9.009 Deceiving with soft words and gentle language
In the afternoon, Su Yu was packing her and Xu Yuan's things in the house, planning to leave when Ning Jin arrived. Yu Anxiu came in from outside the gate with a basket on her shoulder. Inside the basket were half a basket of potatoes with soil on them, a handful of chili peppers, a handful of scallions, and three green eggplants. She put the basket under the eaves and then took six eggs from the bedroom and put them in the basket.
"Go back and live a good life. If anything happens, you two should talk it over. Even if you argue, don't leave home." She patted her grandson's head and taught the girl who was bad at talking, "Ningjin is your man. If you feel wronged, cry to him and say some nice things, like last night. That's good. Men all fall for that. You need to know how to show weakness. There are already some gaps in your second marriage. Use your brain more. Ningjin isn't a fool. He handled this situation well. You need to learn to rely on him."
"Mom, is this all based on your experience?" Su Yu teased with a smile, "Is this how you won over my dad? I didn't realize you two old folks were so romantic."
"What nonsense are you spouting, you brat?" The old lady raised her hand to hit her, half-fuming and half-laughing. "You're even laughing at your parents."
Su Yu thought of the old man's stern and rigid face, and couldn't imagine him holding his wife and comforting her softly. Just thinking about it gave her goosebumps. She lowered her head and chuckled, picked the eggs out of the basket and put them back in her hand, "You and Dad can eat the eggs yourselves. I'll go back to town and buy some myself."
There are only six hens in the family, which are divided between two households. Nowadays, people eat poorly, let alone hens who can't even get leftovers. A hen usually lays an egg every two days, but now that it's hot, the frequency of laying eggs has decreased even more. The old couple didn't know how long they had been saving these six eggs, and she was too ashamed to take them.
"Easy for you to say. Do you think eggs are free? You have a son at home. Take a few eggs back with you so he can have some meat. If the kid is well-fed, he won't cause any trouble."
Parents' hearts are always full of love and worry. This nearly seventy-year-old woman is still concerned about her nearly thirty-year-old daughter, worried that she will be wronged and that she will not be able to win people's hearts.
“I have money, you can keep it for yourself. I’ll take this food back.” Su Yu took the eggs and stuffed them into Xiao Yuan’s clothes, asking him to help his grandmother put them back in the house. “Don’t worry, I’ve thought it through. I will live a good life and I won’t feel guilty about working in the cafeteria anymore. The two of us in the family earn sixty or seventy a month, which is more than enough to support the four of us.”
"Don't be so extravagant." Hearing that the girl was about to spend all her money, the old lady urged her again: "You've been married for more than half a year now, and you're not young anymore. Hurry up and have two more children. Don't squander all the money you have. You have no land and no crops. Without money, you can't even afford a scallion."
Su Yu quickly hummed in agreement to brush it off. There was no divorce crisis, yet the old lady was already pressuring her to have another child—two more? She didn't plan on having any at all.
After waiting a while, Ningjin arrived on his bicycle. He came in, greeted his mother-in-law, went into the kitchen for a drink of water, and then took the two children home.
Yu Anxiu watched the three leave, then went inside to get some chives to pick. As she was carrying the bamboo sieve, she saw something on the stove. She took it out and held it up to the light, and realized it was a packet of brown sugar.
"Why bother sending brown sugar to this child? It's just a waste of money."
She was cooking cornmeal in the evening when her grandson ran in and asked, "Grandma, where are the chives? My mom's going to cook."
"Everything on the cutting board is clean." She called to her grandson, who was about to run away, "In a little while, ask your older brother and sister to bring the bowls. Your uncle brought a bag of brown sugar, so we'll make you a bowl of brown sugar water to sweeten your mouths."
"Okay, coming right away." Her voice was full of excitement as she stepped out the door, shouting, "Brother, sister, quickly bring me a bowl of brown sugar water."
