Chapter 90 Every Family Has Its Own Problems

Starting from the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, Youranju has seen a surge in business - people who work away from home or run small businesses come to ask which day is auspicious to go out, or which direction is best for development.

I can basically answer these simple questions by just turning my fingers.

However, according to Master's teachings, for simple tasks, you should proceed slowly. The slower you are, the more serious and responsible you appear to others. For extremely difficult tasks, you should proceed quickly. The faster you proceed, the more capable and skilled you appear to others.

Following this rule, I turned the wheel left and right, sometimes frowning, sometimes pondering. The people queuing behind me were very happy with my serious and responsible attitude. Some came up to offer me cigarettes, and some saw that there was no water in my teacup, so they took the initiative and added water for me.

In fact, I feel that one minute per person is not worth the hundred dollars they spend.

At 11:00 AM, I was just about to go home when I had some business to attend to. A girl in her twenties came in, looking quite pretty.

Whether it is a man or a woman, the so-called beauty can be divided into two categories.

A kind of bone beauty. That is, the facial skeleton is reasonably distributed. Even when men and women with this kind of beauty grow old and lose their looks, they still look good and have a very good temperament.

The other type has average bone structure, but some parts of the body have unique features. When they are young, they have sufficient collagen and plump skin, which makes them look beautiful, but when they get old, they become ordinary people.

The girl who came in clearly belonged to the latter category. Her beauty wasn't defined by her physique, but rather by her plump figure, with her eyes being particularly alluring.

Plus, her breasts are particularly big. To describe it in the dialect of my hometown: it's like a wet nurse cooking two bowls of braised pork.

She came in and sat down, and said, "Sir, I want to do a fortune telling and go to Guangdong to work. Do you think I can go?

I pointed to the paper and pen. She wrote the character "香" (Xiang). She said, "My name is Xiangxiang, so I'll just write '香'. Okay?"

I glanced at what she had written and shook my head: "You'd better not go out."

She looked up and asked, "Why?"

I said, "Because I feel something is wrong. The top stroke of the character '香' (xiang) was written as a dot. If you hadn't said it was '香', I would have thought it was '杳' (yao)."

She glanced at me and said, "Oh, so, I have an appointment with my friends, so I can't go?"

When I heard that, I knew she had made up her mind, so I said, "That's what I suggest, but your legs are yours, so you decide for yourself."

"How much?"

"No need to count." My master taught me not to charge money for advice that may lead to bad consequences and others do not listen.

She asked, "No way? Are you going to give me a break just because I'm pretty?"

I really wasn't in the mood to chat with such a self-aggrandizing person, so after hearing this, I changed my mind and said, "I was just kidding, and you took it seriously. Didn't you see the sign on the table?"

She then noticed the words "No Bargaining" and counted out the hundred yuan, pouted, and left.

After the girl left, I felt a little uneasy. But this uneasiness usually only lasted for a few seconds. I didn't know her, so I had no idea what would happen to her in the future.

Therefore, anxiety comes quickly and disappears quickly.

When I got home, my mother had already prepared dinner. As the family gathered around the table to eat, she began to recount my "great achievements."

She said: "During the Chinese New Year, Shanhong was not only given food, but also jade, and she gave me 20,000 yuan. (I gave it to her, which was given to me by Director Ming.)"

She was simply saying that my sister was excellent, but I, Wan Shanhong, was also growing stronger. I wanted to stop her but it was too late. Besides, she was the queen, and I couldn't interrupt her, otherwise she would throw her chopsticks. At this point, I just smiled and said:

"Old man, we are all staying with my sister and brother-in-law. The money I send is insignificant compared to what my sister and brother-in-law have done for you."

My mother didn't praise my sister. I know she's never been happy with her. My sister has been married for six years, and for some reason, she hasn't gotten pregnant.

Last summer, I persuaded my sister and her husband to visit Suxipo. My sister wasn't convinced. It took my mother's anger for her to finally agree. She ended up getting pregnant in August. My mother credits me with the success.

Usually, my master would give me some cigarettes and alcohol, and my friends would also give me some cigarettes, alcohol, chicken, fish and beef. As for my sister, running a shop requires asking people for help, so she often has to give some things away, so my mother couldn't help nagging me, saying that I often have some income.

My sister looked displeased when she heard this, but she held back her words. Perhaps it was because it was Chinese New Year, and she felt that arguing was unlucky. After lunch, my sister glanced at me. I'd been wanting to talk to her for a while, so I followed her downstairs. She said, "Let's go to your studio."

The two sat down, and she said bluntly: "Let's pool some money and buy a second-hand house for our parents and renovate it. The elderly have their own living habits, and they don't like living with us."

I remained silent.

She said: "We have good teeth, so we like our meals to be harder. As for vegetables, we often eat pork ribs and pig's feet. Their teeth are not good, so they can't chew them. Besides, it's okay in winter, but in summer, it's inconvenient to walk around the house in shorts."

My sister was telling the truth. I paused and said, "You should ask their opinion first. Besides, it's hard to take care of them if they're too far away."

My sister blurted out, "It's right across the street. Brother Shi has a suite next door for only 300,000."

I expressed my concerns: "Sister, it's not that I don't want to pay, but I always feel that if you do this, they will find an excuse to go back home."

My sister sighed and said, "If you disagree, forget it."

That night, I had a special talk with my mother. I advised her, "As the saying goes, a man at sixty is no longer in charge of the household, and a man at seventy is no longer in charge of affairs. You two should stay at your sister's house, so stay out of her business. Talk less. I'll find a way to buy a house next year and live with me."

My mother understood immediately and said, "You can buy a bigger one. I have some money saved up."

Seeing my mother's attitude, she's long since stopped wanting to live with my sister. I thought, no wonder mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have problems; even mothers and daughters can be hard to get along with. I calculated my income and the average price per square meter in this city is over 6,000 yuan. Buying a 120-square-meter house would cost over 700,000 yuan, and with renovations, I'm afraid it would cost another 1 million yuan to live in.

I suddenly felt a little disappointed. I only had 200,000 yuan on hand. My mother said she had some money, but in fact, the villagers regarded 100,000 yuan as a huge sum of money.

I didn't know until I calculated it, but when I did, I was shocked. It was easy to make a promise to my mother, but the pressure of keeping it was quite intense. For the first time in my life, I couldn't sleep because of a family matter. I lay in bed, tossing and turning. I didn't know when I fell asleep.

What you think about during the day, you will dream about at night. I had a strange dream. I dreamed that Mr. Deng came to visit Master, and Master said: Shanhong has no house, you can give him one.

Mr. Deng immediately took out a bunch of keys and said: Move in tomorrow.

When I woke up, the dream was still crystal clear. My face flushed. I once explained to someone that dreams are the body's helpers. I never imagined that even when I had no house, dreams could help me.

Sitting on the bed, recalling the dream, I suddenly had this idea - wait for the master to come back and tell him about my difficulties in a subtle way.

Maybe he would hear the hidden meaning in my words. Then, I would invite Mr. Deng to dinner and tell him about my difficulties.

Of course, there is absolutely no free lunch in the world, and giving something away is a dream, but giving the biggest discount is, perhaps, probably, basically, possible.

So I looked forward to Master coming back one day earlier.