Chapter 73
Fortunately, the first day of the rainstorm, canceled the original said to go to the sea research trip
Otherwise, Xu Wen, who was late and had a sore back and legs, would have been angry with Lu Yuanzheng
Although it’s useless to be angry, there’s no way to find him
In such a heavy rainstorm, the drainage of the camp is not good, and the seawater rises and pours into the tents, even if it is raining heavily outside and drizzling inside
The soldiers were assigned tasks by company, one part rescuing the tents, one part rescuing the new camp site, and one part digging a ditch to prevent the water from accumulating on the cabin side
Xu Man couldn’t do much to help, so he stayed at home and didn’t cause any trouble
On a day like this, there was no electricity or fans, but the rain wasn’t too hot, just a little humid
Especially on the first floor, the cushions on the sofa and chairs looked like they were going to wring out water
The waterproof floor is still covered with a layer of water droplets, and it is not comfortable to stay in the door of the room
In addition to fighting the flood, one of the things that all the people on the island did together was to find all the containers that could hold water at home and set them outside to catch the rain
Xu Man also took out all the buckets and pots in the house and placed them under the eaves
In fact, although fresh water resources are still scarce on the island, the problem of daily water use is no longer a big problem, because the fresh water lake on the island has completed the detoxification, and it is not too drinkable for the time being, but there is still no problem to wash your face, brush your teeth and wash your clothes
This is purely a habit that everyone on the island has developed over the past half a year
Dongsheng can not go out to play, picking up the window has been shouting boredom
Xu Man told him a story for a while, and accompanied him to learn to recognize a few words
At his age, Dongsheng’s concentration time is limited
The effect of studying all the time will be halved
Seeing that the time was still early, Xu Man thought that it would be a good idea to cook dumplings for himself
Lu Yuanzheng didn’t say anything about it, but Xu Man knew that he liked it too
The main fillings for dumplings in the north are cabbage, leeks, fennel, capers, etc These are not available on the island
These are not available on the island, but leeks have been planted, but it is not yet harvest time
However, there are water chestnuts on the island, which are called horseshoes in some places
This chopped up and mixed with the meat filling together dumplings are also very fragrant
As the rain has lightened up a bit, Xu Wen and Dongsheng are wearing their homemade raincoats and heading out
The conditions on the island are really limited, so raincoats are obviously not enough, and plastic bags are not yet popular, and even more so, there are no plastic bags that can be put on the body, but there are the kind of woven bags and snakeskin bags that look like fertilizer bags
Xu asked to find two out, along the sealed side, holding a corner stuffed into another corner, a long triangle type minimalist raincoat is done
Dongsheng is small, almost able to wrap up, for Xu Man, it is just to cover the head and small half body
Xu Man led Dongsheng, first to the cooking class asked for a small piece of meat, and led Dongsheng to pick some water chestnuts back
Peeled the skin, left a little bit of raw food, raw under all chopped into mince
Dongsheng hugged the bowl, took Xu Man cut up slices of water chestnuts dipped in sugar to eat, but also did not forget to feed Xu Man a few slices from time to time
When Xu Man made the noodles and mixed the filling, Dongsheng also sat down in a decent manner and took the initiative to pick up the rolling pin to help, “Ma Ma, I’ll help you roll out the skin”
“Good! Thank you Dongsheng”
Xu Man first rolled out some skin to use before returning the rolling pin to Dongsheng
Dongsheng actually didn’t know how to roll, but his posture was quite decent
He pressed the small dough that Xu Man had cut and divided on the panel, forming it into a small round cake
Holding the rolling pin with both hands, he first rolled it vertically twice to make the dough into long strips, and then rolled it horizontally twice to make it into an irregular square
Dongsheng rolled out a dumpling skin that didn’t look like anything else, and excitedly held it up to show it off to Xu Man: “Ma Ma, look at this! How’s my dumpling skin?”
