On New Year's Eve, his father called the coach station and asked his son to pick him up. His son was stunned.

It was another Spring Festival, and the son had already agreed with his parents on the phone that he still wouldn't go home this year. Dad wasn't angry and didn't say anything.

The son was in trouble. The year before last, he found a hospital nursing job in a housekeeping company in the provincial capital, and last year he became a small head. During the Spring Festival, the manpower was low, and the price was high. He wanted to set an example.

His father had been limping for eight years. That year, he was a village cadre and took the lead in blowing up mountains and rocks, injuring his left foot. His father was wearing an ear-protective cotton hat, his hands were in the sleeves of a black cotton vest, and there was a big black bag under his butt.

Seeing his son running over, he suddenly got up, trembled a few times, and fell down. The son helped his father up, bit his lip and didn't speak.

The father held his son's hand tightly and said with a smile, "The beard is longer than my father's, which girl dares to want you!" The father lost two more teeth, and the rough flesh on his palm hurt him.

The son cried.

The father smiled again, and the rough walnut pattern on his face squeezed out the flowers. He looked here, touched there, and then sat by the bed, looking around at the 8-square-meter hut rented by his son, as if looking at the autumn house full of buns.

Behind him lay a river beach hometown specialty, and five bottles of homemade spicy toon were the most eye-catching.

After eating dumplings on New Year's Eve, his son went to the supermarket to buy them. "Come back!"  When he turned around, he threw a bag of bacon into his son's arms, and his face turned red.

It was the rule set by the ancestors that dumplings should be eaten with bacon. The fat dumplings were served on the table, and the father took out three pairs of chopsticks from the black bag and asked his son to take out three bowls and arrange them in turn.

The son looked at his father suspiciously, and his father picked out a few dumplings from the plate and put them in the empty bowl, "Your mother is busy, don't think about it." After saying that, he dragged his son to sit down and grinned, "This is called Chinese New Year!"

This is called Chinese New Year. This is what my mother said. When I was in Shangxian Middle School, my son came back from working in a restaurant during the holidays, and every New Year's Eve, he would make dumplings with my mother.

His mother praised him for making good dumplings, and always liked to talk about eating dumplings made by his son. It was called Chinese New Year, and the bright oil slid out of the corners of his mouth, and his son's empty mouth was suddenly filled with a strong fragrance of burning firewood in the kitchen of the old house. He missed his mother and wanted to call. "Melon, it's been a year behind my ears." Dad said.

The son brought a basin of hot water for soaking his feet, and his father hurriedly put his feet away. "Sweeping the floor and soaking your feet during the Chinese New Year to run for money." The son grabbed his father's feet and took advantage of the situation to wipe off his shoes. The son was stunned, and the purple-colored dead leaf-like skin wrapped the swollen feet and climbed up the calf.

The father's eyebrows stretched, and the son said tentatively, "Dad, if I want to work for another three years, our family will turn over." Without answering, the father said, "Your mother is stubborn, so I recognize the dumplings you made. What can I do without two mouthfuls?"

Don't blame my mother, the son put his hand on his father's cotton back, "I will make dumplings for you every New Year in the future."

"What?"  Dad jerked his head away from the pillow, tilted his face, and his eyes lit up.

After breakfast the next day, the father solemnly said to his son, "I'll be back at noon today." The son was anxious. The father took out a return ticket from his pocket and said, "Do everything your mother told me to do, what's going on in the city, say it, your uncle will pick me up at the county station, nothing to do."

The son knew that persuasion was in vain, so he took out a wad of money from his underwear pocket, stuffed it into his father's black bag, and said heavily, "I will do a good job."

The father and son were both happy on the way.

Before getting on the train, the father kept stroking his son's messy beard and said, "Pick it up and send it to your mother as a picture."

The train pulled out of the platform. Dad had been standing stiffly in the aisle, his eyes looking straight out the window, and suddenly he sighed and wiped away tears.

A year ago, his wife passed away, and he did not let his father tell his son that he would let his son earn the money to marry a daughter-in-law with peace of mind. Only when her son married a daughter-in-law would she feel at ease there.