My village can't be like this

Chapter 600: Lively Village (Part )
When the boat docked, Ding Yi got off the boat first and brought the two little guys to the shore, and then Zhang An turned off the engine and locked the boat.

At this time, an old man with a kind expression walked towards them.

"Hello, young man."

While talking to Zhang An and the others, the old man took out a cigarette box and walked over.

"Hello, uncle. Forget about that. I don't smoke. Just tell me when you want to smoke."

Zhang An, who never smoked, waved at the old man and refused the cigarette he gave him.

Although Ding Yi smoked, he restrained himself because his son was by his side.

"I just heard that this boat is yours. You won't be using it later, right?"

When the old man was handing out cigarettes, he had already taken out one. When he saw that Zhang An and Ding Yi didn't smoke, he put it back into the cigarette box.

"Yes, it's ours. Mainly because the two little guys like the novelty and clamored to come play. But after a short while, they lost interest and shouted to come down."

Zhang An pointed at the two little kids holding hands on the ground, and said with a smile to the old man in front of him.

"Children are all like this. My grandson is the same. He keeps asking to take a boat ride. However, the tickets we bought are relatively late, so we still have to wait a long time. I don't think you will need the boat for the time being, so why don't you rent it to us for a while?"

After looking at Xiao Siqi and Ding Zijie lying on the ground, the old man turned around and pointed at a little kid in the crowd who was looking at them and said to Zhang An.

The child was his grandson, who looked about three or four years old, much older than Xiao Siqi and Ding Zijie.

"Do not."

When Xiao Siqi heard this, he immediately shook his head and said crisply.

Although the little guy is not very old, he has already started learning to protect his food.

As soon as he heard that the person in front of him wanted something from his house, he immediately put on an angry look.

Ding Zijie, who always followed his lead, immediately said "no".

"Qiqi, don't be rude."

Zhang An first pretended to be fierce, glared at his son and gave him a lecture, then said embarrassedly.

"I'm sorry, uncle, this child has been spoiled by his family."

"Haha, it's okay. Children always say the right things. Besides, it's nothing."

The old man spoke as if he didn't care. On the contrary, he thought the two little ones in front of him were quite smart. Normally, children of this age still need to be held by their mothers.

"Uncle, I may not be able to rent this boat to you because..."

Although the little guy interrupted, Zhang An still had no intention of renting out his boat.

But before he could finish his explanation, he was interrupted by the old man.

"Young man, since you don't need it anyway, just rent it to us for a while. We can pay twice or even more for the ticket price."

When the old man heard that Zhang An was not planning to lend the money, he thought that Zhang An was afraid that he would get it for free, so he quickly launched a financial offensive.

"Uncle, please listen to me. This is not about money. The main reason is that there is no security guard following us. Besides, our boat is private and we don't have a license, so we can't rent it out."

Zhang An patiently explained to the old man that although the other party had offered a lot for the boat fare, Zhang An was not tempted at all.

Their boat is different from those in the village. Those boats in the village all have licenses, and they have safety officers and boats, so they can be open to the public. But Zhang An's boat is not like that because it has nothing.

He is a law-abiding person, so he didn't think about making this money. Otherwise, if something goes wrong, he would be causing trouble for himself. You know, he has always been a person who is very afraid of trouble.

The old man was still thinking about what to say, but although Zhang An had a smile on his face, the rejection in his words was very firm, so he simply didn't mention it again.

In fact, there were many people waiting for the boat nearby, and some of them had the same idea as the old man.

But when they saw that the old man had returned with failure, they did not come over to make trouble again.

Returning from the dock to the bluestone path on the river bank, Xiao Siqi and the two brothers Ding Zijie were walking in front, while Zhang An and Ding Yi were behind, staring at them and chatting.

Although there was a river on the side of the road, the village had installed guardrails on the shore a long time ago, so Zhang An and his friend felt comfortable letting the two kids walk on their own, and they didn't worry at all that the two little guys would jump into the river while walking.

Back to the main road of the village, a wave of tempting aroma hit my nose.

It was almost noon, and most of the snack stalls that sold various foods in the morning had changed from breakfast items such as steamed buns, meat patties, and glutinous rice to other staple foods, such as various fried rice, fried noodles, and vegetarian spring rolls.