At dinner time, the grandson, Su Manhui, brought his bowl of noodles to his grandparents' table to eat some scrambled eggs. The old man stopped his wife from picking eggs for his grandson and glared at her, saying, "I haven't even had a bite yet, and you've already given them to this kid?" He then put two pieces of egg into her bowl.
"Where are your eggs?" he asked his grandson.
“My mom took it back to my maternal grandparents’ house.”
"Hmph, so sarcastic." Su Changguo was dissatisfied, but he couldn't do anything about his son listening to his wife. After losing several lawsuits, he was caught in the middle and couldn't get involved in his son's affairs.
Lying on the bamboo mat at night, Yu Anxiu fanned herself and asked the person next to her pillow, "I only remembered this afternoon after Xiaoyu left. Her personality has changed a lot. I haven't seen her with a blank face these past two days, and she's started talking. It's just that her accent is a bit strange. I wonder who she's imitating this time."
Su Changguo pondered for a moment and said, "I had the same feeling. Ever since I went to town to find her that day, I felt that she had changed. Her expression couldn't lie; it felt like she was a completely different person..."
"She must have figured it out. Before, I was worried about her always looking so sad. She looked even more miserable than me, an old woman in my sixties or seventies. Now that she's become more clever, I'm relieved. Before, I was worried not only about her but also about her whole family. If anything happened to one of them, she wouldn't be able to hold it in. I was always worried that she would die before me." The old lady didn't think much of it and just hoped that her daughter would be alright.
Su Changguo responded, took the fan, and fanned himself vigorously a few times. The heat made him feel anxious.
Su Yu should be glad that when the original owner first went to town, she felt that her accent was not good, so she learned to speak from an older woman in the canteen for a while. Otherwise, her accented Mandarin dialect would have given her away.
In the afternoon, the supply and marketing cooperative ran out of meat and eggs, so Su Yu used potatoes, eggplants, and peppers she brought from her parents' home to stir-fry a dish called "Three Treasures of the Earth." Ning Jin sat in front of the stove tending the fire, watching the woman pouring oil like water. He kept glancing at her, wondering if she was still angry, so he didn't dare to say anything.
A fragrant half-bowl of vegetables was served, with clean white noodles in the bowl. The two children ate with gusto, their mouths greasy. Su Yu picked up a piece of the authentic, all-natural green vegetables, squinted her eyes, and sighed, "So delicious, just as good as meat."
"Of course it smells good! It took half a month's worth of oil for just one meal." The man finally let out the words he had been holding back when he saw her speak.
Oh, Su Yu only just remembered that there was a shortage of food and clothing. They used a small spoon to scoop oil when cooking, and each person only had four ounces of oil per month. Xu Yuan's household registration was not in the town, so his family only had one pound and two ounces of oil per month, which was about a little more than a bottle of Yibao mineral water.
She fried potatoes tonight and poured out almost half a bottle.
"You're so stingy. I see you're enjoying your food. Anyway, you're not home often. If we run out of oil at home, the three of us will go to the cafeteria for a free meal." Su Yu ignored him, picked up a piece of potato with a charred skin with her chopsticks, and deliberately sighed, "Ah, it smells so good. No wonder it's deep-fried."
The man, not hearing what he wanted to hear, reminded him, "You can just use less."
"No, it won't taste good if there's not enough oil." She deliberately contradicted him, saying, "It's okay, if there's no oil, I'll go buy some pork and render lard to cook the vegetables."
"Only three catties of meat coupons a month? Go rob meat then!" Ning Jin glared at her, annoyed. Did this woman have no intention of living a peaceful life?
"Alright, hurry up and eat, stop nagging. I have my own way of doing things. You won't get rich by being frugal."
“I’m not trying to get rich. I’m out driving to earn money, and you’re at home taking care of the kids. With our combined monthly income, we don’t need to be frugal. We can live just fine as usual.” He still tried his best to persuade her, saying that using 1.2 jin of oil a month was better than many families. He even mentioned the family next door, who sent oil to their in-laws in the countryside and only used 5 jin of oil a year.
