Reborn in the 80s: Everyone Falls For Me
Chapter 198 - 197: A Major Decision (4 More)

Chapter 198: Chapter 197: A Major Decision (4 More)

Yang Cuihua couldn’t care less about scolding Xu Duoyu anymore, as she cradled Xu Niannian’s face with an affectionate reluctance, "Mommy’s precious, you must’ve suffered being away, look at you, you’ve lost weight."

Xu Dawei’s eyes also blurred, as he rubbed them and murmured, "My darling has lost weight."

Xu Duoyu and Xu Zhicheng were ecstatic to see Xu Niannian returning, both sets of eyes glued tightly to her, unable to contain their happiness.

The family’s reaction made Xu Niannian feel both amused and helpless.

She had only been gone for a month, yet it felt like she was a daughter who had disappeared for ten years, suddenly returning home.

Xu Niannian couldn’t help but comfort them.

It took quite a while to coax Yang Cuihua into stopping her tears.

"Baby Nian must be hungry, Mom will go cook something for you, just wait..."

Without waiting for Xu Niannian to reply, Yang Cuihua wiggled her hips as she hurried to the kitchen with a smile on her face.

Xu Niannian didn’t even have the chance to decline.

Once Yang Cuihua left, Xu Duoyu dared to approach Xu Niannian, looking pitiful as he ran over and clung to her legs, pressing his face against them, "Sister, Duoyu missed you."

Xu Niannian felt a surge of emotion, patting the little radish head, "Duoyu is good, isn’t your sister back now?"

Tears still hung on Xu Duoyu’s face.

After a month apart, Xu Niannian noticed that Xu Duoyu had gained a lot, he used to be thin and small, but now his cheeks had filled out.

It seemed the food at home must have improved from before; Yang Cuihua hadn’t treated them harshly.

Just as she had this thought, she saw Xu Duoyu look up at her, "Sister, Duoyu wants to eat rice."

Xu Niannian smiled, "If you want to eat, have a bit more."

Before she left, she had made sure to fill the rice bin at home and even bought some high-gluten flour.

It should be enough to feed the family for several months without a problem.

Xu Duoyu pouted with grievance, "Mom won’t let Duoyu eat it."

Upon hearing this, before Xu Niannian could speak, Xu Zhicheng scolded him, "Duoyu, shut your mouth."

Xu Zhicheng felt sorry for his brother; if he tattled now, once his sister left, he would be punished by Yang Cuihua.

Even Xu Dawei disapproved, tapping Xu Duoyu’s head, "You little rascal, you talk too much."

Xu Niannian was stunned; something seemed off at home.

She picked up Xu Duoyu, sat down on a stool, and immediately noticed the unfinished cornmeal on the dining table.

Xu Niannian was taken aback, asking Xu Dawei, "Dad, are we out of rice?"

Xu Dawei was evasive, "No, no, we have plenty, just felt like eating cornmeal today."

Xu Niannian wouldn’t believe such an excuse, as she wouldn’t get the truth from Yang Cuihua.

She looked at Xu Dawei, "Dad, I want to hear the truth."

If this was his son, Xu Dawei would have smacked him with a tobacco pipe long ago, demanding the truth, thinking whatever you can manage, kid.

However, he was facing the family’s precious darling, and Xu Dawei smacked his lips, "Don’t worry about this."

Of course, Xu Niannian couldn’t just disrespect Xu Dawei, nor could she take on the attitude she used to educate her younger brother to educate her own father.

So she resorted to a trick she hadn’t used in a long time, her watery, big eyes blinked, and tears "swooshed" down.

"Dad, do you not like Niannian anymore, not willing to tell Niannian anything?"

Seeing his daughter in tears tore at Xu Dawei’s heart, he panicked immediately, "Eh, my girl, don’t cry, I’ll tell you, isn’t that okay?"

Yay, plan successful, Xu Niannian quickly wiped away her tears, eagerly awaiting Xu Dawei’s explanation.

Xu Dawei, seeing how quickly Xu Niannian wiped her tears, suddenly felt outsmarted by his own daughter.

Reluctantly, he had no choice but to explain the situation.

After hearing the explanation, Xu Niannian was shocked, she had seriously underestimated her mother’s love for her.

Not only had Xu Niannian left food for the family when she left, but she had also saved fifty yuan for Yang Cuihua, to make it convenient for any household needs.

However, not only did Yang Cuihua not spend the money given to her, she even locked away the rice that Xu Niannian bought, trading twenty jin of high-gluten flour for eighty jin of corn.

Since she left, the family had been eating only cornmeal.

Yang Cuihua was worried that Xu Niannian would lose money in her business, saving the cash for her future needs and keeping the rice for when she returned.

Fearing that she wouldn’t make money in the future and wouldn’t have rice to eat.

