Chapter 119
A week later, Chen Shengqing drove back to the border safely.
Because he was worried that his car would be discovered by someone with ulterior motives, he drove day and night without sleep, and it was inevitable that he would feel tired sometimes.
At this time, Chen Tianyou took the initiative to step forward and said, "Dad, if you are tired, let me drive."
"That won't work. Your mom told you not to drive." Wu Shulian, who was sitting in the back seat, objected, "How old are you? You don't even have a license. What if you crash the car? Your mom and dad can't afford to pay for it."
In Wu Shulian's mind, people can get into trouble, but cars cannot; people are not as important as cars. Nowadays, small cars are shockingly expensive.
Chen Shengqing didn't care. She yawned and said, "Mom, Tianyou is a good driver. Let him drive on the smooth national highway. I'll drive on other difficult roads. If you're worried, you can keep an eye on him. I'm going to sleep now."
As he spoke, he motioned to Chen Tianyou to exchange seats with him. He sat in the passenger seat and let Chen Tianyou drive. He closed his eyes and fell asleep calmly.
Seeing that he was not afraid of death and since she herself could not drive, Wu Shulian could only watch Chen Tianyou driving in fear and horror.
At first, she still had the energy to keep staring at him. Gradually, the car was driving steadily on the national highway. All around them was an endless desert. Apart from their car, there were no other vehicles and no green vegetation. As Wu Shulian watched, her eyelids began to droop and she fell asleep unknowingly.
When he woke up again, it was already night. Chen Shengqing was driving the car and Chen Tianyou fell asleep in the passenger seat.
In this way, the father and son, one driving during the day and the other driving at night, returned to the frontier safely.
Chen Shengqing immediately drove the car to a secret location in Tianshan Farm, found the two professors, showed them the things in the back of the car, and asked them: "Professor Cai, Professor Zheng, what are you going to do with so many things?"
Professor Zheng looked at the antique calligraphy and paintings piled up in the back seat and trunk of the car, and reached out to touch them with nostalgia, saying, "Old Cai and I had said earlier that these things would be given to Xiao Tianxing as a full-month gift. Now, they belong to you, and you can do whatever you want with them."
Professor Cai picked up the square box and said, "I only want this. As Mr. Zheng said, you can do with the rest. Given our current situation, even if we take these things, it will be a disaster and misfortune for us. These things are in your hands. Whether you sell them or keep them is none of our business. If we give them to you, they are yours."
"Okay, on behalf of Tianxing, I would like to thank the two professors for their generosity." Chen Shengqing said, taking out two thick large stacks of money from his pocket and putting them in the hands of the two professors respectively. "You don't want the antiques, but you have to accept the silver dollars and the money from the sale of the small yellow croaker. The current situation in the country is not very good, but the policy has been gradually relaxed in the past two years. Maybe one day the two professors can be rehabilitated. Keeping the money will be very useful."
Professor Zheng hesitated and said, "It's useless for us to take such a large amount of money. There are so many eyes on us in the farm. We have nowhere to hide it."
"As long as you want to hide something, no one will find it." Chen Shengqing said meaningfully.
Professor Zheng thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll only take 5,000. The yellow croaker belongs to Mr. Cai, and it's valuable. The silver dollar is mine, and it's not that valuable."
Professor Cai said, "I'll take 5,000 too, Xiao Chen, and you can keep the rest for Xiao Yang. It's our way of thanking Xiao Yang for taking care of us over the years."
"Okay." Chen Shengqing did not refuse and asked the question in his mind: "Professor Cai, the location of your secret room is secret and the materials in it are extremely rare. It cannot be opened without a key. Why don't you just leave the things there and give the key to my wife so that we can get them?"
"It's not that I don't want to put it away, but those things can't be kept." Professor Cai patted the square box in his hand and said, "The small western-style building has been idle for more than ten years. My old friend has been protecting it all these years. He retired last year. His retirement means that the small western-style building will be re-examined. It is very likely to be divided up for others to live in, or it may be demolished and rebuilt. That's why I'm in a hurry to let you go to the capital to find things. The house can no longer be saved."