Not only could he see the strange shape of the dumpling skin, but he could also see that the thickness was uneven, and some parts of the dumpling skin were a bit translucent
Xu Man nodded and praised him, “Great! It’s great that Dongsheng was able to roll out the skin so well for the first time! It will get better and better in the future! Come, mom will teach you a better way to roll out the skin”
Xu Wen patted the flour on her hands and walked around the table, holding Dongsheng’s hand to teach him
“Look at this, let’s hold the dumpling skin in one hand, hold the rolling pin in the other, and only press the edges of the dumpling skin, and turn it like this! Aiya! Don’t you see that we’ve rolled out a beautiful dumpling skin?”
“Wow!” Dongsheng exclaimed, feeling a special sense of accomplishment
Xu Wen taught him to roll out two more dumpling skins and let go, “Here, try it yourself”
She straightened up and turned around, seeing that Lu Yuanzheng had come back at some point, just standing in the doorway leaning on the door panel and looking at them, mother and son
Xu Wen saw that Lu Yuanzheng’s raincoat hanging on the door panel had already dripped quite a bit of water onto the ground, and it seemed to have been back at the door for some time
“When did you come back? And didn’t say anything?”
Lu Yuanzheng straightened up, walked over, and untied his apron from Xu Man’s waist: “I just arrived for a while, and happened to see you teaching Dongsheng how to roll out the skin, so I stole a lesson from you here Come on, let me try how I roll out the skin”
Xu Man covered his apron and refused to give it to him, “You’ve been working for half a day, sit there and rest for a while, I’ll do it”
He already knows how to do it, and he’s even stealing from the master! He said it like it was true
“That won’t do!” Lu Yuanzheng disagreed, “If I’m not allowed to come, how can I enjoy Mr Xu teaching me how to roll out dumpling skins by hand?”
Xu asked, “”
With a serious face, he said acidification, competing with his son to make him jealous, shy or not?
Lu Yuanzheng ties the apron around his waist
Dongsheng finishes rolling out another dumpling skin and turns around to show off, “Dad, Ma Ma, see if the skin I rolled out this time is good?”
The skin he rolled out this time was indeed much prettier than last time!
Xu Wen and Lu Yuanzheng praised Dongsheng without mincing words
“Good! So it’s gotten better, Dongsheng is great!”
“Well, there’s still room for improvement! Come on, our family will be relying on you for the dumpling skins from now on!”
Xu asked, “”
What kind of person would do that to his son?
Dongsheng was really proud of himself and nodded his head, “Yes!”
Lu Yuanzheng stretched out his hand towards Dongsheng, “Come on, I’ll try to roll one out too, let’s see which one of us is better at rolling out the skin”
Dongsheng was in the mood and was unwilling to give it to him
Xu Wen went to the kitchen and took out another large rolling pin and gave it to Lu Yuanzheng, “Why are you fighting with the kid? You use this”
Lu Yuanzheng reluctantly took it, “This is for rolling out cakes”
In Wei Zhuang, basically every household had several rolling pins of different lengths and thicknesses
The short ones were used to roll out dumpling skins, the half-length ones were used to roll out cake skins, and the longest rolling pin was almost a meter long and was used to roll out soup noodles
When Lu Yuanzheng was preparing the furniture and household goods, he also prepared a set in the kitchen of the wooden house
When Dongsheng saw that he didn’t have to give up his rolling pin, he was especially happy and jumped in place twice, “Yes! Good! Dad let’s both compete and see who rolls out the dumpling skin better?”
“Okay! Don’t cry if you lose”
Dongsheng proudly raised his neck, “I’m a man, I won’t cry!”
Xu Man shook his head with a smile, “The two of you together are at most three years old, no more!”
Dongsheng tilted his head and thought, “Ma Ma, that’s not right! Not counting my dad, I’m four and a half years old!”
Xu asked, “”
Lu Yuanzheng passed the freshly rolled dumpling skin to Xu Man’s hand, and his retracted hand turned a corner to knock Dongsheng on the head, “Silly boy! Your mama is saying that I’m childish! As for you, you were already childish”
Dongsheng rubbed his head and let out an oink, suspiciously surveying Lu Yuanzheng, not understanding why his father was more childish than himself, he was clearly an adult
But that’s not important, he saw that Lu Yuanzheng was about to roll out another dumpling skin, owed out, “Dad, you can’t cheat! I’ll count to one-one-three and we’ll start together!”
