country bumpkin

Chapter 355 Taking a Family Photo

Time flies like an arrow, and soon it will be the end of the year again, time for another holiday.

In the middle of the twelfth lunar month, Yunya discovered that her right shoulder was in severe pain.

She went to a small clinic outside, and the doctor said it was frozen shoulder. It was probably from working on the assembly line; the stress had taken its toll.

Especially since she repeated the same movement for two years, and her physical condition wasn't very good to begin with. The combination of overexertion and exposure to cold inevitably led to frozen shoulder.

There's no good way to treat this minor ailment; you can only keep warm and get plenty of rest.

After applying the medicated plaster for several days, it didn't fully heal; it only relieved the pain a little. Yunya then took two days off work.

On the third day, Yunya went to work, but her shoulder was badly aggravated again. She felt that if she continued to work like this, her shoulder would be ruined.

So Yunya and Zhu Yanan discussed it and decided not to come next year. They will go home at the end of this year and stay in their hometown to find work.

Tong Jiahui had long been fed up with this job. She sat all day, and in the summer heat, her buttocks were covered in pimples and prickly heat.

Zhu Yanan agreed with their suggestion; she'd had enough too. The main reason she was fed up was that there were always queues for hot water at meals, and people were fighting over the taps for showers and laundry. She couldn't have had enough.

It's the end of the year and many people want to resign, but the factory is afraid of disrupting normal operations next year, so they don't allow people to resign casually.

Only older single women who have reached marriageable age can have their resignation letters approved.

Yunya and her friends were obviously young, only 20 years old according to their fake IDs, so how could they be allowed to leave?

So, a few days before the holiday, the three of them started moving their luggage out. They had clothes for both summer and winter, as well as bed sheets and duvet covers.

They had to be taken out in advance so that it would be easy to leave. But the blankets and rice bowls could only be thrown over the east wall of the factory before leaving.

Normally, the security guards at the gate watch employees leave the gate, checking the contents of bags and searching their bodies if they are carrying anything.

Finally, the day of vacation arrived, and Yunya and her two friends said their final goodbyes to their roommates. She also told Baiyan and the others that they wouldn't be coming back next year.

Bai Yan didn't say anything. Actually, she didn't want to continue working there either, but what good job could she find after returning home?

Putting aside the question of whether jobs are easy to find in my hometown, even if I did find one, the salary would be much lower than here.

Once everyone was on the bus home, reflecting on the events of the past two years at the shoe factory, it felt like a dream of working there.

Yunya and the others took a direct bus back to their hometown. Some areas don't have direct buses, so they have to take the train.

Jiang Yuqing and Shen Xingchen, Qi Qiaodi and Gu Jingxuan all returned to their hometowns ahead of time, and their parents held weddings for them at the end of the year.

Shen Xingchen kept his word; he quit his job and followed Jiang Yuqing back to her hometown to find work.

After getting married, Qi Qiaodi followed Gu Jingxuan to the military base and became a military dependent.

Yang Tiantian went home after the holiday started. He Shibing went back with her.

He no longer has a home, no relatives to celebrate the New Year with, and no one to wait for him to reunite with his family. In that case, he might as well go with his girlfriend to her mother's house for the New Year.

Whether Yang Tiantian's parents agree or not is no longer important. Because the two of them have already rented an apartment and moved in together for two months. This is equivalent to cohabitation after marriage.

Yang Tiantian brought her boyfriend home, and everyone in the neighborhood saw it. They all assumed that the two were together and that no one would have any more thoughts about Yang Tiantian.

The matchmakers who wanted to arrange marriages all gave up. Meanwhile, the news of Yang Tiantian returning to the village with her boyfriend spread like wildfire throughout the village.

The two planned to work for another year before considering marriage, since they didn't have much money.

Once I've saved up some money, I can go back to my hometown to start a business in animal husbandry, or contract land in the mountains.

After planning our future life together, it's time to discuss the engagement. Getting the engagement settled first will also silence the gossip in the village.

Yang Tiantian's parents took full responsibility for this matter. He Shibing called his father to inform him of his engagement.

He's father made excuses, saying that his stepmother was unwell and he had to take care of her, so he could only send He Shibing the betrothal money.

In He Shibing's heart, it didn't matter whether people came or not. As long as his father was willing to pay the bride price, he would still acknowledge him as his father.

In the afternoon, the bride price finally arrived in the account, and 5000 yuan was withdrawn from He Shibing's bank account.

Although it wasn't 6600 or one in ten thousand, He Shibing was still quite content. He had thought his father was only giving him 2000 yuan as a token gesture, but now it seemed his father wasn't so heartless after all.

The engagement banquet was held the next day, and He Shibing stated that he would settle down in Yang Tiantian's hometown and would not let his wife live too far away from his mother-in-law.

The village gossips started talking about Yang Tiantian's family again. They said Yang Tiantian had found a son-in-law who would live with her family, and that he had even brought 5000 yuan with him.

Some people started to get envious and spread rumors about He Shibing everywhere. Since their daughters were all married out of the country, they weren't afraid of being gossiped about. They could just go ahead and make things up about He Shibing.

He Shibing didn't care about any of that; he only cared about his current happy life. He had a family now, and a wife, someone to spend the rest of his life with.

After the engagement, He Shibing stayed in Yang Tiantian's hometown until the day before work was scheduled to start before returning to the shoe factory with Yang Tiantian.

The two of them are now just waiting to save money so they can go home and get married next year.

…………

Yi Chengyun spent New Year's Eve in the city. She thought about it and realized that she hadn't been back to Kongjia Village for the New Year for several years since she started working.

I wonder how Grandma's health is. She's going to visit Grandma with her mother after the second day of the Lunar New Year.

First, prepare some pastries, fruits, dried fruits, and other snacks, which are Grandma's favorites.

Kong Xiujuan bought new shoes for Mu Shuyun, and Kong Xiufen also bought new shoes for Kong Tongming.

Kong Xiufang took two pieces of clothing from her own shop, one for her parents and one for herself.

The second daughter, Kong Xiuzhen, had just finished paying off the debt for buying a household registration, so the family didn't have much money. Like Yunya, she only bought some food.

The third sister, Kong Xiufen, also bought a lot of vegetables and brought some meat. A whole bag of vegetables was overflowing.

All the sisters came back, and naturally, their granddaughters, grandsons, and sons-in-law all came too.

With all the younger generation gathered, Kong Xiufang suggested taking a family photo as a memento.

So the younger brother, Kong Xiangyao, drove to town, rented a camera, and came back to take pictures of the whole family.

The family photo was taken by our neighbor, Granny Zhang, who lives across the hall. Kong Xiangyao even spent quite a while teaching her how to do it.

Finally, we took a family photo, three in a row. There were also photos of the four sisters together. The two brothers weren't photographed because the eldest wasn't there, and taking a picture would remind the elders of sad memories.