CH 27

MASS UPDATE (4/5)

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The letter Wei Jianwei wrote to his home was taken apart and read together at night when the family was in the shade.

The letter wrote about his situation in the army, asking how his family is, whether his parents are in good health, and how the crops are growing.

Wang Chunhua was illiterate so Wei Zhenxing read the letter. Wang Chunhua took it and carefully smoothed the wrinkles on the letter, with joy on her face.

"Jianhua will come back tomorrow, let him write a reply to Jianwei. Xiaoyun, do you want to write something? Then let Jianhua take write it and send it together." Wang Chunhua said to He Xiaoyun.

There is no mailing point on the brigade, and postmen are not often encountered here. In the past, the letters for Wei Jianwei had to wait for Wei Jianhua to come back home, let him write a reply from them, and send them to the commune when he went to school.

"Good." He Xiaoyun nodded.

Putting Wei Yuanhang to sleep at night, He Xiaoyun lit the kerosene lamp, found the pen and paper from the drawer of Wei Jianwei's desk, and began to think about what to write.

The first line of the letter is difficult. If she writes 'Wei Jianwei', it seems too serious and unfamiliar, but if she writes 'Jianwei', it feels a little too intimate. Although He Xiaoyun called him Jianwei in front of others, she didn't call him that face to face. Thinking about it carefully, Wei Jianwei didn't seem to call her name either.

He Xiaoyun couldn't help taking out Wei Jianwei's letter and wanted to see what his title was written. Although she had read it this afternoon, she didn't pay attention to it at the time.

He wrote Xiaoyun.

He Xiaoyun put the letter paper on the table and poked it with her hand, and felt that it was intimate. Was I familiar with you?! (He Xiaoyun's thoughts, of course, directed at her husband~)

After struggling for a while, she awkwardly wrote the word Jianwei on the top line of the letter. The greetings are also done similarly. Wei Jianwei wrote how is it recently been? He Xiaoyun also wrote, how are you recently.

In the first line, she wrote on the paper that she have received his letters, and then answered Wei Jianwei's question about her current situation with the child, and then got stuck again, not knowing what to write next.

He Xiaoyun stared at the short lines of words on the paper and wanted to end it there. But the words seemed too shabby, and she wanted to continue writing. Nothing happened recently.

This kind of pain is like when He Xiaoyun's a student in the past when the teacher wanted them to write an 800 words essay but just managed to write 600 words and can't continue anymore. 

The sleeping child made a babble or two. He Xiaoyun turned her head and looked at him. She made sure that the child was not awake, and turned back sadly. Finally, she simply put the pen away and went to bed first.

The next day, Wei Jianhua returned home, and as soon as he stepped into the door, Wang Chunhua made him sit at the table and asked him to write back to his second brother.

"Mom, I'm so hot, let me rest for a while." Wei Jianhua wailed.

Wang Chunhua said, "Just write first and it will naturally cool down, hurry up." After she finished speaking, she picked up the big fan to fan her younger son and poured him a bowl of tea.

Faced with such a thoughtful service and the threat of a big broom on her mother's side, Wei Jianhua didn't dare to be angry, so he had to start writing bitterly.

Wang Chunhua said one sentence, and Jianhua wrote one sentence. Xiaoyun, who is by Chunhua's side, pricked her ears to listen, trying to learn some experience.

"Everything is fine at home, you don't have to worry. You should eat well if you are alone. You can't sleep without covering yourself with a quilt at night because of the cold weather. If you sweat after training, you shouldn't shower immediately." 

After listening, He Xiaoyun became embarrassed. What Wang Chunhua said was what a mother would say to a child. Even if she learned it, she could only tell it to the chubby kid, and not to Wei Jianwei. He Xiaoyun sighed rather distressedly.

After doing the housework and having no other work to do, He Xiaoyun went back to her room, sat at the table, and poked the letter here and there with a pen. Wei Yuanhang ran in with something in his hand, and said as if offering a treasure: "Mom! Uncle caught me a worm!"

"It's a Ladybug." He Xiaoyun still stared at the paper, correcting her son without raising her head.

The child tried to say it twice, but the word "lady" really tripped his tongue. He couldn't say it correctly, so he didn't say it at all and tried to climb onto his mother's leg.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

He Xiaoyun lifted the child up and let him sit on her lap, "I'm writing to your father. Do you have anything to say to him?"

Wei Yuanhang immediately talked: "Yes! I want to tell dad that grandma caught an insect and it turned into a butterfly. Yanyan still doesn't believe it, she's stupid. Uncle said that I have a perverted intention. Mom, what is a perverted intention? Grandma said that next time Dad comes back, he will bring me orange candies. I want him to bring many orange candies..."

He Xiaoyun was speechless as soon as Yuanhang spoke. The child was like an untightened faucet. Seeing her frozen, the child urged, "Mom, write it quickly."

He Xiaoyun put him on the ground again, "I'm going to write, you can go and play with your uncle."

