??190 Chapter 190

◎ Extra Chapter 7◎

Xu Shengjie and Liang Baozhen ended a romantic date and watched a movie. Then they rode their bicycles to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy a pound of egg cakes and a pound of peach cakes before going home.

Liang Baozhen sat on the back seat of the man's bicycle and recalled that when she first came to the city nine years ago, she also sat on his back seat every day to go to and from get off work at the National Cotton Factory.

"Why do I feel like you've become slower on your bike? Is it because you're older and your legs can't pedal as hard anymore?"

Liang Baozhen hugged the man's waist and teased him deliberately.

"What did you say?" Xu Shengjie pretended not to hear and asked again.

"Forget it, it's nothing!" Liang Baozhen came to her senses instantly. It's better not to question him, otherwise she would be the one who would suffer!

However, on the way home, she clearly felt that Xu Shengjie was pedaling his bike a little faster. What an amazing guy! He actually tried his best to compete with her.

Proud of Xu Shengjie's hard work, the two returned home earlier than expected. As soon as they walked into the yard, they saw the young lady writing furiously.

It's Sunday! It's a day of rest, but my daughter is still studying hard!

Xu Shengjie felt an inexplicable sense of pride in his heart, and his old father's eyes almost turned red.

"Shanshan, why are you studying so hard? Take a break and have some peach cakes. Dad just bought them from the supply and marketing cooperative."

"Okay! I'm just hungry while writing." Shanshan picked up a piece of peach cake and took a small bite. Studying is very physically demanding and one gets hungry very quickly. The crumbs of peach cake fell on Shanshan's rosy lips and then onto her clean homework paper. Shanshan, who cherished the pages of the book, clapped her hands and knocked the crumbs to the ground.

Liang Baozhen was even more curious. How could this be something a lady should learn? She leaned over to look and saw each of the characters was carefully written in an upright and neat shape.

——My second uncle who failed in a blind date

puff!

"Look at what your daughter wrote in her composition." Liang Baozhen patted Xu Shengjie and signaled him.

"Let me see." While the lady was eating the peach cake, Xu Shengjie took a look at her composition book and almost laughed out loud.

It only says:

"My second uncle is a little bit taller than my father, but he is also very tall. He would hold me up high. He went on a blind date with my second son, but was rejected...

I comforted my second uncle and told him not to give up on himself. My mother praised me for using this idiom well..."

Xu Shengjie laughed out loud as he looked at his niece's masterpiece. Xiao Wei certainly never thought that he would be helping his niece with her literary creation.

"Dad, did I write well?" Shanshan looked at her father sincerely, waiting to be praised.

"You write well, but if you don't know how to write a word, ask your mom, don't use pinyin."

"Ask your father." Liang Baozhen suggested, "And test your father to see if he can still write."

"Dad can't write?" Shanshan was a little surprised. Could it be that her father was not as good as her, a second-grade student?

Facing the suspicious look of the lady, Xu Shengjie rolled up his sleeves. He could not lose his image in front of the lady no matter what. "Here, give the pen to Dad. I will teach you how to write today."

Shanshan doesn't know how to pronounce many words in her composition, so she uses pinyin to replace them all. How could he not know how to pronounce them?

Liang Baozhen was drinking water from an enamel cup while watching the fun. She listened to the girl's clear voice asking her father to write something for her. As she was writing, she even urged her father to write more beautifully.

Xu Shengjie, who is used to cursive calligraphy: "..."

It feels like I'm in elementary school.

——

A month later, Xu Shengjie and his two friends opened their paging station, and all three families brought their families to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Nowadays, it is popular to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony when a formal factory or enterprise opens.

A red ribbon was pulled by five people, namely the three bosses, Wang Huadong who came from Shanghai, and the information technology talents who contributed a lot to the establishment of this paging station.

Each person had a pair of scissors, and they cut the pieces one by one amid the applause of the crowd, creating a booming business.

Shanshan met Yan Zi again. She came from Shanghai with her parents. As soon as they met, they started reciting poems.

Wei Hong saw Liang Baozhen next to her and felt indescribable in her heart. Last time she said she was a TV news host, she just watched the TV, but she never thought it was true!