Chen Shengqing suddenly realized: "So that's how it is. Thanks to you two elders, Qiu Jin and I bought a courtyard house in the capital. If you have nowhere to live when you return to the capital, you can stay with us."
Professor Zheng smiled and said, "Okay, when we get back, we will definitely stay at your place."
"Capital, can we ever go back in this life?" Professor Cai touched the box with a melancholy look on his face.
"Policies are constantly changing. There will definitely be a chance to go back." Chen Shengqing comforted them.
"I hope so."
On the other hand, the day after Chen Shengqing and others left, Yang Qiujin went to the Party School to study.
Nowadays, most of the cadres in party schools are male, but there are relatively few female cadres.
The huge party school had hundreds of cadres from all over the country coming to study.
Yang Qiujin was wearing a newly bought white Dacron shirt, a plain floral long skirt that looked fairy-like, a pair of red plastic shoes, and her long black hair was tied up high with a red hairband. Her facial features were very delicate, and her skin was white and tender. Wearing such clothes, from a distance she looked beautiful and cool, fashionable and beautiful, with a slim figure.
As soon as she entered the Party School, she attracted the attention of many male comrades.
A man wearing the uniform of a Lenin cadre and with a decent appearance was the first to greet her: "Lady comrade, who are you accompanying to study here? Are you dating someone? My name is An Hongji. I am 35 years old, single and childless. I work in the municipal administration of Lu City. Would you consider dating me? I will definitely treat you well."
Another man in a military officer's uniform came over and said, "An Hongji, stop cheating decent women here. You are already this old, without a wife or children, who are you trying to fool?"
An Hongji was exposed, but he was not annoyed. He smiled and said, "Peng Guohao, Brigade Commander Peng, I didn't deceive anyone. Since ancient times, gentlemen love beautiful ladies. Other things are not important."
"If everything else is unimportant, then what is important?" Yang Qiujin stood in front of the two and introduced herself gracefully, "Hello, comrades. My name is Yang Qiujin, and I am the director of the breeding farm affiliated to Tianshan Farm in Awa area of the frontier. I came here, just like you two, to learn."
"Oh, you are a female cadre from the frontier. You are so young, I can't tell." An Hongji reached out to her, held her delicate hand and said, "My name is An Hongji. I am sorry for my disrespect."
Then he continued with the previous question: "How old are you? Are you dating?"
Yang Qiujin shook hands with him politely. "I am already 36 years old this year. My husband is the head of the Second Border Defense Regiment in Ava. I have a son and a daughter. Calculating age, I am one year older than you. You have to call me sister."
"What? You are already 36 years old?" An Hongji was shocked: "I can't tell. You look like a female student in her early twenties who just graduated from college."
He held Yang Qiujin's hand tightly, and Yang Qiujin pulled her hand away calmly and said, "Comrade An, thank you for your compliment. Are you here to study this year too?"
An Hongji nodded, and just as he was about to speak, Peng Guohao stood in front of him, held Yang Qiujin's hand and said, "Comrade Yang, I am the brigade commander of the border defense army of the Heilongjiang Province Corps. My name is Peng Guohao, and I am 38 years old. Your husband and I are from the same army. As a frontier military family member, you must have had a hard time along the way. Let's not stand here and talk. Let's go. I'll take you to our class."
"I don't know where to go. Sorry to bother you, Comrade Peng." Yang Qiujin followed Peng Guohao to a classroom on the second floor of the Party School's teaching building.
There were more than 30 cadres sitting inside, ranging in age from 25 to 45 years old. Except for a short-haired female cadre in the middle, the rest were male cadres.
As soon as Yang Qiujin appeared, everyone gathered around her and asked, "Hey, this is a new classmate, right? Where are you from? You are so pretty, you must have just graduated from college, right?"
"This is Director Yang from the border area of Ava. Her husband is a border guard and she has two children who are one year older than me." An Hongji introduced Yang Qiujin with some depression.
