Reborn in the 1980s: I became a stepmother in the 1980s

Part 187 Director Zhou is washing clothes for his wife again?

Zhou Zehan didn't pay much attention to his brother's expression. He bounced excitedly towards the door, holding onto his backpack straps.

"Mom! Little sister! I'm back~"

Hearing the noise, Yaoyao, who was sitting on the sofa hugging her teddy bear and watching TV, immediately slid off and ran out with a clatter of her little slippers.

Although she couldn't call her brothers by name, Zhou Zedong and Zhou Zehan were the people she spent the most time with in her short life. When she was alone at home, her days consisted of eating, sleeping, and playing with the big yellow dog. The time spent locked inside the house was incredibly dull for a small child. The most exciting part of her day was waiting for her brothers to come back from school because only then did she have someone to talk to. It made her feel less lonely.

Zhou Zehan quickly dropped the things he was carrying onto the floor, wiped the dirt from his hands, and stretched out his arms, waiting for his sister to come into his embrace.

Seeing his sister so happy to hear her name must mean she really missed her brother. After all, she hadn't seen him for an entire night.

Zhou Zehan, grinning widely and revealing a big gap-toothed smile, eagerly awaited his sister's embrace. But Yaoyao seemed to ignore him completely and bypassed him to run straight into their older brother's arms.

Zhou Zehan's smile froze as he turned his head to watch his sister snuggle into Zhou Zedong's embrace, looking rather comical with his big grin stuck on his face.

Zhou Zedong, holding Yaoyao and ruffling her hair, noticed his younger brother's dazed expression and frowned slightly. "Why are you just standing there?"

At that moment, Si Nian came out with the dishes, and seeing the scene, she couldn't help but smile. She placed the steaming Dongpo pork and potato cakes on the table and called out to the kids, "Go wash your hands and get ready for dinner."

As soon as the food was set on the table, Zhou Zehan's earlier embarrassment was forgotten. His eyes followed Si Nian's every move, finally settling on the delicious-looking dishes.

He rubbed his hands on his clothes, then ran up to Si Nian with a bit of dirt still on his little hands. Pointing at the potato cakes with curiosity, he looked up at her and asked, "Mom, what is this?"

Si Nian bent down, gently patting the little guy on the head. With a warm smile, she replied, "This is a potato cake. Do you want to try it?"

Zhou Zehan immediately nodded vigorously, practically showing "I want to eat it" on his face.

"Then go wash your hands before dinner. If you don't wash your hands, you might get worms in your belly, okay?" Si Nian reminded him carefully.

In the countryside, child-rearing wasn't as meticulous. With many children and limited access to water, rural parents were often busy with farm work and had little time or energy to focus on hygiene. Some even believed that "if it's not clean, it doesn't matter, as long as you don't get sick."

Baths were rare, and washing hands before eating was seldom practiced. Kids often ate wild fruits without washing them and didn't think about cleaning their hands. Their hands were usually dirty, with mud under their nails, but they didn't care, grabbing food and stuffing it into their mouths. This lack of hygiene made it easy for roundworm eggs to contaminate their hands or food, leading to intestinal worms if ingested.

That's also why many children in the countryside used to suffer from stomachaches and intestinal worms. It's closely related to their living environment. Si Nian had observed this village; while some people were clean, most children lived in a "free-range" manner. They would either be up in the mountains catching birds or down by the river catching fish.