Chapter 123: Eating Watermelon

Yang Guoen didn't come to the stall until three o'clock in the afternoon. He used a tricycle to put the two flavors of crayfish made at home on the table. The charcoal had been burned at home and was placed in an iron bucket. He put the charcoal pieces into the grill one by one.

His wife Feng Lanlan was pouring hot oil into the wok, and the old man was setting the table and chairs.

Today is not a day off, both children are in school, and the three adults are busy.

Before the oil pan was even heated up, people who went to Haotang Village to play in the water saw Yang Guoen setting up his stall and walking towards them.

Yang Guoen put the towel around his neck. He was too close to the charcoal fire and was sweating from the heat.

"Brother, can we eat now?"

"Yes! The fried skewers will be ready in a while. Take a look at what you want to eat and grab a basket to order first."

The couple, along with their two or three-year-old child, each took a basket and began picking things out of the refrigerator.

After the initial rush of opening, Yang Guoen's barbecue stall is now getting more and more organized. The tables are simple and portable, and look very high-quality. He cleaned the riverside when he was free. Usually, after customers finish eating the skewers, the iron skewers are collected, and the wooden skewers are not thrown away to avoid polluting the environment.

Summer is here and there are a lot of mosquitoes by the river. He listened to Xia Wu and planted various mosquito repellent plants by the river. The effect was immediate and there were far fewer mosquitoes than before.

The guests were eating barbecue and chatting by the river. After playing in Haotang Village, they always had to eat some delicious food to reward themselves.

After coming back for a month, and setting up the barbecue stall for more than half a month, Yang Guoen has already earned back the initial investment cost and still makes a profit every month.

It's much more than what they could earn working in a factory, and they can also stay at home with their children. They are so happy.

Yang Guofeng created a group for their village, and all the villagers are in the group. The village is getting better and better now, and they always want to let the young people working outside to see it to enhance their sense of collective honor. If they want to come back in the future, they can come back at any time.

When Yang Guoen has nothing to do, he likes to send photos to the group. He puts the cage down to catch crayfish, takes a few photos when he catches them, and sends them to the group. Sometimes he takes photos of the blue sky, or of the customers who are too busy to take care of in the store. Some of the people who work outside have a good relationship with him, and seeing that he lives such a comfortable life, their hearts are about to fly back home.

"Guo En is really smart. We just work hard outside and never learn any skills. Otherwise, it would be great if we could go back and set up a stall!"

Yang Guoen smiled proudly and encouraged them to ask around, as some big cities have government-run places where students can learn skills for free.

The skills you learn are yours and will be useful sooner or later.

Although the village is getting better and better, there is still a need for everyone, and Xia Wu's villa cannot take care of all the villagers. It is not big enough yet.

It doesn't mean they can find a job immediately after returning. For some people who have stopped working and have no income, they dare not make up their minds to go back to their hometown and try.

After the busy meal rush, it was getting dark and there were only a few crayfish left in the two large iron basins. The children at home came back with other children from the village. When they saw their own stall from afar, they jumped and called for their parents.

After dark, there are not many guests coming. After all, this is a suburban village. People who come here to play have no place to stay, so they have to go back early.

For the remaining crayfish, Yang Guoen simply called the children in the village to stay and asked them to sweep the floor of the stall, collect the skewers, and wipe the table. Then he asked these little kids to wash their hands and asked them to share the remaining crayfish. Yang Guoen also fried a string of starch sausage for each of them as a reward for their work.

It’s no wonder that the trick he learned from Xia Wu really works on the children in the village.

It not only develops their hands-on ability, but also allows them to eat good food without spending money, and children are happy to do this.

Feng Lanlan finally had the opportunity to rest for a while. She was also hot from frying things in the hot weather. Her waist was so tired that she could hardly stand up straight. She said to Yang Guoen while hammering her waist, "Why don't we hire someone? It's so tiring to do this every day."

The lobsters and snails all need to be processed, the vegetables need to be cleaned, and then they need to be strung together. Both of them had blisters on their fingers, and then they have to fry the skewers at a high intensity, which is a bit too much for even the strongest people.

Not only was Feng Lanlan exhausted, but even the old man was exhausted.

Before they came back, Yang Hong looked after the children and did some light work on Yantou Mountain every day. He didn't have to cook for himself, and someone would take care of the children's homework. He would listen to operas and chat. It was so comfortable.

As a result, as soon as his son and daughter-in-law came back, his leisurely days were gone, and he was busy like a top following the young couple all day long. You say he won't do it, but those country people don't refuse money when it's delivered to their doorstep.

