160 A thief has broken in!
This gathering, ostensibly to celebrate Ding Xuewen moving to a new home, was more of a "finding a partner" experience sharing session.
Ding Xuewen gave a perfunctory "uh-huh," feeling that none of their experiences were suitable for him.
I finally managed to see them off around 3 p.m., after they had been talking non-stop and were out of breath. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Back inside, compared to the lively atmosphere just now, the house felt strangely quiet.
On the table in front of the sofa, there were three small mountains of sunflower seed shells. On the plate in the middle of the table, there was a small piece of apple left.
After being busy for a while, I was about to go out to throw out the trash when I ran into the wife of Section Chief Liu from the next office.
Section Chief Liu's wife is also a very talkative person, and she was asking him whether those people were his friends or relatives.
"They are all childhood friends and friends who went to the countryside with me."
"Oh, your friends are really something." Before lunch, a group of people followed him from house to house handing out candy, greeting the neighbors in a lively atmosphere. Everyone guessed that these people were his relatives.
"By the way, Xiao Ding, I heard your company is going to help you with your personal life. I know a lot of outstanding women here. Can I play matchmaker and introduce you two?"
Ding Xuewen quickly waved his hand, saying he would consider personal matters later.
He just moved to a new house, and his work hasn't gotten on track yet. He still owes Yuehe and the other two families money. He plans to work as a tour guide for foreigners every Sunday to earn money, so he doesn't have time to date for the time being.
"Get to know each other first; it's not like we're going to ask you to get a marriage certificate right now."
When Ding Xuewen realized he couldn't politely refuse, he directly brought out the trump card that Si Tian had helped him come up with.
"To be honest, my mother just passed away last month, and I'm not in the mood to date right now."
"Ah? Oh... so you're saying there's no rush?"
—
Meanwhile, Guan Yuehe and Lin Yiku didn't rush home. Instead, they went all the way to the state-run restaurant next to the Five Star Automobile Factory for dinner.
"The waiter wasn't here." He was probably on break for his shift.
Guan Yuehe laughed and said, "Now no one should be watching our plates to see if there's any waste."
Of all the state-run restaurants she'd been to, that one waiter was the most attentive, always worried that some customer might order too much and waste it.
But her smile quickly faded; after a couple of bites, she couldn't help but frown.
I asked a waiter I didn't recognize, "Is our head chef on leave or has someone else taken over?"
"You mean Master Lou? He took early retirement to work for his grandson Teng, saying he wanted to open a private restaurant, but it hasn't opened yet."
Guan Yuehe sighed, it seemed she hadn't come to the right place today.
Although the food wasn't as good as before, it wasn't bad either. Adhering to the principle of not wasting food, Guan Yuehe ate every last bite.
Before leaving, Guan Yuehe asked the waiter for Chef Lou's address, hoping that she could catch Chef Lou's restaurant open when she came back next time.
I caught the last bus to Changhu Street.
After Guan Yuehe boarded the bus, a somewhat shy young girl gave up her seat for her.
She didn't refuse, took two milk candies from her bag and stuffed them into the little girl's pocket, then smiled wryly at Lin Yi standing in front of her: Look, I have a seat!
As soon as she got out of the car, Guan Yuehe kept praising the girl from earlier for being such a nice person.
Hearing Lin Yiku's laughter, she snorted and questioned, "Was my praise wrong?"
"That's a compliment." But while praising the young girl, she didn't forget to casually praise herself, saying that she was just as kind and loving when she was eighteen or nineteen.
This immediately reminded him of when she "escorted" him to a social gathering at the car factory, where she had given up her seat to a pregnant woman along the way.
Oh, back then she would sniff his clothes like a puppy and ask him if he was using scented soap instead of regular soap.
Guan Yuehe initially covered her mouth and laughed, but as she listened, she realized something was wrong. "You're the dog!"
They not only talk about it, but they also do it.
The elderly people at the alley entrance heard the commotion and turned around to see Guan Yuehe hitting Lin Yiku. Lin Yiku was quite resilient and even laughed while being hit.
Look at these two, they're so capable! Why aren't they home today?
Guan Yuehe had just asked, "The TV hasn't started yet?"
Then I heard an old man arguing, "Hey! Can the news on TV be as big as the news in our alley today?"
"What's wrong with our alley again?" Guan Yuehe wasn't in a hurry to go home anymore. She planned to watch color TV with the elderly folks at the alley entrance today.
He also asked Lin Yiku to go home and get a small stool.
"A child trafficker came to our area today. The child from the family in the gatehouse of courtyard number seven was almost kidnapped!"
"And then? Were the human traffickers caught?"
Aunt Bai was displeased with her question, "Yuehe, are you questioning the capabilities of us old folks in the alley? We've helped the police catch spies before!"
"Right, right, I asked the wrong question. How is the human trafficker? Was he not seriously beaten?"
Several elderly men and women seemed a little guilty, saying, "I don't think there's anything seriously wrong. They were just hit a few times, and they were yelling all the time."
Guan Yuehe found out that the human trafficker had been dealt a heavy blow.
In the morning, Aunt Hu was worried that a thief would come, but she didn't expect that it was a human trafficker!
These child traffickers are really something, they've even come all the way to Ginkgo Alley to steal children.
“There are far more petty thieves outside now than two years ago. Song Gong’an, a police station chief, runs around every day, and his legs have become thinner.”
Zhang Quanbin corrected, "Public Security Officer Song is equipped with a motorcycle, which is always clanging. I often run into him when I come home from get off work."
"Nonsense! This is a public bus. Even Officer Song doesn't ride it every day. I saw him ride a bicycle to the coal mine's residential compound today."