Seeing this scene, Xu Man suddenly understood why Lu Yuanzheng was smiling so much just now as he leaned against the door
He was watching mother and son make dumplings, which should be the same as she was watching their father and son playfully at the moment
It felt so warm that she wished the door of time would just stop
Home
One word, three people
Just making lunch together can make you feel happy
The research group stayed on the island for more than a month before leaving
Before leaving, Academician Liu also repeatedly regretted that Xu Man’s talent on the island would be buried
Xu Man knew that he didn’t mean anything else, but simply cherished his talent
“Thank you Academician Liu However, everyone’s ambitions are different Maybe I don’t have much to offer, so I just want to stay with my family”
Academician Liu waved his hand, “Putting family first is not being untalented I can’t say that it must be right for you to give up a better future nestled on a small island, but, it must not be wrong to put your family first Besides, you are not really on this island around the stove, you see how many benefits you bring to the soldiers between the door? This is also a reflection of talent I just think you should have a bigger stage But there’s no rush You haven’t graduated from college yet, right? When you graduate from college, if you’ve stayed on the island long enough, come find me!”
“OK! Thank you”
Song Xueqin personally came to the island to pick up the research group and leave
He called Xu Man aside alone and asked her, “Ask, how’s it going? Is there a movie?”
Xu Man shook her head and nodded again, “I think there is a chance, but as you know, there are a lot of aspects involved in this matter, so they didn’t give a clear answer as to whether it would work or not Although the technical aspects of the problem is still very difficult, but we have also thought of a solution Currently, theoretically speaking, as long as the equipment is in place it should be able to work”
Song Xueqin nodded his head and let out a sigh of relief, “There’s finally some hope”
Of course, they all knew that even if the theoretical technical problems were solved, there were still problems in practical application Even if all solved, buy equipment funds have to be reported to the application, the whole process down is not a short period of time door, a moment can not rush
Song Xueqin listened to the heart has a number, happy to take the team to leave
As soon as they left, Lu Yuanzheng opened the door to move the camp
The houses in the camp were less demanding than the family buildings, as long as they could accommodate people
As soon as the construction was over, everyone moved in
While the soldiers were busy moving, Lu Yuanzheng had nothing to do and took a day off to explore the island with Xu Man and Dongsheng
In fact, for an island of this size, there’s nothing worth exploring even if you’ve been to all the places you can go in the past six months
So the main purpose is not to play, but to explore the road
Explore those places suitable for paving roads
Clothing, food, housing and transportation
The problem of housing is temporarily solved I don’t think a wooden house will last long on this island, but the next three to five years will definitely not be a problem
The problem of food, relying on supplies and the cooking class to open up the desert, can also survive for the time being
There are still clothes and transportation left
Clothes officers and soldiers have uniforms, family members can go to the center of the island to buy clothes
Although it is not very convenient, but the clothes were not changed much, and do not have to go out a few times a year
For the time being, it’s not a problem
Only the last line remains
Access to the island, not to mention other things, always have to build a few roads from the shore to the cabins and campgrounds
Otherwise, not to mention bicycles, it is impossible for people to walk in the rain, deep and shallow, covered in mud and water, but also affect the speed
If the enemy attacked in the rain, it would be a great disadvantage
Also, every time a supply ship came by, it was difficult to stop and pick up the cargo
Big ships come over can not dock, they are swimming to the side of the ship to carry the goods and then swim back
The lighter ones were fine, but the heavier ones were a bit of a struggle Not everything is waterproof
So we still need to build a harbor
Lu Yuanzheng’s family of three explored how the road should be repaired appropriately
Xu Man pointed to the several roads that the gate people had stepped out during this time traveling to and from the shore and the camp, “I heard of a big paradise(note) before, and at first there were no roads Later, when the tourists walked more and stepped out a path on the lawn, they rebuilt it according to the paths that had been stepped on Because people often take the nearest or most comfortable path”
Lu Yuanzheng stroked his chin and nodded, “That makes sense But, our daily routine is the beach to home, just this one is not enough There are several more roads to be built on this island In the future, this island won’t only be guarded by officials and soldiers, so it has to be built to be suitable for the people to live on If we want to keep people here, we have to give them hope For example, they can farm the land to feed themselves and go out to sea to catch fish Also this island isn’t big enough yet, so once the roads are fixed and food and electricity are taken care of it’s time to reclaim the land”
“What? Reclaim the sea and build a land?” Xu Man looked at Lu Yuanzheng in surprise, wondering if he had heard wrong
Lu Yuanzheng nodded his head and first looked into the distance with one hand covering his eyes, pointing at one of the fluttering red flags to Xu Man, “Can you see those red flags?”
