Reborn in the red age

Standing at the long-missed street corner, Qingfeng Li was filled with emotion as he watched his old neighbors coming out to greet him.

The old neighbors are so warm and welcoming. When a wanderer like me who had not been home for many years came back, they didn't even bother to eat and just came out of their homes to welcome me. It was so touching.

Of course, it would be even better if you didn't mention when you will take me out for another trip or take a private jet.

After sending away his little cousin Li Qi and the enthusiastic neighbors, Li Fuqiang, with a rosy face, led Li Qingfeng and his family of four back home.

When returning to the house, Li Fuqiang pointed to a large stove burning in the corner of the yard against the wall and said proudly: "Third brother, look at what that is!"

"A broken stove for burning fire." Li Qingfeng took a glance and said lightly.

"."

Being choked by his third son, Li Fuqiang said dissatisfiedly: "What are your eyes so big for? That's the floor heating. I specially asked someone to renovate it. I renovated the whole house and spent 10,000 yuan."

Hearing the word "floor heating", Qingfeng Li raised his eyebrows, pushed the door open and went into the room to feel it. It was indeed warm.

After placing the luggage in the living room, Qingfeng Li nodded with satisfaction: "Okay, your money was spent in the right place this time. The heating is very practical, and the ten thousand yuan is not wasted."

Before Li Fuqiang could show his smug expression, Hong Xingying, who was leading the two children into the house, replied dissatisfiedly: "What do you mean by practical? It's not practical at all. Your father just has a lot of money to burn."

"It cost 10,000 yuan to install floor heating. If I want to keep the house warm, I have to continue to spend money on burning charcoal, which costs a lot of money in a winter."

"The new buildings built in our county this year only cost 400 yuan per square meter, and buying a 100-square-meter house only costs 40,000 yuan. People's houses have central heating, and the heating fee is much cheaper than burning charcoal at home."

From an economic point of view, installing floor heating at home is indeed not as cost-effective as buying a house directly.

But in terms of living comfort, an apartment building is not as comfortable as a two-story house built by yourself.

No need to worry about upstairs or downstairs, you can jump around as much as you want.

Listening to Mother Li's scolding of Father Li, Li Qingfeng chuckled and did not help Father Li to explain. He asked the two children to go to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat, while he and Hu Jiabao went back to the room to change clothes.

"These thieves have ruined all the good clothes," Hu Jiabao said with some heartache as he held the clothes that Li Qingfeng had taken off.

"Indeed, the money those thieves steal in a day probably won't be as expensive as this dress."

As he spoke, Li Qingfeng lowered his head and touched the thermal pants on his legs, and said with emotion: "But these people's craftsmanship is pretty good. The knife only scratched the outer part, and there is not even a trace of the thermal pants inside."

"If there are traces, won't they be discovered? How can they continue to be pickpockets?" Hu Jiabao shook his head helplessly: "Every time they take a train, their clothes get ruined. How come no one is doing anything about these pickpockets?"

"The main reason is that we are dressed so well that we look like rich people. If we were wearing patched clothes and carrying urea bags, pickpockets would definitely not cut our clothes."

"That makes sense. When we get back, I'll ask Mom for a set of Dad's old clothes so you can wear them when you take the train."

"Why don't you wear it?"

“It’s too ugly, I can’t wear it out.”

"."

The home is now heated and is indeed a lot more comfortable than in previous years. The global warming hasn't happened yet and a heavy snowfall in winter can reach up to a person's ankles.

This is not the Northeast, Jiaodong, or Northwest Shandong. There are no kangs here, and we rely on coal stoves for heating in winter.

Waking up at night is torture.

It’s much better now with heating. The only drawback is that the bathroom is not in the room, so you still have to go out if you want to go to the toilet.

The next day, after breakfast, Li Qingfeng went back to bed to take a nap. Not long after he fell asleep, he was pulled out of bed by Hong Xingying.

Before Li Qingfeng could react, a torn cotton jacket and an apron were thrown at his face, and he was assigned a lot of work, including making a fire.

The cold wind was howling in the yard. Li Qingfeng, who was wearing a torn cotton-padded jacket and an apron, had just finished lighting the oil pan for frying meatballs when Hong Xingying handed him a knife.

Li Qingfeng looked at the two old hens in front of him, whose feet had been tied with ropes and were waiting for him to kill them, and he was confused.

No, not to mention that I'm such a big boss, even though I'm a high-level intellectual, you can't let me do the job of killing chickens.

