.Wei Dai came back from outside with a few fish in his hands: “That’s because we have real fish to eat now, so we naturally won’t eat more eels. Eels have no meat and are not worth eating. They are not as good as shrimps. But if you want to eat them, your uncle will catch them for you next year.”

Wen Chun smiled and said, “It will be available in May. Uncle, you must catch it for me in May.”

“Okay.” Wei Dai put a few fish in the kitchen and said to Wen Jiajia, “Leave some fire for a while; I’ll steam a fish.”

Wen Jiajia was surprised: “Where did the yellow turtle come from?”

“Yellow turtle? We call it the yellow croaker at home.” Wei Dai scooped some hot water into the basin, put his hand in the hot water, and said comfortably: “I bought it outside. I don’t know how it was caught. I can actually catch a yellow croaker in this weather.”

Wen Jiajia counted and found that there were eight!

Decades later, most yellow croakers are farmed. She has never eaten a yellow croaker that grows naturally in lakes and rivers like this one. It must be very fresh.

Wen Jiajia said, “I think this fish should be braised or cooked into soup to be delicious.”

Wei Dai said, “Leave one for steaming, and the rest can be cooked into soup or stewed. Steam it for my little sister. The doctor said that children need to eat more fish and shrimp.”

Wen Jiajia nodded, thinking that she should cook the yellow croaker into soup, since she already had braised beef bones today.

The lunch was very lavish.

She put the braised beef bones in a pot and the yellow croaker soup in a basin, and finally she made a cold tomato salad with white sugar. Lunch was ready.

The tomatoes were grown by the aunt. Wen Jiajia and Wei Dai had been unable to grow tomatoes in the past few years and could only grow some easy-to-grow leafy vegetables. Who would have thought that the aunt could grow them all?

It seems that talent is very important when it comes to farming.

Braised beef bones basically need to be chewed with hands, as they are difficult to hold with chopsticks.

The beef was stewed until it was very soft, and the flavors of the seasonings and spices had completely permeated into the beef. When she took a bite, the meat and the tendons near the bones entered her mouth. It was fragrant and spicy, but not dry… Wen Jiajia narrowed her eyes.

She hadn’t eaten such delicious food for a long time.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan ate so much that the juice ran onto their faces, and they didn’t even bother to wipe it off. Wen Chun even threw the iron rule of not eating too much meat to the back of her mind and ate three pieces of beef bones.

Wen Jiajia was the calmest one. After chewing a bone, she scooped herself a bowl of soup with a fish in it.

The yellow croaker is fried in oil first and then poured into boiling water, so the soup becomes white and fragrant.

Wen Jiajia took a sip and felt that the wild yellow croaker was fresher than the farmed ones.

It’s natural freshness, not the freshness created by MSG ^[1]monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer.. This kind of ingredient can only be eaten at this time.

Decades later, even wild yellow croakers are not as delicious as they are now. There is no way around it; the water quality has deteriorated a lot.

When she had almost finished eating, Wei Dai also helped his daughter finish the fish.

Every time they have meat, Wen Xiaomei is the happiest. Compared with various vegetable and fruit purees, she obviously likes meat very much.

Wen Jiajia sometimes said, “Who knows, she might be an even better eater than her second sister in the future.”

But thinking about it, it’s impossible; no child loves to eat more or is better at eating than Wen Xuan.

The end of the year passes quickly, and another year has passed.

Wen Jiajia is a very busy deputy director. Not only are there more and more things she has to deal with, but she also has to attend more and more meetings.

It is said that there will be two more trips next year.

One time to the provincial capital, and the other time was not mentioned yet. Wen Jiajia guessed that it was probably Hai City.

There is no way; she has to get back to work.

At the year-end meeting, Director Shen made a tough statement, saying that the factory would have to expand to 1,200 people next year, directly heading towards a factory with 1,000 employees. This would be a huge challenge for everyone in the factory.

Wen Jiajia guessed that next year would be busy, but she didn’t expect it to be so busy.

The end of the year… This time it’s the real end of the year, and she only has a holiday on New Year’s Eve.

Wen Jiajia received her first salary after being promoted to deputy director. She was quite happy because, after all, how could she not be happy when she received money?

But there is a very practical problem: she actually has no time to spend money! This is really surprising.

Wen Jiajia originally wanted to go shopping before the New Year, but now it seems more important to go home directly.

It was dark, so dark that I had to turn on a lamp to see the road clearly.

Fortunately, the factory recently recruited some people from the military village nearby, so Wen Jiajia was not very scared to work with several people; otherwise, she would not dare to work overtime.