The Liang Baozhen that appears on TV is quite different from the one we see in real life. She is more dignified and generous, and her every frown and smile seems to reveal professionalism.

"Sister Wei, have some tea. Try it and see how it compares to the ones in Shanghai."

"Okay, thank you." Wei Hong felt that this man was indeed extraordinary, so she simply picked up the teacup and took a sip. The fragrance filled her nose, neither strong nor weak.

On opening night, the paging station did something big.

The Beijing TV station where Liang Baozhen worked spent 800 yuan to buy a 20-second advertising spot between two episodes of an evening TV drama, which was broadcast for a week.

Hong Saner felt painful to spend the money. It's not that he was reluctant to part with 800 yuan, but he felt that it was like throwing meat buns at a dog, which would never come back.

That night, the Xu family returned home and sat in front of the TV, staring at the small screen intently.

Accompanied by the heroic duet song of "A hi old man's dream seems to be hidden in gin, senleiba lazy sin①...", the family was watching the TV series with great interest. When the episode ended, a pager advertisement suddenly appeared on the screen.

The two actors in the ad play a married couple.

The man got up and went out early, forgetting to take his pager with him and left it on the bedside table at home.

At noon, the woman paged the man but received no response. When she got home, she found the pager at home. She scolded the man and the man promised that he would not forget it next time.

The next day, the man put the pager in his pocket. At noon, he received a pager from his wife. He called back using the public phone outside and found out that something had happened at home. His father fell down the stairs and was in the hospital.

The man hurried to the hospital to take care of his injured father.

At this moment, the picture freezes and the couple is talking tenderly.

"Luckily you brought your pager with you, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to notify you."

The man held the small, boxy pager in his hand.

"The pager is really useful and worth buying!"

A hotline number for purchasing pagers also appeared at the bottom of the TV screen.

After a week of TV commercials, Xu Shengjie and his team's pagers instantly became a hot commodity, with many people asking about them. Of course, when they heard the horrible price, most people were deterred.

Who can spend three thousand dollars on a pager?

Of course!

Since the reform and opening up, many people have made money by doing business. The timid ones are starving to death, while the brave ones are struggling to survive. Ten-thousand-yuan households have appeared frequently in various places. Pagers are convenient and give people face.

Everyone is curious and wants to have one, but most people can't afford it. If you can buy one, won't you feel proud? The rarity of it is rising.

For a time, pagers replaced televisions, refrigerators and other desirable appliances and became the most coveted gadget for ordinary people.

"Mr. Xu, we sold forty pagers this month!"

Forty units equals one hundred and twenty thousand!

Hong Saner was so surprised that he felt like he could fit an egg in his mouth!

"That TV commercial is really amazing!"

Xu Shengjie patted his buddy on the shoulder and said, "Then the advertising money was worth it, right?"

"value!"

Of course, the biggest contributor to this TV commercial is Liang Baozhen. She came up with the idea and also helped with the design of the commercial. What everyone cares about most now is communication, and the benefits of pagers can only be realized when there is an emergency.

Finally, the advertisement was scheduled to be aired on TV thanks to Liang Baozhen's work at the station, and it was scheduled to be broadcast during the opening week.

It is better to put it after the most popular TV series at the moment. You know, there are many advertisements trying to steal the intermission time between two episodes of this TV.

——

The huge success of the pager advertisement gave a boost to Xu Shengjie and his colleagues' career. This was a high-profit business, and they could make much more money from selling a pager than from selling a piece of clothing.

In the next few months, a group of people were busy with the pager business.

Seeing that her elder brother was very busy, Xu Shengya volunteered to go over with her sister-in-law to make some nourishing chicken soup for them.

The old hen is stewed until soft, and the chicken soup is rich and mellow with a light golden color.

"Can you take Xiaoya there by yourself?" Liang Baozhen still had to take Shanshan to the calligraphy class on Sunday.

"Sure, sister-in-law, don't worry, I will definitely make sure that big brother drinks a few bowls!"

"That's good."

Shanshan gave up the piano and dance classes, but she couldn't give up the calligraphy class. Her mother was determined not to let her back down, saying that she must practice calligraphy.

Shanshan set out with her mother and aunt. Seeing her aunt riding her bicycle to bring delicious chicken soup to her father, she wanted to go too. She stared at the direction her aunt left and sighed like a smart little girl.

