78 Old Town New Year

  Chen Hua Sheng decisively clapped his hands and went to the ancient town in Jiangnan to spend the Spring Festival, eating reunion dinner and spending New Year's Day.

  In the studio, she went online, booked a room and prepaid for a small inn by the river in Dayan Town. Then, she raised her head to inform Pang Hua. After switching computers, even opening a large 'bed' picture was not very smooth. Oh, no, this is not a hardware problem, so it should be cleaning up the hard drive and loading? Chen Huacheng thought for a moment, tried countless folders and various additional functions, thoroughly cleaned up several hundred megabytes of space on the computer, and uninstalled several software that were not used at all.

  Hey, it's New Year's, time for a big clean-up! Computers need to lose weight too!

  It's really getting close to New Year's Eve, and the traffic and crowds are noticeably smaller. Good rooms are unexpectedly easy to book. Everyone likes to go out and find something new, but at least this year, not that many people ran to the small town to celebrate New Year's Eve. Ha, maybe next year it'll be packed with people, who knows.

  "This room is really nice. The price isn't that expensive either... My parents' room in France definitely didn't have such character." Pang Hua said after visiting two rooms, expressing his satisfaction.

  "Europe is expensive. However, if you are willing to 'spend' 300-400 euros, you can also stay in the rooms of former lords and nobles for a night. But possibly the bathroom facilities are relatively old."

  "Never mind. I still prefer the 200-yuan river-view carved 'flower' big 'bed' room."

  Two people, although they are still quite strapped for cash now, one family is truly not poor, and the other has been indulged in the prices of twenty or thirty years ago for too long. So, sometimes they will be very frugal and unmoved, and sometimes they will spend money lavishly, leaving others speechless.

  "...come over and have a freshly baked hot hoof, paired with a jar of Osmanthus wine."

  In the local old restaurant, two young people wearing sportswear and big down jackets occupied a round table by the window. A steaming hot pot of braised pig's trotters that had been stewed until tender and fragrant, two bowls of wild vegetables, and a jar of sweet rice wine were placed on the table. The cost was just enough to prevent the boss from asking them to move to a small table in the main hall for dinner.

  "Have you been to Guizhou?" Chen asked during a break from drinking.

  "No."

  "Uh-huh, it's just that communication and eating are a bit difficult, but mountains and water are rarely good."

  "The largest one, Huangguoshu Waterfall is in Guizhou?"

  "But there's far more than just one yellow fruit tree over there."

  "Alas. I also heard that Lijiang in Yunnan is a great place, unfortunately I haven't been there." Pang Hua sighed.

  "You can think of Lijiang as a super-large hostel, all commercialized, where people come to eat, drink and have fun. But the town itself is not as good as Dali."

  "You know so much!" If he hadn't been in contact with other students, Pang Hua would have thought that he was indeed ignorant and Chen Huai Cheng was the normal standard. But after observing for all these years, it turned out that Chen Huai Cheng was the one who was abnormally knowledgeable! "Is everything you know from the internet?"

  “……uh-huh.” In short, she couldn't say that she had a travel bug for several years, using up all her annual leave to run around the country and fly around the world. She brought her daughter along when she got older. Uh...she only cared about her own gains, venting her stress, without considering her partner's feelings - actually, their marriage already had cracks at that time?! More than half of the marriages that ended in divorce were related to both parties, but in summary, there was only one reason: after marriage, they didn't make an effort to manage and compensate for the differences between them.

  Outside the window, by the river, it's very lively. Due to fire prevention reasons, there are few fireworks, but many food stalls and long tables for banquets, with gaudy yet festive decorations, women's laughter and children's shrill cries... Hmm, since the window is only open a crack, I couldn't smell the aroma of all the different foods blending together. But that's okay, imagination is always better than reality.

  The 'flower' sweet rice wine has a very low alcohol content, it can almost be drunk as a beverage, and it also neutralizes the excess 'meat'. Chen Huan didn't want any rice.

  Chen Huasheng told Pang Hua not to eat the "fatty" meat, and the latter listened obediently, eating half of the lean meat and a whole plate of wild vegetables, while most of the skin went into Chen Huasheng's belly. There was still quite a bit of lean meat left that he really couldn't finish.

  "Can't be packed. What a pity." Pang Hua was still savoring the flavor. But as the 'meat' dishes cooled down, the initial enticing meat aroma was basically gone, and now eating it was really a bit of a letdown.

  "Most of it was eaten, not too 'wasteful'." Chen Huan hesitated for a moment, and finally gave up the large piece of leftover "meat", but finished off all the wild vegetables on the plate.

  The bill is coming out - it's Pang Hua's turn to pay the bill - the cold air outside instantly blew away all the stale food smells in the restaurant.

  "Shall we come back here tomorrow?!" Pang Hua smiled brightly.

  He probably meant to come out every year for Chinese New Year. But Chen Huaicheng could understand it as coming over to play during the holidays next year. After all, her parents didn't go on long-distance trips every 'Spring' Festival. She nodded, "Try a different restaurant tomorrow?"

  "Good! ...Hmm, a bit too much meat. Take a walk and digest it?"

  "Alright."

  Two people, like many other old and young tourists in pairs, walked very close but without physical contact. Along the way, they talked from work to life, from face to shoes, including his suggestions for improvement on adding 'refined' oil to shampoo, he also said that it's not bad to try selling some extremely small doses of raw materials for DIY...

  Chen Hua sent a text message to her parents, saying that she was spending the New Year in a famous small town in Jiangnan. The place is very lively and the food is delicious. Her father and mother both replied, expressing their pride that their daughter is getting better at enjoying life. One of them told her to have fun, while the other reminded her not to overspend money. They also recommended a type of mushroom noodles that cost less than 10 yuan. It seems that most men are like this - they splurge on things they like without hesitation, but when it comes to their wives and children, especially daughters who will get married in the future, they want them to be frugal. They would rather have their wives and daughters hand over all their money to them and only give them 200 yuan a month to buy street food and cheap cosmetics. Fortunately, Chen Hua and her mother never listen to her father's wishes, which always makes him lament the "thousand-year tradition" of male chauvinism before liberation. However, her mother would teach him about the new era's "three obediences and four virtues", and she would never force their daughter to hand over her salary to her father, husband, or even her mother-in-law.

  She would never mention that she drove out of town with a member of the opposite sex whose face was already familiar to the townspeople during the New Year. Many things are better left unsaid, and it's often better not to bring them up at all.

  Then walked to the coffee and tea bar which was not too lively, sat down, first had a pot of American-style clear coffee to digest the greasy food, then ordered another pot of chrysanthemum tea, while watching the scenery outside the window, they chatted casually.

  Went to the toilet twice, got hungry before 11 o'clock, so two people discussed and finished another serving of 'chicken' wings.

  After twelve o'clock, return to the hotel and sleep soundly.

  It's strange that this trip out for the New Year was originally all led by Chen Huai Sheng, but after dinner they started switching people. However, his proposal also suited her taste. Besides, on New Year's Eve, could she really just stay in a simple and old-fashioned room watching TV alone? Fortunately, both of them brought their laptops with internet access, and fortunately the hotel's network was usable, only now unlimited broadband hasn't spread yet, without bringing a wireless router they could only sit at the not very comfortable desk to go online, and couldn't lie on the "bed" or sit on the toilet to read web articles at any time.