The old man's face was so tired that it looked like a donkey's, and he was not in a good mood when talking to his son.

This really couldn't go on. Yang Guoen wanted to find someone younger and more efficient, so he set his sights on Li Honghong.

Guihua Niang and her daughter-in-law have a bad relationship as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and they don't interact much. Although it seems a bit strange to outsiders like Yang Guoen, he is not in a mother-in-law relationship with Li Honghong. He is just recruiting people to do work, so it's okay!

"Dad, you don't need to help tomorrow. Go to the mountain to play with your old friends. I'll ask Li Honghong to come and help our family, and also let Lanlan have some relief."

"What? Who are you looking for?" Yang Hong shook his head like a rattle when he heard Li Honghong's name. "No, no, why are you attracted to her? I tell you, if you look for her, you might end up making enemies with Guihua Niang."

Yang Guoen thought it was just the same old thing, so he said, "It's been a long time since then. Even if the bones are broken, the tendons are still connected. Can they really stop communicating completely?"

Feng Lanlan heard that the old man had other intentions, so she asked, "Dad, did they cause trouble again while we were outside?"

Yang Hong told the story of Guihua Niang and Li Honghong. At the beginning, Guihua Niang worked under Xia Wu. Li Honghong wanted to make money, so she asked her wife to intercede and find a job for her. But Li Honghong called her younger brother over, spoke rudely to Xia Wu like a gangster, and had a big quarrel with Guihua Niang. She even said that she would not support Guihua Niang, and the village secretary had to step in to mediate.

Later, Guihua's mother broke off her relationship with Li Honghong, and she was too embarrassed to work for Xia Wu again. She only went back to work this year.

Yang Guoen and Feng Lanlan looked at each other. Fortunately, she asked a question. Otherwise, if she called Li Honghong to work, wouldn't she offend Xia Wu?

If it was just a conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, they could have dealt with it nicely, but Li Honghong was so shady that she called her younger brother to act like a hooligan. Isn't this funny?

Feng Lanlan complained to Yang Guoen, "It's all your fault. You didn't find out clearly before hiring. You can't let Li Honghong come to work here. Find a way to stop her from coming."

As the saying goes, "Old people are always wise." Yang Hong said to his daughter-in-law, "It's hard to recruit people in our village. All the young and energetic ones have gone to work for Xiao Wu. Those who don't are probably scheming. Why don't you ask your mother's family if there's anyone looking for work? It's not far away, so how can you find someone?"

So Feng Lanlan called her aunt to help, and used this as an excuse to reject Li Honghong, which made Li Honghong so angry that she almost cursed everyone in the village.

When Xia Wu heard about this, she listened with great interest and never thought that this matter could be related to her.

That day, Yang Guofeng came to see Xia Wu again, and the first thing he asked her was, "Have you checked the group in our village?"

Xia Wu shook her head. She had too many group chats, so she could only block them and click on them when she wanted to. "What's wrong? Uncle Guofeng, what's going on?"

"Hey, about this matter, I didn't want to ask you. Family disgrace should not be made public, but Yang Dajun insisted that I come and ask."

"It's okay, just tell me, we are not outsiders."

Xia Wu took out his phone and opened the group chat to take a look. Yang Dajun from the village was asking in the group what a 19-year-old girl could do.

No one has replied to him yet.

It was obvious there were melons. Xia Wu became interested and moved two stools to the door and a table. From here, he could see the buffaloes grazing on the hillside. He served tea and washed fruits and asked Yang Guofeng to sit down. "Uncle, tell me what's going on. Let me hear what's going on first."

Eating melons makes people happy, and Xia Wu began to understand the interests of the people in the village intelligence center.

Yang Guofeng didn't bother to be polite with her. He took a plum and took a bite. It tasted sour and sweet, making his mouth water.

Yang Dajun is actually somewhat of a distant relative of Yang Guofeng and the others. After all, this is Yanggou Village, and they are relatives going back several generations, but they are now five generations apart.

According to seniority, Yang Dajun should call Yang Guofeng "uncle." Yang Dajun was young, in his early forties. His wife ran off with someone, leaving him with a daughter. He had gone out to work early in his life and hadn't saved much money. Instead, his daughter was left at home without anyone to take care of her. She dropped out of school at the age of sixteen or seventeen, met a boy online, and ran off with him headfirst.

This matter spread in the village at that time. Yang Guofeng even went to look for people to confirm that Yang Mei was in love with someone and not abducted, so he had to give up.

