Chapter 1217: 1218 Found a thing called happiness
Chapter 1217 1218 Found a thing called happiness
On the spacious street, a Renmin brand car drove slowly by. This kind of car does not have much horsepower, so it does not feel like driving fast.
It is a cheap car developed by Datang Group for civilians. In addition to being iron-clad and able to protect against wind and rain, it is just a four-wheeled motorcycle.
Small-horsepower gasoline engine, small wheels and small compartment, everything is to highlight the advantages. The person driving this kind of car cannot be particularly large, otherwise there is a high risk of accidentally tearing the door off.
The car slowly drove into the entrance of a garage next to a community. There was an old security guard at the entrance of the underground parking lot. He didn't panic after seeing the car. He also slowly opened a small book and checked the license plate number. Then he pressed the button and raised the roadblock.
"Thanks, old man." The middle-aged man greeted with a smile, and while passing the railing, he shook his window handle vigorously.
There is no other way, it’s cheap, of course the window lifting is manual, it doesn’t take much trouble anyway, just crank it a few times by hand to raise the glass.
The old man waved his hand, put down the railing after the car went down to the basement, lowered his head and continued to play with his radio.
Don't underestimate the radio in his hand. Radios that can use batteries these days are really not cheap except in the Tang Dynasty.
With the dim light above his head, the middle-aged man driving the car carefully parked his car in the berth that belonged to him. This is a parking lot renovated by an underground civil defense project in Tongcheng City of the Tang Empire. A series of escape notes are still on the walls.
Not far from where the middle-aged man parked his car, there was a huge iron gate. This gate could be closed at any time. It was filled with thick cement and could withstand direct attacks from large aerial bombs.
After parking his car, the man who got out of the car went to the back seat and took out a cake box. He carefully placed it on the bonnet of an old People's car next to him. He turned around and used the key to carefully Locked his car.
For him, or for his whole family, this car is an expensive luxury. If it weren't for his work and the fact that the country had given him a huge discount, he wouldn't have thought of buying such a car. thing.
However, with the development of society and the passage of time, it seems that many families in the entire Copper City have their own cars.
Even the dullest people realize that their lives are rapidly getting better, and everything around them is starting to look different.
In the past, they thought that being able to eat a bag of instant noodles was already a gift from His Majesty the Emperor. Now, what everyone talks about the most is the price of pork, chicken and eggs getting cheaper, and the education of their children.
The workers who have worked hard in Tongcheng for ten years do not need to worry about houses. Those are things that only foreigners and immigrants care about.
They have their own factories, and the state has laws that require them to be supported by these factories, and the factories are also obliged to provide them with corresponding benefits.
House is part of the welfare: Ten years later, the house they live in now is so good that people can’t even imagine it!
This is definitely not an exaggeration, but a serious description. These workers never thought that one day they would be able to live in a two-bedroom building and enjoy a spacious and bright life.
Before they became citizens of the Tang Empire, they were exploited by landlords and bullied by foremen. How could they dare to hope for such a thing? But now...they have everything.
And have more than they ever dreamed of.
After pulling the door handle and repeatedly confirming that his car was locked, the middle-aged man turned back and picked up the cake placed on the bonnet of someone else's car, and walked towards the stairs carrying a crumpled briefcase.
Another car drove into the parking lot in the distance, and the sound of the engine and the sour brake sound gradually faded away.
This underground parking lot cannot directly lead to the building where the middle-aged people live. After all, the civil air defense project is a civil air defense project, and the community built later is the community built later.
Back on the ground, after passing a small garden, the middle-aged man walked all the way to his home. A group of old ladies were sitting around the flower bed in the garden. The head of the Zhang family and the Li family were gossiping about other people's families.
Children after school were climbing up and down the iron railings around the garden, chasing each other and playing, shouting about moves such as the Soul-Severing Sword and the Mountain Palm.
The storytelling played on the radio is the best pastime for common people. Every evening, the storytelling that children and adults listen to contains everything from honest officials to solving crimes, heroes to saving the world, and detective heroes... As time goes by, children naturally have their own way of telling stories. Number of ways to play.
In their eyes, those iron railings are city walls, those flower beds are trenches, they are knights who fly over the walls, and all they earn are alliance leaders or commanders.
