Chapter 194 Chapter 194 Chapter 194 Chapter 194...

Chapter 194

Life in Kashiwa is peaceful and warm, but sometimes there are some discordant moments.

The old lady's granddaughter is two years younger than Zhong Yunxi. According to the registration age of the neighborhood committee, Weisheng is also of marriageable age at the age of 18.

After Weisheng and the old lady's life began to improve, the neighbors in the third courtyard and on this street came to propose matchmaking every now and then.

There were boys younger than Weisheng who could get married without having to go to the countryside, and there were also gay men older than Weisheng who had formal jobs in the city.

Some came for Weisheng's household registration, some because of his skills and good looks, and some because of the old lady's two rooms.

Weisheng told the old lady that she was so frightened by the beatings that she couldn't sleep even if someone lay next to her. Plus, she couldn't have children yet, so she had no plans to get married for the time being.

The old lady touched Weisheng's head with a look of heartache, then stood up.

My granddaughter has a good background, good looks, and a good skill set. The last thing she has to worry about is finding a partner. I, an old woman, have the final say in what kind of partner she chooses. If I don't like someone, don't introduce him to my granddaughter. If I do like someone, I'll arrange a blind date for them.

Don’t talk to me about free love?

I, an old woman, don’t understand and won’t listen!

If someone really asked Weisheng about it, he would tell them: "If you want to marry into my family, then you can ask my grandmother to take a look."

So with the old lady taking care of him, Weisheng's life became extremely peaceful again.

The following year, in the spring of 1974, the bearing factory was hiring. Weisheng thought for a moment and decided not to go, remaining in the repair department of the subdistrict office.

First, the repair shop is close to home, making it easy for her to commute. She could come three or four times a day. Second, if she really went to the bearing factory, the work would definitely not be as easy as it is now, and she would have to deal with endless interpersonal relationships.

In addition, after her craftsmanship became famous, she was often seconded to various factories and units to repair things, and she never came back empty-handed.

Even though it was just some supply coupons and stuff, it was still an income. If I went to work in a factory, I wouldn't be able to take these temporary jobs anymore.

Besides, the salary paid by the factory might not even be enough to buy these things.

The old lady knew that Weisheng was a person with her own ideas. Seeing that she had made up her mind and gave reasons, she let her do as she pleased.

There were originally four repairmen in the repair department, including Weisheng. The other three went for interviews, and in the end, only Weisheng remained in the repair department.

Seeing this, the old lady would bring her matchbox to the repair shop during the day. While accompanying Weisheng to work, she would do her work, and sometimes neighbors would come over to talk to the old lady.

Sometimes when Weisheng went out to repair things for people, the old lady would help watch the door.

Three or four years passed like this. When the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977, Weisheng began to review while greeting the street office.

Kashiwa City is the provincial capital, and it has a university. Weisheng plans to apply to a university in Kashiwa City first, and then take his wife to Jinghua University in this time and space to study for a master's degree and a doctorate.

For this purpose, after taking the college entrance examination, Weisheng made a special trip to the capital and bought a courtyard house near Jinghua University in preparation for him and the old lady to live in after arriving in Beijing.

Weisheng had never thought of doing anything like destroying the bridge after crossing it, and he was even mentally prepared to support his wife for the rest of his life.

It was simply because the martyrs sacrificed their lives for a peaceful and prosperous world. Therefore, it was only natural and reasonable for her to provide for the martyrs' blood relatives.

What's more, the old lady was a relative she had carefully chosen, and her character and temperament were one in a million.

People often cannot choose their relatives, but she insisted on choosing the one she liked.

One day, she will make the old lady the envy of everyone.

Especially...Jiang Qiumei!

The old lady was shocked when she heard that Weisheng bought a small courtyard in the capital, but she felt more at ease.

When the old lady heard that Weisheng's life plan included her, she was deeply touched. However, she had already treated Weisheng well enough, and now she didn't know how to treat him better.

Speaking of money, in fact, in addition to things, Weisheng also often gave the old lady some money and coupons in the past few years. In addition, Weisheng could use some waste materials to assemble radios and bicycles, so the old lady always knew that Weisheng earned a lot, but she didn't know how much money she had.

Now she heard that Weisheng had bought a small courtyard in the capital, and she wondered if Weisheng had run out of money, and wanted to give all the money she had to Weisheng.

