wrapped in candy wrappers, and as for White Rabbit candy, it was too expensive to afford.

(End of this chapter)