Obviously Xu asked had good eyesight, but it still took some effort to find the red flag he was talking about, the distance was so far away that it actually looked like just a few small red dots
“Actually, those aren’t really islands at all, just a few reefs, coral reefs, or reefs That’s why it’s hard for you to see”
Toshio raised his hand, “Daddy what’s a reef?”
“It’s a rock in the ocean that’s closer to the water”
“Then why the red flag?”
Xu Man guessed, “Is it to prevent ships from crashing into it?”
Lu Yuanzheng shook his head, “It’s not just for fear of ships crashing into it, it’s mainly because no matter whether it’s a coral reef or a reef, it’s part of our territory Where the red flag is located is also where the national territory is located, and within the coastline is resolutely not allowed for the enemy to step in”
This was the biggest task and duty of those of them guarding these islands
Xu Man listened to Lu Yuanzheng’s calm but powerful words and once again looked out at the red dot in the distance, feeling somewhat proud for no reason
For Lu Yuanzheng and for the increasingly powerful motherland
She knew how prosperous this place would be in the future
These Dongsheng actually do not understand, but since he grew up in the big house, learn by ear, patriotism is printed in the bones, rightfully small fist wave: “If the enemy dares to come, we will beat them out ruthlessly! Charge!”
Clenching his fist, he rushed to the beach
Xu Man laughed and urged him, “Be careful and don’t fall”
Dongsheng, who had gone to fight the “enemy”, saw a small crab in the middle of the rush, and immediately put the enemy behind him, grabbing the crab and shouting to Xu Man: “Ma Ma, let’s eat crabs tonight, right?”
“Then you have to catch more, one is not enough Grab more and I’ll fry them for you to eat tonight”
“Good” Dongsheng answered painfully and went to look for crabs
Seeing Dongsheng wandering around the safety zone, Xu Man found a shade and sat down, asking Lu Yuanzheng, “The last time I went to a meeting with you guys at the regiment’s headquarters, I noticed that there were a lot of battalion commanders About a dozen or ten But the truth is, the vast majority of islands don’t need so many officers and soldiers For example, our Rainbow Island is such a small place, so even if there are occasional enemy attacks, they won’t be very large For a battalion of several hundred soldiers to guard a small island the size of a palm is a bit of a waste in my opinion So do you guys have other missions?”
Xu Wen finished and hurriedly added, “I’ll just casually ask, classified you’ll pretend I didn’t ask”
As a military wife, she still had this awareness
Sometimes it’s hard to laugh and cry
When the two of them were chatting, Lu Yuanzheng would say, “I can’t tell you this”
At first, Xu Wen would be embarrassed, and then she got used to it, and then she could guess what she could ask and what she couldn’t ask
“You can say it this time” Lu Yuanzheng moved two steps and stood back up, right in the middle door between Sunshine and Xu Man, “Our mission as you can see is to ensure the safety of the island Then the next step is to build the island, and after we make a concerted effort to secure the basic life on the island, other units will start moving in one after another Not the brother units, but for example the construction and planning units In a nutshell, the people who are responsible for building the island will come on board one by one
Slowly we will withdraw from the island construction, only responsible for guarding the island and the safety of the islanders
Each island now several times the number of troops stationed, in addition to preventing large-scale attacks on the island war, mainly for the future
Building the island in the future is a long process, besides improving the island’s living facilities little by little, the main thing is to expand the territory”
“It’s the reclamation you’re talking about?”