Yang Qiujin smiled and said to everyone generously: "Comrade An is right. Hello, comrades. In the next six months, I hope you will give me more advice. If you have time, please come to my house for tea."
Coming to the Party School to study was the main purpose, but if there was an opportunity, Yang Qiujin hoped to establish good relationships with these Party School classmates.
These classmates are all national cadres, scattered across various institutions across the country. If you make contact with them, you will have a huge network of contacts that may come in handy in the future.
Peng Guohao laughed: "That's great. If there's a chance, we will definitely ask your family to come and visit us and have a taste of the tea made by a pretty lesbian like you."
Other students started to make a noise, "I think it's better to go today than to choose a day. Let's go today after we finish our study."
Most of the cadres present here are already married, but that does not hinder their love of beauty, nor does it hinder them from flirting with others and enjoying the services of beauties. After all, some things are consensual, and even if they cannot get what they want, they will feel happy if they can get a little advantage.
Yang Qiujin smiled and said, "I have only been in the capital for a few days. The house we rented is still a mess. It would be bad for you to see it. When I have sorted out my house, I will definitely invite you to have tea someday. What do you think?"
This is just an excuse. It will be done some other day, who knows when. Everyone knows it and they all say yes with a smile.
We were just meeting for the first time, so it wouldn't be appropriate to go to the home of a married lesbian. Some things should be done step by step and slowly.
The teacher arrived soon and after everyone introduced themselves, the class began.
The content of the study revolves around the various spirits and history of our party, as well as what cadres should do.
Everyone took out notebooks to write and draw, and after finishing one lesson after another, everyone went home at the end of the day.
A month passed in a flash as they studied. During this month, Yang Qiujin, her mother-in-law, and little Tianxing lived in a rented house until Chen Shengqing came again with Chen Tianyou, who was on summer vacation, and brought two pieces of good news.
The first good news is that Chen Tianyou passed the high school entrance examination and was admitted to Ava High School and entered the key class as expected.
The second good news was that Wu Shulian and Yang Chenghua proposed divorce, but Yang Chenghua disagreed. Wu Shulian was so angry that she fought with him for the first time and won. Then, with the help of Yang Qiuyue, the mother and daughter returned to their hometown together and asked the village committee to decide on the divorce.
After an investigation by the village committee, it turned out that the two had never obtained a marriage certificate. It turned out that many couples in the countryside believed in the arrangements of their parents and matchmakers. Once they were attracted to each other, they would invite relatives and friends to a meal, set up a banquet, and then enter the bridal chamber. Even if they were married, they had never thought of going to the county Civil Affairs Bureau to get a marriage certificate.
Later, under the policy requirements, household registration was required in all places and everyone was required to obtain a marriage certificate. However, Yang Chenghua did not take it to heart and felt that there was no need to obtain one. Anyway, Wu Shulian had slept with him and had two daughters with him, so she was his daughter-in-law.
Who would have thought that times have changed. In today's world, only marriage certificates are recognized. Without a marriage certificate, they are at most a de facto couple. Legally speaking, there is no actual binding force of marriage.
Now, Wu Shulian can regain her freedom without having to divorce. After she learned that she didn't have to divorce at the village committee, she cried and laughed in front of the village committee.
At Yang Qiuyue's suggestion, Wu Shulian asked the village cadres of the village committee to testify and wrote a letter of severance of all ties with Yang Chenghua. She even gave up the Yang family's house and land where she had lived for decades, which was equivalent to leaving the family with nothing. She moved her household registration to a collective household in Tianshan Farm on the border. From then on, she and Yang Chenghua became strangers and had no connection with each other anymore.
Naturally, Yang Chenghua was not willing to let go of such a free nanny, and he went to the border to make trouble several times. Once, he even beat Wu Shulian, but was beaten back by Fan Sui and thrown on the Gobi Beach to dry for two days. From then on, he became well-behaved. He bought a ticket and returned to his hometown in disgrace, and never appeared in front of Wu Shulian again.
