Chapter 21
Pei Ze pushed her away, he really couldn't go on. There was no affection, love or liking in her eyes, only curiosity and teasing.
Zhong Miao looked at him, as if to say, is this the end?
"You are such a bad thing." Pei Ze said hatefully.
He pinched her flushed cheeks and let the fair little hand caress his Adam's apple.
"Ah? What's wrong with me? Didn't you ask me to kiss you?"
Her hand moved up along his Adam's apple, rubbing against his hard stubble, which was a bit prickly.
"Well, it's what I want, so don't mess with me."
Pei Ze pulled down the little hand that was messing around on his chin, played with it in his hand, and wondered how he could make this stupid piece of wood come to his senses.
"Haha, no more talking, I'm a little sleepy."
Zhong Miao found a comfortable position in his arms and closed her eyes.
"Well, go to sleep."
Pei Ze stroked her long hair to comfort her with one hand, and with the other hand he lifted her small, white hand and gently kissed her fingers.
When Zhong Miao woke up, Pei Ze was no longer in the room. There were two aluminum lunch boxes and a small aluminum basin with a lid on the stove.
She put on her clothes and pushed the door open to go out.
It was too dark to see last night, but it turned out to be a very large yard, probably about 1,800 square meters. The row of bungalows where she lived last night had six or seven rooms, and opposite the bungalows was a large iron factory building that took up most of the yard.
I have to say that Pei Ze’s furniture factory is not small in scale.
The snow in the yard was swept clean, revealing the concrete floor underneath.
She saw Pei Ze in the yard, holding a shovel and stirring something that looked like black mud.
"What are you doing?" Zhong Miao was curious.
"Making coal blocks." This time, Pei Ze did not despise his wife for being ignorant.
"What's it for?"
"Most stoves at home burn firewood, but the stoves here all burn coal. This is broken coal slag, mixed with some soil and water.
Look at that square mold. Put it in the mold to set and dry, then you can use it to burn the fire." Pei Ze explained patiently.
"Well, how long will it take? Do you need my help?"
"I'm almost done here. You just need to help me move the mold. Go to the drawer in the house and find a pair of work gloves to put on."
"Okay."
Zhong Miao rushed into the house and found a pair of worn cotton gloves.
"Where to move?"
"There's only one mold, so we have to make them one by one. Just find the right position and put them upright."
Zhong Miao moved the mold to another position. "How about starting from here?"
"OK."
Pei Ze shoveled a shovel of mixed coal slag and poured it into the square mold, but it was only half full. He shoveled another shovel to fill the mold. He patted it with the shovel to compact it.
"Wait a while until it's set, then take the mold and put it aside to make the next one."
"Okay. But can such a large stove mouth fit in?" Zhong Miao felt that it definitely couldn't fit in.
"Haha, silly wife, when burning, just hammer it into small pieces and you can use it. It's not honeycomb coal, so big pieces like that won't burn evenly."
At this time, the sound of sawing wood came from the factory. Zhong Miao pointed at the factory and asked, "Are you starting work now?"
"Well, the factory is full of sawdust. Don't go in there. I'll show you after we finish the work."
"Uh-huh."
After a while, Pei Ze was worried that Zhong Miao would be cold, "Zhong Miao, if you feel cold, go inside. I can do it myself."
He just wanted Zhong Miao to stay with him for a while, and it would be easy for him to do it himself. However, Zhong Miao offered to help, so he was happy to have her accompany him. It was easier for him to work with his wife by his side.
But it was indeed a cold day, and he was reluctant to let her stay with him all the time.
"No, it's not cold now." Zhong Miao didn't think she could help Pei Ze in any way. She really didn't know how to do this job.
"Okay, if you're cold, go inside."
"good."
The rectangular coal blocks on the ground were neatly arranged. Zhong Miao found it quite novel, like a puzzle.
Erwa had just been poking his head out of the office from time to time, observing the couple who were making coal blocks. He wanted to go out and help, but was afraid of disturbing the couple's emotional communication.
Seeing that his brother Ze was worried that his sister-in-law would be cold, he stopped hiding and pushed open the office door and went out, "Brother Ze, sister-in-law, good morning."
"Good morning." Zhong Miao replied.
"Brother, you haven't eaten yet, right? Let me take care of these. You two can go eat quickly."
As Pei Ze's most capable friend in the original text, Erwa is particularly perceptive and helps his brother share his worries in time.
"Well, then you do it." Pei Ze handed the shovel to Erwa.
"Okay."
After returning to the house to wash their hands and faces, the couple sat around the small stove, each holding a lunch box with a small bowl of vegetables, which was a simple stew of potatoes and cabbage.
"I can't eat so much." Zhong Miao looked at the full box of rice and felt troubled.
"Just eat it. The rest is left. I'll eat it next time."
"That's not nice. Do you have any extra lunch boxes? I'll share them out."
Pei Ze took out a small bowl that had not been used for a long time from the cabinet and went out to wash it carefully.
Zhong Miao took the small bowl, filled it with half a bowl of rice, and then started eating.
"What's wrong? Don't you like eating this?" Pei Ze asked casually when he saw that she looked uninterested.
“A little.”
"So what do you like to eat?"
"Nothing, all the same."
Zhong Miao said this, but she didn't really mean it. She wanted to eat watermelon, cherries, mangoes, fried chicken, pizza, and butter hot pot, but none of these were available at the moment.
In the winter of my previous life, there were all kinds of vegetables and fruits, but agriculture was not so developed in that era, and it was impossible to grow out-of-season vegetables and fruits, and transportation could not keep up. Many fruits from the south could not be shipped here, and there were no imported fruits.