Lu Yuanzheng nodded his head, his gaze went back to those almost unrecognizable red flags, “Those reefs that can only stand one or two people at the moment, and haven’t even surfaced yet at all, will also slowly be filled in to become an island, connecting with the archipelago to become islands that can be inhabited”
He paused, “There will never be peace for us, we must always be in a state of readiness Those places where the red flags are planted have already lost warriors”
“Huh?” Xu Man rounded his eyes
Rainbow Island had also been attacked from time to time, but the warriors hadn’t suffered any casualties yet, and coupled with the fact that she had always been protected in the safe zone, she always felt that the real war was far away
Lu Yuanzheng’s gaze was still resting in the distance, ”Those reef islands simply can’t afford to send more than one person to guard them right now, so hammocks have been built, and one or two warriors at a time go up to guard them When it happened to be a storm and the supply ship went two days late, the warriors on the reef islands were gone”
“Why? Starved to death alive?”
Lu Yuanzheng shook his head and said word for word, “No one is seen in life, no one is seen in death”
Xu Man savored the words, that meant that they weren’t starved to death, nor were they washed away by seawater, or else with the watery nature of these warriors, they definitely wouldn’t have been gone so silently
Then there is only one possibility, to be attacked
Xu asked, “So we just need to fill in the direction of the main island? That way, when the archipelagos are connected, we won’t have this danger anymore if we all guard the island together”
She thought, “That’s not easy, it’s about ten kilometers away from the main island, how long will it take to fill it in?
But even if it wasn’t easy, it had to be done
Peace does not belong on the border, and not an inch of the country can be given away
Knowing that the reef island is not safe, there will still be warriors continue to fill the position, until the reef becomes a real island, can be stationed more people
Who knows that Road Expedition shook his head and pointed to the boundless sea in the opposite direction, “The islands are filling in to our side, but we have to fill in to the front Every extra inch of the country’s coastline will lengthen a part of it, so it has to be filled even if it’s difficult”
Xu asked, “”
She abruptly stood up from the ground, her gaze skimming over the sea where she couldn’t see the near head, the direction of the open sea Unconvinced, she said, “It’s really literally reclaiming the sea and land?”
Land reclamation is the expansion of land area by means of artificial construction
Lu Yuanzheng shrugged, “So there’s a long way to go It’s that, most likely, we’ll stay on this island forever”
As he said this, Lu Yuanzheng carefully observed Xu Man’s expression
Xu Wen let out an oh
Lu Yuanzheng was a little apprehensive, not knowing whether to comfort Xu Man or himself, and said, “Of course it doesn’t have to be for the rest of my life Maybe I’ll be transferred, maybe I’ll change careers”
Xu Man nodded and didn’t say anything
“Unhappy?”
Xu Man shook his head and nodded again, “Unhappy more or less for sure After all, it doesn’t sound like something that makes people happy Who in their right mind could enjoy a fool’s errand type of life? However, life is what you make of it The big deal is to try hard and early to make life on the island to try to get in line with the land, or even better than the land
In the future, we may be able to build an airfield here, and then we can go wherever we want, without worrying at all People on land might even rush to the island to travel”
For a moment, Lu Yuanzheng didn’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or carry this breath
The sigh of relief was that Xu Wen wasn’t angry and remained unshakable
He was relieved that Xu Wen wasn’t angry, and still wouldn’t give up He was relieved that reclaiming the sea and building land was already a headache, but she even wanted to build an airfield?
