Time flies, and it’s the summer of 1979 in a blink of an eye.

Song Yunhui's letter arrived as scheduled. Song Yunhui had already known about his sister's marriage, but he still couldn't help but asked his sister in the letter whether he would continue to take the college entrance examination.

In order to avoid estrangement between husband and wife, Song Yunping took the initiative to show Song Yunhui's letter to Wang Chong to read.

Wang Zhong took the letter and asked, "What did Xiaohui say in the letter?"

Song Yunping said: "You will know it by yourself."

Wang Zhong's eyes also fell on the letter paper. In addition to the most common thoughts and greetings, the letter also included Song Yunhui's many current events he learned at school, as well as some of Song Yunhui's and his classmates' opinions. Finally, it contained suggestions for Song Yunping.

Things about going to college.

Wang Zhong collected the letter and handed it to Song Yunping.

"what are you thinking?"

Song Yunping smiled calmly and said, "Didn't you say that even if you don't go to college, you can still get ahead?"

Wang Zhongdao: "Of course you can, college just gives you a higher starting point."

"But it is undeniable that going to college is indeed the easiest and fairest way for us poor people born in rural areas to change our destiny."

"But college is not the only way."

Song Yunping said: "Didn't you say that the torrent of the times is coming?"

"Didn't Xiaohui say in his letter that at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the reformists have gained the upper hand, and the will to reform will soon lead us onto a new path."

"The torrent of the times is coming, and all ghosts and monsters will be submerged in this torrent."

"Will Old Hozen also be drowned in the torrent of time?" Song Yunping looked at Wang Zhong and asked with some expectation.

Wang Zhongdao: "Of course!"

"Have you not noticed that the words spoken by the old hozen now have less and less weight in the town?"

Song Yunping nodded thoughtfully: "It seems true."

"Old Hozen targeted you so much. If it had been before, Xiaohui would have never been able to go to college. But what happened? The county didn't beat you two to death, and finally let Xiaohui go to college.

"

Song Yunping nodded repeatedly after hearing this. To this day, she has long since forgotten about what happened back then.

Wang Zhong said again: "Just watch, the reform will begin soon."

Song Yunping looked at Wang Zhong with curiosity and admiration in her eyes: "Why do I feel like you know everything?"

Wang Zhong stretched out his middle index finger, pointed at his eyes and said: "It is said in "Warring States Policy" and "Touching the Dragon about the Empress Dowager Zhao": When parents love their children, they have far-reaching plans. At the age of three, things should be done at the age of ten.

, ten years old depends on twenty years old."

Song Yunping was stunned for a moment, but then she realized what she was doing, her pretty face turned red, she raised her hand and gave Wang Zhong a gentle blow, and said shyly, "Where did our child come from?"

Wang Zhong grabbed Song Yunping's tender pancreas and said with a smile: "It will be there soon!"

Song Yunping turned her head, not daring to look at Wang Zhong: "Who wants to have a child with you!"

Wang Zhong stretched out his hand to take Song Yunping into his arms, and said with emotion: "If you don't worry about the long term, you will have immediate worries. Although we don't have children now, we will have them in the future. It doesn't matter if our lives are difficult or tiring.

, but you have to give your children a better growing environment.”

"The general trend of the country and the current of the times may seem far away from us, but in fact they are closely related to our lives."

"The days to come will only get better and better!"

Song Yunping looked up at Wang Zhong, who was full of confidence, and felt an unprecedented sense of strong security arise spontaneously. She subconsciously raised her hands to wrap around Wang Zhong's waist, leaned her head on Wang Zhong's thick chest, and closed her eyes.

He raised his eyes and raised the corners of his mouth involuntarily.

"Brother Wang Zhong!"

"Sister Xiaoping!"

The exclamation broke the tranquility of the small courtyard and also broke the beautiful moment of the couple embracing each other quietly.

"Little Yang Xun?" Song Yunping followed the sound and saw Yang Xun carrying a load on the village road outside the fence, waving to them with a smile on his face.

"Sister Xiaoping! Brother Wang Zhong!"

"Why are you here?" Song Yunping opened the door enthusiastically and welcomed Yang Xuncong into the courtyard.

"It's such a hot day, sit down and have a rest!" There is a loquat tree in the yard. The fruiting period has long passed, but the branches and leaves are very lush. It is a good place to enjoy the cool weather in the midsummer.

Under the tree, there is also a stone table and four stone benches that Wang Zhong carved out of bluestone slabs he took from the mountain.

"Drink some herbal tea!" On the stone table were a wooden tea tray, a teapot and a stack of open white porcelain bowls upside down on the tea tray.

