NOVPUB
Chapter 277: Chapter 267 Preparing to Move House
As Li Hongjun’s vacation was nearing its end, the couple at home began to bustle about with preparations. Li Hongjun took charge of packing up the outside, while Shen Yunfang was responsible for organizing the inside.
Originally, both of them thought about just bringing their bedding and leaving lightly, but after deciding to hire a vehicle, Shen Yunfang figured she should take everything that could be useful there with them. The things left behind might not be of use later, and if they were needed on the other side, they’d have to spend money to buy them again. So, after discussing it, they agreed, if it’s useful, they’d take it; since they had the car, they might as well load it up completely.
Shen Yunfang was tidying up inside, which actually meant watching the kids. What else was there in the house? Just a table, a standing cabinet, and bedding, which could just be rolled up when moving out. Therefore, she didn’t have much to do and just lay around with the children, waiting until they woke up, then she would be responsible for playing with them.
Li Hongjun had it tough; beyond the door of the east room, everything else was his domain. He started by tidying up the cellar.
After heading down into the cellar, he moved everything out in batches, placing the grain sacks against the wall. They hadn’t eaten much of the grain distributed this year, and with the additional corn and sweet potatoes harvested from their own plot, at first glance, there seemed to be quite a stockpile. Just the one-hundred-pound hemp sacks were lined up in a row of ten; of course, three of them contained sweet potatoes, four were filled with corn kernels, the remaining two were filled with rice, and the last sack was patched together from smaller bags of various grains.
Next to the grain, there were also two fifty-pound barrels of soybean oil, which was pressed by Shen Yunfang from soybeans harvested in the fall and taken to the collective for processing.
Besides grain, the cellar contained some fall vegetables like cabbage, radishes, potatoes, ridge gourds, winter melons, carrots, and some sun-dried vegetables from autumn. 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝑝𝑢𝘣.𝑐𝑜𝑚
These were all produced from the home garden. The fall vegetables grown on the hillside behind the house had all been moved into Shen Yunfang’s special space – there was much more there than at home.
After Li Hongjun moved everything out of the cellar, he went inside to fetch his wife.
"Pack all this up," he said, meaning to put them into the special space.
Shen Yunfang didn’t ask any questions and promptly began collecting the hemp sacks Li Hongjun pointed to.
"Are we only taking this little bit with us?" By the wall, only two hemp sacks remained along with a small pile of fall vegetables—the dried vegetables hadn’t been touched and made up a sizeable bundle as well.
"Mhm, it’s enough. Our move will definitely cause quite a stir, and it wouldn’t look good for others to see us bringing so much stuff," Li Hongjun said. Although he had never lived in a military family residential area, he still had some understanding of the situation there.
Many soldiers had family burdens. Some of them had to send half of their monthly salary back home to support their parents and siblings, leaving many families without much to spare. Like in winter, many people in the residential area couldn’t even afford cabbage, resorting to salted vegetables instead. Under these circumstances, if their family moved in with so much cabbage, radishes, and the like, it was bound to cause trouble.
Shen Yunfang nodded, understanding. After all, anything extra could be tossed into her special space. Once the door was closed and they were living their own small life, who would know what delicious things she was making at home? With the special space, she had much more flexibility.
After Shen Yunfang finished packing the items, she went back inside to check on the kids. Li Hongjun cleaned up the cellar in the morning, and in the afternoon, he began to dig in the backyard.
What was in the backyard? Haha, it was all good stuff. Shen Yunfang hadn’t skimped on brewing liquor these past couple of years. She experimented with different kinds of grains from their home for brewing and eventually found that rice yielded the most fragrant and mellow liquor. So, later on, she focused exclusively on using rice for brewing. Over two years, she brewed twenty-eight jars of liquor, each contained in a fifty-pound jar. Except for the jar dug up when Li Hongjun was injured, the rest had all been buried underground.
Only a few jars were buried in the backyard because there simply wasn’t enough space. Subsequently, Shen Yunfang buried the liquor she brewed in the hill behind the house.
While Li Hongjun wasn’t much of a drinker, he had a special fondness for the liquor brewed by his wife, so he planned to take all of her brewed liquor with them when they moved.
Shen Yunfang didn’t bother with him, letting him dig if he desired. The ground outside had already frozen solid, so if he didn’t mind the exhausting work, he could dig away. After all, he had been brimming with energy these past days and had nowhere to release it.
By nightfall, Li Hongjun had already moved eight large jars back from outside.
The next morning, bright and early, Li Hongjun prepared breakfast for his wife, then shouldered his hoe and headed up the mountain. In the afternoon, Shen Yunfang tightly wrapped her son on her back and casually strolled up the mountain to pick up her husband.
With so many wine jars, even if Li Hongjun had eight hands, he wouldn’t have been able to carry them all back by himself.
Upon reaching the slope, she saw Li Hongjun wearing only a sweater and still throwing himself into the work. Next to him was a row of more than ten wine jars, showing he really hadn’t slacked off all day.
Shen Yunfang packed up the wine jars, and then the family of three leisurely made their way back home before it got dark.
The next day, Li Hongjun spent another whole day up there, and all the wine jars on the mountain had been dug out and stored in Shen Yunfang’s space.
"Yunfang, Yunfang, hey, are you home? Hurry up and tie up your dog, I’m coming in."
Li Hongjun was tidying up the western room while Shen Yunfang was in the eastern room, sorting out little Pangpang’s clothes. Tomorrow was the day they were moving, so the couple was busy with the last of their preparations.
As there was a man at home, Shen Yunfang’s front door wasn’t locked. Stretching her neck to look outside from the room, she saw that it was indeed Second Aunt, who came jogging in.
Frightened by Taxue’s bite before, Second Aunt made sure to announce herself before entering, fearing that Taxue would jump out from nowhere and bite her again.
"My goodness, you’re still in the mood to fold clothes. You have no idea, your niece Yunxiu just walked into some incredible luck. Fang Chengjian from her family can actually move back to the city now," Second Aunt blurted out, not even bothering with formalities after entering the room and immediately announcing this shocking news.
Shen Yunfang was truly surprised. What happened with Uncle Shen, allowing such a thing.
But as surprising as that was, it was someone else’s business, specifically that of a person she disliked, so what did it have to do with her, anyway?
"He can go back, huh? Well, that’s good for Shen Yunxiu. It seems her hard times have finally paid off," Shen Yunfang said nonchalantly.
"Oh, you girl, how can you be so clueless? If Fang Chengjian goes back to the city, Yunxiu will surely follow him, and then she’ll become a city person," said Second Aunt, speaking very quickly, her urgency clear.
"City person, so what? Isn’t our eldest cousin also a city person?" Shen Yunfang was not very interested in engaging with Second Aunt.
Ever since she found out that her eldest cousin was one of the informants against her, and after multiple verifications revealed that it was solely the cousin’s personal action, with Second Uncle and Second Aunt seemingly unaware, she never felt close to the couple. Now, she was even less inclined to feel any warmth toward them. However, while she kept her distance, Second Aunt lacked such awareness, always eagerly bringing her the latest gossip first.