For a long time, Lu Yuanzheng laughed
This concern has been in his heart for a long time, has not been able to find the right time door to say to her, or has been afraid to say to her
The long and boring days with no end in sight, no one wants to stay up, but there are always people who have to stay up
Xu Wen looked at him and smiled
She stood up and hugged Lu Yuanzheng’s waist, looked at the beach playful Dongsheng, said to Lu Yuanzheng: “In my past life, I read a saying on the Internet, “There is no such thing as a quiet time, but someone else is carrying the weight for you to go forward!” At that time, I only found it very touching Now that I’ve become a family member of a ‘load-bearing soldier’, I realize how much suffering and fatigue is hidden in that saying
You and the other soldiers are working hard for this country for all the people, as your wife, I can’t leave you behind to escape from here It was agreed that you guard the country and I’ll guard you”
The knot in Lu Yuanzheng’s throat rolled, and without saying anything he lowered his head and kissed Xu Man’s lips
Where the future is is not important, what to do is not important, the important thing is to be together
Seventy-eight years is the first year of the official resumption of the college entrance examination, the difficulty of the competition, Xu Man they are far away from the island have heard
It is said that the test questions are much harder than last year
Although the number of admissions was 130,000 more than last year, there were also more candidates
Six million one hundred thousand candidates, the admission rate is seven percent
Wang Ying, on the other hand, was not in that seven percent
The island communication is inconvenient, Wang Ying has been waiting for, see the beginning of the school year she also did not wait for the acceptance letter
Every time a supply ship comes, she goes up to the front and waits
There are special people on the islands who are responsible for relaying letters from the land
Rainbow Island was the farthest away, so the mailman could only follow the supply ship ashore to deliver the letters
Xu Man estimated that the letter from his family should have arrived by now, so he led Dongsheng to the beach to wait
This side of the beach, including the offshore area has been cleaned up very well
You can pick up shells and catch fish and crabs, and there are always surprises
When their mother and son arrived, there were already a lot of warriors surrounding the beach
Now the work is not so urgent, it happens to be a hot summer, the work time door reduced a lot, to prevent the warriors from heat stroke
They are in this lonely island, day after day boring, just look forward to that letter of home to solve the nostalgia
Wang Ying was the most eye-catching in the crowd
She was standing in front of the others, and they didn’t want to be next to her
So she stood by herself at the front, while the others surrounded her at the back, one layer after another
However, as soon as the letter carrier came ashore, everyone couldn’t care less about keeping their distance, and hollered and surrounded her
“Is there a letter for me?”
“Any for me?”
“Is there any for me?”
The postman did this every time he came, and had gotten used to it, repeating in vain: “Don’t crowd! Don’t rush! Those whose names I read have them, those whose names I don’t have them”
“Liu Dajiang, your letter!”
“Li San, your letter!”
“Liu Xiaogan ”
With each name the letter carrier read, a cheer would ring out from the crowd, and at the same time it would be drowned out by the ughs of the others
The letters in his hand grew fewer and fewer, and the sighs of disappointment grew louder and louder
“Sister-in-law Xu Wen, your letter” The postman smiled as he handed the last letter to Xu Man
Xu Man was a celebrity in the Islands, everyone had heard of her even if they didn’t know her
She was the only college student military wife on the Islands
It was also Xu Man who had instructed the postman that everyone was homesick, so he should give them the letters home first, and she would be fine at the end of the line
She wasn’t in that much of a hurry
Xu asked and thanked him, taking the letter
“The usual rules! I’ll wait for you for three hours Those who need to send letters can give them to me now Those who need a letter back grab the door and go back to write”
The crowd of onlookers dispersed, leaving only the disoriented Wang Ying to ask the postman undyingly, “Comrade, can you see if there is a letter for Wang Ying? It should be an admission notice”
The postman also knew Wang Ying, mainly because she asked similar things every time
He shook his head, “Sister-in-law, there really isn’t I purposely checked it before I came”
Wang Ying was so anxious that she went forward and pulled the postman’s hand, “Please, take another look, is it missing?”
The postman shook his head and snatched back his hand, taking two steps back, “Sister-in-law, calm down I know you’ve been waiting, so every time a letter comes in from the land, I have to double check, there really isn’t one, you ”
Xu Man knew what the postman’s unfinished words were, and he wanted to say that Wang Ying was falling through the cracks