"Mom, it's nothing, the child was just too strong."
Li Mei touched her stomach. "He kicked me twice last night, and my ribs still hurt."
"That's normal."
The old woman smiled and said, "This child is just like his father, a real troublemaker. When I was pregnant, he kicked me like that too."
Li Mei had something on her mind and didn't want to listen to this old hag's nonsense.
But she found that the old woman became very talkative whenever the topic came up.
So I chatted with them for a while.
Seeing that the groundwork had been laid, she said, "Mom, don't worry, the typhoon isn't coming for another three days, is it? I'll go to town this afternoon and buy a lot of things to bring back."
"No, no!"
After hearing this, the old lady waved her hand and said, "Chunsheng is a deputy battalion commander now. If you go to a place like that and get caught, it will implicate him."
"Mom, it's okay. The rules here aren't that strict. Besides, all the wives of soldiers are going."
Li Mei said, "If we don't buy them now, we won't be able to buy them even if we have the money when the typhoon comes."
After thinking for a moment, Grandma Xiang said, "Then I'll go with them tomorrow."
"Mom, I'll go."
Li Mei explained, "You're a newcomer, so others might not dare to sell to you, and they might even ask for a higher price."
"Alright then, be careful when you go tomorrow."
"knew."
After Li Mei finished speaking, she reached out to her mother-in-law and said, "Mom, give me some money."
There was nothing she could do; she wasn't in charge of the family's money.
My husband has gone on a mission again and won't be back for a while.
The old woman is holding all the money in the house.
"Give."
This time, Grandma Xiang was quite agreeable, pulling a faded handkerchief from her pocket.
He immediately counted out twenty yuan, "I'll go this afternoon and buy more refined grains, and some eggs..."
Before he could finish speaking, Li Mei interrupted him.
"Mom, this money isn't enough."
"Isn't that enough?" An egg costs only five cents, and fine grains cost only a little over ten cents a pound. How can that not be enough?
Li Mei explained, "The news that a typhoon is coming has already spread."
"The prices will definitely be much higher than usual, and there are five or six people in our family, so we need to prepare supplies for at least half a month..."
After much pleading and cajoling, the old woman only gave her thirty yuan.
Finally, he added, "You've been with the army for almost a year now. Chunsheng gives you twenty yuan a month for household expenses, so you should have saved quite a bit by now."
"Take out that money, and you'll have enough to buy anything."
Li Mei, of course, couldn't admit it. "Mom, I didn't..."
"Why not?"
Having been in charge of the household for so many years, how could the old lady not know the intricacies of this situation?
"The vegetables we eat at home are all grown by ourselves, so they don't cost any money."
"You also raise a few chickens, and the eggs don't cost you any money."
"You usually eat the army's rations, which cost only a little over ten cents a pound for a pound of fine grains."
“Chunsheng eats in the cafeteria every now and then, so if you calculate it this way, you only need about ten yuan a month at most.”
He glared at the old woman and said, "I'm asking you, where did the rest of the money go?"
Li Mei didn't speak, but at this moment, her desire to kill this old hag was stronger than ever before.
She has indeed saved some money on her own over the past few months.
But it only costs eighty-something yuan.
Adding in what I saved up over the past few years, the total comes to just over a hundred yuan.
But all that money was used to bribe other people.
Fortunately, the old hag only glared at her a few times and did not order her to hand over the money.
However, Li Mei was extremely anxious because she couldn't raise the money on time.
So while the old lady was making lunch, she quietly slipped out the door.
There weren't many sisters-in-law in the family compound who got along well with her, and even fewer who were willing to lend her money.
Moreover, the amount she borrowed was not a small sum.
So the first sister-in-law refused immediately after hearing this.
You said three or five yuan is okay.
But you come up and ask to borrow 300 yuan, which is almost half a year's salary for your husband. Who would dare to lend that?
The second sister-in-law also looked troubled upon hearing this, and was about to refuse.
Li Mei immediately replied, "I'll pay you back when my husband, Lao Xiang, comes back!"
"I'll give you some interest later, okay?"
Li Mei had no idea what the consequences of this incident would be.
All she knew was that if she didn't do that...
She no longer had a place in this family.
"It's not about interest; I genuinely don't have that much money on me."
The woman was puzzled. "Why do you need so much money all at once?"
She just went to the service store to buy things, and it only cost her less than twenty yuan to buy everything she needed.
Li Mei had a long face and said that something had happened to her family and they needed money.
"Here's what we'll do. I still have thirty on me. You can take this back."
The woman said, "I'll think of a way for you later, or you can ask other women."
Li Mei: "We've contacted everyone we could, and they all say they don't have it..."
"That's true, three hundred yuan is not a small amount after all."
After hearing this, the woman sighed and said, "You know the situation in our residential compound. There aren't many women who can manage the household and make decisions."
What was said without malice may have been taken to heart by the listener.
It was at this moment that Li Mei suddenly thought of someone.
...
On the other side, after buying things from the service store, Jiang Si immediately went to order some honeycomb briquettes.
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