Although these foods are made by the villagers themselves, these days everyone uses real ingredients. Even the oil used is lard made by each household or rapeseed oil pressed by themselves. It is very conscientious, which cannot be achieved anywhere else in later generations. Therefore, the taste is absolutely authentic and the hygiene conditions can also make people feel at ease.

As a guy with a foodie gene in his bones, Xiao Siqi had already run to the stall in front with Ding Zijie.

"Dad, seven, seven."

Maybe because they realized there were too many people and they couldn’t reach the stall themselves, the little guy turned around and shouted to his father.

"Why don't you just not eat? It's time to eat at home soon, and your mom will be at home today."

Zhang An frowned and tried to persuade his son to change his mind and stop staring at the food on the stall.

It’s not because he doesn’t want to buy it or is reluctant to do so, but mainly because the little guy is still small and his appetite is limited.

If I let him eat now, he will definitely not be able to eat when he gets home later.

Su Ying is now very strict with her son, requiring him to eat and sleep on time. If the little guy can't eat when he gets home for dinner, he will be in trouble too.

Little Siqi is deeply afraid of his mother Su Ying, but his heart as a foodie cannot stop.

Although he didn't make any noise or quarrel, his face was still puffed up with anger.

"Here, come and eat. Your dad won't buy it for you, so Uncle Ding will buy it for you. Don't be angry."

I don't know when Ding Yi took action, but he had already bought a box of vegetarian spring rolls and brought it back, waving at the two little guys.

"I think you are the same. Being able to eat is a blessing. Since the child wants to eat, just buy it for him. If Su Ying asks about it later, you can say that I brought them to eat. Here, you can eat two too."

While holding spring rolls for the two little ones, Ding Yi talked to Zhang An, and brought the spring rolls to Zhang An, asking him to taste them too.

"You are such a noble fellow. When your Ding Zijie only eats snacks and not meals, let's see what you will do."

Zhang An glanced at Ding Yi and said helplessly.

But the taste of these spring rolls is quite good, the ingredients inside are quite fresh, and the chili oil is also very fragrant.

At this moment, there were quite a few people waiting to buy spring rolls in front of the stalls in the village. I don’t know how Ding Yi bought them so quickly.

This thing is not only liked by many people now, but it will also be very popular in future generations.

Because most of the ingredients wrapped inside are cut into shreds, it is also called shredded dolls.

The only difference is that the vendor wraps the spring rolls themselves and sells them to customers, while the vendors have to wrap the silk dumplings themselves, and the vendors only provide the ingredients. There are many ways to eat this thing, you can brush a layer of sauce inside before wrapping it, and eat it directly after wrapping it.

You can also wrap it and then fry it in a pan, which will make it fragrant and crispy.

Of course, you can also eat it with some dipping sauce, it all depends on the person eating it.

"Okay, we've eaten, it's time to go home, or your mother will come out to look for us soon."

Seeing his son’s mouth full of food, Zhang An picked him up and prepared to go home.

Little Siqi was satisfied now and nodded to his father very obediently.

"Where are you two? Come to my house and sit for a while?"

After holding his son, Zhang An asked Ding Yi and his son again.

"No, Zijie's grandparents are here today, so we won't go. We'll come to your house in the evening to catch some fish and chicken."

Ding Yi shook his head and refused Zhang An. Once he went to Zhang An's house, he would definitely have to wait for dinner.

Zhang An didn't say much. They had now passed the stage where they had to be polite, so there was no need to say much in most cases.

When the father and son returned home, Su Ying quickly noticed that her son's face was shiny and oily.

"I told you not to buy so much food for him. Now he doesn't even eat."

Su Ying knew without thinking that her son must have eaten a lot outside, and she immediately complained to Zhang An.

"This is none of my business. Old Ding bought it for him and Ding Zijie. I can't stop him from buying it. Besides, your son is very capable. He knows everyone in the village. If he goes out for a walk, everyone will give him some food."

Zhang An was very helpless and spread his hands to explain to his wife.

He felt that if he didn't go out with his son, his son would probably eat more.

Su Ying was speechless after hearing this. It was impossible for her to be ungrateful and say that other people were wrong when they were nice to her son.

