69.069 Old Man Su
On her way home, Su Yu ran into Du Xiaojuan. As soon as she saw her, Du Xiaojuan ran away quickly, looking as if she was afraid that Su Yu would do something to her.
Su Yu couldn't help but recall Ning Jin's sneer that day. When she got home, she went inside and looked in the mirror. The person in the mirror had short, choppy hair, and her eyebrows and eyes were fully exposed. With a furrowed brow, she certainly didn't look like a refined person.
"Why are you looking in the mirror as soon as you get back?" the man asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"I've noticed I've lost weight, and my face looks more angular." Su Yu turned to him and asked if that was true.
Ning Jin's gaze slid over her lips and nose, then moved to her temple, and he walked over and flicked her ear. "No, you still have a round face."
"Mirrors distort images?" Su Yu pressed herself against the mirror, squinting but couldn't see any wrinkles. "Then she probably hasn't lost weight." Losing weight makes the skin loose and makes one look older.
"Let's go eat." He quickly pulled her away. She was so vain. Every time she looked in the mirror, she became more and more unhappy. In the middle of summer, no matter how well she covered herself, she couldn't stop herself from getting a tan. She knew it would make her unhappy, but she still looked in the mirror from time to time.
"Did Liu Quan go to work today?" he asked. He had gone to the orchard with her a couple of days ago, afraid that Liu Quan would suddenly hit him, but he hadn't come to work.
“He’s here. He’s been chasing birds in the vineyard and hasn’t come out.” Su Yu was also afraid that he would go crazy, so she had stayed with the villagers all day. But they had obviously overestimated Liu Quan’s backbone; he was too timid to see anyone.
“I heard from Qiu Fuli that he wants to work elsewhere. Don’t worry, just go drive the car tomorrow.”
"Okay." He picked up a piece of stir-fried wood ear mushrooms and meat with his chopsticks and put it into Su Yu's bowl, saying, "You should still be careful, don't get lost in the orchard." He didn't know Liu Quan's temper and was afraid that he might hate Su Yu and find another opportunity to take revenge on her.
After the meal, the four of them sat in the yard shelling freshly dried peanuts. They shelled a large jar in half an hour. Su Yu washed and dried them, and the first thing she did when she got up at five o'clock the next morning was to mix them with flour, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and fry them. She then took them to the yard to cool them down. By the time Ning Jin was about to leave, they had cooled down, and she packed them into a jar for him to take with him on his journey.
"Dad, here you go." Ping An also brought out a jar. The transparent jar couldn't hide the secret; inside were milk candies, bits of walnut shortbread, and thin biscuits. "Fill your stomach when you can't eat a proper meal."
The man blinked, smiled contentedly, and refused, saying, "You eat it yourself; adults don't eat this stuff."
“Take it if I give it to you, take it with you on the road, and don’t say my son is unfilial.” Su Yu took the jar and stuffed it into his arms. The things in it were all bought with Ping An’s saved pocket money, and he also borrowed money from Xiao Yuan and asked her for tickets.
Ning Jin was speechless. She glared at her, knowing she was speaking up for the child but not on her side, but she couldn't suppress her joy.
"Let's go, I'll take you there." Su Yu went out with him. He had been traveling a long distance with Lao Xie, plus his own, and had been running around all month.
"Be careful on the road. Your health is the most important thing. Eat three meals a day on time, don't ruin your stomach. Move your neck more when you rest. When the chrysanthemums bloom this year, I'll sew you a chrysanthemum pillow. It will be more comfortable for you to sleep with it around your neck." Su Yu nagged all the way, and only left after seeing him off at the factory gate.
Compared to himself, Ning Jin was more worried about her safety. He wished he could work from home so he could pick her up and drop her off every day. This was the first time he had this thought.
"Xiao Wu, come quick, we're about to leave." Old Wang hurriedly came out and saw the person he was looking for lingering at the door. He nodded to Su Yu and then pulled the person away.
"You haven't come yet, I thought something had happened to you, I was just about to go look for you." Who knew he was talking to his wife, the way he was so reluctant to part with her, it looked like an old mother sending her son off to war.
"Oh, you brought so much stuff this time?" Old Wang glanced at the things while putting them away, ignoring the jar of sweet stuff, and opened the jar of peanuts directly. He grabbed a handful and threw it into his mouth, chewed it up, squeezed another handful, and then closed the lid.
"Wow, this tastes pretty good, it's like it has Sichuan peppercorn flavor."
Ning Jin ignored him, carried the jars containing peanuts, milk candy, and biscuits to the driver's seat, and said with disdain, "You're all messy. Don't ruin the food I brought again." He suspected that the time he took Su Yu out, the moldy spicy meat sauce was caused by Old Wang not wiping the chopsticks clean.
Old Wang didn't care about being called slovenly. He wiped the oil and salt off his hands, started the car, and drove out of the factory. "Hey, your wife is still outside. Do you want to take another look? I'll drive slowly," he teased Ning Jin.
Ning Jin looked out in the direction he pointed and saw Su Yu talking to her older sister. Neither of them noticed who was in the car that drove by.
“Okay, then it’s settled. I’ll come to see you tomorrow morning. You wait for me at home,” Su Min said.
The next morning, just as Su Yu finished getting ready, her older sister and brother-in-law arrived and handed her four hundred yuan.
"Here, take it quickly. I can finally pay you back. I owed someone several hundred yuan, and it weighed on my mind every night." Su Min said with a smile. After saving money for a year, she finally paid off the debt, and she felt a great weight lifted off her shoulders.
"I'm not rushing you, why are you in such a hurry?" Su Yu didn't count the money, but just stuffed it into her pocket.