"I'm full, you guys eat slowly." Su Yu put her chopsticks on the table, ignored the looks from the other three men, got up and took her bowl to the kitchen. "I'm going to take a shower first. Whoever finishes eating last has to wash the dishes."
The two boys in the room stopped listening to the whispers and the only sound was the tapping of chopsticks on the bowl.
The bowl naturally fell to Ning Jin. Washing dishes wasn't tiring, but it was nothing like the days when he came back and was waited on hand and foot.
What's worse, when he lay in bed that night, wanting to ease his longing, he was stopped. He propped himself up on his arms above the woman's head, their breaths mingling, one light and slow, the other rapid and labored. "What's wrong? It's not your period yet?"
"Have you ever heard of condoms?" Su Yu was also wondering if condoms were common at this time. She remembered that there was news about family planning in 1970, but none of the people she knew had talked about it. This meant that family planning was still being implemented in big cities, so condoms were even rarer.
"You don't want to have my child?" The man sat up abruptly, his smile gone, staring intently at the woman lying on the bed.
It seemed he had heard of condoms. Su Yu breathed a sigh of relief, sat up while fixing her hair, and said with a troubled expression, "How can I get pregnant at this time? Ping An and Xiao Yuanyuan don't come around. You don't know how often they fight while you're away. If I get pregnant now, Ping An is already worried that you won't want him. If his grandma stirs things up, he'll fall for it. Then the child will have a bad memory and resent you. The son you raised will belong to someone else. And what about my job in the cafeteria? Having and raising a child will take at least three years off. Your mother doesn't like me anyway, so she won't help us take care of the child. Besides, she's getting old."
"No, I'll talk to Ping An, he'll accept it. I'll also talk to my mom. She's at home taking care of the kids now, and the children you have are her grandchildren, she won't refuse to help take care of them." Hearing this reason, his expression relaxed, taking all the worries she had onto himself.
“Let’s wait two or three years. We’re both not even thirty yet. In three years, Ping’an and Xiao Yuan will be in elementary school. We’ll have a stronger bond as a family before I have another child. By then, they’ll be around ten years old and can help take care of the kids. We can also save some money in the next few years so we don’t have to borrow money when the kids get sick.” She gently told him her solution, then took his arm and looked at him. “Besides, I want to spend a couple more years with you. You’re already rarely home. I’m pregnant this year and will give birth next year. When you come back, your mind is all on the kids. You won’t even remember me.”
Ning Jin felt her eyes burning wherever they looked, and the corners of his mouth involuntarily curled up. Sigh, she's so old and still so clingy. He was extremely satisfied, but he reluctantly said, "Alright then, I'll earn more money so you can have more children."
“I won’t get pregnant or have a baby. When you leave, I’ll miss you. When you come back, all I can see is you. You have to think of me like that when you’re out.” She nudged the man sitting down and urged, “Do you understand?”
"Okay, I understand," he mumbled. The woman's sweet talk made his heart flutter. "Be careful what you say outside. People might report you for being indecent if you say these things," he warned worriedly.
“I’m only telling you this because you’re my man. Outsiders want to hear it? No way.” She lay back down and said to him, “I don’t know if the town hospital has condoms, and even if they do, they’ll be in limited quantities. When you drive to the big city to deliver goods, remember to ask at the hospital and pharmacy and buy more to keep on hand.”
"Okay." He lay on his side on the edge of the bed, not daring to touch her. His body was hot and his mind was excited. He touched her little hand and it was about to swell up.
Su Yu faced him, observing the man in the night. He was not someone easily fooled, and he had his own ideas. He couldn't be persuaded in just a few words. She had originally planned to tell him directly that she wouldn't get pregnant again, and if necessary, they could have a big fight. But when she mentioned condoms, she remembered the one-child policy. In two or three years, the one-child policy would be strictly enforced, and he wouldn't dare to have children even if he wanted to.
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