1994: Starting with unpaid leave

At 2 p.m., family members who had made the appointment arrived one after another.

The first to arrive were the second brother and his wife's family.

As soon as the door opened, my niece Dong Aiyang, with her hair in two pigtails, jumped in, her mouth as sweet as honey, and immediately offered her blessings:

Congratulations to Uncle and Aunt on moving to their new home!

"Good, good, Yangyang! Uncle will reward you with a math test later!"

"ah?!"

Seeing the little girl's tearful face, Zhou Xiuyun affectionately ruffled her hair and couldn't help but push Jianguo away:

"Don't bully him, look how scared the child is!"

"Yangyang, hurry up and go inside to watch TV!"

Dong Aiyang is 10 years old this year, just two years younger than Dong Xiaojun, and is at the age where she loves watching TV.

Hearing his aunt speak, he stuck out his tongue at his uncle, made a face, took off his shoes, and ran into the house.

"Jianguo, Xiuyun, congratulations!"

The second brother, Dong Weiguo, and his wife, Zheng Rui, who were standing outside the door, also congratulated the two after they entered the house.

The second sister-in-law took a red envelope directly from her handbag and handed it to Xiuyun.

Xiuyun was taken aback, glanced at her lover standing beside her, and waved her hands repeatedly:

"Sister-in-law, what are you doing? We don't need the money!"

"Oh, it's just a small token of our appreciation, what's there to be embarrassed about? Don't tear it, just put it away! Besides, it's not for you two, it's for the kids!"

Second sister-in-law Zheng Rui pointed to Xiuyun's protruding belly and said with a smile.

In the North, social obligations are relatively important. For joyous occasions like housewarming parties, it's customary to give a gift, no matter how small.

This is especially true for family members.

Dong Jianguo disliked this kind of formalism.

This involves keeping track of expenses, and if the amount of money returned in return is too much or too little, it can easily cause the other party to gossip behind your back.

But since the second sister-in-law had already used the "for the child" tactic, there was no way to refute her anymore.

Anyway, we're not short of money right now. Just remember how much to give as a gift for goodwill, and we can return it when we give Yangyang his New Year's money.

Having made up his mind, Dong Jianguo patted his wife on the shoulder: "Xiuyun, keep it."

"That's more like it!"

"Wow, what delicious food did you make, sister-in-law? It smells so good!" As soon as she entered the house, Zheng Rui, the second sister-in-law, smelled the aroma in the air.

"Xiuyun, take your second brother and sister-in-law inside for a look around. I'll go cook first."

"You cook?" The second brother, Dong Weiguo, stared blankly at his younger brother.

"What's wrong, bro?"

"Nothing much, I just felt that this housewarming party is the first time your family has ever hosted a banquet, so I didn't want you to ruin it..."

My eldest brother and parents are not here, and my second brother has been talking a lot more.

Dong Jianguo chuckled:

"Tch, just don't bite your tongue off later!"

After saying that, he turned around and went back into the kitchen.

Although I was in the kitchen, I could still hear my sister-in-law and Xiuyun talking in the living room.

A two-bedroom, one-living room apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom.

Although the area is not large, the lighting design of the apartment building is much better than that of the dormitory building.

Especially the relatively protruding balcony, with three sides made of transparent glass, allows sunlight to stream in, making the entire living room and kitchen of the house appear exceptionally bright and airy.

In addition, with the new set of furniture and appliances and Xiuyun's diligent cleaning, the waxed floor could almost reflect the furniture's image.

Dong Weiguo, the second brother, was an employee of the No. 1 Machine Tool Factory. When he married Zheng Rui, the factory allocated him a house in the factory's dormitory area, which was only three buildings away from his father-in-law's house.

The old tenement buildings over there are far inferior to commercial housing.

After reading it, Zheng Rui, the second sister-in-law, looked on with envy and couldn't help but repeatedly praise it:

"Xiuyun, your house is really nice, the layout is so much better than ours!"

"This renovation and furniture must have cost a lot, right?"

"The apartment came fully furnished when we bought it. The original owner was being transferred to work in Harbin, so Jianguo and I snagged a bargain, saving us a lot of trouble..."

"Jianguo picked out all the furniture, and I'm just responsible for using it..."

Xiuyun smiled and explained, deliberately avoiding answering the question about money.

This kind of thing gets on people's ears when it's said.

If you say too much, people will think you're showing off; if you say too little, people will think you're pretentious.

So last night, the couple specifically discussed that if anyone asked, they could just brush it off.

Second sister-in-law Zheng Rui was about to ask another question when Yangyang, who was studying the television in the bedroom, let out a cheer and couldn't help but run out and shout:

"Mom, come quick! Uncle's got a VCD player!"

"Kid, don't talk nonsense! Do you even know what a VCD is?"

Zheng Rui had heard about this trendy machine from her colleagues when she was in school, and she had also heard about its price.

A VCD player costs a whopping four thousand yuan. Who would spend so much money on this unless they have money to burn?

But Yangyang wouldn't give up:

"I know! My classmate's dad's the mayor's secretary, and they have one! Mom, that thing is so great! You just put a disc in it and you can watch cartoons! It's so much more convenient than our VCR!"

"I just found Sailor Moon DVDs in the drawer under my uncle's TV cabinet!"

Upon hearing what the child said, Zheng Rui, the second sister-in-law, couldn't help but glance at Xiuyun.

Xiuyun was taken aback, then her face flushed red:

"Well, Jian Guo rented it to me because he thought I'd like it... Actually, I don't really like watching it that much..."

The more she explained, the more confused she became. She turned and hurriedly went into the bedroom to put on cartoons for Yangyang.

Yangyang saw her looking for DVDs and couldn't resist coming closer out of curiosity:

"Auntie, I saw a DVD called 'When the Peach Ripens,' what's it about?"

Xiuyun's face was already slightly red when her niece discovered she loved watching cartoons, but when she heard her niece mention the DVD that Dong Jianguo had rented, her face turned bright red, almost bleeding.

"Well... well..."

She stammered, unsure how to answer, but fortunately Yangyang continued speaking on his own:

"I bet it's about peach cultivation techniques, right?"

"I can't believe you all love learning even though you live in such nice houses. When I grow up, I'll definitely be like you, learning to grow peaches from Teacher Li Lizhen, so I can live in a big house too!"

Hearing Yangyang's words, Xiuyun almost died of embarrassment.

Fortunately, someone knocked on the door again, and she took advantage of Yangyang's inattention to put the adult DVDs that Dong Jianguo had borrowed into the locked cabinet and put them away. She breathed a sigh of relief.

This time, the guests included Jian Guo's older sister Dong Shaoying, her brother-in-law Wang Zhenglong, and his second uncle and aunt.

The four of them bumped into each other downstairs and decided to come up together.

As soon as the elders arrived, Dong Jianguo hurriedly crawled out of the kitchen to greet them.

Upon seeing Dong Jianguo and Xiuyun, the group couldn't help but engage in another round of fussing. As everyone wandered around the room to tour the new house, Xiuyun found herself with two more red envelopes.

Just as she was feeling both amused and exasperated, her parents and her older brother's family of three knocked on the door.

As soon as the door opened, the older brother carried a case of Mingyue Island beer, while Junjun carried a case of Jianlibao.

Sister-in-law Liang Qiuyue stood behind her husband and son, smiling warmly:

"Xiuyun, congratulations on buying your house! We brought drinks with us this time, so we won't be giving you a gift. Don't complain about your sister-in-law!"