Chapter 1252: An endless stream of New Year visitors, and was Gu Xiaoxia changing jobs?
On New Year's Day, as usual, they were woken by countless firecrackers.
Mingming and Haohao had gone to bed a little early the night before, so a little after seven, while it was still dark, the two children got up at the sound of firecrackers outside, dressed, and ran out with Li Qiang leading them.
It was cold outside, but the children weren't afraid at all. They first ran out to see whether any nearby neighbors were setting off firecrackers, then quickly came back inside to help Liang Yuemei, who had already gotten up to boil water-though "helping" really only meant doing little jobs.
Soon, Chen Lirong and Li Xia came over to help too. With nothing left for the children to do, Li Qiang went into the inner room, took a thousand-shot string of Electric Firecrackers down from the brick-built kang, and tore off the paper wrapping with Mingming and Haohao. They went outside and tied it to a long branch prepared earlier.
Li Qiang also wound the string around the branch a few times, worried that the fuse wouldn't be strong enough and the string might break halfway through. That would be unlucky-something like that had happened before.
By the time Li Long had washed up and reached the back courtyard, Liang Yuemei had the dumplings ready to go into the pot.
"Qiangqiang, get ready to light them!" Li Junfeng called from the doorway. Mingming and Haohao were by the courtyard gate, resting the thick branch on the wall and holding it together. Neither could really have managed it alone.
Xueping, Xueqin, and Hongqin stood to one side covering their ears and watching, while Li Qiang stood outside the courtyard with the firecrackers