That year, the college entrance examination was suspended, and a large number of high school students were forced to start looking for jobs. There simply weren't enough jobs available in society; you really couldn't buy a job even with money.

Many people say it's okay, take your time looking, and you'll eventually find a job.

Song Hai didn't believe it. Everyone was vying for their daughter, but they didn't have the ability to outdo others. What if the policies became stricter in the future? How could he bear to send such a beautiful daughter to the countryside?

Song Hai has many flaws and is not a good husband, but he is a good father to Song Qing.

He took advantage of Lu Yang's kindness and, disregarding his own dignity, demanded that Lu Yang marry Song Qing. He also ignored what others said about their family and immediately arranged the marriage.

Once the wedding was over, the Lu and Song families worked together to quickly arrange a job for Song Qing.

Two years later, the policy on sending people to the countryside was tightened, stipulating that at least one person from each household must go to the countryside, and those who already had jobs were not included.

So whenever this matter was discussed, Song Hai admired his own premonition, and later the Song family made basically no demands on the Lu family.

Song Qing's two older brothers were only a few years older than her. They both dropped out of school after junior high and became factory workers at a young age. Her family lived a good life.

When her parents were both working and had to support three children, she was always given priority to make cloth ration coupons. After her older brother started working, it became a situation where four people supported her.

The little girl is beautiful, young and loves to dress up, so her mother is happy to dress her up. In addition, a lot of relatives love to send her things, so she is really well taken care of.

Her second aunt's cousin worked as a textile worker in a neighboring province. Sometimes she could find a lot of flawed fabrics without needing coupons. Whenever she came across a bright color, she would send it to her all at once, and she could make two or three outfits in the same color each time.

Her mother's hometown is in a neighboring province. Besides her older brother who lives in the countryside, her two older sisters and younger brother all have government jobs. The children in the family all have good jobs and feel especially sorry for their relative who married and moved to another province.

The two sides communicated frequently, and Song Qing received quite a lot of things each time.

She's kept all her clothes from when she was little. Her sister-in-law is quite envious of those clothes; she could alter them and make a lot for her children.

But her mother wasn't stupid; no one could touch her things. She had clothes for every season, and even plenty of blankets.

There were thin, two-layered sheets, which were for use during the hottest part of summer, and thicker sheets suitable for use in autumn. Her mother sent them all over so she could use them as mattresses on the kang (a heated brick bed).

The thought of her mother, Song Qing, brought tears to her eyes. No matter how strong her mother, Tian Qiaozhu, became later, she was always very gentle with her. Afraid that it would be hard for her to take care of the child alone, she often asked Song Qing to send An'an to her place so that she could take her to work.

Bringing children to work is common these days, but bringing grandchildren to work is quite rare. His two older brothers are both married and have children of their own.

The sisters-in-law naturally had complaints: "You're taking care of your grandson, why aren't you taking care of your own?"

Tian Qiaozhu used to be a gentle and loving woman; otherwise, she wouldn't have listened to Song Hai's sweet talk and married into this family.

But over the years she has become very assertive. Song Hai is unreliable, and she has three children.

Adding to the slander from those people in the past, everyone knows she is very domineering and stingy, but Song Hai is a kind-hearted person. No matter what others say, she firmly controls the family finances.

After her brothers got married and were allocated houses, she simply separated from the family, and of course, she didn't give her two sons much money.

"The wages you've given me over the years have basically all gone towards your marriages. We're still able to work, so we don't need you to support us in our old age. You'll have to live on your own from now on, and don't expect us to help you out. Don't even think about our meager savings."

She could barely treat her grandsons equally, but she treated Song Qing differently from her two sons. Since her son-in-law was not at home and she often took care of him, her two sisters-in-law had complaints.

But no one dared to say it, because Tian Qiaozhu wasn't considered a good person by her neighbors.

Song Qing wondered how Tian Qiaozhu was doing at home. The thought of her running away to Ancheng in her previous life and staying there for ten years made Song Qing feel deeply sorry for her mother.

She was spoiled by her family from a young age and is a bit stubborn; once she sets her mind on something, she does it wholeheartedly.

After learning that she had gone to Ancheng, Tian Qiaozhu wrote several letters to scold her. Later, she had no choice but to keep sending things there.

Lu Yang turned around casually and noticed that Song Qing seemed a little down. He didn't know what had happened, so he quickly took out a few tickets he had hidden in his luggage bag.

"What's this?"

Song Qing took the tickets from Lu Yang's hand and examined them carefully. Among them, she found a bicycle ticket and even a sewing ticket.

They were in a rush when they got married, and Lu Yang's parents were obviously not happy because they knew that the Song family only wanted to use their family to avoid trouble.

Tickets couldn't be obtained in time, so all that was prepared was a bicycle.

The Song family did provide a sewing machine as part of the dowry. When they came to Northeast China this time, Song Qing sold her bicycle and left the sewing machine to her mother.

"Are you saving this up to get married?"

Song Qing joked that he had actually saved up tickets for three turns and one sound, as well as two thermos tickets. Wasn't that the kind of tickets people save up to get married these days? Did he plan to use them later?

Song Qing was saying that on purpose, of course. Since the other party had given her the tickets, she certainly didn't intend to use them on someone else.

Lu Yang shook his head at the bright smile on Song Qing's face. "It's for you."

He hadn't prepared anything at the beginning, and over the years he'd been trying to make up for it, but these tickets were very hard to collect.

Besides the fact that tickets are already hard to come by, the biggest problem is that if even one ticket is taken by people who are getting married, then it's even worse.

Sometimes, Lu Yang would finally manage to find out a ticket, but before he could even exchange it, someone else would snatch it away. The other person would be very confused, asking, "Why would a married man like you snatch these? Are you deliberately trying to make your brothers stay single?"

"But it will cost a lot of money to buy these!"

She was naturally happy, looking at the tickets over and over, and even complained a little with a smile.

Isn't this like a godsend? She was even thinking of getting a bicycle voucher to buy a bicycle so she wouldn't have to borrow one from someone else.

She already has a watch, and this ticket can buy one for Lu Yang. There's also a radio; they can't buy a TV right now, but with a radio they can listen to storytelling and such.

As for the sewing machine, she doesn't know whether to buy it or not. She has a lot of old clothes, but sewing machines are expensive, costing over two hundred yuan.

A good watch would cost at least 120 yuan, a bicycle 160 yuan, and even a Red Lantern brand radio would cost over 100 yuan. Song Qing always believed that money should not be saved on things that need to be spent. These items would be used for many years, so of course they had to be good.

These three items add up to almost four hundred, and she's spent over four hundred to five hundred yuan recently, making it nine hundred in total.

She originally had 1,800 yuan in her savings account, plus the 200 yuan in cash she had, making a total of 2,000 yuan. Half of it was gone in an instant.

Should we still buy a sewing machine?