“Dad said to leave it at that for now, he doesn’t want to make exceptions for himself, and we’ll talk about it again when he retires.”
Zhou Mingyuan had his concerns. After all, he was still the director, and if he went too far, others would inevitably gossip.
Houses are all the same; it doesn't matter where you live.
Sheng Xiping thought about it and realized that made sense, so he nodded and said nothing more.
The two men gathered some firewood and coal, lit the boiler, and once the house was warm, they added some more coal before locking the door and leaving.
Once the Zhou family figured it out, they turned around and installed the outdoor antenna on the Sheng family's side as well.
The Sheng family's house was only built a few years ago, and they left a drain in the kitchen when they built it.
The house is situated on high ground, with a deep ditch at the east end. Wastewater from domestic use flows into the ditch through the pipes.
The 30th was a Sunday. School was closed in the afternoon, but they let out very late at noon, at 12:30.
In the afternoon, Zhou Qinglan bought meat and vegetables and made dumplings with Aunt Li and the others. In the evening, she invited Zhou Mingyuan and Wang Chunxiu over, and the whole family had a lively dumpling meal together.
On Monday morning, Zhou Qinglan took two classes off and went to the savings bank with Sheng Xiping to deposit money.
There are offices and savings branches of three banks in Songjianghe Town: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and China Construction Bank.
The couple went to three savings banks and deposited tens of thousands of yuan in each of their names so as not to attract attention.
Otherwise, suddenly producing tens of thousands of yuan might alarm the savings bank's management, which wouldn't be good.
On February 1st, Liu Yujiang and Liu Yuhe returned from out of town and finished counting and delivering the last batch of home appliances with the Songjianghe Forestry Bureau.
Then, Sheng Xiping met up with the others and found a restaurant that evening to treat everyone to a meal as a welcome back dinner for Liu Yujiang and the others.
Everyone had been away for so long and was eager to go home, so on the morning of the 2nd, Sheng Xiping borrowed a large truck from the Forestry Bureau, loaded everyone's belongings, and went back to the forest farm.
Zhou Qinglan and Sheng Xitai still had two days of vacation left, but they insisted on standing guard until the very end.
Besides, there's not much room for many people in the cab of that big car, and Zhou Qinglan couldn't bear to see her daughter freeze, so she decided to wait until the holiday started.
In the past two years, the Forestry Bureau has adopted the method of exchanging timber for roads, and a certain military unit has undertaken the construction of forest roads in the Songjianghe Forestry Bureau area.
Currently, the forest road from Songjianghe to Kaifeng, Shuguang, and Qianchuan has been completed, and there is a dedicated road maintenance team that uses road scrapers to clear snow from the road surface in winter.
The large trucks all had snow chains on their wheels, so they could run quite fast on the snow.
Everyone was wearing cotton-padded jackets and trousers underneath, with thick military overcoats on top, huddled in the gap between the appliance boxes for some wind protection.
But after a while, you'll get so cold you'll shiver all over.
Fortunately, the car was fast, and we arrived at Qianchuan in just over an hour.
The car arrived at the large alkali field first and parked in the open space in front of the team headquarters.
Everyone quickly jumped off the vehicle, stretched their legs, and then carried the televisions down one by one.
Some people in the team headquarters saw this and, not knowing what was going on, came out to see what was happening.
At first glance, it was Liu Yujiang and Liu Yuhe, the two brothers, along with a few young men from the village. Then, upon closer inspection, oh dear, what are all these boxes on the ground?
Good heavens, television is something else!
"Hey, Secretary, you're back? Quick, call a few people out, let's help you take your things home."
Someone shouted this at the top of their lungs, and several more people came out of the team headquarters.
Without saying a word, everyone carried, shouldered, or lifted the boxes on the ground and headed straight for the Liu family's house.
"Xiping, wait for me. I'll take the things back and be right back."
Liu Yujiang, carrying several bags, staggered behind the crowd as he ran home.
The group arrived at the Liu family's house amidst laughter and chatter. Liu Changde, Qin Qiuyan, and the others heard the commotion and hurriedly came out.
The elderly couple were dumbfounded when they saw the scene outside.
"Big brother, second brother, you're back? Oh my, what's this? Why are there so many big boxes?" Liu Changde asked.
"Dad, Mom, these are the home appliances we brought back from the south: a refrigerator, a color TV, and a washing machine."
The Liu brothers grinned from ear to ear; they were overjoyed.
"Oh dear, these things must cost a lot of money, right? Can our family even use them? A TV is enough for us."
Liu Changde glanced at the boxes and couldn't stop smiling.
When he was in the capital, he saw that the Wu family had a television, the 14-inch kind, so he knew what a television was.
"Why not use it? With a washing machine, you can wash larger items like bed sheets and blankets without hand-washing them. Just throw them in the washing machine and let them rub."
"This is a twin-tub tub, you can spin it dry after washing, saving you the trouble of wringing it by hand, isn't that great?" Liu Yujiang explained to his father with a smile.
Whether it's good or bad, it's already been shipped home, so what's there to say? Just use it.
Liu Changde nodded, quite satisfied. "Well then, come inside and sit down. It's so cold outside, it'll be warm inside." He invited the people who had helped him inside.
"Dad, wait a minute, I need to help Xiping unload the things."
Xi Ping came back with us and is standing at the team headquarters entrance right now. Liu Yujiang couldn't possibly sit down and talk; he had to go help Sheng Xi Ping first.
As he spoke, Liu Yujiang handed over all the bags he was carrying to Liu Changde and Qin Qiuyan, and then the two brothers quickly left their house and headed straight for the team headquarters.
Upon arriving at the team headquarters, the two climbed into the vehicle, and the driver stepped on the gas, driving the large truck eastward to the front of the forest farm headquarters.
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