"Aunt, I haven’t finished speaking yet. The main point is how to treat it," Xiao Xian’s words really hit the nail on the head. Zhuo Feng hurriedly continued, talking about how to prevent frost damage on fruit trees, moving on to trimming the diseased branches and leaves, then loosening the soil again, improving the field, and finally using the prepared potion to clean the spots and the cuts from the pruned branches and leaves, which made Old Lady Feng nod and shake her head.
The loosening of soil and pruning were easy to handle, but when it ca to how many tis to dilute iodine, how many tis to mix the solution, Old Lady Feng couldn’t understand. Just think about the villagers who use traditional thods to plant fruit trees – experts on fruit trees seldom visit the village in a year, let alone understand such complicated nas just by hearing them, which could easily confuse the farrs.
"Aunt, this is simple. We can just buy the ready-made potion from the street and let Grandma bring it back. And didn’t you just say in the room that you would take Grandma out shopping?" Old hens and tens of pounds of potatoes and apples were carried over, surely carrying back a few bottles of undiluted pesticide wouldn’t be difficult.
"Oh, right, mom, what do you think?" Zhuo Feng carefully looked at Old Lady Feng.
Going shopping? Old Lady Feng had been to Beijing two or three tis, once was to attend her son and daughter-in-law’s wedding banquet, and everyone was busy at that ti, so no one suggested taking her to explore Beijing.
The second ti was when she and Zhuo Feng parted on bad terms. Old Lady Feng was so upset that she couldn’t even recognize directions, let alone have the mood to stroll around.
This ti was her third visit. Unexpectedly, her daughter-in-law suggested taking her out to the streets.
"Grandma, where do you want to go? Tianann, Wangfujing, Beihai Park, all these places are fun, you can visit any of them," Xiao Xian listed the places, so of which even she hadn’t visited yet; after all, she wasn’t truly Chinese, and she wasn’t keen on those places considered "touristic landmarks" by Chinese locals.
But Old Lady Feng was different. Her generation grew up under the red flag, listening to revolutionary songs, watching photos of Chairman Mao. In her several visits to Beijing, her most desired place to visit was Tianann, to see Chairman Mao’s photo. But her son never ntioned it, and her daughter-in-law wasn’t her biological daughter, so she couldn’t bring up the matter of spending money herself.
"Just go to Tianann to have a look; other places cost money, right?" Old Lady Feng finally managed to utter a sentence.
Hearing this, Zhuo Feng suddenly slapped his thigh, "Before going to Tianann, let’s go sowhere else first, and later find Feng Xing in his office and all go to Quanjude for a al."
At that mont, Feng Xing was also unsettled in his office, occasionally looking at the office phone, resisting the urge to call back ho.
Just don’t start a quarrel. Feng Xing knew so of Zhuo Feng’s dislikes towards his mother’s habits, but after all, she was the mother who struggled to raise him. There were so things, even Zhuo Feng never ntioned.
Feng Xing was a posthumous child; when he was young, his family was poor, and the apple cultivation industry had not developed. Feng Xing’s biological father used to carry bricks to supplent the family’s inco for the town’s brick factory.
Old Lady Feng was just over twenty when she first beca pregnant with Feng Xing. When she was about to give birth at ho, the village received bad news: Feng Xing’s father had been killed by a brick-carrying truck during his work.
A woman who was pregnant, with no support in her impoverished maternal ho, Old Lady Feng gritted her teeth and married a widower in the village who had no sons. It was agreed at the ti that after Feng Xing was born, the man would treat Feng Xing as his own son, but good tis didn’t last. When Feng Xing was three years old, Old Lady Feng got pregnant and bore the widower a son.
Once the widower had his own son, his treatnt of Feng Xing worsened day by day. While the younger could eat cornbread, Feng Xing, being older, could only drink thin porridge. All the heavy work at ho was also assigned to him.
The injustices her son suffered were all witnessed by Old Lady Feng, but she dared not speak up, only secretly hiding so good food to save for Feng Xing. When the old widower found out, she unavoidably faced another bout of beating and scolding.
From that ti, Feng Xing vowed that if he ever got married, he would cherish his wife for life.
No matter how tough the days were, as long as one endured, there was a way out. Ultimately, Feng Xing made his mother proud; with the savings from eggs and duck eggs collected by Old Lady Feng, he finished high school. During the college entrance exams, he achieved third place in their county and received a scholarship from the governnt, moving from Shandong to Beijing, completed his university education, passed the civil service exam, and thoroughly changed his destiny from a farr toiling in the fields.
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