Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

It's the Spring Festival, and everyone in the family is looking for solar terms, so I squatted at home alone to watch the door.My parents asked the city's veteran cadres to invite them to a group meeting and dinner.Before leaving, my mother instructed me not to go out: "There must be no one in the house during the big festival. You stay at home to look after the house, and you entertain the guests for us." So I became the head of the reception at home, unfortunately. It's because I don't have any soldiers under my command, I'm a bare-bones commander.Being bored by myself, I turned on the TV to watch those lively but worthless cultural performances.

His second career finally got his wish. I don’t know where he went. He went to a state-owned company in Shenzhen to become the deputy general manager. He took Xiaolinzi and Baobao away shortly after. Said to go to Hong Kong for the Spring Festival.Eggy asked the younger sister to lead her out. I don't know where she went crazy. The younger sister stayed in the provincial capital after graduating from university. This time she came back for the Spring Festival.The little girl knows that Ye Shengnan and I are divorced, but she still calls Ye Shengnan Sister Shengnan. Her parents are also very warm and polite when they see Ye Shengnan. Our two-year-old and the younger sister are more lively than me. Only I am stubborn. My mother said that I have inherited my father's faults.

After Ye Shengnan and I divorced, I moved back to my natal family, and later moved to the dormitory. Even though one of our two houses legally belonged to her, she voluntarily gave up her rights: "Let you two live in a spacious room. I'll make it easier for you, too." She pretended to be tolerant, but she actually wanted to make me feel like a loser, making me feel indebted to her.I am very slow in this regard, and I don't feel that I owe her anything, so her thoughts were in vain again. The sound of unlocking the door woke me up. The program on TV just now hypnotized me. It was Dandan and Xiaomei who came back.

"Where are our parents?" The younger sister asked me. "Going to the banquet." "Who please? Why don't you go?" "I'm not up to standard, the municipal party committee and the municipal government entertain veteran cadres." Eggy jumped over and asked me, "Dad, where do you think we went?" "Where did you go?" "My aunt took me to my grandma's house." The little girl quickly explained: "Eggy should also pay New Year's greetings to his grandparents after the Spring Festival." I said: "Go, go, I didn't say no." Thinking about it, I asked again: "Did they give you New Year's money?"

"Yes, guess how much I earned?" "How much did you earn? That's the New Year's money given by others, not by your ability or capital." The little girl corrected Eggy. "The uncle gave one hundred, the second uncle gave one hundred, and the grandparents gave one hundred together..." I became impatient, and said, "Just say that the family gave one hundred and that's it? What are you talking about?" Eggy said seriously: "It's not a hundred for the family, my mother gave five hundred." "Your mother is also at home?" This surprised me a bit.After the divorce, I hardly saw Ye Shengnan. It is said that she opened a hot pot restaurant and the business was very good.

She was still working at the unit when she worked in the hot pot restaurant. The unit said that she had a second job and wanted to deal with her. She didn't wait for the unit to deal with her. She went to the unit to deal with her first, and went to Deputy Mayor Huang to file a complaint. The chief is her father's old subordinate, and she doesn't know how she settled Deputy Mayor Huang. Deputy Mayor Huang called their unit and expressed his support for Ye Shengnan's entrepreneurship. Instead of dealing with Ye Shengnan, their unit not only did not deal with Ye Shengnan, but gave her The hot pot restaurant invested in, expanded the scale, and set up a joint venture. It is a diversified business project of their unit. Ye Shengnan got a chairman and general manager. Although it is only a hot pot restaurant, her business card is also prominently printed. On the words of chairman and general manager.According to what I know about her, with this kind of errand, plus the titles of chairman and general manager, she must be like a jumping sky monkey in the New Year's Eve. Going to the sky, I didn't expect that she could stay at her mother's house on the third day of the Lunar New Year.

The younger sister said, "That's not so strange, the hot pot restaurant must be closed for a few days after the Chinese New Year." I said: "Closed, she should also stay in front of the dance hall or mahjong table, guarding the old man and old lady, can she bear the loneliness?" The little girl chased Dandan: "Go, go to your house and count the money. Auntie will take you to the bank to deposit it tomorrow. Children are not allowed to spend money indiscriminately." Dandan has had a passbook since he was a child, and it has become a habit to save the lucky money he gets every year. When the little girl said this, he ran to hide in the house to take stock of this year's Spring Festival harvest.

After Eggy left, the little girl said, "Brother, guess who I saw at Ye's house?" "Who?" "Your former classmate, the one you called braised pig's trotters." There was a "thump" in my heart. It seemed inevitable that these two people would get together, so I had nothing to say. "I think that stewed pig's trotter is quite courteous. Is he courting Sister Sheng Nan?" After my heart twitched, I suddenly became very bright and relieved for some reason. Now that I have broken up with her, she has the freedom to choose again, choose and combine, this is also inevitable, I told my little sister calmly : "That kid has been fascinated by Ye Shengnan since he was a child, but if he hasn't, I don't know if he can succeed this time."