"Hey~"

"Why are you sighing, little girl? The calligraphy class cannot be delayed. You can see your father when he comes back in the evening." Liang Baozhen touched the girl's forehead. The weather had turned cooler, with a hint of autumn breeze. She put a red woolen hat on the girl, which was very playful.

"Mom is lying." Shanshan looked up to look at her mother, but her sight was blocked by the woolen hat. "I haven't seen Dad for three days."

Recently, Xu Shengjie always goes out early and comes back late. When he comes home at night, the girl is already asleep, and when he goes out in the morning, the girl is not awake yet.

"Okay, your dad said he will come back early today."

"Really?"

"Really, provided you practice calligraphy well."

"Ah?" Shanshan sighed, "I still need to practice calligraphy!"

After sending her daughter to the Children's Palace, Liang Baozhen made an appointment with Yang Yan, who also sent her child to the calligraphy class at the Children's Palace, to go for a walk.

Yang Yan bought a pager through Liang Baozhen, and she loved it. Every week, the couple would send their child to the Children's Palace for a two-and-a-half-hour calligraphy class. It was not convenient to go home, and it would be boring to leave the child there.

Fortunately, the two of them can still be companions.

Shanshan and Yangyan's second son Peipei are classmates in both the calligraphy class and the calligraphy class. At this moment, the two are sitting at the same table in the calligraphy class, practicing calligraphy seriously.

The calligraphy teacher was a middle-aged man with a bald spot on his head and black-rimmed round glasses on his nose. He was walking back and forth in the classroom, checking on the students' practice from time to time.

"Everyone should practice more at home and remember the relationship between the horizontal and vertical strokes that the teacher talked about..."

The weather was chilly. Shanshan felt drowsy as she listened to the teacher's monotonous words. She supported her chin with one hand and wrote with a pen in the other.

After she finished writing an article, she looked to the side and saw Peipei concentrating on writing.

"Aren't you sleepy?" Shanshan asked him in a low voice.

"Not sleepy." Peipei looked over and bumped into Shanshan's big black pearl-like eyes. "Are you sleepy?"

"Hmm!" Shanshan wanted to sleep very much. "This is the best time to lie on the bed, covered with a thin quilt, holding a peach cake in my hand, eating the crumbs one by one, and then having a bottle of Arctic Ocean soda after eating the peach cake, listening to TV programs and taking a nap..."

Peipei paused and said, it sounds pretty good?

No, I am practicing calligraphy now...

"Go back to sleep after class."

"There's still an hour left." Shanshan saw the teacher go out, and the classroom suddenly became restless, and she seemed to wake up instantly, "Peipei, how can you learn piano for a year?"

Shanshan was shocked when she heard that Peipei had been learning piano for a year. And it was not just piano and calligraphy class. Mom said that Aunt Yang also enrolled him in saxophone class and swimming class...

He is so pitiful at such a young age!

"Playing the piano is so tiring, look at my fingers." As she said this, Shanshan stretched out her two little hands towards him.

Peipei only saw ten slender fingers, the fingers were white and the nails were a little pink. Is there any problem?

"My fingers are suffering, ah~" Shanshan looked at her fingers lovingly and touched each other, "I see other people playing the piano so well, but I feel so tired when I play it myself."

"You get used to being tired after a while." Peipei said calmly.

"Then practice hard! In the future, I can ask you to play whatever I want to hear. This is great. I don't have to suffer, and I can still listen to someone playing the piano."

Peipei felt something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Aren't you tired from working so many shifts?"

"It's okay, I'm used to it."

Shanshan thought Peipei was amazing! He seemed to be very good at taking classes. "Why don't you sign up for a dance class? I want to see people dancing in the future, and you can dance for me."

Pei Pei: “…”

"I don't dance." He couldn't accept himself dancing, and he shuddered at the thought.

"Why? You dance beautifully." Shanshan tilted her head.

Peipei doesn't want to pay attention to Shanshan.

——

While Shanshan was still at the Children's Palace trying to persuade Peipei to sign up for a dance class, Xu Shengya had already delivered chicken soup to her elder brother and left on her bicycle.