"Have a rest, Sister Xiaoping! It's so hot today and I'm really thirsty." Yang Xun wiped the sweat on his forehead and face with the towel hanging around his neck, took the tea bowl and thanked him with a smile, then picked up the bowl and drank.

Swallowing in big mouthfuls.

In just a moment, the whole bowl of herbal tea went into Yang Xun's stomach.

Wiping the water stains around his mouth with a towel, Yang Xun smacked his lips and said, "This tea is really delicious."

"If it tastes good, drink more. The tea tube is enough." Song Yunping held the teapot and helped Yang Xun refill the tea bowl with a smile.

"How is business lately?" Song Yunping asked after Yang Xun drank two bowls of herbal tea.

Yang Xun said with a smile on his face: "The business is very good. I earn much more every day than when I sold steamed buns before."

Song Yunping said: "That's good, but you still have to be careful. Although we are not as strict as before, we still can't relax."

"Sister Xiaoping, don't worry. I can find the roads in these ten miles and eight villages with my eyes closed. If someone really comes to catch me, I will run into the mountains, throw the load into any ravine, and crawl into the old forest.

Inside, I'm sure they can't find me."

"You!" Song Yunping looked at Yang Xun who was smiling innocently, feeling as if she was facing her own brother.

"Pride makes people complacent, humility makes people progress! I think you are overconfident."

Although he said this, the smile on Song Yunping's face never broke. Yang Xun was not old, but he had a sweet mouth. He was also smart, his brain worked quickly, and his ability to observe people's emotions was even better than that of many ordinary people in their thirties and forties.

Be awesome.

With just a few words, Song Yunping was made to laugh.

"By the way, we didn't harvest much duck feathers today!" Yang Xun said as he walked to the bamboo basket and opened the gauze covering the bamboo basket, revealing the fertilizer bags filled to the brim.

"It's all here."

"I still have some at home. I'll bring them over tomorrow."

"Don't worry!" Song Yunping said: "The duck feathers you sent last time haven't been used up yet."

After Yang Xun stopped selling steamed buns and started selling candy, Song Yunping began to cooperate with Yang Xun. The chicken and duck feathers collected by Yang Xun were sold to Song Yunping, and Song Yunping and Song's mother used the chicken and duck feathers that Yang Xun collected.

These chicken and duck feathers became the tailor's work.

The two processed chicken and duck feathers, some of which they kept for themselves to make winter clothes. Others were sent to the county's quilt factory to earn some hard-earned money. In addition to processing chicken and duck feathers, Song Yunping and her mother also

I often pick up paper boxes, matchboxes and other odd jobs from the county to supplement my family income.

"I have to go out every day anyway!"

"You haven't eaten yet!" It was noon, the sun was blazing in the sky, and the weather was extremely hot.

Yang Xundao: "I brought dry food."

"Save the dry food for tomorrow! It just so happens that we haven't had lunch yet. Please sit down for a while and eat something together later."

"No need, Sister Xiaoping!" Yang Xun stood up quickly and waved her hand in refusal.

"Why, don't you give me face?" Song Yunping deliberately kept a straight face.

Yang Xun immediately said with a bitter face: "Sister!"

"Okay, I don't treat you as an outsider, so don't treat yourself as an outsider. My family is not short of food for you. Besides, I have to rely on you to help collect chicken and duck feathers. This general is not bad at all.

As for the hungry soldiers, you help me with things, how can I let you go hungry?"

"Okay, just listen to Xiaoping." Wang Zhong also helped.

Yang Xun couldn't resist the couple, so he had no choice but to stay for dinner.

The next day, Yang Xun sent all the chicken and duck feathers that had been saved at home to Wang Chong's house. Song Yunping and Song's mother immediately got busy collecting the chicken and duck feathers that had just been collected.

Early in the morning, Wang Zhong and Song Jishan went out to the mountains to collect herbs, carrying baskets on their backs and a hatchet and a hoe.

Although there are many ways to make money in the family nowadays, the most profitable ones are the medicinal materials concocted by Wang Zhong and Song Jishan.

In the past, when the two of them worked alone, they had to go up the mountain to collect herbs and process them, so the output was naturally not high. Now the family works together. Wang Zhong is responsible for going up the mountain to collect herbs, and Song Jishan is mainly responsible for leading his daughter-in-law at home to prepare the medicinal materials.

Occasionally, I would go up the mountain with Wang Zhong, and through joint efforts, the output was nearly twice as high as before.

At the beginning of the year, Wang Zhong applied to the county medicinal materials station and asked the medicinal materials station to come forward and request a piece of land from the village for Wang Zhong and Song Jishan to grow medicinal materials. However, medicinal materials are different from ordinary crops, with different varieties and different growth cycles.

They are not the same, so now the medicinal materials at home mainly rely on two people to go up the mountain to collect them.

