When I went home for Chinese New Year, I spent a million times more money on my foreign wife.

"Dad." Chen Yang took a step forward and grinned.

"You... brat!" Old Chen finally realized what was happening, raised his hand as if to slap Chen Yang, but instead it landed as a heavy slap on Chen Yang's shoulder.

His rough, large hands gripped tightly, even trembling slightly. "You finally decided to come back? Huh? I was thinking you'd forgotten which way the front door faces!"

"How could I forget that? I can't forget my family, no matter what else I might forget."

The wooden door of the main house, covered with old New Year pictures, was pushed open with a "bang," and a woman wearing a floral apron and with white flour still on her hands rushed out.

She paused for a moment when she saw Chen Yang.

"Yangzi?" Chen Ma's voice was sharp and trembling.

"Mom, I'm home."

Ignoring the flour in her hand, Chen's mother rushed over and grabbed Chen Yang's arm, her eyes instantly turning red.

She touched Chen Yang's face and then pinched the flesh on his arm: "You've lost weight. You're tanned. You must have suffered a lot out there?"

In his mother's eyes, even if her son weighed 200 pounds, he would still look "thin" when he came home.

Chen Yang let his mother touch him all over, and the softest part of his heart was struck hard.

This is why he would travel thousands of kilometers to come back home.

"cough."

A crisp cough interrupted the heartwarming family reunion.

Katyusha stood by the passenger door, hands behind her back, blinking her big, bright eyes, waiting expectantly.

She practiced that line eight hundred times along the way.

Chen Yang quickly stepped aside, making way for Katyusha behind him.

"Dad, Mom, let me introduce you. This is Katyusha, your daughter-in-law."

The air in the courtyard seemed to freeze for a second.

Old Chen and his mother stared blankly at the girl in front of them.

Her blonde hair resembled corn cobs, her eyes were like blue glass marbles, and her nose was so high it inspired envy.

That sophisticated air was completely out of place in this small courtyard with its earthen walls and stacks of firewood.

"Foreign...foreigner?" Old Chen's eyes widened in surprise.

Katyusha took a deep breath, stood at attention with her feet together, and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

"Dad! Mom! Hello!"

His voice was loud and clear, with perfect pronunciation, and it had a strangely comical quality.

The elderly couple were stunned by the shout.

"Oh...oh!" Chen Ma was the first to react, and the wrinkles on her face instantly turned into a smile.

He wiped his hands haphazardly on his apron, then grabbed Katyusha's hand. "My goodness, this girl looks just like she's in a magazine! She must be freezing! Come on, come inside and get on the kang (heated brick bed)!"

Katyusha didn't understand "get on the kang" (heated brick bed), but she understood the smiling face. She grinned, revealing a set of bright white teeth: "Okay, Mom!"

"Are you hungry? What do you want to eat? Mom will make it for you!" Chen's mother was overjoyed. A foreign daughter-in-law! The Chen family has definitely improved their genes!

"Wait a minute." Old Chen frowned, his eyes scanning suspiciously between the mud-covered "black metal lump" and the unbelievably beautiful foreign daughter-in-law. "Yangzi, this car... and this girl... you're not doing some kind of illegal business outside, are you?"

In Old Chen's simple worldview, foreign women and luxury cars of this caliber were completely out of reach for people like them.

Unless the son went and robbed a bank.

"Dad, what are you thinking about?" Chen Yang said, both amused and exasperated. He turned and walked to the back of the car. "I partnered with a friend in a business and made some money. Come on, lend a hand. I brought some local specialties."

"You can't just waste money on local specialties!" Old Chen muttered, but still walked over.

Chen Yang pressed the trunk release button. The hydraulic lever made a soft click, and the heavy tailgate slowly rose.

Splash!

A small "avalanche".

Two cases of Moutai, overstuffed, slipped through the gaps and fell onto the snow. A red sausage, thicker than a baby's arm, pierced out of the pile of cardboard boxes like a spear. Several packs of Zhonghua cigarettes were squeezed out of shape and teetered on the verge of falling.

Old Chen bent down to pick up the white porcelain bottle from the snow, squinting at the red ribbon.

"Maotai...?" He gasped, then looked at the trunk and saw several bottles of liquor. "This...this is all liquor?"

"This is all the New Year's goods." Chen Yang casually picked up a 20-pound Iberian ham and threw it onto the snowdrift. "There's still some meat left."

Old Chen's hands trembled slightly. He knew the price of this wine; one bottle was equivalent to half a month's harvest for a farmer.

There are actually several boxes here.

"Then what... what kind of monster is this?" Old Chen pointed at the king crab with a ferocious face and covered in thorns.

"Sea spiders," Katyusha interjected earnestly in broken Chinese, "delicious."

"It's a king crab!" Chen Yang corrected him irritably. "Dad, this is a sea crab, its legs have a lot of meat."

Ferrero Rocher chocolate tarts, caviar in tins, wild dried hazelnuts, and lobster...

The snow in the courtyard was instantly covered with nice things, like a luxury goods wholesale store had opened.

"Son..." Old Chen's voice trembled as he grabbed Chen Yang's arm, his face deathly pale. "Tell me the truth. What exactly were you doing abroad?"

This isn't just about getting rich; this truckload of goods looks more valuable than my house!

Chen Yang knew that explaining was useless.

He turned around, grabbed the black backpack from the driver's seat, unzipped it, and casually pulled out a handful of things.

Three bundles of bright red 100-yuan bills, plus a pile of loose change, totaled about 30,000 to 40,000 yuan.

"Dad." Chen Yang stuffed the money directly into the pocket of Old Chen's old cotton-padded jacket.

"This is pocket money. You can use it to gamble during the New Year. I'm really doing business now, legitimate trade. International trade..." Chen Yang told a lie that the old man would understand.

Old Chen felt the thickness of the contents of his pocket; the heavy, substantial feel finally calmed his anxiety.

"Foreign trade?... Is it that profitable?" Old Chen was skeptical.

"That's called 'international logistics'," Chen Yang said seriously. "Alright, let's move the stuff, Katyusha's hungry."

Chen Ma grabbed a basin to help, but when she saw the mess on the floor, she exclaimed, "My goodness, have you robbed the supermarket?"

"Mom, these are all for the New Year." Chen Yang picked up a box of crabs and walked into the house.

Katyusha followed behind, carrying two cases of Moutai in one hand, as easily as if she were carrying two bags of cotton.

Old Chen stood in the snow, felt the money in his pocket, looked at the "muddy truck," and kicked the tire. It was hard as a rock, the real deal.

"Damn it!" the old man chuckled, his wrinkles spreading like chrysanthemums. "My son's made something of himself."

Upon entering the room, a wave of heat hits you.

Chen Yang took off his overcoat and looked at the familiar main room. There was the old calendar on the wall, the thermos on the table, and the heated kang bed covered with printed leather.

"Where's Xiaoyue?" Chen Yang asked.

"Your sister went to the county with her classmates. She said she'd be back before dinner." Chen's mother was busy pouring water. She glanced at Katyusha, then at the teacup, hesitating whether foreigners drink tea.

Katyusha was sitting on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), curiously touching the heat under her bottom and even jumping on it: "Fire? There's fire under my bottom?"

"Yes, warm your butt by the fire." Chen Yang laughed.