But she was not in a hurry to go home. She planned to go to Xinhua Bookstore to look at teaching materials.

She is currently teaching mathematics to junior high school students. She is very busy preparing lessons and reading books every day.

I stayed in the Xinhua Bookstore for a while, picked out some books, and was about to leave when I suddenly heard someone calling me.

"Xiaoya."

Xu Shengya turned around and saw that it was an acquaintance, "Fang Zhibin, why are you here?"

"I..." Fang Zhibin was about to answer that he was here to buy food, but when he saw the books in her arms, he immediately changed his words and said, "I'm here to buy books."

Considering that Xu Shengya is a college graduate and is currently a teacher, she should like studious and knowledgeable people, right?

"Oh, it's fine." Xu Shengya was about to say something else when she suddenly saw an older sister running out.

"Hey, comrade, why are you running so fast? Here are the halved pig offal you bought, and here is your change of three cents. Take it quickly."

Xu Shengya looked at the bag of halved pigs and then at Fang Zhibin.

"Sister, I just forgot about it. Thank you." Fang Zhibin took it and explained to Xu Shengya, "I came to buy books and some food to take back."

Xu Shengya smiled, held the handlebars of her bicycle and prepared to leave, "Then you go in quickly, I'm leaving first."

"Hey!" Fang Zhibin finally got a chance alone, so he naturally didn't want to miss it. "Well, can you help me with some research? I don't know which book to choose?"

When Xu Shengya heard this, she thought for a moment and then agreed. When she followed Fang Zhibin into the Xinhua Bookstore, she was still thinking about it. She didn't expect this guy to be so studious.

As a result, Fang Zhibin took out books on "Mathematical Analysis", "Complex Functions", "Advanced Algebra", "Analytical Geometry"...

Xu Shengya was a little dumbfounded, "Are you sure you want to see these?"

This is what you learn in university mathematics.

"Hmm!" Fang Zhibin said proudly. Seeing Xu Shengya's expression, he must have chosen the right book! He catered to her taste. Xu Shengya graduated from the Department of Mathematics, so she must like people who are curious about mathematics. "I am ready to improve myself. Although I have a stable job in the factory, we cannot stand still. We must keep learning and making progress."

"You make sense. It's always good to read more books." Xu Shengya was actually quite worried whether he could understand what he read.

"Yeah, I remember that you have loved reading since you were a child." Fang Zhibin left happily holding several math books.

After buying the book, Fang Zhibin went out with Xu Shengya, and he finally got the chance to ask about the movie they had watched before.

"By the way, why didn't you go to the movies that day?"

"Ah? I had something unexpected that day, so I gave the ticket to my second brother."

"Oh, I thought you didn't like that movie."

"How could that be! I love watching movies."

"Then next time you have a movie you want to watch, you can tell me. My dad works at a movie theater, so it's more convenient for me to buy tickets!"

"Okay, thank you!"

Fang Zhibin and Xu Shengya were talking as they left. When they passed by the stall of a lady selling brine, the lady greeted Fang Zhibin enthusiastically.

"Comrade, come back next time. My pig offal is delicious! Let your partner have a taste."

After saying that, he looked at Xu Shengya and said, "Comrade, your girlfriend often comes to me to buy it. It tastes delicious!"

Xu Shengya: "...We are not in this kind of relationship!"

Fang Zhibin: "..."

I didn't come here specifically. Even if I did, you can't say that. Don't ruin my studious and motivated image... Hey, what did the elder sister say just now?

Who?

Xu Shengya blushed, she had never been in a relationship, not even anyone she liked!

She turned her head to look at Fang Zhibin. He was a person from the same courtyard whom she had known since childhood and was also a good friend of her second brother. How could she and him be misunderstood?

Hearing her elder sister constantly mentioning her boyfriend, she looked at Fang Zhibin and felt something strange in her heart. It was so strange! She felt awkward and nervous.

"Sister, you misunderstood, we are not... not a target." No matter what, it still needs to be explained clearly.

"Ah?" The elder sister looked at the two people leaving in dismay, and then muttered, "Seeing the way that gay man looked at the lesbian, I thought they were having an affair."

When Fang Zhibin came to his senses, he hurriedly explained to Xu Shengya, "Xiaoya, what the elder sister said just now was nonsense, you... don't take it to heart."

