Lin Wan quickly greeted people to come in, "Sorry, I got up late."
"On snowy days , it’s a good time to sleep in. If it weren’t for having kids at home, I would love to stay in bed longer too. I really envy you folks who don’t have children yet. You can sleep as long as you want. And it’s not just you who got up late, Xiao Yu hasn’t gotten up either." Wang Guihua wasn’t afraid of the cold as she played outside in the snow with her daughter, Miao Miao. Seeing Lin Wan, she teased her with a laugh and then whispered in her ear, "By the way, the person who visited your house yesterday was a leader, right? Did you have an argument? I saw that the leader had a dark expression when he left."
Lin Wan forced a smile on her face, trying to show a friendly expression. She said, "It’s nothing, the weather is too cold. I’ll head back inside." With that, she followed the soldiers into the yard.
Behind her, Wang Guihua pursed her lips.
The yard wasn’t big, and two or three soldiers quickly pushed the accumulated snow away, leaving only the snow in front of Lin Wan’s inner house, which she chose to handle herself. She planned to build a snowman. After sending off the soldiers, Lin Wan ate a bun and drank some hot water to warm her stomach, then swept the yard and the windowsill.
With one broom sweep, she uncovered a large pile of snow-covered money. Lin Wan quickly picked them up, counting two thousand yuan; thankfully, none was missing. Yesterday, Mei Shuping had left the money on the windowsill and hadn’t taken it back.
Lin Wan placed the money back inside, waiting for Han Yi to return and deal with it.
For lunch, Lin Wan made soup noodles for two. By twelve-thirty, there was still no sign of Han Yi coming back. He was probably held up by something; during the Spring Festival, quite a few leaders come for inspections, making this time especially busy.
In the afternoon, knitting a newly started sweater, Lin Wan closed the door and headed to Sister-in-law Zhang’s house.
On the way, she saw many kids in the large yard using brooms as sleds, pulling each other back and forth.
They didn’t wear much, but played so much that they were sweating.
Occasionally, she also spotted several groups of women chatting indoors. Some families were busy in the kitchen, wrapping dumplings.
When Lin Wan arrived at the tubular building, she could hear the laughter of children echoing in the stairway from afar.
Each floor of the tubular building had a long corridor, with wooden doors of each household lined up on one side. Near the stairs or at the end of a floor, there was the water room, opposite which was the public restroom. To one side of the water room was a communal kitchen. Each family had space for a table where they could place a cutting board, alongside a honeycomb coal stove. Many households had makeshift honeycomb coal stoves at their doorway. The corridors were perpetually shrouded in a homelike blackness, filled with the mixed scents of toilet and food. Even in winter, you could faintly smell it.
Sister-in-law Zhang’s house was on the second floor, on the side opposite the stairs, fortunately not right next to the restroom, otherwise, in the summer, the smell would make living there unbearable.
When Lin Wan arrived, Zhang Cuiping was chopping dumpling fillings in the communal kitchen.
Seeing Lin Wan coming, she quickly brought the prepared stuffing into the house and led Lin Wan inside.
The layout of the room was similar to theirs. A desk, a dining table, and the wardrobe in the house were the same as theirs, all said to be distributed by the military. The only difference was that here, the kang was directly burned indoors.
Burning indoors inevitably creates some smell and also poses a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
At Grandma’s house, the room she and Han Yi lived in also had a kang burned indoors. There was always some smoke smell.
"The house is a bit messy, please don’t mind, dear sister-in-law."
"All families have the same layout, Sister-in-law’s place is quite clean, Huang Yingzhang is lucky to have married you."
"You’re right, sis. He’s such a brute, marrying me, indeed ends up living a life of clothing handed to him and food brought on the table. Don’t look at him training all day in the army, but at home, he’s really lazy."
Zhang Cuiping’s straightforwardness made Lin Wan laugh heartily. She loved hanging out with Sister-in-law Zhang. Conversations with her were much more enjoyable compared to Wang Guihua and Sun Yu.