Chapter 90: Plan to buy tiger bones, the fate of the Ming family
She suppressed her excitement and spoke hesitantly, "Auntie, did your family say how long it would take to sell it? How is the tiger bone preserved?"
Xu Fengxian felt hopeful and said happily, "It doesn't matter how long it takes. No one wants it now. The things are well preserved. Don't worry. We have an old man who knows about this. The tiger bones were specially brushed with tea oil and then dried in the sun. They were stored in an insect-proof wooden box in the shade. There is no insect damage at all."
Mingdai felt relieved after hearing this. She was just afraid that they would leave it carelessly and lose its medicinal properties.
"Auntie, I remember one of Dad's colleagues said that his elderly family was looking for tiger bones to make wine. I don't know if you still want them. I have to write to ask. If you want them, how much do you sell them for?"
Xu Fengxian was a little excited: "Is there really someone who wants it? My brother said it can't be less than 200 yuan. It's expensive, but it's also rare. In order to hunt this tiger, many people were injured and one person's leg was lame."
Mingdai nodded. The price was not expensive. If it were sold in the capital, the price could be several times higher.
"Then Auntie, I'll write to ask. If there is any news, I'll tell Auntie Huang first."
Xu Fengxian nodded happily. Her brother's family was also waiting for the money to marry a wife, so as long as she could sell it, it would be fine.
She thought for a moment, then moved closer to Mingdai and whispered, "Xiaoming, I have an old ginseng at home. Would you like to ask it together?"
Mingdai was surprised. Their family had a lot of good things, but now she was the owner of the ginseng forest and did not lack these.
"Auntie, if you don't need the money urgently, I suggest you keep it and preserve it well. It's very useful in emergencies, especially when you are in the mountains. It also retains its value. If you preserve it well, it will be more valuable later."
Xu Fengxian was just a little infatuated because a piece of tiger bones could really be sold for 200 yuan, but she immediately came to her senses after hearing this.
Her husband and son walk in the mountains all year round, and it is common for them to get injured. Keeping the old ginseng does give her peace of mind.
"Okay! I'll listen to Xiao Ming, the educated youth, and keep it for now."
Mingdai nodded.
After chatting for a while, they got up to leave. Mingdai cut a lot of leeks and garlic sprouts and put them in a basket and handed them to them.
Auntie Huang answered with a smile: "Xiao Ming, I'll bring you a bowl of dumplings later, don't rush to close the shop."
Mingdai agreed with a smile.
When Aunt Huang and her friends got home to pick leeks, they found five eggs underneath and their hearts instantly softened.
When Xu Fengxian saw this, she also felt that this educated youth named Xiao Ming was a good person.
"This young educated youth is very capable. Please take good care of him."
Auntie Huang nodded as she picked some leeks: "I know, not only do I like him, Dazhu also said that Xiaoming is a good educated youth."
Xu Fengxian looked at the clean yard and neatly tidied stables and said, "We are relieved about you. It depends on how Jiaoyan will perform after she marries you."
Aunt Huang comforted her, "Her husband's family is well-off, and her son-in-law is ambitious. Besides, it's not far from our village. I'll visit them from time to time, so don't worry, sister-in-law."
Xu Fengxian wiped her eyes and said, "It is because you are here that I feel comfortable marrying her off. From now on, I can only see my daughter-in-law once a year."
The two of them cried facing each other for a while before they suppressed their emotions. Grandma Huang in the room was listening to Goudan telling the story in the comic strip. She was very happy and laughed out loud from time to time.
In the evening, Mrs. Huang really brought over a big bowl of dumplings, more than 20 of them, filled with leeks and eggs, very fresh and tender.
After Mingdai sent her away, she and Zhou Sinian returned to the space. As soon as they entered the room, they smelled the rich aroma of mutton soup.
She picked some fresh coriander from the vegetable garden, put it in the bowl, poured hot soup into it, and Mingdai sniffed happily.
Zhou Sinian held the bowl and stood far away from her, for fear that she would put the stinky thing into his bowl.
Mingdai rolled her eyes at him, not knowing how to appreciate it!
I drank the soup and ate the dumplings that Mrs. Huang gave me, and enjoyed it very much.
Zhou Sinian was not full, so he made some steamed buns for himself. Mingdai watched him and thought that she could arrange a meal of mutton soup with steamed buns for him someday.
Before going to bed at night, Mingdai wrote a few letters and planned to mail them at the commune the next day.
She had been in the countryside for several months and had no idea how her cousin, who had been petite and strong since childhood, was doing in the Northwest.
In a dilapidated kiln in the northwest, a skinny figure lay on the dusty earthen bed, motionless. Dust above his head fell down in clusters, and a "squeaking" sound could be heard from time to time.
Ming Yaozu stared at the broken skylight in the kiln, at the ray of light that reflected in, his face covered with tears and snot.
Since he was forced to board a train and go to the countryside, his good days were gone forever.
Unlike other educated youth who were fully prepared to go to the countryside, he came down naked, with nothing except a set of clothes and a stamped note given by Director Qi to prove his identity.
He was able to wait until the package was sent across the Yangtze River because he had just arrived and had not had time to expose his true nature, and because people were simple and honest in that era.
After reading the letter from Ming's father and learning that he really could not go back and had to settle down in the countryside for the rest of his life, Ming Yaozu cried for three days.
Unlike Mingdai, who entered the winter idle time as soon as she arrived in Song City, Mingyaozu went to the countryside to catch up with the busy farming season of the bumper harvest.