He knows how important reputation is to girls.

"Yeah." Maybe she was misunderstood just now. Xu Shengya now doesn't dare to raise her eyelids to look at Fang Zhibin. She always feels that something is strange.

Xu Shengya said goodbye to the studious and ambitious Fang Zhibin and rode her bicycle home. After a while, her sister-in-law and niece had already returned home.

"Auntie! Come and eat oranges!" Shanshan waved to her auntie.

Now is a good time to eat oranges. Some time ago, Song Chunhua asked someone to send four baskets of oranges to the city to distribute to her family. All of them were grown in Damian Village. The team leader led the villagers to plant fruit trees on the mountain, and the harvest was quite good.

The orange has a thin peel, sweet flesh, and plenty of juice, and tastes really good.

"Baozhen, the oranges grown in your village are really delicious and sweet."

"Yes, the captain said that we should plant more next year and prepare for a big harvest."

"Great!" Shanshan loves eating fruits, especially those with lots of juice, like watermelon, peaches, and oranges. She loves them all.

After eating two oranges, she went to the sink to wash her hands. Water flowed from the faucet. She rubbed her hands and looked up, just in time to see her father walking into the yard.

"dad!!!"

After not seeing her father for three days, Shanshan missed him very much. She ran over and threw herself into his arms, "Dad, you are finally back!"

It sounded like he was on a business trip, so Xu Shengjie carried his daughter to his wife's place, "Do you miss your dad?"

"Um!"

"It won't be so busy later on. You will definitely be able to see dad every day in the future."

"Okay~" Shanshan was put on the stool by her father and accompanied her father to eat oranges.

Xu Shengjie peeled the oranges and ate them himself, occasionally feeding a slice to his daughter, and soon he had eaten three. He was in a good mood because he had just made a deal. Zhou Yun took care of his grandson's health and asked him not to work too hard.

"Life at home is so good now, there's no need for you to work so hard. Don't exhaust yourself."

"Don't worry, grandma. I know what's going on."

Liang Baozhen looked at the man sitting next to her. He was indeed much more mature, but she was not worried because Xu Shengjie always had his own ideas.

"Do you have to get up so early tomorrow?" Liang Baozhen had just opened her mouth to speak when Xu Shengjie fed her a slice of orange, which she chewed and swallowed.

"No need. We've been busy for a while now, and the reception staff at the paging station have been trained. The people that Brother Wang arranged from Shanghai City are really capable, and things will basically be on the right track from now on."

"Of course not. I have been doing this for many years."

Xu Shengjie carefully picked out the tangerine peels from the tangerine segments, picking them cleanly from front to back and left to right. He didn't mind it, but his wife and daughter-in-law didn't like them very much, so he had to pick them out before feeding them.

Liang Baozhen watched him carefully choose the food, picking it up cleanly and feeding it to her mouth before she opened her mouth to eat. "You eat it yourself. I've eaten a lot."

"Yeah." Xu Shengjie agreed readily. He was still not idle. He ate a lot of oranges himself and then fed his wife and daughter-in-law. In a short while, he had finished several oranges.

After eating oranges with her father for a while, Shanshan's stomach was full. She remembered something and ran into the house. After a while, she took a pen and paper to the small desk in the yard and started writing.

Even with the electric lights in the house, it is not as bright as the natural light outside. Shanshan likes to do her homework and read in the yard. Her father made her a desk that suits her height.

"Are you working so hard?" Xu Shengjie glanced at her from a distance and said to his wife.

"I'm writing an essay."

"Isn't it two essays a month?" Shanshan's Chinese teacher requires two essays a month.

Liang Baozhen told the man about her girlfriend's recent interests, "She likes to write essays now, even if the teacher doesn't ask her to. I said that's like a diary, so I just bought her a notebook and let her write whatever she wants."

"Then I'll go and take a look." Xu Shengjie finished the orange in a few bites, washed his hands, and went to the lady's side.

As a result, Shanshan discovered it as soon as he arrived. She covered the notebook with her two little hands and said righteously, "Dad, don't peek!"

Xu Shengjie: "..."

I'm very hurt. Am I still your beloved father?

The author has something to say:

See you tomorrow night~