His father Li Wanquan stayed at home to entertain the neighbors who came to pay New Year's greetings. Li Qinglin followed his mother out of the yard and went to the house in the same village to pay New Year's greetings.

The walls of Li Qinglin's family were built and only one person was over one person tall. The gate of the courtyard was made of some small stones and blue bricks. The gate was not painted. There was a red couplet "Poetry and Books Continue the World, Farming and Reading Heirs" on the gate. There was an upside-down word "Fu" on the door, and there were firecrackers burning on the snow in front of the door. The sun had risen, and the snow reflected the rising sun, making the front of the courtyard bright and prosperous, showing the auspiciousness.

The village is very small, half surrounded by hills, and the houses of each household are located on the hillside in turn. There has not been a large-scale deforestation in this era. Except for the hill on the right, the trees cannot be seen, there are some miscellaneous trees growing in other places. There is a small piece of flat land in the middle of the hill, covered with heavy snow, and the ground is covered with silvery white. Looking further away, in the middle of a snow field, it looks like a thin gray band embedded in the silvery white middle, extending to the horizon. It should be a small river or a stream.

The sun comes from the east, and Li Qinglin determines where he is now. Li Qinglin counts and there are only five families in the entire village. All the houses in the village face north and south, with houses in two rows, three families in the front row and two families in the back row. Li Qinglin's home is on the west side of the back row.

Today, my mother was wearing a half-old cotton coat, and a patch was applied to each of her upper and lower bodies. My mother looked like a housekeeper. Although her clothes were old, they were clean and flat. Her hair was obviously just combed. After she combed her hair, she tied a bun and a silver hairpin was inserted on it, which made her look very energetic.

When he left the door, his mother stood in front of Li Qinglin and looked at his son carefully, then reached out to tidy up Li Qinglin's clothes. Li Qinglin's mother died very early in his previous life, and his loving actions almost made him shed tears.

My mother may be afraid that Li Qinglin would not remember the situation of others, so she briefly introduced the situation of the family who was going to pay New Year's greetings while walking. The houses of each family are not far apart. From right to left in the front row are Qian family, Zhou family, and Li family. Among them, the Li family is Li Wanquan's cousin's house, and Li Wanquan's cousin is Li Wanxiang.

After walking for a while, the mother and son arrived at the first yard in the west of the front row. This family was Qian, and they had five acres of dry land at home. If the land was not enough, they had to rent twenty acres of land from the landlord every year to plant wheat.

The head of the Qian family is Qian Lihua, and his wife Zhou, and the couple has two sons.

Qian Duofu, the eldest son of Qian family, is 22 years old this year. He is working with his father at home. Qian Duofu married a wife named Jiang Meizhi a few years ago. The couple gave birth to a son at the end of last year.

Qian Duogui, the youngest son of the Qian family, was as old as Li Qinglin. When he was a child, he went to a private school with Li Qinglin for two years. He suffered from polio when he was very young and was a lame man. Qian Duogui was unable to go to the ground to do heavy physical work if he had poor legs and feet. His father Qian Lihua arranged for him to learn copper smith craftsmanship after his uncle, so that he could have a skill to support himself in the future. Qian Duogui began to follow his uncle with a pair of copper smith carrys and walk around the village, learning the skills of making copper tin objects, repairing pots and locks.

The gatehouse of the Qian family's yard is much simpler than that of the Li Qinglin family, and there are couplets posted on the gate, "Graining grains and prosperity of the six animals". The gate of the yard is the face of the farmer, and it can be seen that the economic conditions of this family are worse than that of the Li Qinglin family. Unexpectedly, the gate of the Qian family's yard was locked with an old-fashioned brass locked with a long brass key strung with a red rope.

When the mother saw Suo, she was slightly stunned and smiled: "Qinglin, you are going to be a godfather!" Then the mother introduced to him the reason why the Qian family locked the door.

Before liberation, due to poor medical and health conditions, low living standards, and generally insufficient nutrition, the mortality rate of mothers and infants was very high. Parents were afraid of being young due to few boys or because of their children’s illnesses and disasters, so they recognized their relatives to avoid disasters and eliminate disasters. Some also recognized their relatives to build relationships and use each other to use each other.

Wan'an County has many ways to recognize relatives: there are fortune tellers who have chosen their horoscopes, directions, and surnames; there are those who have agreed to recognize their horoscopes; there are those who have "break the surname", that is, the child has a hundred days (or full moon), and the parents have taken their children out at dawn (before sunrise), and the first person they meet is to recognize their husband and wife as their dear father and mother; there is another type of person that the child has landed on the ground and is locked on the door. When the day of the full moon, whoever comes to his house first and asks whoever opens the lock will recognize him.

A husband and wife are the dear father and mother. In addition to "breaking the surname" and "opening the lock", most families who have many children and many daughters are the dear father and mother, thinking that the children can follow the group and facilitate adulthood. After the two families become dear fathers, they will go to the dear father and mother's house to visit each year on their birthdays, and it will be until they are 12 years old. In this year, the dear father and mother have to buy some clothes for the dear son (daughter), called "lock-breaking", which is a solid and unbreakable. From then on, every wedding and funeral celebration, festivals, and reciprocity, and are considered as a dear relative.

While he was talking, the yard gate was opened, and a middle-aged man looked inside and smiled and said, "Second Aunt, are you opening the door today?"

The mother laughed and scolded, "You old and immortal dog, you still take advantage of me. If I unlock the lock, I will become your grandson's godmother? Then I will be a generation shorter than you, a bastard? Today we are the first to come to your house. If we don't open the door, see who dares to be your grandson's godfather!"

Qian Lihua laughed dryly and quickly apologized, "Then Qinglin Kai, my grandson will also enjoy the blessings of scholars."

The mother reached out and took out a few copper circles and a piece of red paper in her pocket, wrapped the copper circles in red paper and put them in Li Qinglin's hand and said, "Qinglin, open the door! When you meet the child, you will pack some festive money."

Li Qinglin opened the yard door with the key tied with a red rope. When he came in, he naturally packed money to congratulate the child first. The child's mother held the child and worshiped Li Qinglin as her godfather on behalf of him.

After acknowledging the relatives and paying New Year greetings, the host brought peanuts and red dates. The men sat together and talked. Li Qinglin did not dare to speak nonsense. He usually answered only when asked. The women gathered in their wife's room to talk.

Qian Duofu's wife Jiang Xiuzhi is medium-sized, round face, and looks very ordinary. Li Qinglin looked at her secretly and found that she had a pair of watery peach blossom eyes. Qian Duofu himself is pretty good-looking, big and handsome. He doesn't speak much, his face looks a bit blue-gray, and a kind of evil spirit can be seen in his eyes. Qian Duoku is medium-sized, with a little lame one leg, and is thin and looks very clever. Because he is Li Qinglin's private school classmate, he sits beside Li Qinglin and talks to him.

After talking for a while, my mother took Li Qinglin away. The next step was to go to the Zhou family and Tang Bo's house to pay New Year's greetings.

On the way, my mother told Li Qinglin that the Qian family found that Qian Duofu had smoked opium and was addicted to smoking. Last year, he earned a lot of money outside, but the money he earned didn't count, and he still owed a lot of money in the opium restaurant outside. This year, the Qian family did not have a good time during the Chinese New Year. In order to force Qian Duofu to quit smoking, Qian Lihua also beat his son. Jiang Xiuzhi just said that Qian Duofu secretly sold all the silver jewelry she dowed from her parents' home in order to smoke smoking. Although she was still in confinement, Jiang Xiuzhi fought with him several times after she found out.
Chapter completed!