Weisheng didn't need to rely on his parents for support. He smiled and told the old lady that he was receiving a monthly stipend for college. She could also do some repair and assembly work in her spare time, so they no longer had to worry about money.

Actually, to be honest, Weisheng and the old lady live a very frugal life.

Winters in Kashiwa are not only mild but also very short. When winter arrives, all you need to do is cover your small vegetable garden with plastic sheeting.

They don’t need to spend money on vegetables all year round. The fruit trees at home not only provide them with fresh fruits, but can also be made into canned fruits to eat in winter.

Occasionally, if someone needs a gift, you can use canned fruit to satisfy the demand.

There are three hens in the yard. They can lay three eggs every day, so we don’t even have to spend money to buy eggs in our daily life.

In addition, the old lady also planted a few sunflowers at the foot of the wall. In autumn and winter, she could harvest several plates of sunflower heads and snacks such as melon seeds.

On her weekly day off, Weisheng would take the old lady to the small river outside the city to fish on the tricycle she assembled herself.

It doesn’t matter whether there are fish in the ditch or not, but the fish in the microbial space can be taken out.

Bring a few more back home, and either eat them fresh, dry them into fish jerky and then steam them, or keep them in a large water tank that you buy later and eat them slowly.

In addition, Weisheng, in order to eat meat more conveniently, broke a machine at the meat processing plant at night. After that, no one else could find the problem or fix it, so the people at the meat processing plant found Weisheng...

In February, Weisheng received his university acceptance letter, and the neighbors all came to the courtyard to see the excitement. On the last day of February, Weisheng first handed in his work with the neighborhood office and then took the old lady to Nanjing University in Baishi.

Weisheng wasn't hospitalized, nor did he apply for a dormitory. He took the old lady through the admissions procedures, toured Nanjing University, and then the grandparents left.

On the way, they went to the supply and marketing cooperative. The old lady made a new set of clothes for Weisheng, but it was still missing a few buttons, so it was a good time to buy it back.

The old lady's skills and aesthetic taste in making clothes were certainly not as good as Weisheng's, but Weisheng was touched by the old lady's dedication.

In order to make her a new dress, the old lady spent a long time shopping before she bought enough red floral fabric to make a dress and blue fabric to make pants.

The old lady was old, her eyesight was not as good as that of young people, and her movements were no longer nimble. It took her two months to make a set of clothes.

It's ironic, then, that Zhong Yunxi never wore a single new piece of clothing from birth to death. It would be fine if she didn't have any new clothes at all, but Zheng Xiaomin wore countless new clothes from childhood to adulthood. Even Jiang Hanmei, who remarried, never lacked new clothes...

The old lady rubbed her fingers repeatedly on the new clothes. Seeing that Weisheng looked unhappy, she couldn't help asking him what was wrong and whether he didn't like it.

Weisheng told the old lady that he had never worn a new piece of clothing since he was a child, and the old lady hugged Weisheng in her arms with heartache.

"I love you, I love you, and from now on I will only love you."

Hearing the old lady's words, Weisheng burst out laughing again, "Grandma, I'm your only granddaughter. If you don't love me, who else can you love?"

After saying that, Weisheng got up and put on the new clothes the old lady made for her, and walked around in circles in the house. The old lady happily took Weisheng to the photo studio to take two photos.

Nanyang University was quite far from the third courtyard where Weisheng and his wife lived, so Weisheng rode his bicycle to and from school. Since he came home every day, his wife didn't feel lonely. She would get up early, make breakfast, and then wake Weisheng up. She would even prepare dinner early in the evening, waiting for him to come home.

Life is still the same as before, except that Weisheng doesn't eat at home at noon.

Almost every life, Weisheng would go to college step by step. So when he entered college again, Weisheng was not unfamiliar with it, nor was he as excited as others.

After quickly entering the learning state, I learned legal knowledge eagerly.

In her previous life, she had also learned some legal knowledge on her own, but at the time, she had only thought about defending herself in the future. But in this life, she wanted to become a lawyer specializing in marriage cases, so she had to learn all this legal knowledge thoroughly.

In addition, Weisheng also began to quietly make friends, observe and get to know his classmates who were also majoring in law.

Weisheng knew that these people could be his helpers or his opponents. Knowing more about them now was a form of preparation.

However, in college, in addition to the students who study hard, there are also some students who have been suppressed for many years and are releasing themselves in various ways, either by falling in love freely or by breaking away from the past.

