Liu Ping put the two bags of milk on the table, picked up her chopsticks, and continued eating.
"Eldest son, tell me the truth, did you really earn this money? Did you borrow it from someone else to deliberately upset your uncle?" Liu Ping still couldn't believe it and asked.
"Mom, it really was me who earned it. So many people saw it. How could I lie about that?" Chen Feng chuckled upon hearing this.
"Okay, okay, as long as it's your money, that's fine. My goodness, I didn't expect you to earn so much in one day. Is it all of you who earn this much, or just you alone?"
Liu Ping was so happy that she didn't even realize she was hungry, and continued to ask while holding her chopsticks.
"As for myself, they all seem to be around sixty or seventy years old," Chen Feng said after taking a sip of water and thinking for a moment.
"My goodness, such a big difference?" Liu Ping exclaimed in surprise.
"Look, your son is lucky. He's scooping out bottles of silver. He must be making a lot of money," Chen Feng said with a smile.
"Okay, since you're lucky, you'd better work hard and don't squander the money you earned today."
“Your line of work is unstable, so you need to save up more money regularly. You might earn 1,700 today, but who knows how much you’ll earn tomorrow,” Liu Ping advised.
"I understand." Chen Feng nodded, fully understanding his mother's feelings.
"Hurry up and eat, especially this canned food, it'll spoil tomorrow," Chen Feng said, pointing to the canned food.
"Okay, it's not a holiday and we're still opening canned food. It feels like we're being wasteful," Liu Ping said, picking up a piece of canned food.
"Then you'll have to get used to this kind of life in advance, because it will be like this every day from now on," Chen Feng said, finishing the rice in his bowl.
"Get out of here. Don't get cocky just because you've made a little money. Save up to build a house and get married later. That's better than anything else," Liu Ping said with a laugh.
"Or if you don't want to live in the countryside, you can buy an apartment in the county town. It's all the rage for them to move to the city now."
After finishing his meal, Chen Feng lit a cigarette and said, "Why go to the city? There's nothing interesting there, and I don't have a job."
"Let me hang around in the village for a few years first. If it doesn't work out, I'll build a villa there, bigger than the village chief's house," Chen Feng said with a smile.
“If people don’t know, they’ll think you’re the village chief. Just build four big brick houses and make the yard bright and spacious. That’s good enough,” Liu Ping said contentedly.
"Eat the rest of the pieces, don't leave any. I'm going to wash my face and go to bed," Chen Feng said to Liu Ping, stubbing out his cigarette.
"Okay, why don't you eat two more pieces? Mom can't eat that many."
Liu Ping stepped aside.
Actually, it wasn't that she couldn't eat it all; it was that she couldn't bear to eat it all and wanted Chen Feng to eat more.
"I don't want to eat, you eat," Chen Feng said, shaking his head.
"Okay, then drink a bag of milk before you go to bed," Liu Ping instructed.
“Okay, you drink one too. I bought it for you, so don’t let it expire,” Chen Feng nodded.
After Chen Feng finished washing up, he took a bag of milk back to his room. Liu Ping finished tidying up and sat at the table. She picked up the bag of milk, looked at Chen Feng's closed door, and her eyes were a little moist.
The child has finally grown up and become sensible.
When Liu Ming returned home, his wife Yao Li was making the bed. Seeing Liu Ming's silence, she couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong? Looks like Chen Feng didn't do it, did he?"
"I don't know what my older sister was thinking. Her child is so big and just stays at home. It would be so much better if she went to Chaoyang. Really."
"How much money can you offer if we go to Chaoyang?" Liu Ming asked, looking up at him.
“Eight hundred? Didn’t we agree on that before? How much does he want to earn? He wants to earn two thousand a month, but he’s not cut out for that,” Yao Li said matter-of-factly.
"Eight hundred? That kid went out to pan for gold today and earned seventeen thousand a day. Can you send eight hundred people?"
"These days, forget about being a security guard. Even if you asked him to work in that corner of Chaoyang, he probably wouldn't even want to," Liu Ming snorted and lit a cigarette in a muffled tone.
"What the hell? Earning 1,700 a day? How is that possible? You're not kidding, are you? Is it true?" Yao Li was stunned upon hearing this. She didn't even bother to make the bed and hurriedly asked.
“It’s fake? I was watching right there, how could it be fake? The kid pulled out a wad of cash and put it directly on the table.”
"After he made some money, he bought his mother two cans of food and a carton of milk."
"Damn it, look at that kid, he knows to think about his parents. Look at your kid, he doesn't call for months, and when he does, it's because something's wrong."
Liu Ming spoke in a low voice, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.
"My God, that kid earns so much?" Yao Li's face was still full of disbelief, her eyes wide with astonishment.
The main problem is that her son only earns two thousand a month, while Chen Feng earns seventeen thousand a day. How could she not be shocked?
"Xiaofeng opened a can of food last night, and I was too embarrassed to eat any, but he gave me a piece. Before I left, the older sister gave me two bags of milk," Liu Ming said.
"What about the milk?" Yao Li asked, looking at the table.
"I didn't take it. It was bought for someone else's mother. How could you possibly take it? I didn't even take it when they offered it to me," Liu Ming said, shaking his head.
Upon hearing this, Yao Li couldn't help but complain, "Just take it if I give it to you. I'm craving milk right now, and it's ridiculously expensive to buy from Shanghai."
"Take it, how dare you be so shameless? Don't you have a son? Ask your son to buy it for you," Liu Ming said irritably as he turned around.
“Chaoyang doesn’t even earn enough for himself. I heard he just bought a phone recently, which cost over eight thousand yuan. He even bought you milk. Think about it,” Yao Li sighed.
"Hmph, we have no idea what he's up to. He earns two thousand yuan a month, but he spends over eight thousand on a phone," Liu Ming said, lighting another cigarette.
"Okay, stop talking. Anyway, a phone can last for several years, so just buy it," Yao Li advised.
"Yeah, what else can we do? You can't control it anyway," Liu Ming snorted.
"When I left, I said that I had milk at home and I wouldn't take it. Xiaofeng even asked me if I bought it in Chaoyang."
"I said yes, and I blushed as soon as I said it. When did Chaoyang buy it?" Liu Ming said, taking a deep breath.
"You can't blame anyone else for that. You're so stubborn about saving face. If you don't have it, you don't have it. You just have to say you do," Yao Li said, rolling her eyes.
"Wouldn't it be even more embarrassing to say you didn't? Your son has been working outside for a year, and then when someone asks you what your son bought for you, you say you didn't buy him anything, you didn't see a single thing, is that something to talk about?" Liu Ming turned to look at her angrily.
“Who said you didn’t buy any? Didn’t someone buy you a pound of candy last time?” Yao Li said, sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed).
“I asked him to buy it. When I gave him the money back, he refused. It was only four yuan in total. I didn’t ask him to go.” Liu Ming said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.
His house was newly built a few years ago, and the floor inside is tiled, so he usually doesn't throw things on the floor.
Chen Feng's family lived in a mud-brick house built twenty years ago. The house and floor were made of rammed earth, so there weren't many rules. People would just throw things on the ground and then sweep them up later.
"Alright, stop rummaging through your intestines and go to sleep," Yao Li said as she burrowed into the covers.
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