After being reborn, I have seven older sisters.

Sun Jianshe is the youngest son of Sun Fengxia's cousin.

Sun Fengxia's maternal home, Sunjiahe Village, is located on the flat Guanzhong Plain, with easy access to transportation.

Because of its proximity to the county seat, the villagers of Sunjiahe Village in Huaxi Commune are much better off than those of Songjiazhuang Village, which is located on the loess plateau of the Qinling Mountains.

Therefore, whenever the people of Sunjiahe Village mention those villages living on the Loess Plateau, they have an innate sense of superiority.

Deep down, he had already equated himself with the city dwellers in the county who received government-subsidized grain rations.

Therefore, in the eyes of Sun Jianshe's family, his cousin Sun Fengxia's decision to give up the vast, flat plains and marry into the impoverished Songjiazhuang was a complete degradation of her status.

In the past, Sun Jianshe would only be dragged over by his two older brothers to pay New Year's visits occasionally. But every time he came, he would clamor to go home after only a short while, mainly because the food at his cousin's house was too bad. It consisted of nothing but cornmeal porridge and cornbread. Even during the New Year, it was rare to see more than two meat dishes on the table.

But during the Spring Festival this year, he accidentally caught a glimpse of Song Chunsheng's seventh sister, Chunmiao, at the village entrance, and from then on, he was hooked.

He would come to Songjiazhuang once or twice almost every month, and he no longer complained about the food at his cousin's house. He even persuaded his mother to let Sun Fengxia act as a matchmaker for him, determined to bring him and Song Chunmiao together no matter what!

After returning to his room, Song Chunsheng glanced at the tea canister on the cabinet and immediately began tidying up the bedding he had slept in the night before.

He then noticed that on the two large wooden boxes at the head of the kang (a heated brick bed), there were several stacks of new clothes his mother had made for others, some already finished and some only half-finished. If he counted them, there must have been at least forty or fifty pieces.

My mother, Liu Yan'e, was a well-known skilled craftswoman in the village. When it came to sewing and needlework, if she wanted to claim second place, no one would dare to claim first.

Even within the entire Qinyuan Commune, it was one of the top performers.

Song Chunsheng did a quick calculation: if his mother finished her work in the fields every day and used her spare time to finish sewing all the clothes in front of her, it would take her at least four or five months.

If calculated according to the work points allocated by the commune's sewing group, a shirt cost 1 mao and a pair of pants cost 5 fen. So, after working hard for four or five months, my mother didn't even receive 4 yuan in dividends at the end of the year.

He didn't care about the amount of money; he just felt that his mother was working too hard every night, burning the midnight oil to make clothes.

If only my mother could have a sewing machine like Sun Jianshe's mother.

That would not only save my mother some energy, but also allow her more time to rest.

However, a sewing machine is not a small expense; it costs at least 150 yuan.

The worst part is that you have to have an industrial coupon to buy a sewing machine, otherwise even if you have money, it will be difficult to buy one.

However, if they relied solely on the small amount of money distributed by the production team at the end of each year, the combined cash received by the four of them (parents and two older sisters) wouldn't even be enough to buy a sewing machine.

My father likes to listen to Qinqiang opera. He wanted to buy a radio two years ago, but when he thought about the money he would need for school, he told my mother that if he really wanted to listen, he could go to the neighbor's house to listen.

The second son of my uncle's family, who is also his second cousin, works at the meat processing plant in the county town. Several years ago, he bought my uncle a Red Lantern brand radio, which reportedly cost more than thirty yuan at the time!

Whenever someone comes to visit, my uncle will turn on the radio and proudly show them the only thing in the house that can be connected to electricity.

Is anyone home?

Just as Song Chunsheng was pondering how to buy his mother a sewing machine while also fulfilling his father's wish to listen to Qinqiang opera without leaving the house, someone shouted at the gate in extremely broken Mandarin.

That affected Mandarin accent—you could tell Sun Jianshe had arrived.

Because in their village, apart from a few middle school students who occasionally speak a few words of Mandarin during home visits by their teachers, everyone else speaks authentic Northwestern dialect.

"Someone's there!"

Song Chunsheng responded as he walked out of the house.

When he reached the entrance of the main room, he saw Sun Jianshe had already pushed open the door and stepped in with one foot. He was carrying a shiny black leather bag in his hand, and his two big, lifeless eyes were scanning every door in the courtyard with a garbled sound.

Upon seeing Song Chunsheng come out of the house, he was stunned for a moment, and then the muscles on one side of his face began to twitch involuntarily.

"What are you standing there for? Come on in!"

Song Chunsheng stood still, looking at Sun Jianshe, who was hesitating and unsure whether to enter the room, and said something without any emotion.

"I……"

Sun Jianshe pursed his lips, gave an awkward smile, and said, "Of course I have to come in. I traveled over ten miles just to see you, how could I not come in!"

As he spoke, he stepped over the doorway and went straight to greet Song Chunsheng.

"Oh, Chunsheng, you're really lucky! As soon as I heard about you last night, I wanted to come over right away, but I was worried that it wouldn't be convenient for Chunmiao and her uncle and aunt at night, so I didn't come. But I had my second uncle ask the factory leaders for half a day off that very night, and you came first thing this morning!"

Song Chunsheng smiled and nodded without saying anything.

