Chapter 405

Xu Dasheng and Sigui rode their bicycles all night long, and the tires of their bicycles were flat. After working all night, there was no sign of fatigue on the faces of the two men, and their eyes were full of longing for life.

Grateful faces flashed through their minds, and words of gratitude echoed in their ears...

When I came back from the last store, it was already six o'clock in the morning.

Liao Fengmei got up early and prepared breakfast. Seeing Sigui coming in with a misty look on her face, she greeted him with a worried look on her face.

"Sigui, are you done with your work? Are you hungry? Are you tired? Hurry up, mom made kelp wonton soup. Wash your hands, drink it, and go to bed."

Su Qingci stayed at her uncle's house last night. Hearing the voices outside, she got up early.

When Sigui saw Su Qingci coming out, a bright smile spread across his face, "Sister, good morning~"

Su Qingci yawned as she greeted the two of them, "Siguizhao, Uncle Dasheng, good morning, thank you for your hard work."

Xu Dasheng's eyes were unusually bright. "It's not hard, not hard at all. I felt very comfortable running tonight. Uncle..." Xu Dasheng hit his chest with his fist.

"No matter how hard or tiring it is, it's all worth it. I'm an uneducated man and don't know what nice things to say, but I still have to thank you on behalf of everyone. Thank you for your kindness. You have saved dozens of families. You are..." Xu Dasheng raised his thumb towards Su Qingci, his voice hoarse and unable to speak.

Sigui handed the mountaineering bag in his hand to Su Qingci, "Sister, your bag."

Su Qingci took it and walked into the room. Soon she came out with two large oil-paper bags, one large and one small. Each of them contained ten thousand and three thousand coins respectively. She prepared these for Xu Dasheng and Qianfu.

"Uncle Dasheng, this is for you and Qianfu."

Xu Dasheng's face flushed. "No, no, no, I, I can't stand it. I should be thanking you for saving my life. How can I take your money again?"

Su Qingci advised, "Since it's the money from that ship, then everyone has a share. Besides, if it weren't for your protection, Sigui might not have been able to wait for me."

"And Qianfu. He patiently taught me how to steer the ship before. I heard him say that his family spent their entire life savings to send him to be an apprentice on the Ghana. He worked for four years and never received any wages. He also had younger brothers and sisters at home, so life was very hard."

"Besides, the Ghana already owes you wages for coming with me. This is what you deserve. Sister Xiaoyu is not feeling well, so please don't be polite. You also know that my uncle and his family will soon follow me back to the inland. The one that my uncle is most worried about here is you, my brother. If you don't accept me, my uncle will also feel uneasy."

When Xu Dasheng heard Su Qingci say this, his face flushed, and he thought of his only daughter and his mother. "Well, then I'm shameless and taking advantage of you. However, this is too much..."

Su Changzhi walked out of the room and said, "Dasheng, it's not much. I still owe you several hundred dollars. I've been dragging it out for two years."

"If it weren't for your help over the past two years, our family wouldn't be so peaceful. It wouldn't be so easy to return home."

"Although I didn't say anything, I've always remembered it in my heart. I've seen you treat Sigui like your own son all these years."

"After this, you can't risk following any fishing boats out to sea anymore. Buy yourself a bigger boat and just sail around here so Xiaoyu and Aunt Zeng don't worry."

Xu Dasheng clenched the heavy oil-paper bag in his hand and nodded heavily.

Before, Su Changzhi had a small boat, and he always followed Su Changzhi to go fishing. Later, Su Changzhi sold the boat to buy an ocean-going ship. He had nowhere to go, so he could only take Sigui on someone else's ship.

But they had to share almost half of the fish they caught with others. When others saw their big catch, they would be jealous and say some shady things to them.

He accepted the idea of sharing the fish. After all, he had to take someone else's boat, and their boat would also be subject to wear and tear. But he felt really sick after hearing those nasty words so many times.

He had clearly already paid the rent for boarding the boat, but listening to the boatman's words, it seemed as if they had done him a great favor and that he was able to catch fish only thanks to them, so he had to be weak and inferior in front of them. Sometimes when going out to sea, Xu Dasheng had different ideas from them, and he would be scolded as an ungrateful person.

The reason he went out to sea with the Ghana this time was, firstly, that his family needed money and he desperately wanted a boat of his own; secondly, he had fallen out with the boatman he had worked with before and had not yet found a suitable boatman.

"Fengmei, Fengmei, take Sixiang and Sijia to school today and ask Teacher Ge secretly. I don't know what they need to enroll there. Bring some gifts and ask for clarification."

Su Changzhi couldn't wait any longer and he was eager to set off immediately.

"Once we're done, we'll set off early. What do you think?"

Liao Fengmei looked at her husband's expectant eyes, gritted her teeth and nodded, "Okay, I'll go after I finish eating."

"You're not feeling well, don't worry. I'll clean up the things at home when I get back."

After breakfast, Sigui, who had been running all night, returned to his room and slept like a dead pig. Liao Fengmei also took her two children and carried a bag of crispy dried fish to the school in the town.

Su Changzhi staggered to the door, looked at the jujube tree in the yard, touched the faded door frame, and a trace of reluctance welled up in his eyes.

Su Qingci followed behind Su Changzhi and asked in a deliberately relaxed tone.

"Uncle, you're going back now. You must be a little reluctant, right?"

Su Changzhi sighed, "There is still some."

"Although this house is simple, it was built by Fengmei, my mother and I, who all baked the bricks ourselves. We laid every brick and tile ourselves and built it."

"I remember when I first arrived, there was only a thatched hut here. Fengmei told me that her father passed away a long time ago, and her mother raised her. The other uncles in the Liao family also didn't like her and her mother."

"Back then, we were always worried about the next meal after the last one. If it rained and we couldn't go out, we would just cook up a little bit of the dried kelp we had saved."

"They had finally saved some money to replace the roof with tiles, but ended up spending it all on my medicine."

Even though so many years have passed, Su Changzhi is still filled with gratitude every time he mentions his mother-in-law.

Su Qingci comforted him, "Uncle, when we get home, you can come back to Yunhai Village if you want to."

Su Changzhi turned around and asked, "Can you come back and take a look?"

Su Qingci said firmly, "Of course, don't forget, we have a long-distance ship."