“Mom, I also want to drink brown sugar water.”
“I also want to drink it too, Mom!”
The couple’s two young children were a little jealous when they saw Cheng and Xiulan drinking brown sugar water.
Caixia smiled and touched the heads of the two children. “Liangliang, Juanjuan, we’re about to eat soon so you can’t drink it now. If you drink enough of it, you won’t be able to eat for a while. Your father bought some pork belly today and I will make braised pork for you, okay?”
When the two children heard that they were eating braised pork, their eyes lit up. They couldn’t help swallowing saliva into their stomachs as they thought of the taste of meat.
In this era of scarcity, especially the Great Famine that began last year, the whole country was short of foodstuff and it was very difficult to get meat to eat.
Qingguo and Caixia were both urban workers. They could still receive a few grams of meat coupons a month, but they had to send some of the meat coupons to their parents’ homes. If all these coupons were used by their own family, they could have an estimated supply of a kilo of meat a month and could eat meat twice a month. But this was still not enough, let alone for their greedy children, because even the couple themselves were greedy adults.
After Caixia said that they would have braised pork for lunch, the two children nodded heavily and did not continue to ask for brown sugar water anymore.
Caixia pulled the two children to greet Xiulan and Cheng, then turned around and went to prepare for cooking.
Xiulan was about to follow over to help, but she refused.
***Original translation is from enchantesstranslations.com. Please read it on the translator’s website.***
She treated Xiulan as a guest, so how could she let the guest do some housework?
After a few polite words, she still didn’t accept some help, so Xiulan had no choice but to give up this idea.
When the children saw Xiulan come into their house, because it was the first time they saw her, they were very curious about her and stared at her with their big black and bright eyes.
Both children were very good-looking, like porcelain dolls. The conditions in Qingguo’s family were much better than Xiulan’s family, so Xiuzhu and her were thin and skinny, but Qingguo’s two children were very round, with a lot of flesh on their faces, and their expressions were much better, so they also looked much better.
Seeing the two children, Xiulan also liked them very much. She smiled and beckoned to them, but the children might be afraid of strangers and did not come over to her.
She pretended to take something out of her pocket, but she actually took out a handful of toffees from the space, then she waved to the children again. “Come here and I’ll give you some candies, okay?”
For children, especially in this era, the allure of toffees was too great.
The children didn’t dare to approach Xiulan at first, but now that they saw the toffees in her hands, they couldn’t help but lean over.
“Come and take these!”
She separated the candies, one by one, and stuffed them into the children’s hands.
“Thank you, Sister!”
“Sister, thank you so much!”
They expressed their gratitude in a sweet way.
Qingguo and Caixia had very good literacy, so they taught their children to be very polite as well.
Xiulan smiled at them. “You’re welcome!”
Qingguo, who was on the side, was unable to contain himself and said, “Comrade Xiulan, just keep such a good thing for yourself. Why did you give it to these two little ones?”
Toffee was also a rare thing in this era and most people really couldn’t eat it.
However, Xiulan directly grabbed a lot for his two children.
“Comrade Lu, I still have a lot left here, so don’t worry. Children like to eat candy and it’s okay to give them some,” Xiulan said with a smile.
Qingguo didn’t know what to say in response. In order to thank Xiulan for her help last time, he asked her to stay for a meal, but she spent more money for giving these candies to his children in the end.