Zhou Xiaoyun’s Happy Life

Chapter 34 Busy New Year (3)

Every New Year, the happiest thing for children is not only to eat but also to have new clothes to wear. No matter what, every family has to buy new clothes and new shoes for their children to celebrate the New Year.

There are many brothers and sisters in the Zhou family. Xiaobao picked up Dabao’s old clothes to wear, Erya wore Zhou Xiaoyun’s old cotton-padded jacket, and Zhou Xiaoyun wore Zhou Xiaoxia’s old clothes. The cotton-padded jacket she was wearing was a remnant of Zhou Xiaoxia's from the year before. Zhou Xiaoyun was taller than her peers and it was already a little too small this year.

Zhao Yuzhen bought some floral cloth and weighed a few kilograms of cotton to prepare clothes for her children.

There is a tailor shop in the village that makes clothes for adults. As for the children’s cotton-padded jackets, all the children’s jackets are made by the mother herself. Zhao Yuzhen's craftsmanship was very good. She made a new cotton-padded jacket and trousers for Dabao in one afternoon, and made a new suit for Zhou Xiaoyun in the evening.

　　Originally, Zhou Xiaoyun rarely had new clothes in his childhood, but now Zhou Xiaoyun is considerate, well-behaved and sensible and is very popular with his parents, so Zhao Yuzhen took advantage of having some money on hand to make a new set of clothes for Zhou Xiaoyun.

Zhou Xiaoyun’s cotton-padded jacket and trousers are made of pink floral cloth stuffed with cotton. The pink color is very attractive. Zhou Xiaoyun was very happy to see it. Who doesn’t like to wear new clothes? It's a pity that these new clothes can only be worn on the first day of the new year. Now I can only take a look and have to wait a few more days.

Dabao’s cotton-padded jacket is made of blue floral cloth. Dabao likes it so much that he has to wear it now.

Zhao Yuzhen must have disagreed: "The new cotton-padded jacket has to be worn during the New Year. How can I wear it at this time? If you look like this, you can't even wear it for two days and it will get dirty. There will be no new clothes to wear on the first day of the new year. By then Children wear new clothes to celebrate the New Year, but you wear dirty clothes to celebrate the New Year. How ugly!”

 After saying that, he put away all the clothes.

Zhou Xiaoyun comforted Dabao: "Dabao, the Chinese New Year is in three or four days. It's almost here."

Dabao thought about it and stopped making trouble.

 Xiaobao and Erya did not have new clothes, but each got a new pair of cotton shoes and new socks.

 The New Year is getting closer and closer, and the market is too crowded to be crowded. Zhao Yuzhen goes to squeeze in every morning, and when she comes back, her hands are full. You must know that after the New Year, the fair will not start until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month! She has to prepare all the food and drinks for the past half month now, which is really quite busy for her.

Father Zhou caught two roosters and two ducks that had been raised at home for more than half a year and planned to kill them to entertain relatives during the New Year.

Ducks are relatively tame and can be caught one at a time, but the two half-sized roosters were running all over the yard and it took a lot of effort to catch them. The hens were reluctant to kill them to lay eggs, but the two roosters were not so lucky. They had their necks wiped with a sharp knife and jumped around for a long time before finally settling down.

Zhou Xiaoyun has never dared to watch the scene of killing a chicken. She only dared to step forward after the chicken was completely dead and motionless. While Zhou's father was too busy plucking the feathers and disemboweling the chicken, Zhou Xiaoyun carefully looked for the beautiful feathers on the rooster and collected a lot of them.

“What do you do with chicken feathers?” Dabao asked strangely.

 Zhou Xiaoyun pretended to be mysterious and did not tell Dabao. When Zhou Xiaoyun found the line cloth and the copper ring, Dabao finally realized that he was going to make a shuttlecock!

First wrap the copper ring with a small piece of cloth and sew it, then pick out five or six long dark red rooster feathers and sew them to the cloth. Sewing chicken feathers is a technical job, and if you don't do it well, your center of gravity will shift to one side.

Zhou Xiaoyun’s dexterous hands made Dabao dumbfounded. After a while, a beautiful feather shuttlecock was ready.

Dabao shamelessly took out the shuttlecock Zhou Xiaoyun had made and presented it to him as a treasure.

Zhou Xiaoyun thought about it and made a few more. He fastened one of them with a long woolen thread and let Xiaobao hold it in his hand and kick it with his feet. Xiaobao had a lot of fun with the new toy.

Even though Erya didn’t know how to play, she still took one and held it in her hand, playing with the rooster feathers on it, not to mention how happy she was.

 After a while, Zhou Xiaoxia came over. She loved it when she saw the shuttlecock in Dabao's hand, but it was a pity that Dabao wouldn't give it to him no matter how much he asked for it. After hearing that Dabao said it was Zhou Xiaoyun, he came over to ask for one.

Zhou Xiaoyun burst out laughing when he saw that the shuttlecock he made casually had become such a popular "best seller". I quickly made another one for Zhou Xiaoxia.

Zhou Xiaoxia’s shuttlecock rooster has brown feathers and a beautiful fluffy bottom. Zhou Xiaoxia was satisfied and played shuttlecock with Zhou Xiaoyun in the yard.

Zhou Xiaoxia is tall and has long legs. She kicked a dozen of them in one go and was very proud of herself.

Zhou Xiaoyun became competitive and kicked thirty times steadily before stopping. Xiaobao and Erya were dazzled watching the shuttlecocks flying up and down. Seeing their sister kicking many and steady, they clapped and cheered for her.

Zhou Xiaoyun was inspired to perform by his younger brother and sister. He kicked his left foot and right foot in turn, kicking with his toes. Sometimes he would go around behind him with his left foot to jump on the shuttlecock and then catch it with his right foot in a blink of an eye. The shuttlecock was flying up and down in various patterns, which was really beautiful.

Zhou Xiaoxia was dumbfounded and could no longer win. She fell to the ground in admiration and clapped her hands beside her.

 When Wang Jingjing, Pang Niu, and Xiao Bu Dian came to Zhou Xiaoyun's house to play, they all rushed to play shuttlecock.

 In desperation, Zhou Xiaoyun had no choice but to find some more rooster feathers to make shuttlecocks. However, the beautiful feathers on the tails of the two roosters that were killed were all used up, and there was nothing left to look at. Dabao volunteered to catch a live rooster and pluck its feathers. The rooster was running around in the yard. None of the children watching could bear it, so they all stepped out to help.

For a while, a bunch of children were running around trying to catch the lively and jumping rooster. When the rooster finally got tired from running and was caught, all of them were gasping and speechless.

Zhou Xiaoyun watched from the side and laughed.

  The friends took the shuttlecock home to show off among the children. Many adults were pestered by the children and plucked the feathers of the big rooster at home to make shuttlecocks. This year, shuttlecock has become the most popular game among children in the village.

 (End of this chapter)