"What... what happened yesterday? When I heard you had an accident, I was really shocked. I immediately told my parents that after Chunmiao and I get married, we'll come back to see Uncle and Aunt every Sunday, and they won't have to take care of any of the housework..."

After talking for a while, Sun Jianshe realized that Song Chunsheng was not moved and just stared at him calmly. He immediately realized that his words seemed a bit too many and too much, making it sound unreal.

So he immediately took a deep breath, reached out and tightly grasped Song Chunsheng's arms, and said with feigned excitement, "Now that I see you're alright, I don't even know what to say!"

As Sun Jianshe spoke, two tears even welled up in his eyes.

"Brother, you're using a bit too much force!"

Song Chunsheng's words were originally meant to tease Sun Jianshe for his exaggerated behavior, making his ulterior motives immediately apparent.

But Sun Jianshe didn't realize it at all, and thought that he had hurt Song Chunsheng by grabbing him!

So he quickly smiled and let go, "It was my fault, I did get a little excited. Did I hurt you?"

Song Chunsheng shook his head and smiled helplessly.

Sun Jianshe stared at his future brother-in-law with a smug smile. Although the other man was more than half a head taller than him, his body was really too thin!

"Chunsheng, you need to work out more! Your current physique won't do. Your uncle and aunt are getting older, and once your sixth and seventh sisters get married, all the work in the fields and at home will depend on you!"

"Isn't there you still?" Song Chunsheng immediately added.

"Me?" Sun Jianshe was momentarily stunned.

"Didn't you just say that after Seventh Sister marries into the family, you'll all come over every Sunday to help with chores? How could you forget so quickly?"

"this……"

Sun Jianshe was speechless when asked the question, and pointed at Song Chunsheng with a flushed face and a laugh.

"You little rascal, you were actually waiting for me here! Trying to outsmart me so quickly? That's not right!"

"If something really happens at home, all it takes is a word from Uncle and Aunt. Do you think I, the seventh son-in-law, can just stand by and do nothing?"

Song Chunsheng nodded knowingly, "Yes, that's definitely the case!"

Seeing that he had fooled the other party, Sun Jianshe immediately said with a half-smile, "I've come all this way to see you, and you didn't even offer to pour me a cup of tea!"

As he spoke, he hung the leather bag in his hand on the shaft of the loom behind him.

"That won't work, it'll break if you crush it!"

Song Chunsheng thought to himself, "This loom is the property of the sewing group. Not only are all the parts of the loom teetering on the verge of collapse, but the cloth roller had broken once before, and my father had to put in a lot of effort to fix it. If it breaks again this time, it will probably be difficult to repair."

This shabby thing, my mother had to be very careful every time she sat on it to weave cloth, for fear that if she wasn't careful, she would sit on it and it would collapse.

Although the price wasn't as high as a radio, it wasn't much different; it was at least equivalent to more than half a month's wages for a city worker.

Upon hearing Song Chunsheng's words, Sun Jianshe was initially startled, but after a moment's thought, he immediately smiled with a hint of disdain:

"Look at what you're saying, it's not that precious. We used to have one like that at home, it looked exactly like this one, but ever since my mom got a new sewing machine, she burned that old relic as firewood!"

Seeing Song Chunsheng staring at him with curiosity, he figured the other man must be intimidated by his family's wealth.

So he tilted his head back and said very seriously, "Besides, even if I break my aunt's loom, do you think I can't afford to pay for it? If all else fails, I, as her future son-in-law, can buy her a new sewing machine; that's within my means!"

"real?"

Song Chunsheng asked, feigning shock.

"Why would I lie to you? I'll buy one as soon as Chunmiao marries me!"

Upon hearing this, Song Chunsheng rolled his eyes inwardly and didn't respond to the other person's words.

When Sun Jianshe arrived at the main hall, he reached out and wiped the octagonal table several times until he was sure there was no dust on it before gently placing the leather bag he was carrying on it.

Song Chunsheng poured a bowl of hot water from the thermos in his parents' east room and came out. "The tea that my third brother-in-law brought earlier is all gone, so now we only have hot water."

Sun Jianshe originally wanted to say that if there was no tea, then he wouldn't drink it.

But seeing that Song Chunsheng had already handed him the bowl, he had no choice but to accept it, so he quickly rolled up his sleeves to take the hot water that was handed to him.

Just then, a blue checkered handkerchief tied to Sun Jianshe's wrist caught Song Chunsheng's attention.

He immediately pointed to the blue handkerchief that was deliberately folded into a long strip and tightly tied around his wrist and asked, "Is your wrist... injured?"

Upon hearing this, Sun Jianshe spat out the mouthful of hot water he had just taken a sip of, spilling the water all over himself and wetting the handkerchief tied to his wrist.

"Oh dear, this is in trouble!"

Looking at the water droplets on the handkerchief, he panicked and immediately put the bowl on the table and started to untie the handkerchief.

"I'll show you what the world is like today!"

As Sun Jianshe spoke, he tried his best to untie the handkerchief.

However, because the knot was tied tightly, it wasn't until he had used all his front teeth that he was able to untie the mysterious handkerchief.

Throughout the entire process, Song Chunsheng felt as if he were watching a monkey show.

The moment Sun Jianshe took off his handkerchief, Song Chunsheng was completely shocked by the cautiousness of the guy in front of him!