Those who can live in this community are probably employees of Tongcheng Second Steel Plant, and everyone is familiar with it. It is normal to greet each other, nod and go about their business. I greeted a few acquaintances along the way, walked to the door of the first unit, bypassed a bunch of bicycles parked at the door, and walked up the stairs.
In the already narrow staircase, every step was filled with junk, including cabinets with broken legs and large water tanks with stones on them.
Everyone’s life has just become affluent, and the habit of saving things is still retained. Everyone does this, so there is no question of fairness or injustice.
The jogging platform on the second floor is Aunt Liu's chicken coop, leaving only an aisle for one person to pass through. The dozen or so chickens inside were clucking and clucking, which suddenly brought the modern atmosphere of the building back to zero.
The corner of the third floor is piled with cabbage and covered with a rag. This is the food that the old man of the Li family used for winter. There were more in November, and now most of them have been eaten.
There is no other way. I was scared of hunger when I was fleeing famine, so now I put food on my doorstep just for peace of mind. Let alone these old men and women, there is one household in the whole building. Which kitchen does not stock up on a hundred pounds of rice and flour?
Nowadays, life is better. If you want to catch a chicken or pick up a piece of cabbage in the corridor, those old neighbors may not ask for your money, but they just can't change these habits and can't forget the earlier years. Days like that.
They simply cherish the life in front of them and are worried that such a life will suddenly be shattered. Therefore, they instinctively hoard all the supplies they can, and then eat old sesame seeds and rotten millet day after day, smiling happily at the mountains of food that are about to go bad.
Perhaps in another twenty or thirty years... these people will be gone, and their habits will dissipate as no one will inherit them.
Don’t laugh at them, because they have really experienced that time, that time when they couldn’t afford to eat. When they met, they stubbornly asked each other if they had eaten, and then stubbornly believed that hearing the other party reply that they had eaten was the most sincere blessing.
That's right, for these people, eating it is the best thing. Although their descendants will no longer regard being full as a kind of happiness, even though their descendants increasingly look down on the empty cans and bottles, old newspapers and rotten cardboard boxes tied together in the corners of their homes.
There is a couplet on the iron door on the fourth floor. This tradition did not exist before. With His Majesty the Emperor appointing the Spring Festival celebrations, the Tang Empire officially had an additional festival that required a holiday.
On this day, the whole country rejoices, celebrating that they no longer have to suffer from hunger, celebrating that their days are getting better and better, and celebrating that their future is full of hope.
During this festival, people will try their best to show off their harvest for the year. Everyone makes a kind of pasta called dumplings with various fillings to pray for a good harvest; everyone eats fish at the family banquet, which indicates that there will be plenty every year...
To this day, families with enough money have to post auspicious words of prayer on both sides of their home doors, with neat and cheerful words.
This kind of celebration of the Tang Empire is simply a luxury in the eyes of other countries: this kind of paper was an exclusive product of the nobles in the past, but now the common people of the Tang Empire stick the paper on the door like this!
Every household still needs to eat fish? Are you kidding me? They don't even have enough to eat, so they have to choose a day to eat fish? It’s not difficult for fishermen at the seaside to eat fish. Do you know how much a fish costs inland?
The man took out his key, unlocked the door to his house, opened the thick iron door, and changed into his slippers on the mat at the door.
He put his briefcase on the ground aside and handed the cake he bought to his wife who welcomed him back: "It's for Xiaowen."
“Buying nonsense again! Can’t she make pork ribs for her birthday? Just buy such an expensive thing.” The wife scolded her, turned around and took the cake to the dining table.
It’s not that a family like theirs can’t afford to eat cake, but the habit of frugality still sneaks out in every detail, being simple and stubborn.
The daughter who was doing her homework saw her cake, cheered and closed her homework book. Her grades are good, giving this small family full of hope for the future.
The Tang Empire never discriminated against women, and the chief officials of many departments were women. In some cities, even the mayors are women, so girls can go to school, be educated, and find plenty of jobs in society.
"Have you finished your homework? Just yell!" the hostess scolded, but it obviously had no effect. She put the cooked pork ribs on a plate in the kitchen, then poured the washed vegetable leaves into the pot and started stirring them.
The man happily touched his daughter's head and interrupted her daughter who was unpacking the cake box: "Go wash your hands!"
“Thank you, daddy!” The daughter stuck out her tongue obediently. She was very beautiful and generous.
“Happy birthday.” Looking at his daughter’s back, the man felt that he had found something called happiness.
(End of this chapter)