“I’ve never owed this much money before. I only owed a few dozen yuan for building the house.” Su Min asked her younger sister to take out the money. “Count it. We’re brothers, so we should keep clear accounts. Four hundred yuan is not a small amount. Count it so you can have a better idea of the amount.”
“Your sister is right. If there’s a problem, we should talk it out face to face to avoid feeling uncomfortable because of our family relationship,” Li Weiguo said.
"It's four hundred, how could I not trust you?"
"We also make mistakes in counting sometimes."
"By the way, little sister, when are you free? You should go see Dad when you have time. He's coughing a lot lately, and he still has his pipe in his hand. I've told him off several times, but he hasn't given me a kind look. You should go back tomorrow. The old man is a little afraid of you, so he might listen to what you say." Su Min said with a frown. Her father's temper was getting more and more stubborn. He used to listen to her, but now if you say something he doesn't like to hear, he'll glare at you and tell you to leave.
"Then I'll go there today."
"Not going to the orchard?"
"During the peak harvest season, it doesn't matter whether I go or not; if I'm not there, there's another experienced worker to oversee things," she joked.
"That's good." Su Min glanced at the man, and Li Weiguo knew at a glance that the two sisters were about to whisper to each other again, so he made an excuse to leave and make room.
"Is the family planning policy true or false?" she asked.
“Really? How could this be fake?” Su Yu found it amusing, but considering that the government hadn’t issued any official documents, she added, “There is such a statement, but when and how it will be implemented is up to the government.”
"Then I need to hurry up and get my eldest son married, and have as many children as possible while no one is interfering." Su Min couldn't understand why there were restrictions on having children, but since there were already rumors in the big cities, ordinary people like them should hurry up and have more children.
"You should hurry up and have one too. If you're sick, go to the hospital and get treatment as soon as possible." Su Min had already accepted that her younger sister was unable to conceive due to illness. There was a woman in her village who was over forty years old and had gotten pregnant recently. The youngest sister had only given birth to one child in five years after marrying Xiao Yuan's father, and she had been married to Ning Jin for almost three years without any news. It could only mean that she had a health problem.
"What's wrong? Our mom can have so many children, and your second and third sisters and I are just like her. Why is it so hard for you to get pregnant?" Su Min was a little worried, feeling that her younger sister had a tough time. Her first husband killed her, and she remarried while raising her child. Just when things were finally getting better, she couldn't get pregnant again.
"I've discussed it with Ningjin, and we don't want children anymore." Su Yu finally managed to speak the truth. "We're following national policy, so please don't try to persuade us. We owe our good life and good jobs to the country. We'll listen to whatever she says." She spoke with such righteous indignation that Su Min, who was planning to hurry up and get married and have grandchildren, was speechless.
Su Min was caught in a dilemma: agreeing meant losing her grandson, while disagreeing meant she had the wrong stance and the wrong ideas.
"Well, it's almost time, I'm going to work. Don't forget to visit Dad." Su Min rubbed her hands together, stood up, and hurriedly walked out the door before Su Yu could speak.
"What's wrong?" Li Weiguo had just reached the doorway carrying a load of water when he saw Su Min walk out with a tense face. "Did you two have a fight?" he asked.
"What are you arguing about? I'm in a hurry to get to work. You fill the water tank and hurry back to work in the fields." Su Min instructed him, afraid that Lao Li might change his mind after listening to Lao Yao's nonsense. He was a Party member and always listened to the Party.
Still feeling uneasy, she stood at the door watching the man pour water into the water tank, enduring the youngest child's curious gaze, and only went to the factory after he left.
Su Yu and Xiao Yuan walked safely towards Xinhe Brigade. On the way, they stopped to see the trees they had planted. The trees covered the hillside like a testing machine, broadcasting in Su Yu's mind the condition of the saplings. They had all taken root and were growing well.
Su Yu walked back a few steps and saw that some trees had willow branches tied to them, and others had tiles placed on their roots. The trees all over the hillside were newly planted and some were short of water. If it didn't rain in the next few days, they would dry up and die.
"Are Er Ya and Xiao Dan still planting trees?" she asked the two children.
"Probably, Xiaoyuan and I used to grow them too." But after his grandmother came and caused trouble, he and Xiaoyuan stopped going.
Su Yu felt ashamed; she hadn't dug a hole to plant a sapling for quite some time.
"Tell them this afternoon that the trees planted here are short of water and will die if they are not watered." She considered lowering the price, offering two trees for one cent if they didn't survive, but thinking that Er Ya and Xiao Dan urgently needed money, she gave up the idea after much deliberation.
"Xiaoyuan and Ping'an are here too?" Old Su came in and brought out fried noodles for the two children, finally handing one to his little daughter. "You didn't go to work today?"
"I came for you, I won't eat it." She took the bamboo basket containing the noodles and handed it to Xiao Yuan. She leaned close to the old man and took a couple of breaths, coughing from the choking.
“Come with me to the hospital to see a doctor. My older sister told me you have a bad cough, so I’ll take you to the hospital to get checked out.”
"I'm not going. Why would a perfectly healthy person go to the hospital? They'll make you sick even if you're not." Old Su turned his face away and refused. Old people are most afraid of going to the doctor.
“I know you won’t listen to me when I tell you not to smoke, and you even smoke a lot after I leave, but my sisters and I are worried about you. You’re not afraid of getting sick or dying, and I want Dad to support me. Come with me to see a doctor, just to put our minds at ease.” Su Yu played the family card. Seeing the unease on her father’s face, she continued, “You’re not that old. Your youngest granddaughter isn’t even a year old yet. Take good care of your health, and you’ll be able to hold your great-grandchild in the future.”
"Then he'll live like an old monster." Old Su pondered for a while, then unconsciously tapped his pipe again. When Su Yu suggested taking him to the hospital again, he didn't refuse.
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