The little kid is verbose. It’s really not enough to write what he said. However, his words inspired Xiaoyun. These days, no major incidents have happened, but some trivial things can be written, just to make up the number of words. (T/N: Me when teachers wanted me to write what happened at our home.)

"That day, when you left early in the morning, the little kid woke up and didn't see you. Later, he found that all the butterflies in the wooden box had already flown away, so he cried a lot. You say, did he cry for you or his butterflies?"

When He Xiaoyun wrote this paragraph, thinking of Wei Yuanhang's grievance that day when he burst into tears and bubbled his nose with snots, He Xiaoyun still wanted to laugh.

She continued to write with a smile: "He told me just now that, when you came back, you should bring him a lot of orange candies. You're his father but your status seems lower than his orange candies."

"Second sister-in-law?" As she was writing, Wei Jianhua suddenly poked a head in from outside the door. He Xiaoyun looked up at him, still holding a pen in her hand, "What's the matter?"

Wei Jianhua walked in with a book in his hand: "I finished reading the book I borrowed from my second brother last time."

He Xiaoyun nodded, she opened the drawer, and let him put it in, and jokingly said: "What books you still needed, you take it yourself, anyway, your second brother is not here, he won't know if we sold all of his books."

"Second sister-in-law dare to sell, but I dare not. Second brother will hang me up and beat me when he comes back." Wei Jianhua smiled and took another book from the drawer, looking scared.

He Xiaoyun remembered that he had borrowed this book before, and couldn't help but ask: "Didn't you read this book before?"

"Ah? Ah..." Wei Jianhua's eyes flickered, "My classmate wants to borrow it."

He Xiaoyun asked casually: "A male student or a female student?"

"What male classmates and female classmates?" Wei Jianhua suddenly put on a very serious expression, "We are all in a pure revolutionary friendship, don't think too much about this second sister-in-law."

He Xiaoyun didn’t think about anything at first, but seeing Wei Jinhua so squeamish, she'd understood. "I know. Pure. Revolutionary. Friendship. I understand~"

Wei Jianhua felt that he stabbed himself, "Second sister-in-law, don't tell mom, otherwise she will beat me to death."

He Xiaoyun had teased him enough and then smiled: "Don't worry, I am not a person with a big mouth, but since you have said that it is pure, it must be pure to the end. You can't bully other girls."

Wei Jianhua nodded, took the book, and ran away.

He Xiaoyun turned her attention to the letter again, and only after looking at it did she realize that she just lowered her head and unknowingly, she had written a page full of words, and she hadn't finished it yet.

She pondered for three seconds, then took out another piece of paper.

—I’ve written so much anyway, it’s okay to write more.

When Wei Jianhua is at home, he and Wei Yuanhang can turn the house upside down.

At dinner, He Xiaoyun knew that Wei Jianhua took his little nephew out in the afternoon and secretly picked the grapes from someone's backyard. The grapes were immature, green, and sour, and the two of them eat too much and even had sore tongues.

Now, the family is eating, the two of them are watching from the sidelines, Wang Chunhua just sits and watched them a little before letting them leave the table.

"I'll go and tell the other family in a moment that someone in our family has stolen his grapes." 

Wei Jianhua retorted in a low voice: "It wasn't secretly picking! The vines have grown out of the yard."

"That's still someone else's!" Wang Chunhua said in a bad mood, "And you also brought Xiaoyuan, a three-year-old kid! If this is known by your second brother, see if he doesn't beat you!"

Speaking of the second brother, Wei Jianhua shrank his neck and dared not speak.

Finally, Wei Zhenxing said, "Let’s eat first, and talk about this later."

The two who made the mistake obediently sat down. Although they were allowed to eat, they were not happy at all, because their teeth and tongues were really sour and they couldn't bite the tofu.

"Mom, my tongue is so uncomfortable." Wei Yuanhang groaned beside He Xiaoyun.

He Xiaoyun was ruthless: "Mom will feed you some grapes and it will be fine soon."

The little kid groaned inwardly, and he didn't dare to act like a baby anymore and ate grievously.

After the meal, He Xiaoyun folded the written letter and gave it to Wei Jianhua. The two letters were put in an envelope.

Although he couldn't see what she wrote, the handwriting appeared densely packed from the back of the paper. Wei Jianhua asked curiously, "Second sister-in-law wrote a lot, what did you say?"

He Xiaoyun pointed to Wei Yuanhang and sold him on the spot, "It's all what Xiaoyuan wants to say to his father."

The child puffed his chest and proudly said: "I have told my father a lot!"

"More than that, there must be some sweet words from Xiaoyun to Jianwei." Feng Qiuyue laughed.

Wei Jianhua also thinks so, and he especially wants to know, what would a person like the second brother say to his second sister-in-law? What will the second sister-in-law write to his second brother?

Looking at the envelope in his hand, Wei Jianhua felt that his curiosity was about to move.

But within a second, he remembered the fist of his second brother and the fierce fighting power of his second sister-in-law in the afternoon, and his little curiosity immediately wilted.

Alas, life is not easy. I hit walls everywhere, and my teeth are still aching