Wu Shulian had suffered for most of her life, and now she was completely relieved. Yang Qiujin was really happy for her.
She asked, "Why didn't Mom come with you?"
Chen Shengqing held her daughter whom she hadn't seen for a long time, and said to her with a rare look, "Little Guangming is getting bigger and bigger, and it's getting harder to take care of. Your sister and brother-in-law are too busy at work to take care of the child, so she wanted to help your sister take care of the child to make things easier for them. Mom asked me to take care of you so that you don't have to worry. She feels that she is more relaxed now that she has left your father, and she enjoys her meals more than before. She said that when Little Guangming is older and she can let go, she will come to the capital to play again. Anyway, she still has plenty of time."
Yang Qiujin finally felt relieved. Her mother was only 52 years old this year. If she lived in the city, she would have just retired for two years and was at an age where she could enjoy her beautiful twilight years. It was already a rare thing for her mother to let go of the past and bravely divorce and leave her father. Now she could do whatever she wanted.
After Chen Shengqing and Chen Tianyou came, the house they rented was no longer big enough for them, so Yang Qiujin decided to move to a courtyard house so that the whole family could live freely.
They didn't move before because they thought that since they had just arrived in the capital, if they moved to a new house right away, people would inevitably ask them about the source of the money to buy the house.
Secondly, they had just rented someone else's house, and it was impossible for them to just cancel the lease and refuse Commander Zhou's kindness.
Third, several classmates from the Party School, such as An Hongji and Peng Guohao, had the audacity to follow Yang Qiujin to her home for tea. When they saw that they lived in a rented house, they praised her for her simplicity.
Now that all matters had been dealt with, the family moved into the courtyard house and started living there after just a simple cleaning.
The kitchen in the courtyard house is very large. It can be equipped with a beehive coal stove and an earthen stove for cooking firewood.
There were firewood left by the previous owner in the backyard. Chen Shengqing picked up an axe and started chopping a pile of firewood in the backyard.
Chen Tianyou carried the chopped firewood in piles to the corner behind the earthen stove in the kitchen and stacked them neatly.
Li Xiu'e lit a fire and burned the earthen stove.
Yang Qiujin got the rice out, lit the beehive coal stove first, and simmered a pot of rice on the beehive coal stove. Then she picked up a duck that she had bought at the grocery store this morning, chopped it into pieces, and cooked konjac and duck in a big pot with the konjac that Li Xiu'e bought at the grocery store.
When the aroma of the familiar hometown dishes lingered in the courtyard, Chen Shengqing stopped chopping wood, and with his upper body bare and sweating, he carried the piles of firewood into the kitchen. After putting them away, he stood beside the kitchen and asked, "What are you burning? It smells so good."
"Roasted duck with konjac." Yang Qiujin opened the lid of the pot, scooped up the bubbling roasted duck with a spatula, then covered the pot again and continued to simmer.
"Konjac roasted duck, I haven't eaten this dish for a long time. Is there anyone selling konjac in the capital?" Chen Shengqing had been chopping wood for half a day and was very thirsty. He took out a bowl from the cupboard, poured a bowl of cold boiled water, drank it and asked.
In the middle of summer, the man stood in front of her with bulging muscles and hot body, which made Yang Qiujin feel dizzy.
She calmed herself down and said, "We are in the capital of the country. As long as you have money, you can have anything you want. Although konjac is a plant unique to Sichuan Province, in recent years, there have been factories specializing in konjac in Sichuan Province. I heard that the fresh konjac is ground into powder by machines and sold all over the country. Konjac powder only needs to be mixed into boiling water in a certain proportion, and then scooped up and cooled to become konjac cubes. You no longer have to dig and grind it yourself like before, which is troublesome and time-consuming. Now it is very convenient. If you want to eat it, you can go to the grocery store and buy a big piece and cook it at home. The price is not expensive."
She said with emotion: "The country is getting stronger day by day. Factories and scientific research technology have brought more and more conveniences. In the past, we would not have been able to eat konjac in other provinces."
