Xia Juhua sighed at the sun that had just shown half its red face in the east. She had to find a way to make more money. Even if her son couldn't be relied on in the future, she had money in her hands and didn't have to worry about their faces.
Unfortunately, it was still collective labor, and individuals were not allowed to trade, so there was almost no way to make money. Xia Juhua had to stare at the rising sun.
"Mom?" As soon as Wang Caifeng came out of the house, she saw her mother-in-law standing facing the sun, motionless. She was startled: "Why did you get up so early today? Baoguo wet the bed in the middle of the night, and I changed his clothes and coaxed him to sleep, so..."
As a daughter-in-law who gets up later than her mother-in-law, Wang Caifeng, who has always been honest, feels that her reasons sound untenable.
"Baoguo wet the bed again? He's so old now..." Xia Juhua suddenly realized that she had treated Liu Baoguo as the adult who was already someone else's father, and therefore she felt it was unbelievable that he wet the bed.
Now, Liu Baoguo is just a little kid of one and a half years old.
Xia Juhua had an idea: "It's almost the beginning of winter, and his mattress is full of old cotton. I'll go to the commune later to try my luck and see if I can buy some cotton to make a new mattress for him." She vaguely remembered that the supply and marketing cooperatives at that time seemed to have some ways to make money.
Wang Caifeng didn't know what Xia Juhua was really thinking. She was deeply moved when she heard her care for her son. "Mom, Baoguo is still young and he wets the bed from time to time. You don't need to use new cotton to make a mattress for him. When he grows up and doesn't wet the bed at night, you can use the mattress I brought as a dowry."
Xia Juhua did not agree with Wang Caifeng. Although she had discovered that good deeds should be made known to others, her character of always doing what she said remained unchanged. After breakfast, she rushed to the commune.
Pingan Village belongs to Hongxing Commune. As it is located in a plain, it has developed into a small town in the past generation, with several tall buildings. Unfortunately, only the courtyard of the commune office and several neighboring buildings are brick houses, and the other two streets are still earthen houses like Pingan Village. However, these earthen houses were built later than those in other villages, and the streets are smoother, which makes it look more imposing than Pingan Village.
In her previous life, Xia Juhua devoted herself to farming and seldom came to the commune. She only knew where the supply and marketing cooperative and the commune office were, and she had no idea where else she was. Now she didn't go anywhere else, but went directly to the supply and marketing cooperative.
On the way here, she tried to think for a long time before she remembered that at this time in her last life, the supply and marketing cooperative took on a batch of quilt-making jobs for a disaster area. Due to the tight time requirements, each quilt was paid one yuan. Ping'an Village was not far from the commune. After hearing the news, several women wanted to take the job, but unexpectedly, the people in the commune had already taken the task.
At that time, An Baoling and Xia Juhua sighed together that it was better to live in the commune, where they had more information about making money than in Pingan Village. Xia Juhua also felt it was a pity, and if she could also get a job making quilts, she could make up for the family fortune that was emptied by marrying Sun Hongmei.
So she had to try her luck at the supply and marketing cooperative first. If she could get a few quilts to make, even if she couldn't make much money, it would at least make some extra money.
Upon entering the supply and marketing cooperative, Xia Juhua was shocked by the half-empty counters - in the late 1990s, even Ping'an Village had its own small store, and the goods inside were more complete than those in the current supply and marketing cooperative.
"Comrade, I heard that the supply and marketing cooperative is going to make quilts for the disaster area. I wonder if I can do it?" Xia Juhua asked a salesperson who looked kind without looking at anything. She remembered that those who could be salespeople at that time were not ordinary people, and their attitudes were more arrogant than each other, so she smiled when she asked the question.
The salesperson was about the same age as Xia Juhua, and still had the simplicity of being from a rural background. When she was selling goods just now, she was not as impatient as other salespeople when treating employees, so Xia Juhua went to her.
The salesperson looked at Xia Juhua and smiled, saying, "You are well-informed. You came here just after our meeting. But our director said at the meeting that no matter whose relative takes the job, they must pay a deposit of five yuan for each quilt."
There is a way. Xia Juhua originally planned to take a chance and brought some capital with her. When she heard about paying a deposit, she felt that it was natural because she had seen this kind of operation in her previous life. The people in the supply and marketing cooperative didn't know you, so if you didn't pay a deposit, how could they trust you to give you the cloth and cotton? If you took the bags and ran away, the supply and marketing cooperative would suffer a huge loss.
So she nodded without hesitation: "I know, I have the money with me. I just don't know where to get it."
The salesperson saw that Xia Juhua was dressed very neatly, with clean clothes without any patches, and thought that she was not an ordinary rural woman, so he told her about the deposit. Now Xia Juhua said without hesitation that she had money, and the salesperson felt more and more that the person in front of him might be a relative of a leader.
If a rural woman had not known about the deposit, she would have complained long ago, saying that she made quilts to earn money, so why should she pay money first.