Weisheng kept her distance from these people. Even if someone danced in front of her, she would distance herself from them without saying a word.

When she went to college, many people pursued Weisheng, but Weisheng was too picky to compromise, so throughout her college life, she could only be a cold beauty in the eyes of her classmates.

During his senior year, Weisheng unexpectedly saw Zhong Yunfei and his wife at Nanjing University. Looking at the young man walking beside them, he vaguely recognized him as Zhong Yunfei and his wife's eldest son, the original owner's nephew.

The family of three passed Weisheng face to face, but none of them recognized him.

Of course, it’s not their fault.

When Weisheng was in Zhong Shanghai's ward, his face was so thin that it looked unrecognizable. However, after several years of treatment, Weisheng has made his body extremely healthy.

She has sufficient qi and blood, fair skin, shiny black hair, and even her teeth, which were not very good-looking before, have been corrected by Weisheng.

There was no change in height, but the figure was well-proportioned and still a little plump.

Not fat, not plump, but looks just right.

Another thing is that according to her physical age, Weisheng should be 28 years old this year, but her body and skin condition give people the impression that she is in her early twenties.

The current Weisheng was very different from the one Zhong Yunfei and her husband remembered. When Weisheng walked past them, they only felt that this female classmate looked familiar, and the rest of their impression was that she was beautiful and had an outstanding temperament.

By the way, when Weisheng walked over, his eyes met Zhong Yunfei's, and then both of them looked away as if nothing had happened.

A few days later, Weisheng saw her adopted nephew again at the welcome party for freshmen in the law department, and immediately raised her eyebrows.

If this person also plans to become a lawyer in the future, maybe the aunt and nephew can even fight in court. It would be even more interesting if the plaintiff and the defendant were both members of the Zhong family.

←_←

Weisheng took the college entrance examination in December 1977 and went to university in March 1978, so her class would have graduated in January 1982. Now it is September 1981, and there is still half a year until graduation.

However, the application period for Jinghua University's law school graduate program was from October 10th to 31st, 1982, with the exam taking place around January 1983. The results were usually announced in early to mid-March, and admission was in September of that year.

Weisheng would take the old lady to Beijing to register in mid-October, and then stay there for two days to show her where they lived. When they took the exam in January, they would move their family there.

Jinghua University will start school in March, and she can also attend the law department for half a year.

Weisheng told the old lady about his plans, but the old lady was reluctant to leave the place where she had lived for decades before she even started moving.

He also asked Weisheng whether the yard in the capital was big, whether he could grow vegetables in the yard, and whether the fruit trees in the yard could be transplanted there.

Although it is just a fruit tree, it has branches from several fruit trees grafted onto it, so they can eat several kinds of fruits every year.

Weisheng not only patiently told the old lady about the situation of the small courtyard in the capital, but also used cardboard to make a landscape map of the small courtyard without a roof for the old lady to see.

This summer vacation, Weisheng went to the capital again and renovated the courtyard.

There are three main rooms, Weisheng and the old lady live in one each, and the middle room is used as the living room.

The two rooms on each side were connected and fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows. The two east wing rooms were furnished with wooden tubs and shelves, used as greenhouses for growing vegetables. A small pond was built in the corner to maintain humidity and to house fish and shrimp.

The two rooms in the west wing were equipped with many bookshelves and extra-large desks, and were arranged by Weisheng as her study.

The three back rooms opposite are a bathroom, a kitchen, and a boiler room for storing firewood, coal, and boilers.

Weisheng hired someone to dig a sewage well outside the courtyard wall. The sewage from the bathroom would first flow there, and then flow into the public sewer along the sewage well.

There's nothing much to say about the kitchen, it's all tiled, bright and clean. But the boiler room next door is worth mentioning.

Weisheng took out a miniature boiler from the space and installed floor heating throughout the house. In winter, a single small boiler could heat the entire courtyard.

By the way, when Weisheng was still cleaning the house, he widened the eaves and built a strange veranda. In warm weather, you can sit under the veranda and enjoy the breeze and cool down. In cold weather, you can spread the glass partition doors piled in the corner around the veranda and add another circle of insulation.

In winter, the old lady can walk inside without getting cold or worrying about stepping on rain or snow and falling.