“Hey, when can we get a house?”

Some people passing by the construction site outside the city expressed their feelings.

But now it probably can’t be called a construction site; it is more accurately a pharmaceutical glass dormitory, which means the dormitories of pharmaceutical factories and medical glass factories.

Strangely enough, the chemical plant had no share in the dormitory building. Its share all went into the hands of Yibo. I don’t know how Director Shen managed that.

As a result, Wen Jiajia hasn’t dared to go into the chemical industry recently. People from the chemical industry glare at people from the medical department when they see them.

However, as a vested interest, Yibo is indeed very happy. The factory suddenly has two more buildings, and I don’t know how many people they can accommodate.

Director Gao even came to ask Wen Jiajia if she wanted to apply, but of course, she refused. She was about to leave, so there was no need for her to join in the fun.

However, Fang Hongjun took advantage of this opportunity to get a larger house.

He originally had 45 square meters, but now he has 78 square meters. Wen Jiajia went to see Chen Qianyue a few days ago. Chen Qianyue was very happy about this and said, “It’s bigger than my parents’ house.”

She had actually gone back home before the blind date and mentioned there was no place for her to step at home at that time.

She felt very cramped, and her room had become the room of her two nephews, with no trace of her any longer. Even the table she had asked her father to build for her when she was a child was gone because the room was too narrow, and the table would take up space if two people lived there.

This is okay. With housing shortages, there is no way to leave the house specifically for her.

But what made her most sad was her family’s alienation, politeness, and unfamiliarity towards her… as well as their attitudes and words, asking her explicitly or implicitly when she would return.

She only stayed at home for two days, and after two days, she couldn’t help but buy a ticket back to Fuyang.

In fact, most educated youth had to face this situation. Even family ties needed to be maintained by meeting each other frequently.

Because of this, Chen Qianyue completely gave up the idea of returning home and decided to settle down in Fuyang.

Who would have thought that after so many twists and turns, she would return to the city? Now she feels that life is so wonderful and no longer thinks about those messy things.

Wen Jiajia returned home and put her newly received salary into an iron box. This was her start-up capital for the next few years.

Then the New Year’s Eve dinner began.

The New Year’s Eve dinner was as sumptuous as last year. Wen Jiajia ate so much that her belly was full. Even if she didn’t want to stay up all night, she had to stay up all night.

This year, no one dared to set off big firecrackers, only children were playing with small firecrackers.

Wen Jiajia and Wei Dai were sitting in the living room, one reciting a lesson and the other carving peach charms.

The Xie family next door had a chime clock. When 12 o’clock came, marking the first day of the Lunar New Year in 1977, the clock rang, indicating that even though it was dark at this moment, the new year had begun.

As the new year begins, everything starts anew.

“It’s already 1977,” Wen Jiajia put down the book and muttered to herself. She had waited for this year for a long time.

Wei Dai stood up and went outside to hang the peach charms for blessing and warding off misfortune on the door, praying that everything would go well for the family in the coming year.

Wen Jiajia, who was so tired that she didn’t have a holiday until New Year’s Eve, wanted to collapse on the bed on New Year’s Day.

However, the first day of the New Year is crucial. No matter how tired you are, you must appear to be full of energy.

The weather was good that day, the sun was shining and the temperature was just right, so the family went out for a walk.

After a day’s stroll, Wen Jiajia was unwilling to get up on the second day of the New Year and rested in bed for the whole day. She even spent the third day of the New Year at home.

On the fourth day of the New Year, she went back to the factory to work.

The days after the New Year were like being on an accelerator. She didn’t see how it went, and in the blink of an eye, it was already the Lantern Festival. After the Lantern Festival, the New Year is over.

During these ten days, Wen Jiajia went out early and came back late every day, busy with exchanges with the Yunnan Medical Glass Factory.

The two companies have a lot of overlap in products, which means there is a lot for both sides to discuss.

Because of the long distance, there is no overlap in sales areas, so the two factories are relatively harmonious at the moment.

However, Wen Jiajia thought that when the market was liberalized and transportation became more convenient in the future, the two medical glass factories would probably fight to the death for orders.

As the actual person in charge of leading this exchange meeting, Wen Jiajia ran around so much that her legs became thinner. She arranged accommodation and meals, and she was only able to take a break at the end of the month.

However, she was still nervous because the exchange meeting had begun and she had to keep an eye on it. This was the first time she was assigned to take charge of a major task after assuming her new position, and no accidents could happen.

***

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