Just as everyone was about to steer the conversation toward the currently hot-selling Jialing brand motorcycles, Guan Yuehe quickly steered the conversation back to the topic of human traffickers and asked them why they were heading their way.
"They said they saw the child playing by himself at the entrance of the alley, and the trafficker took a toy and the child happily followed him. Luckily, Dingxiang saw it when she came back from school today, otherwise she wouldn't have known the child had been abducted."
Upon hearing Dingxiang shout "Catch the human traffickers!", men, women, and children in the alley rushed out. The human traffickers didn't escape and were caught and beaten.
As they spoke, they couldn't help but pat their own children on the shoulder, saying, "You better keep your temper in check! You're following every toy you see? You'll just be waiting to be sold off somewhere else!"
The child, who was intently waiting to watch TV, was suddenly slapped on the bottom for no reason and howled indignantly.
After talking about human traffickers, the elderly couple then brought up the issue of money being stolen from the coal mine's residential compound.
Just then, Lin Yiku brought out a small stool and made her a cup of malted milk powder.
But Guan Yuehe was so engrossed in listening to the gossip that she became increasingly shocked, holding her enamel cup without even taking a sip.
Aunt Hu said this morning that one family had over a thousand yuan stolen. But Aunt Hu didn't finish her story; in total, three families had over a thousand yuan stolen, and several other families had several hundred yuan stolen.
"That adds up to at least five thousand yuan. Officer Song guarded the place for a whole day. One old lady couldn't get over it and even wanted to drink rat poison. She was so angry."
Guan Yuehe also sighed.
Even if the old lady couldn't understand it, she would still be upset for a while if she had thousands of dollars stolen from her.
She and Lin Yiku have high salaries now and don't have to raise children, so it would take them at least six months to save a thousand yuan. If it were an ordinary working-class family with many members and high expenses, it would take them at least two or three years to save a thousand yuan.
"The thief hasn't been caught yet?"
"No. I heard it was a gang. This isn't the first case in the coal mine's residential compound. The daily chemical factory's residential compound was also robbed last week, but not this much."
"The neighborhood committee came this afternoon to spread the word, telling everyone not to keep their money at home, but to deposit it in the bank instead. Even if a thief steals a passbook, they won't know the password and can't steal the money."
The elderly folks started arguing again.
Half of the people say that banks are unreliable, and once you deposit money in them, it's no longer yours.
The other half said they planned to deposit the money tomorrow. Banks are state-owned; how could their money be swallowed up? They also asked Guan Yuehe, "Yuehe, don't you think so?"
"Yes, banks are safer than the locks at home." Although withdrawing large sums of money can be troublesome, it is indeed safer.
After watching the news, the number of spectators at the entrance of the alley suddenly halved.
As soon as Guan Yuehe entered the house, she said, "Thieves are really rampant these days."
But what Grandpa Zhang said makes sense. In the past two years, many educated youth have returned to the city. They are all around the age of dating and getting married. They can't find a job or make a living, so it's easy for them to cause trouble.
More and more people are setting up stalls to sell small items, and more people are applying for individual business licenses.
With a large workforce and limited job openings, the moment the Zhuoyue Garment Factory posted its recruitment notice, the factory gate was immediately surrounded by young people eager to learn about the job requirements.
When Guan Yuehe passed by the gate of Zhuoyue Garment Factory on her way to work, she saw the old gatekeeper with half-gray hair holding a tin megaphone, reminding them to make way for the workers going to work.
As she entered the gate of No. 3 Courtyard after get off work in the evening, she saw Gu Mannian being blocked in the front yard by a group of elderly men and women.
They all came to him to ask about job openings at the garment factory.
Some people even came up to him secretly after dinner, trying to slip him an envelope. This startled Gu Mannian, who immediately put his hands behind his back and said that he was just a small deputy section chief and couldn't get involved in the recruitment process.
After everyone left, Jiang Guiying asked, "You said you wanted a promotion, when will you officially take office?"
Guan Yuehe immediately looked up at him, "You're getting promoted to section chief? Where was Mo Zhinan transferred to?"
"Stop laughing, hurry up and tell me." Guan Yuehe couldn't stand seeing him trying to hold back his laughter, so she urged him on.
“Hey! I just had a bit of good luck.” Gu Mannian stopped keeping him in suspense. “Xu Qianjin was executed for smuggling, right? The factory also found out that he and the head of the logistics department were using the factory’s name to smuggle fabric. So, the head of the logistics department was fired, and the position became vacant, so I filled in.”
Gu Mannian laughed and said, "I guess you could say I got this position because of my age."
He hasn't achieved anything particularly outstanding at work, but he hasn't made any mistakes, and he has such a long tenure, so isn't it only natural that he'd be promoted?
"Age is also a part of strength." Guan Yuehe picked up her water glass. "Congratulations, brother-in-law!"
"Why are you only announcing such a joyous occasion now?" Guan Canghai glanced at him disapprovingly.
"The official document hasn't been released yet. I'm thinking of waiting until the document comes out before making any decisions."
Guan Canghai waved his hand and said, "No problem at all. It's not easy to have something to celebrate, let's have a drink together."
Before Gu Mannian could refuse, Guan Canghai quickly got up to find some wine.
Jiang Guiying glared at him, "At your age, you're always making excuses!"
Unable to drink, Guan Yuehe rallied in unison, "That's right! Lock up all his wine and don't let him drink it!"
Gu Yu, who was engrossed in gnawing on a large bone, also shouted, "No drinking!"
Guan Canghai stood behind Jiang Guiying and pointed his finger in the direction of Guan Yuehe.
That poor girl, she's just saying the grapes are sour because she can't have them.
Author's Note: [Newbie]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