If you calculate carefully, Yang Mei should be 23 years old this year. She probably can't make ends meet and wants to come back. Yang Dajun knows that he is not doing his daughter justice, so he wants to find a job for her in the village.

Yang Dajun ran to find Yang Guofeng and told him that he actually went out to find Yang Mei's mother. As a result, his wife did not persuade him to come back, and his daughter was left aside to learn bad things. He didn't know how much he regretted it.

Yangmei was still young at that time and didn't know what life meant. She got married just because people said a few nice words to her. Within two years of her marriage, she gave birth to a child. She was less than 20 years old at that time.

They couldn't even get a marriage certificate. The man coaxed her, saying that they would get the certificate when they reached the legal age of marriage, and that they would hold the wedding banquet after they had a child. As a result, it was delayed again and again. She is 23 years old this year and can get the certificate, but the man won't go with her. They didn't even register the baby girl. Yang Mei urged her husband to register the child, and the child's kindergarten enrollment was delayed.

As a result, her husband gave her a perfunctory answer, saying that the family had to wait until Yangmei gave birth to another son before they could get married, and then they could register the eldest son's household registration.

When Yang Mei first started looking for a man, she was still young and her mind was full of love. After she got married and had children, she gradually understood the cruelty of life.

Her husband is not doing his job properly. In the past, you could say that he was young and unstable, but now he is in his twenties and his daughter is three and a half years old. He never looks for a job and just asks his parents for money. He buys cigarettes and goes online when he has some money. He doesn't do any housework and doesn't take care of the children. Yang Mei found a job shaking milk tea in a milk tea shop in town, earning 1,800 yuan a month, all of which she spends on her daughter. She finally buys a bag for more than 30 yuan, but her wife scolds her in a sarcastic way and says she doesn't know how to manage the household.

Yang Mei saw no hope and didn't know what to do. Her man flirted with other women while playing games online, which became the last straw that broke the camel's back.

She didn't know what else to do. She was thinking about taking her daughter and committing suicide to punish her man, when she received a call from Yang Dajun.

Yang Mei doesn't like her father and never calls Yang Dajun all year round. Instead, when Yang Dajun got older, he often called her and transferred money to Yang Mei.

Yang Dajun worked as a casual worker for Xia Wu. He worked when there was work and rested when there was no work. He was not a formal employee. He earned more than 3,000 yuan last month. He only kept a few hundred yuan and gave the rest to Yang Mei.

I don’t know what happened, but he wanted to call his daughter that day.

After seeing the transfer, Yang Mei suddenly started crying and expressed her confusion while crying. Yang Dajun was really angry and wanted to beat her man up.

But no matter how much he was beaten, Yangmei was still like this.

Yang Dajun asked Yang Mei to bring the child back. Since the child was not registered, the child would just take her surname Yang. He, Yang Dajun, could support both mother and daughter. He would make up for what he had not supported before.

Yangmei really came back.

She came back with her child for two days and hid at home, too embarrassed to go out and see people. The main reason was that she was young at that time, and her elopement was a big deal and everyone knew about it. Now that she had hit a wall and came back, she felt embarrassed no matter how she thought about it.

After all, Yangmei is still young and can't stay away from people all her life. Yang Dajun wants to find her a proper job so that she can go out of the house. Now that the child's household registration has been registered, he will be able to go to kindergarten in the second half of the year. Yangmei also wants to earn some money.

Over the years, she has come to understand one thing: a woman cannot just sit there with her hands up, she has to rely on herself, otherwise it would be so pathetic.

"You said Yangmei was a good girl, but one wrong step led to another. But as a human being, it's inevitable that we won't make mistakes. It's good that she came back now and didn't do anything stupid."

Xia Wu nodded in agreement. "It's not a big deal. She's not desperate. She just wants to find something to do. It's simple. She can shake milk tea. Ask her if she wants to open a milk tea shop. She doesn't even need to open a store at first. She can just set up a stall like Uncle Guo En did. She can handle it all by herself."

The weather is hot now and everyone wants to drink some refreshing drinks. Currently, there is a lack of tea stalls in the tourist spots near Yanggou Village.

Yang Guofeng slapped his thigh. He thought this was feasible and didn't bother to gossip with Xia Wu anymore. "Then I'll go find Yang Dajun now and tell him about this."

Xia Wu nodded, "If you don't understand something, just look it up online. It's easy to figure out, and you'll learn it in no time!"

Yang Guofeng left in a hurry. Jiang Xun suddenly appeared from the next room and sat in Yang Guofeng's seat. "I didn't expect that Boss Yang is not only good at raising cattle, but also good at giving people business advice!"