Thinking that Xia Juhua was a salesperson who was a relative of the leader, the director treated her more politely and took her to see the director, explaining that she was there to get a job making quilts. The director didn't expect someone to come so quickly, and it was rare to see a salesperson so polite to a farmer, so he thought she was a relative of the salesperson, and he was also polite in his words.
"Did Xiao Wang tell you that if you want to take the job, you have to pay a deposit. The deposit is equal to the number of quilts you take, and you have to hand it in within three days."
Xia Juhua nodded, while calculating how many quilts she could make in three days with the money in her hand. After calculating, she took out thirty yuan from her inner pocket and said, "Director, I want to order eight quilts. Is that okay?"
Compared to the task of making quilts, eight beds are nothing, so it's just a favor to the salesperson. The director smiled and nodded, but he still said something ugly in advance: "We have to make it clear that this batch of quilts is made for the people in the disaster area. It is the organization's warmth for the people in the disaster area. We can't cut corners."
Xia Juhua had never thought that she would be able to get the job of making quilts so smoothly, and she hurriedly assured the director: "Don't worry, everyone in Ping'an Village knows that I work hard and I will make sure that all the cotton I take will be used for the quilts."
The director nodded after hearing this, but he was a little suspicious. He had never heard that Wang the salesman was related to the people in Ping'an Village. But they were all from the same commune, so they were all related. Maybe Wang the salesman had mentioned this before, but he hadn't remembered it. The director didn't ask any more questions, but asked someone to open the warehouse and take out the cloth and cotton for the eight quilts.
It was only then that Xia Juhua discovered a problem. She had walked here, and the cotton in the eight quilts weighed a full 40 kilograms and took up a lot of space. Adding the quilt covers and the quilt lining, she could not take them back to Ping'an Manor by herself.
"Salesman Wang, can I trouble you a little?" Xia Juhua realized that she was able to smoothly get the quilt-making job today because Salesman Wang took the initiative to take her to see the director. So she decided not to bother two people at once and was ready to trouble her again.
In her previous life, Xia Juhua would never have done such a thing as relying on others, but now she really couldn't think of a way out. Accepting one favor was an acceptance, and accepting two favors was also an acceptance. She planned to thank the salesperson Wang afterwards.
In her previous life, she had seen many times how Sun Hongmei was able to get along with people easily. She would start by talking to people and then become familiar with them through exchanges. Xia Juhua thought she could learn this method, so she blushed and awkwardly said her request.
Salesman Wang was thinking about how the director had just assigned the job to Xia Juhua, and he became more and more convinced that Xia Juhua had a relative who was a leader that she herself didn't know about. Otherwise, the director, who had already instructed everyone not to expand the scope of knowledge at will, would not have readily agreed to assign the job to Xia Juhua and took the initiative to write a note to collect a deposit.
So when the salesperson heard Xia Juhua's request, he smiled kindly and said, "Okay, I'll watch it for you first."
Xia Juhua thanked the salesman and walked to the streets of the commune to try her luck again. This time she wanted to see if there was an oxcart going back to Ping'an Village.
Unfortunately, my luck was not good. I had already walked back and forth along both streets of the commune, but I didn't see anyone from Ping'an Village, let alone an ox cart. I wanted to ask someone to send a message back to ask Liu Zhiquan to pick me up, but it was unsuccessful.
Seeing that it was almost noon, Xia Juhua became more and more annoyed and decided not to look for anyone. At worst, she could carry half of it back by herself and come back to the commune for the rest.
After making up her mind, Xia Juhua turned around and walked back to the commune. She heard the sound of an ox cart behind her. She turned back without any hope and was stunned - the person driving the ox cart turned out to be her brother Xia Long!
Somehow, as soon as she saw Xia Long, Xia Juhua's tears fell uncontrollably, leaving Xia Long, who was originally trying to greet her sister with a smile, at a loss: "Sister, what's the matter? Why did you come to the commune alone? Were you bullied or something? Sister, please say something."
Xia Juhua was crying and shaking her head. When she saw Xia Long, she remembered a period of time in her previous life when Liu Zhiquan and Liu Zhishuang did not take her to live in their new house as agreed when they divided the family property. Xia Long and Xia Hu brought their nephew to Ping'an Manor to stand up for her and wanted to beat them up.
At that time, she still felt sorry for her sons, and a strong man spoke up for them, saying that she was still able to move, and that their living habits were different, so it was she who didn't want to live with her sons, not that her two sons would not support her in her old age. Xia Longshidi was so angry that he said he would never take care of his own affairs again, and left with his nephews in a huff.
From then on, Xia Long never came to Ping'anzhuang again, and she was too embarrassed to go back to her parents' home. The two siblings hadn't seen each other for more than ten years, so Xia Juhua couldn't control her tears at all.
What does it mean to be unaware of good people? My past life was a living example of this!
Xia Long had never seen his sister cry like this before. He hurried the ox cart to the side of the road in a panic and said in a low voice: "Sister, did the two little bastards at home make you angry, or did your mother-in-law become naughty again after seeing Zhishuang getting married? Don't worry, I will ask Lao Er and Mancang to go to Ping'an Village when I go back. Do you really think there is no one left in our Xia family?"