The yard wasn't big, but it was still several dozen square meters. Originally, there was a jujube tree in the yard, and after Weisheng bought the yard, he moved the tree into the space.

She planned to transplant the jujube tree and their fruit tree to the new yard after moving in...

When the old lady came over in October, she fell in love with this yard at first sight.

…

The postgraduate entrance examination was on January 25th, and Weisheng received his university diploma on January 10th.

On the eve of graduation, Weisheng gave a speech at the Law Department's internal exchange meeting as a representative of the graduating students. Using the psychology techniques she had learned, she emphasized the importance of law over everything else.

Whether it's a family or a clan, they must yield to the law. The term "family affairs" or even "domestic violence" should not appear in the legal language.

"...before the law, victims should be citizens, not just someone's wife or family member. They enjoy the legal rights and interests of all citizens. The crime of intentional injury should be returned to its essence, rather than being cloaked in a rotten cloak that complicates what was once a simple matter. ...Only in this way can we ensure that everyone is equal before the law."

Weisheng pondered the entire speech over and over again, revising it time and again using psychological techniques. She didn't know if her philosophy was correct, but she truly hoped that words like "domestic chores" and "domestic violence" would no longer be used as weapons against the weak.

…

After graduation, Weisheng exchanged contact information with his university alumni, and then stayed at home with the old lady to pack their luggage to go to Beijing.

Unexpectedly, while they were still packing their bags, the original owner of their three-courtyard house contacted the neighborhood committee through the Baicheng Municipal Government, intending to take back their ancestral home.

After hearing this news, Weisheng and the old lady, who had originally planned to change the door lock of the small courtyard, packed their luggage more thoroughly.

There were many things in the house that the old lady was used to, and she was reluctant to throw them away. So Weisheng found an excuse and put them all into the space while the old lady was not paying attention.

In a word, pack up everything that can be taken away, and use space to take away everything that cannot be taken away. Never let the old lady get angry about such things.

Since it was still winter in January and it was inconvenient to transplant fruit trees into the yard, Weisheng transplanted the fruit tree in the yard into an oversized flowerpot. He planned to return to the capital and keep it in the east wing first, and then transplant it into the yard when the weather warmed up.

One night, after using a tranquilizing incense to lull the old lady into a deep sleep, Weisheng immediately went to the capital and sent all the luggage there in advance. Then, he returned to Bai City and took the old lady to the capital by train, nimbly and lightly.

When they arrived in the capital, there were less than five days left until the exam. Weisheng first took the old lady to familiarize herself with the environment, and then devoted all his energy to preparing for the exam.

By the way, the vegetables in the east wing were transplanted from the small vegetable garden on the other side of the courtyard, and some fish and shrimps were also put in the small fish pond.

Although the fruit trees did not bear fruit, they brought over all the canned fruits they had made earlier.

The laying hens were also brought to the capital, and their coop was set up in the corner between the boiler room and the east wing. Within three or five days of arriving in the capital, the hens began laying eggs again.

The family had no worries about food and drink, and they had some extra money. The old lady knew where the supply and marketing cooperative was. Although she was new to the capital and unfamiliar with the place, she was not afraid at all.

During the days when Weisheng was preparing for the exam, they found different ways to prepare various foods for Weisheng, and their dedication was no less than that of the parents of candidates in later generations.

When seeing an old lady like this, Weisheng always thinks that if Zhong Yunxi was the old lady’s granddaughter and had lived with her since childhood, her life experiences would be different and her life would definitely not have ended so miserably.

The old lady would occasionally think that Weisheng, who was so good to her, was no better than her own granddaughter. So whenever she thought of the hardships Weisheng had described, the old lady would curse Zhong Shanghai and Jiang Qiumei, the ruthless parents, in her heart.

Zhong Shanghai would certainly not be sad anymore because of what happened to his little daughter, but Jiang Qiumei could not forget the scene in the ward that year.

Jiang Qiumei, who was already in menopause, would often cry because of this incident. Then, the selfishness and hypocrisy of human nature made her think of how Zheng Xiaomin had advised her back then.

At that moment, Jiang Qiumei seemed to have found an outlet to vent her emotions, and she actually put all the blame on Zheng Xiaomin.

Zheng Xiaomin was no stranger to criticism, so she naturally refused to take the blame. Consequently, the mother and daughter often argued over this matter, and the mother-daughter relationship, originally built on partiality, began to fray.