Chen Shengqing nodded in agreement: "Times are advancing, and scientific research and technology are becoming more mature. I believe that in the near future, our country will surely develop into a world power and will no longer be bullied by any country."
"Mom." After moving the firewood, Chen Tianyou stood aside and whispered to Yang Qiujin, "I was admitted to Ava High School."
"I know. I've made your favorite konjac and duck. I'll also steam your favorite prawns and crabs to celebrate for you." Yang Qiujin put salt and MSG into the pot, scooped the cooked konjac into a large bowl, and said.
Chen Tianyou bit his lip and said awkwardly, "Mom, I got first place in the whole grade, and Wang Songyue got second place. She doesn't plan to go to Ava High School with me. She must be angry with me because I took away her long-standing championship title."
"Why wouldn't she go to Ava High School? She's not that stingy." Yang Qiujin put a large steaming rack in the pot, poured the washed crabs and prawns into it, covered the pot, and looked surprised.
"Song Yue is definitely not a stingy person." Chen Shengqing washed the bowl after drinking water and put it in the cupboard. "She doesn't want to go to Ava High School because Wang Jianjun is going to retire and transfer to Xiangbei. She wants to go back to Xiangbei with her father to study."
Yang Qiujin exclaimed, "Wang Jianjun is not due to retire until next year, why is he leaving this year?"
"There happened to be a vacancy in a county government department in Xiangbei. He could have been the county chief if he returned. If he missed this opportunity, he could only work in a unit below the county level. So he applied for discharge and transfer in advance and went home to settle down. He estimated that he would return to Xiangbei at the end of this month."
"What?" Chen Tianyou was shocked. "I thought Songyue was angry with me and didn't want to go to Ava High School. It turns out that she went back to Xiangbei with her father. Dad, why didn't you tell me earlier? If you had known, I wouldn't have come to the capital. No, I want to go back to find Wang Songyue."
"You didn't ask me, so what should I say?" Chen Shengqing looked at his anxious look and said calmly, "Wang Songyue didn't tell you that she was going back to Xiangbei, why are you so anxious?"
"I, I..." Chen Tianyou stammered, unable to explain clearly.
No one knows a son better than his mother. Yang Qiujin saw what her son was thinking at a glance and comforted him, saying, "Tianyou, don't worry. Songyue didn't tell you that she was going back to Xiangbei. Maybe she didn't want you to see her off. It would be hard to part with her, and it would be hard for everyone. Your father knows where her father works and where her family lives. If you miss Songyue, you can write to her or send a telegram. If you can't afford it, you can go see her during the winter and summer vacations. Don't worry, don't worry."
The boy's thoughts were spoken out to him by his mother in person. Chen Tianyou blushed and felt aggrieved. He felt that the whole world knew that Wang Songyue's family was leaving the border, but he didn't know. The key point was that Wang Songyue didn't tell him either.
He stood there with his face turning pale and red. Finally, he was so angry that he said nothing and went back to the house in a huff.
"See, you're angry again." Yang Qiujin glared at Chen Shengqing, "You know Tianyou likes Songyue, and their family is leaving. Why didn't you tell Tianyou that he missed the chance to say goodbye to Songyue?"
The crabs in the pot were cooked. Chen Shengqing was afraid that Yang Qiujin would burn her hands when handling the crabs, so he quickly put the crabs on the plate and said, "Guess why Songyue didn't tell Tianyou that her family was leaving."
Yang Qiujin didn't say anything. Why didn't she say anything? Perhaps it was because the two families were too familiar with each other and she felt that they could keep in touch anytime and anywhere in the future. It might also be because she was shy as a young girl and she noticed Chen Tianyou's feelings and didn't want Chen Tianyou to see her off and make everyone feel embarrassed.
Li Xiu'e, who had been lighting the fire, said, "The girl doesn't want to say goodbye to Tianyou. It's useless for Tianyou to be angry. As long as Songyue has feelings for Tianyou and they are destined to be together, they can get in touch no matter how far they are. Let Tianyou be angry, he will figure it out sooner or later."
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