"Does he have a home?" "Of course I have. My son is older than Eggy, and he got married earlier than us. But people nowadays, if they have a family and a wife today, they may have no family and no wife to regain freedom tomorrow, as long as he is willing." The little girl stared into my eyes and asked solemnly, "You really don't care?" I said, "If I cared, I wouldn't have left, and if I left, I wouldn't have cared. Besides, even if I cared, it doesn't matter, he is a free man." The little girl said, "I'm relieved, I'm afraid you won't be able to think about it."

The way she spoke made me dumbfounded. Maybe I am really old. "Old man and child", this sentence has two meanings: when a person gets old, his temper is a bit like a child, and when he is old, he is often as worrying as a child. Does the younger sister's eyes make others worry a little like a child? I admit that my thinking is relatively conservative, but it is the 1990s after all. Marriage and divorce, remarriage, trial marriage and cohabitation, changing wives and raising concubines have become common social phenomena. Marriage, divorce and remarriage are already common social phenomena It's nothing more than a normal thing, it doesn't matter to me how many times Ye Shengnan remarried, if I couldn't figure this out, I wouldn't have divorced her in the first place.Ribs also left Wu Mengna some time ago. I asked him why he left. He said that there was no special reason, but he felt that it was too bad to stay with a wife for the rest of his life, so he wanted to change.I don't have any aversion to his ridiculous idea. This may be the common feeling of many people in our age group. It's just that some people bury this idea in their hearts, some people just talk about it, and some people But put it into practice regardless.

The little girl went into the kitchen to prepare dinner, and there were scattered firecrackers outside, reminding people that the Spring Festival was not over yet.I didn’t set off fireworks this Spring Festival. The fun and tasks of doing so were inherited by Dandan. I lay on the sofa and scanned the TV programs from beginning to end with the remote control. Can live with me.I am in my forties and towards my fifties, and according to my dad, he has already become the deputy mayor at my age.I don't feel inferior because I am still a worker at this age.I'm frustrated that I can't even maintain a home at this age.I don’t have flirtatious things like a lover outside, and I don’t feel that any woman is interested in me. Maybe I’m slow in this aspect, maybe I’m numb in this aspect, maybe I’m really the one who doesn’t attract women. types.At this moment, I was lying on my parents' couch, and I suddenly felt a real sense of loneliness.I have heard of this feeling in the past but have never practiced it. Loneliness is a kind of faint sadness, a faint melancholy, a kind of boredom with no one to talk to and no one to communicate with, a faint feeling of being excluded from the crowd. A kind of fear, an inexplicable boredom of not knowing what to do.The people closest to me, my father, my mother, my younger sister, Eggy, and Er Chuxi’s family, they still love me meticulously all the time, but they have their own affairs and their own lives , I'm just a more or less important and sometimes minor part of their lives.My classmates and colleagues have less and less contact with each other as they grow older. Everyone is busy with their own lives. Although we still maintain a deep relationship and friendship, this old friendship has been more expressed as a kind of friendship. Memory, a past that cannot be reincarnated, a program that is full of enthusiasm when you meet, and then go your separate ways after breaking up. Someone knocked on the door, and I was too lazy to get up and open the door. People who come to pay New Year’s greetings on the third day of the new year are generally not close friends. According to our custom here, close friends should visit on the first day of the new year. Eggy ran out and protested to me: "Dad, you are too lazy, didn't you hear someone knocking on the door?" I used my father's authority to play tricks: "Go and drive when you hear it, what are you talking about?" Dandan opened the door, and someone came to ask Dandan: "Are you Yang Dandan, son of Yang Dadan? Did Yang Dadan hide here?" As soon as I heard this tone, I knew it was an acquaintance, so I quickly got up and went out to greet me. The arrival of these three friends was pork ribs, battered bread, and braised pork. My mood was suddenly clear. "How did you find it here?" Paste Bread said, "You can't hide from us wherever you go, and we can dig you out if we want to find you." I was a little surprised that the three of them got together. I don’t know if it’s the pressure of life or the time that has worn away the relationship. In recent years, the exchanges between our group of people have become less and less.Maybe it was the Chinese New Year, when they had nothing to do, they got together again. I was busy getting cigarettes and water for them, and Ribs said: "Stop busy, why are you bored at home during the New Year's Eve? Go, go out and relax!" I was so bored at home, I put on my coat and went with them without saying a word. The younger sister chased me out and asked me if I would come back for dinner at night. Ribs said: "Don't worry about it, you are afraid of starving him if you follow us?" The younger sister still remembers They were my good classmates when I was young. I told them that it was okay to come and play, and then I retracted my head and closed the door.