After a long silence, Li Qingfeng, holding the knife, smiled awkwardly: "Mom, there is an old saying that a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen. I am a humble gentleman, so it is not appropriate for you to let me do the job of killing chickens, right?"

"What do you mean by suitable or not? Why didn't you say it was not suitable when you were eating it? Kill it quickly and clean up the chicken. There is still a lot of work waiting to be done." Hong Xingying, who was frying meatballs, rolled her eyes at him and said unhappily.

It had been many years since Qingfeng Li had personally killed a chicken with a knife, so he was a little hesitant to do it.

After staring at the old hen that was about to be turned into meat for a few seconds, Li Qingfeng shook his head and recited a passage from Mencius: "A gentleman, when seeing animals alive, cannot bear to see them die; when hearing their cries, cannot bear to eat their meat."

"What gentleman, what beast? When you were little, as soon as you heard that your family was going to kill a chicken, you were more eager to eat meat than anyone else. Now you're taking so long to kill a chicken. Hurry up." Hong Xingying interrupted Li Qingfeng's nodding head and urged him again impatiently.

"."

Li Qingfeng hesitated and picked up the old hen on the ground. He pointed the knife at the old hen's throat for a while, planning in his mind how to cut the throat with one blow and give the old hen a quick death.

Seeing that Li Qingfeng was just gesticulating but not taking any action, not only Hong Xingying, but even Hu Jiabao felt that Li Qingfeng was wasting time.

He called Chuyi, who was curiously watching Li Qingfeng killing the chicken, over and gave the colander for scooping the meatballs to Chuyi.

She stood up and walked to Li Qingfeng, snatching the sharp knife from Li Qingfeng's hand.

Put the old hen on the ground, pluck some of the hair on the chicken's neck, then step on its two feet with your feet, grab the chicken's head with one hand, and take the knife with the other hand, and cut the old hen's throat cleanly.

Before Li Qingfeng could react, Hu Jiabao had already cut the throats of the two old hens. After returning the bloody knife to Li Qingfeng, Hu Jiabao said unhappily, "You are a gentleman, I will do the job of killing the chickens for you. After the two chickens are completely dead, you should be able to pluck their feathers and cut open their stomachs, right?"

"Sure, sure," Qingfeng Li said awkwardly as he took the knife.

After the two chickens died, Li Qingfeng used some hot water to pluck the feathers, picked up a knife and gently cut an incision in the chicken's abdomen, reached into the chicken's abdominal cavity, and took out the internal organs one by one.

While Li Qingfeng was working, Hu Jiabao and Hong Xingying, who were frying meatballs, were laughing at Li Qingfeng's performance without restraint, not caring about Li Qingfeng at all.

Boss Li was transferred to the city, and naturally his sister-in-law followed him.

Without help at home, the preparations before the New Year naturally fell on Li Qingfeng's family.

I was so busy at home that I even forgot to watch the new car launch of Mercedes-Benz Cars held on CCTV yesterday on the 28th.

On the 29th, even on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month, Hong Xingying gave each of them a small boat hat made of newspaper and sent them home to clean the house.

Li Qingfeng was also assigned various tasks early in the morning. If Li's father had not read today's newspaper and asked Li Qingfeng about the Fei Chi car, Li Qingfeng might not have remembered that the Fei Chi car factory had reached the day for the release of a new car.

Li Fuqiang, holding the newspaper, asked curiously, "Old Third, is what the newspaper said true? Has the technological level of your automobile factory reached the international advanced level?"

“Well, we’re not that advanced, but we’re not too far behind.” Qingfeng Li had no intention of hiding anything from his father and spoke the truth.

"Is that so? I was so excited for nothing. I read all the hype in the newspapers and thought that we Chinese really made a luxury car."

"Although it's not advanced, it's a real luxury car. Compared with Audi, except for the engine, gearbox and chassis, everything else is better than Audi."

Li Fuqiang looked at Li Qingfeng speechlessly and pointed at his nose: "I have been repairing farm machinery all my life. Do you think I don't know anything about cars? Aren't these three the most important parts of a car?"

"Haha, not much different, not much different. At least the driving experience is almost the same," Li Qingfeng said with a wry smile.

Li Fuqiang nodded without comment: "Well, it's OK as long as it's not too different. Your car is bigger than the Audi 100 in appearance and cheaper in price. It should sell better than the Audi."

"Sales volume easily crushes Audi." Li Qingfeng smiled easily, not taking Audi seriously at all.

Li Fuqiang was about to ask more questions when Hong Xingying in the yard called Li Qingfeng to work. Li Fuqiang had to give up and thought of asking about the car when he had more free time.