"Uncle An, Auntie, a customer ordered squirrel mandarin fish, and my brother asked me to catch a few to take back."

Just when the couple was at a loss as to what to do with their son, Xiao Yanhong came into the yard carrying a bucket of water.

The little girl was very young and her body was very thin and frail.

However, girls develop early. Zhang An didn't pay much attention to her in the past two years, but Zhou Yanhong has grown taller and become more and more beautiful.

"Yanhong is here. I guess your business is good today."

Zhang An talked to his little niece with a smile, and then took her to the fish pond at the back to catch fish.

"Business is good today, Uncle An. My house and yard are full, and we've added a lot of tables."

When talking about the business of her family's restaurant, the little girl's face was full of joy.

Although she is young, she has grown up very early. When her family was still making boxed lunches, she had already helped to attract business.

It can be said that the restaurant in their family was opened under her supervision.

"It's so hot, then luckily you two are here to help during the holiday. Now your sister-in-law is not able to move around easily, so your parents and your brother alone will definitely not be able to handle it."

Zhang An was not too surprised at the booming business of Zhou Yang's family.

He had seen with his own eyes how good business the roadside stalls were doing today, not to mention the restaurants. After all, the flow of people in the village today was much greater than any previous time.

Although two or three more restaurants have opened in the village in the past two years, there are not too many restaurants overall, unlike Hongyan Town, where there are dozens of them.

Among all the restaurants in the village, the ones with the best business are Zhou Yang and Zhang Jianzhong, because the chefs have real skills.

The other restaurants only serve some home-cooked dishes. Although the taste is acceptable, the dishes are too limited.

For example, for the squirrel mandarin fish, only Zhang Jianzhong and Zhou Yang in the village can make it. In fact, Zhou Yang's is more authentic, after all, he has learned it systematically.

"My sister-in-law is also helping today, but there are too many people and we are worried, so we just let her be in charge of collecting the money."

Yanhong is quite nice to her sister-in-law Chen Wenwen. Maybe she is starting to become sensible. There are no other sisters in the family, so the relationship between the two is getting closer and closer.

"Haha, by next year, you'll be an aunt. By the way, Yanhong, did your brother tell you how many fish he wants to catch and how big they should be?"

Let’s go to the fish pond, Zhang An asked.

The dish of squirrel mandarin fish usually does not require a very large fish, but Zhang An has a lot of big mandarin fish.

"I told you I want four or five, and they can weigh from one pound to more than one pound."

Hearing Zhang An's question, Zhou Yanhong repeated what her elder brother had told her.

Zhang An nodded to show that he understood, and then started catching fish. After a while, he caught a net full of fish of all sizes.

Finally, four or five mandarin fish weighing more than one kilogram were left, and the others were put back into the water.

After avoiding the water, we weighed the five fish briefly and found that they weighed a total of six and a half kilograms, just under seven kilograms.

"Weigh it. Just tell your brother to charge it for six kilograms."

After Zhang An gave the fish to Yanhong, he said that it was considered as the remainder of the half pound.

Whenever there were generous customers, they would come to Zhang An's house to buy fish. Normally, they would put the bill on hold first and settle it together later.

"Thank you, Uncle An. I'll tell my brother."

Yanhong watched Zhang An weighing the food, so she knew that Zhang An had given her family half a pound of the medicine, and she thanked Zhang An.

Zhang An waved his hand to Yanhong and said, "Okay, take it home quickly, your brother needs it urgently."

After dinner, many people came to Zhang An's house one after another.

These are the tenants of Dongli Courtyard. They come here to buy chickens, ducks, geese or other things.

Anyway, there are a lot more people coming than usual. Some people who don’t usually come also came this time, making Zhang An’s house busy.

Maybe it’s because of this holiday that many people’s children have returned home.

But Zhang An didn't care about this matter and left it to his mother to do it herself, because he knew that this was his mother's favorite thing to do.

However, Zhang An didn't go anywhere. He moved a recliner to the backyard and stayed there.

There are too many people in the village today, and the road outside is really busy. Their front yard is only separated by a wall, so it is really noisy.

On the contrary, the backyard is okay. Although it is not far away, it seems much quieter because of the house.

(End of this chapter)