Nowadays, in the winter in the north, the only vegetables that are easy to store are radishes, cabbages, and potatoes, and the only fruits are apples, oranges, and pears. It is considered good to be able to eat an apple and a frozen pear on a regular basis.
Some frugal families peel an apple and let the children eat the flesh while the adults eat the skin.
Compared to these families, she lived a pretty good life and there was nothing to complain about.
"Tell me what you want to eat, and I'll take you to buy it today."
Pei Ze couldn't bear to see her feel wronged. His family was not poor and they could eat whatever they wanted. It was just that the conditions in the factory were like that. He had to eat whatever the workers ate. After all, it was a big pot meal, so that's how it was.
Zhong Miao looked at him. She not only wanted to talk, but also wanted to eat. The problem was that it was useless to talk. Where could you buy something that was not available? Wouldn't it be like looking for trouble if she talked about it?
"Okay, we'll talk about it when the time comes." Zhong Miao responded casually.
Pei Ze was eating, and his thoughts drifted away. His wife was young, beautiful, well-behaved and likable. She should be dressed up and dressed in avant-garde clothes like the well-off girls in the city. He could give her all of these.
But fine clothes are easy to get, but delicious food is hard to get. The north is different from the south. People can grow vegetables in winter as well. In the north, there are only some vegetables and fruits that are easy to store in winter. His family is well-off, so they have some dried vegetables, fine grains and meat.
This daughter-in-law is spoiled and difficult to support. He will have to earn more money in the future, and the factory should also expand.
Besides, when Zhong Miao goes to college in the future, she will definitely have to live in the city. He can't let a girl live with him in the factory all the time.
The school has dormitories, but the conditions are limited. For someone like her, if she sleeps on the upper bunk, she will fall to the ground every day. What if she gets hurt?
If I don’t want to rent a house, I’ll have to buy an apartment in the city, preferably one close to her school.
"When you get into college, it's not realistic for you to run back and forth between the village and the city. I think of buying a house in the city." Pei Ze put forward his idea.
"Ah? Aren't there dormitories?"
"Then we have to separate, right? How can we live separately after getting married? No way. Besides, the dormitory has bunk beds with iron beds and wooden planks. Can you live with that?"
"Well, it seems that it is not possible. What about renting a house?"
She was sure that if she slept on the upper bunk she would fall flat on her face.
"The rental conditions aren't very good. Most of the time, you have to share kitchens and bathrooms with others. Only the newly built apartment buildings are independent."
"Oh, but buying a house will cost a lot of money, and it will need to be renovated."
"Don't worry about that. Your man can still afford a house. What size do you think is best? There are 30 to 40 square meters, and there are also 70 to 80 square meters."
At that time, housing prices in rural areas were not high, and you could buy a small courtyard in the countryside for a few hundred yuan. However, buildings in the city were not cheap. A small one would cost tens of thousands of yuan, and a large one would cost at least 20,000 or 30,000 yuan.
Although Zhong Miao didn't know the housing prices, she felt a lot of pressure. If Pei Ze bought a house for her, would she be able to divorce him whenever she wanted in the future? When they got married, there was no talk of divorce. The original owner thought Pei Ze's family was poor and that she couldn't get a divorce even if she asked, so she didn't ask for it.
Because of this, Zhong Miao felt much more at ease after traveling here. At least she didn't owe Pei Ze anything.
"Let's talk about it later, when I go to school."
It’s okay to just eat and drink on a daily basis, but buying a house? Although she is heartless, she is not to the point of not taking other people’s efforts seriously.
It is not a matter of who is good to whom.
During the time she had been here, her mother-in-law and Pei Ze had been really good to her, but she was an unstable person and she was not sure if she could stay with Pei Ze forever.
"It will be too late to wait until you go to school. You still need to renovate and paint and so on. It will take at least a month to move in. You can look at houses now. Once you pass the exam, you can buy it directly. You will have a summer vacation to renovate it."
Pei Ze thought it through carefully and was even looking forward to it. After moving to a new house, he could also spend some time alone with his wife, which would help to cultivate their relationship. Then he could hug his wife to sleep every day, and put aside the pillows and quilts.
He now roughly knows what it feels like to have a wife, children and a warm bed, and he really longs for that kind of life.
"Then we live in the city, what about mother-in-law and An An?"
"We can go back on weekends, and Mom and An An can come to the city and stay for a while anytime."
"There are so many chickens at home, how can my mother-in-law leave?" Zhong Miao was still thinking about this. She didn't want to live separately from her mother-in-law, but there was nothing she could do.
"Haha, you're such a greedy kid. Why don't you ask your front yard neighbor to feed you for a few days?"
"But I don't really want to buy a house. I don't have any money, and neither does my dad. It's not good for you to pay for it all."
Zhong Miao still expressed her true thoughts. In the past, she hated the protagonists without mouths in TV dramas the most. If you have an idea, you should communicate it.
"You're worried about that? But I have money."
"Well, I'm just worried that you'll spend all your money and end up getting divorced. What then? Wouldn't you be at a huge loss?"
Pei Ze was almost mad at her when he heard this, "You heartless little thing, you're still thinking about divorce. It's okay, I've bought the house, and even if we get divorced, I can still use it when I get married again."
"Huh?" There's such a stunt? Zhong Miao was stunned.
"What? Come on and eat."
Pei Ze felt that he just needed to figure it out on his own. Talking to Zhong Miao was like talking to a cow. You said one, and she told you two, three, four, five, six, all useless stuff.
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