After the opening ceremony, the deputy county magistrate and his party went to Funiusi Village again. After taking a tour of the village, they learned from Zhou Datian that they had sold the vacant houses in the brigade to a pickle factory that was still under preparation.
Wang Zhen took the opportunity to report to them about buying land and setting up a factory. The deputy county magistrate asked him to find him in the county after he returned.
Not long after Wang Zhen went to find him, the county granted them the land to set up a pickle factory and also gave them a package of preferential policies.
With the approval, the Land Management Bureau quickly issued the certificate. Wang Zhen paid 20,000 yuan to buy the land and asked his friends in the provincial capital to design and build the factory. Boss Zheng had already helped to customize the production equipment, so he went to the provincial capital to ask his friends to help buy other equipment.
Wang Zhen is in charge of all affairs in the county and is very busy every day. Zhou Huaian is in charge of the renovation of the brigade's brewing plant, which is much simpler and easier.
The house is only used for brewing and drying, and there is no need to tear it down and rebuild it. All you need to do is find someone to build a cleaning pool and a fermentation pool, set up a rain shelter, buy sauce jars for drying bean paste, and make wooden racks for drying vegetables and fermenting moldy tofu. You also need to renovate the roof, the ground, and the warehouse.
Zhou Huaian found a carpenter to make modifications according to the drawings provided by Wang Zhen, and the old man and Zhou's father would go and take a look when they were free.
He was still busy going into the mountains to transport goods every day, buying herbs and helping the mountain people sell some rare medicinal materials. Everything was going in an orderly and gradual manner...
…
Time flies, and four years pass in a flash.
Wang Zhen and Zhou Huaian began preparations for setting up the factory at the end of 1983. They overcame various difficulties, and in June of the lunar calendar in 1984, the Fulin Pickle Factory successfully went into production.
Wang Zhen sent the first batch of pickles to Boss Zheng for samples. Boss Zheng then ordered seven or eight products including beef and mushroom sauce, red chili oil sauce, and chicken mushroom oil.
During these four years, Zhou Huaian, together with Zhou Yiding, Xu Hongbing, Zhou Huaiqing, Xu Erchun and Fang Zhiqiang, sold their pickles all over the country.
In addition, Zhou Datian found that the mountain products he collected could not be sold for long, so he immediately went to talk to Secretary Xu for advice. After listening to his advice, he shamelessly went to Zhou Huaian to apologize, saying that he would invest some money in the pickle factory no matter what.
Zhou Huaian agreed out of consideration for their old friendship, but he lost the original half, only half of the half, because he gave the other half to Luo Haili.
The Zhao siblings invested all their savings in a pickle factory. With the dividends from the factory, they no longer had to worry about their studies.
In 1985, Zhao Meina was admitted to Ning'an High School. This year, she was admitted to a top university in Shanghai as she wished. She recorded all her learning experiences and notes and left them to several children.
Zhao Xiu Na and Zhao Xiao Chuan studied very hard. Influenced by the three siblings, the children of the Zhou family studied much more diligently than before.
During the two years that Zhou Jiaming picked up and dropped off Zhao Meina, he fell in love with studying under her influence and was eventually admitted to Ning'an High School. Even Zhou Jialiang, who was obsessed with martial arts, was admitted to Ning'an Middle School.
Zhou Xiaoqian and Zhao Xiuna were admitted to the best middle school in Huashi with excellent grades. Zhao Xiaochuan, Zhou Jiakang, Zhou Xiaoru and Zhou Xiaowen took the junior high school entrance examination this year because their primary school system was changed to a six-year system.
…
"Mom, Mom." A delicate little girl in a small skirt grabbed Yang Chunyan's collar with one hand, supported herself on the chair with the other hand, and climbed up, muttering, "I want to draw a doll, I want to draw a doll."
The girl had two pigtails, big black eyes, and chubby cheeks with a rosy glow. She climbed onto the chair with her butt sticking out, picked up the crayons on the table, and started drawing on the notebook.