After finishing the housework, Hong Xingying gave the key to Li Lao Da's house to Li Qingfeng, and asked Li Qingfeng to go to Li Lao Da's house to help him clean the house and put up Spring Festival couplets.

Li Qingfeng:
On the night of New Year's Eve, just before the New Year's Eve dinner, Li Lao Da and his family, who were going to the city to take up their new posts, took a taxi and rushed over from the city carrying large and small bags of gifts.

Having not worked for many years, Li Qingfeng was very tired these days. Seeing the family rushing back for dinner, he teased them sarcastically, "Hey, isn't this Director Li? You're here early! It's not even dinner time yet."

"Third brother, what are you talking about? I'm busy with work. Besides, I'm serving the people, serving the people. The people haven't even gone home for the New Year yet. How can I, a leader, leave work first?" Boss Li put on the airs of a leader and said with his chin slightly raised.

Li Qingfeng rolled his eyes, thinking that the city was better than the county after all, and the leaders did a good job of superficial work.

It has only been a short time since this Boss Li was transferred here. He always talks about the people and acts like a public servant.

"Come on, we all know each other in our family, so forget about your boss's rhetoric."

Boss Li coughed dryly and smiled awkwardly: "Old Three, I just went there and it's not good to take a holiday early. I came back late. You've worked hard and helped me clean the house. I'll punish myself by drinking three cups tonight."

"Okay, you still have a conscience," Li Qingfeng smacked his lips and said reluctantly.

After helping to unload the luggage from the taxi and paying the taxi driver, Li Qingfeng returned to the house and asked curiously, "What happened to you? How did you get back in a taxi? Didn't your company assign you a car?"

"Yes, it is allocated. It is not convenient to use the public bus for personal purposes. It would also have a bad impact for a public servant like me to drive a private car. That's why I chartered a taxi back here," explained Boss Li, who was sitting on the sofa.

"Come on, there are so many people using government buses for personal purposes on the streets. People are almost driving company cars as if they were their own cars. How can you tell me that it's wrong to use government buses for personal purposes?"

"No, how can I compare with them? They have never seen money, nor have they enjoyed much, but now they are just thinking about taking advantage of the public. I don't take any advantage of the public, and I don't give anyone the opportunity to leave a stain on my resume. I only want to make progress."

"Not bad, you are worthy of being my son." Li Fuqiang, who was standing next to him, slapped the armrest of the sofa and said with satisfaction: "Boss, just keep this style. We must be upright and not do those crooked things."

He was about to say something crooked, but then he remembered that his boss got to his position through crooked means, so he quickly changed his words and said, "Don't be corrupted by the bad social atmosphere. Don't get involved in those bad habits of eating, drinking, and asking for money. If you don't have money, ask your family for it. I have plenty of money."

Li Qingfeng curled his lips. "You still have plenty of money? I've only made a little over a million yuan from selling pirated discs over the years. How dare you say such a thing?"

Boss Li nodded solemnly: "Dad, don't worry, I know the importance of it. I will always stick to my principles and live up to your expectations."

"Well, I am relieved about you. You must remember that only by walking on the right path can you go far. Those who are greedy for small gains will pay the price for their actions sooner or later. We can't be like them. We must have higher goals."

I'm too lazy to listen to what Li's father, a retired old man who has never been a team leader, has to say about how to be an official. Boss Li knows exactly what he wants and he sees it clearly.

Li Qingfeng waved his hand: "Alright, why are you talking about this on New Year's Day? Let's prepare the New Year's Eve dinner quickly. I'm hungry."

Li Fuqiang, who was talking with saliva flying all over the place, glared at his third son in dissatisfaction, blaming him for interrupting his speech, but did not say anything, and stood up and walked towards the kitchen.

The whole family joined together to prepare a large table of dishes, and the house was filled with laughter.

At the dinner table, Li Fuqiang, who had drunk a lot, stood up solemnly, holding up a small wine cup full of wine: "Well, today is our family's New Year's Eve dinner, I'll raise a glass"

Everyone: "."

The family dinner on New Year's Day was so formal that everyone was a little uncomfortable, but they still picked up their wine glasses or drink glasses to follow Li Fuqiang's speech.

Seeing that even the little ones picked up their cups to cooperate, Li Fuqiang nodded with satisfaction, and then said: "In the past year, our Li family, under the leadership of me, the old man, has achieved fruitful results!"

After hearing this beginning, Li Qingfeng didn't want to listen anymore (End of this chapter)