Summer and autumn were the high-yield periods for medicinal materials, and the family was extremely busy with the chicken and duck feathers collected by Yang Xun, which also ruined Song Yunping's original plan to visit her younger brother in the provincial capital.

In the blink of an eye, half a year has passed again, the twelfth lunar month of winter is approaching, snowflakes are flying, and the sky and the earth are vast.

"Xiaoping, there's another letter from Xiaohui." Song Yunping was passing by the team headquarters carrying the meat she had just bought from the town, and was stopped by Secretary Yang.

"Letter from Xiaohui?" Song Yunping hurriedly walked into the team headquarters.

"No!" Secretary Yang handed the envelope to Song Yunping and asked, "I heard that you saved a lot of duck feathers and used them to make a cotton-padded jacket for your parents?"

Song Yunping said: "Isn't it true that cotton is too expensive? The cotton output here is not high, so it is not as cost-effective as duck feathers."

"Do you still have a lot of duck feathers there?" Secretary Yang asked expectantly.

Song Yunping said with an embarrassed look on her face: "I originally had a little more, but yesterday my mother and I discussed making a cotton-padded jacket for Xiaohui, and there really is nothing left."

"It's okay, it's okay, I'll just ask, just ask." Secretary Yang said.

Song Yunping suggested: "Secretary Yang, during the Chinese New Year, your family must kill ducks to eat! Then you can save the duck feathers and find a way to get some, and I can help you make another one?"

"Isn't it too much trouble? I heard from your mother that it's not easy to deal with the duck feathers." Secretary Yang felt a little embarrassed.

Song Yunping said: "Look at what you said, it's no trouble. Anyway, my mother and I have to deal with those chicken and duck feathers every day. When the time comes, you can bring the duck feathers you saved, and my mother and I will help you.

Cleaned up."

"That's it, then I won't be polite to you." A bright smile appeared on Secretary Yang's face.

"Why are you being polite to me?" Song Yunping also said with a smile.

Holding Song Yunhui's family letter, Song Yunping felt that her steps were much lighter, and she jogged all the way back home. When she got home, she put the meat into the kitchen, carefully scrubbed her hands clean to avoid oil stains on her hands that would stain the letter, and then

Then I opened the letter carefully.

"What was written in the letter?" Song's mother stood next to Song Yunping, rubbing her hands and asking excitedly, her face and eyes full of expectation.

The letter was not long, only two pages, but Song Yunping read it very carefully, word for word, for fear of missing a word.

"Mom!" Before she finished reading the letter, Song Yunping looked up at her mother excitedly and said, "Xiaohui is coming back!"

"Come back!" Mother Song didn't react at first, but she came to her senses after a moment, and immediately looked at Song Yunping excitedly, but still more or less in disbelief: "Xiao Hui said he is coming back?"

Song Yunping nodded and said, "Xiao Hui said he would come back by train after the winter vacation."

"real?"

"No, Xiaohui said it himself in the letter. If you don't believe it, just read it." Song Yunping showed the letter to Mother Song.

Song's mother said, "I'm illiterate. Look down quickly. What else did Xiaohui say?"

Song Yunping read the letter to her mother word for word.

In a blink of an eye, the day came when Song Yunhui came back. Early in the morning, before dawn, Song Yunping and Wang Zhong got up. After a simple breakfast, the two of them, dressed in tight clothes, went straight to the town.

Take the earliest bus to the town station, go all the way to the county, and then go straight to the train station.

The couple waited at the train station all morning until two o'clock in the afternoon, when the train pulled into the station, they squeezed onto the platform.

"There are too many people!" Song Yunping looked at the surging crowd in front of her, stood on tiptoes and stretched her neck, but she still couldn't see the front.

Wang Zhong leaned into Song Yunping's ear and whispered a few words. Before he finished speaking, Song Yunping's face turned red: "It's too much in public."

Wang Zhong said: "What's the matter? The more conspicuous we are, the sooner Xiaohui can discover us."

After finishing speaking, before Song Yunping could get entangled, Wang Zhong directly grabbed Song Yunping's waist and threw her up with force. Amidst Song Yunping's exclamation, he threw her onto his shoulder.

"Sit tight!"

Song Yunping subconsciously protected Wang Zhong's head. Fortunately, Wang Zhong's shoulders were very stable and did not shake at all. After a while, Song Yunping got used to it, holding Wang Zhong's hand with one hand and holding Wang Zhong's head with the other.

Standing high and seeing far, sitting on Wang Zhong's shoulders, Song Yunping immediately took in everything in front of her.

After a moment, the car door opened and the passengers got out of the car one after another.

"Xiaohui!"

"Xiaohui!"

"This way!"
Chapter completed!