The educated youth had endless farm work to do, endless water to carry, and endless sheep to feed every day.
It is during this time that we also have to go to the fields with the production team to apply fertilizer to the winter wheat.
Ming Yaozu had never done any work since he was a child. He could not stand it for long and began to avoid work. He gathered with idle young people in the village to play cards. In the end, he was arrested and sent to labor reform because of gambling.
In the dilapidated kiln, apart from him and Chou Laojiu, there was only a family of rats that had dug a hole on the top of the kiln.
He had just returned from the village mill after a whole day of grinding. His whole body felt as if it was not his own. He used up his last bit of strength to throw himself down on the earthen bed and could no longer get up.
He hates it!
I hate the treacherous Mingdai for secretly signing me up to go to the countryside!
I hate Ming Changjiang and Xing Cuilan for being incompetent and not being able to bring him back from the Northwest!
What I hate most is bright red!
If she had just gone to the countryside obediently at the beginning and not caused so many troubles, perhaps Mingdai would not have been so desperate as to sign him up to go to the countryside!
Unfortunately, no matter how much he hated it, he couldn't change the reality that he would still have to work as a donkey at the mill tomorrow.
The Ming family, whom he deeply hated, were also having a hard time at the moment.
Because of Ming Yanhong, Ming Changjiang's only baby Miaomiao was sent to the countryside. After beating the mother and daughter half to death, he married Ming Yanhong to the idiot from Xing Cuilan's hometown as a daughter-in-law, and gave Ming Yaozu a betrothal gift of 300 yuan to help him return to the city.
Ming Yaozu wanted to return to the city, either by recruiting a worker or by retiring due to illness.
Ming Changjiang originally planned to use the 300 yuan and his family savings to buy a job for his son and bring him back.
What he didn't know was that after Mingdai went to the countryside, she wrote a letter to Ma Liu, asking him to tell his gambling friends about Mingyaozu's going to the countryside.
The book mentioned that the people who led the gambling were a group of gangsters. They not only gambled, but also lent money at high interest rates and engaged in extortion.
Ming Yaozu also joined them later and made some illicit money.
Ming Dai asked Ma Liu to tell them about Ming Yaozu's trip to the countryside. These people are good at taking advantage of loopholes and will definitely go to the Ming family to ask for money.
Sure enough, before Ming Changjiang could find a job for Ming Yaozu, Ming Yaozu's creditor showed up at his door. After a round of threats and vandalism, he asked Ming Changjiang to pay back 800 yuan to his son.
Only then did Ming Changjiang realize that his audacious son had owed such a huge sum of money.
He was so angry that he fainted instantly. After waking up, he didn't want to pay back the money and hid from these loan sharks.
These people went to the soy sauce factory to cause trouble and took advantage of the chaos to break many soy sauce vats, causing considerable losses to the soy sauce factory. The leader of the soy sauce factory directly fired Ming Changjiang.
Ming Changjiang returned home in a daze and saw the door was wide open. Xing Cuilan was sitting at home crying, and things in the house were scattered everywhere.
Seeing him come back, Xing Cuilan rushed forward crying and told him how all the money in the house had been taken away by debt collectors. Ming Changjiang fainted again.
After waking up, the couple went to call the police, but unfortunately the loan shark was very experienced and the IOU was very formal.
It is only natural to pay back debts, and the police cannot do anything about it. They just verbally educate them about the excessive behavior of debt collection.
The thugs came out and beat Ming Changjiang up, threatening to break his legs if he dared to call the police again.
He lost his job, his money, and was beaten. Ming Changjiang fell seriously ill.
After they had finally recovered, the company came to collect the house. The couple didn't want to leave and were forcibly kicked out.
The two homeless people couldn't afford to rent a house, so they wanted to go to Mingdai's original home to make trouble and get the house back. Ma Liu gave him a vivid social studies lesson.
In the end, the two of them could only sleep in the bridge cave.
Ming Changjiang's temper became worse and worse, and he would vent his anger by beating Xing Cuilan all day long.
Xing Cuilan did not dare to resist when being beaten, but endured it silently, just thinking about her son coming back.
After what happened during this period, Ming Changjiang had already planned to give up Ming Yaozu. He seduced a widowed woman who swept the streets, kicked Xing Cuilan out, and moved into the widow's house.
Anyway, he and Xing Cuilan didn’t get a marriage certificate.
Xing Cuilan did not have a city hukou and had no job in the city. After begging Ming Changjiang several times to no avail, she had no choice but to return to the countryside to look for her daughter who had married a fool.
The fool's family married a daughter-in-law for the purpose of continuing the family line. After Ming Yanhong was married, she never went out. She was tied to the bed by the fool's parents. They would untie her when she gave birth to a child with the fool.
Ming Yanhong's previous boyfriend was the son of the director of a meat processing factory. He looked down on fools and even after being forced to marry him, he did not give up the idea of escaping.
Unfortunately, the people in this village are very united. Every time we ran away, we were caught and our whole family was beaten up.
After Xing Cuilan returned to her hometown, the idiot's family kept preventing her from seeing her daughter.
She had no choice but to live in her parents' home. Not only did she have to provide food and drink for the whole family, but she also had to work in the fields. Her sisters-in-law also complained to her and soon they had no time to pay attention to Ming Yanhong who had just got married.
When she saw her daughter at the door of the idiot's house again, she was stunned!
Ming Yanhong had a chicken nest of hair on her head and a slightly protruding belly. She bit her black fingers and smiled at her foolishly, with saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth. She looked like a fool!
Xing Cuilan felt like the sky was falling!