After hearing this, Xu Niannian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Not only that, but Yang Cuihua had also been frugally using the pork lard, skimming a bit with chopsticks each day to cook with.

The reason Xu Duoyu was scolded today was that he sneakily took a handful of rice from Yang Cuihua’s room and cooked it with the cornmeal, which Yang Cuihua discovered.

That’s why Yang Cuihua gave him a lesson in ideology and politics.

Xu Niannian was at a loss for words.

This mother of hers definitely lived up to her mantra, treating her like her heart and soul.

Xu Niannian felt somewhat helpless.

Not long after Xu Dawei had finished speaking, Yang Cuihua came out with a bowl of steaming noodles.

"Baby Nian, come on, you must be hungry. Eat up, mom cracked two eggs for you."

The bowl of noodles not only had two eggs cracked into it but also contained a generous dollop of lard.

Xu Niannian felt both a pang of heartache and a rush of gratitude.

For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

"Mom, I’m not hungry. You eat."

"No way, mom’s not hungry either."

Faced with a mother who cherished her daughter above all else, Xu Niannian found it truly hard to refuse, so she just held the bowl and ate.

She held Xu Duoyu in her arms, taking a bite herself, then feeding him a bite, and moved the other egg into Yang Cuihua’s bowl: "Mom, you eat."

"Mom’s not hungry, you eat it yourself." Yang Cuihua hurriedly refused, trying to return the egg to Xu Niannian’s bowl.

Xu Niannian swiftly dodged it: "If you don’t eat, Niannian won’t eat either."

Stubbornly, Xu Niannian wouldn’t listen to anyone, which left Yang Cuihua moved to blurry-eyed tears.

Pushing the egg into her own mouth: "Mom will eat, mom will eat."

This time, Xu Niannian didn’t share the eggs with her younger brothers and only fed Xu Duoyu the noodles.

It was simply because Yang Cuihua’s love was too precious, and she didn’t want to let her down.

Just this once, let her be selfish. In the future, she would doubly make it up to her two brothers, as well as to Yang Cuihua and Xu Dawei.

Being able to eat noodles made Xu Duoyu exceedingly happy; he didn’t even crave the eggs.

That night, Xu Niannian lay alone on the big bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

Since Xu Zhiqiang wasn’t home, and Xu Duoyu was already sharing a bed with Xu Zhicheng.

After hearing Xu Dawei’s words, Xu Niannian, notwithstanding her helplessness, was mostly touched.

She didn’t say anything to Yang Cuihua, mainly because it would be of no use; once she left, her mother would continue as before.

She had never planned to bring her family to the county town so soon, but now it seemed inevitable.

Her family treated her well, and she also wanted to give them the best of everything.

She couldn’t indulge in the county town’s delicacies while letting Yang Cuihua, Xu Dawei, and her two brothers suffer at home.

On her way back today, she’d met many people from the village, including Ding Guihua, the wife of the brigade leader.

After talking with her for a while on the way, she learned that the agricultural reform policy of assigning individual plots to households had been implemented in their small village.

The land reform had been in effect for more than two years, and the policy of assigning individual plots to households was already in place.

But because their village was small and located in a remote mountainous area, it had only begun to be implemented in the past half month.

Now her family didn’t need to go and work elsewhere; they could just farm their own land.

After much consideration, Xu Niannian decided to take her family to the county town this time.

However, Xu Duoyu and Xu Zhicheng were already in school, and it would certainly not be good to transfer them abruptly.

Moreover, she had no connections in the county town, and it would be quite difficult to transfer them to a school there.

It might be easy to persuade Yang Cuihua and Xu Dawei to give up their land and go to the county town with her, yet the problem of the brothers’ school transfer was much more difficult.

So far, the only one who could solve this trouble was Jin Yu.

But he had disappeared for several days now.

Moreover, their relationship was neither here nor there, which left her unsure of how to approach him.

Thinking over these matters, Xu Niannian frowned and sighed for a while.

These were all troublesome issues.

She finally fell asleep with difficulty, only to have her biological clock wake her up on time the next morning.

She had initially wanted to stay at home for a few days and to contemplate the third recipe, but now it seemed she had to return to the county town immediately to find out about the schools.

She needed to see if she could pull some strings to get her two brothers into a school there.

This trip might take another two or three days before she could return.

To encourage Yang Cuihua to eat her fill of rice, Xu Niannian let her in on the secret that she now had more than two thousand yuan on hand.

When Yang Cuihua heard that Xu Niannian had over two thousand yuan, she was so excited that she couldn’t stop praising her daughter’s capabilities.

Before leaving that morning, Xu Niannian enjoyed one last meal of stir-fried cured meat.

The cured meat came from the pork given by Jin Yu’s family when they came to discuss the marriage, which she had turned into cured meat.

Not only that, Yang Cuihua had also extravagantly cooked a big pot of rice.

Xu Duoyu and Xu Zhicheng were overjoyed.