Yang Chunyan put down her work, saw the messy notebook, picked her up and said, "Xiaomi, you messed with your brother's crayons again, mommy will get your notebook for you!"
Xiaomier pouted in dissatisfaction, holding the crayon tightly in her hand, "Looking for my brother!"
"Okay, Mom will take you to find your brother."
Yang Chunyan put her daughter down, closed the door of the main room, and led her outside.
On the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, the whole family came back to worship their ancestors. Zhou Huaian asked a master to look after the mountain god temple and renovate the dilapidated temple.
In mid-1984, after the pickle factory was completed and put into production, Yang Chunyan's family moved to Ning'an. The three old people were reluctant to leave, so they stayed in the village with Zhou Huairong and his wife.
After Yang Chunyan became pregnant with her second child, she hid in the city until July 14, 1985, when she gave birth to her daughter Zhou Xiaomi.
The little girl who was touched on the face and called ugly by Xiaojiuer and Xiaolong every day in the first two months after she was born is now three years old.
When she grew up, she looked very pretty. Everyone in the family said that the little girl would grow up to be as beautiful as she and Zhou Huaian.
Xiaoyao, the youngest in the Zhou family, is loved by the whole family, young and old. She is popular wherever she goes.
Every time Wang Zhen came over, he would hold Xiaomier in his arms and would not want to let go. He said that if he was not worried about the bad consequences of close-kin marriage, he would have arranged for Xiaomier to be married to his son Wang Nan.
Zhou Huaian thinks Wang Nan is just like Wang Zhen in the past, who acts mature at a very young age and is so sensible that he doesn't act like a child at all.
Xu Hongbing is even more so. Every time he sees Xiaomier, he wants to coax her home and give her to the youngest child in his family.
Zhou Huaian felt that if he really had to choose between their children, he would rather choose Wang Nan than the youngest child in Xu Hongbing's family, who was skinny and small, and who might be blown away in a strong wind, which made him anxious just by looking at her.
At this time, Yang Chunyan and Zhou Huaian also began to understand why some people like to have sons. They worry that their daughters will be taken away when they are just a little bit old. When they raise them, they will have to watch their beautiful daughters being taken away by others. The thought of doing so makes them feel heartbroken.
Yang Chunyan led her daughter towards the gate of the courtyard. Lai Fu and Wang Cai immediately followed, wagging their tails. Xiaomier touched the dog's head and said, "Lai Fu, Wang Wang, look for your brother!"
Xiao Jiuer is six years old and likes to play with boys older than him. Every time he goes back to the countryside, he is like a wild horse that has broken free from its reins. He likes to get together with his brothers to dig eels and loaches from the fields, or go to the ravine behind the house to hunt for crabs and catch sandworms.
Sometimes he would climb trees to dig out bird nests, but Xiaomier liked to stick to him and would look for them everywhere if he didn't see them for a while. Every time he would catch a few cabbage worms or dog caterpillars and send them off.
Zhou Xiaoqian likes to take care of Xiaomier. The little girl also likes to listen to her stories and even learned a few words from her. After breakfast, she went to Zhao Xiuna's house and has not returned yet.
Yang Chunyan took her hand with a smile, "Xiaomi is looking for her brother, not Lai Fu or Wang Cai!"
The mother and daughter walked out of the yard. The originally hardened cement road in front of the door was widened and paved again. An asphalt road was paved from the door of his house all the way to the yellow horn tree at the intersection of Fangtian asphalt road.
There are street lights on both sides of the road, and many fruit trees are planted, including mango, pomegranate, cherry, peach, pear and loquat, which can be eaten all year round.
This road has the most beautiful scenery among the three nearby villages. Even the drivers who come here to sell bean paste, fermented tofu and pickled vegetables say that Funiu Village is the most beautiful and tidy village he has ever seen.
Jiang Yu and a dozen other women who followed them at the beginning also continued to work with them. Ma Chunhua, Wang Chunhua, Yang Hui and other women also entered the pickle factory.
The villagers who have jobs and those who have invested in the power station, as well as the dividends from the pickle factory with the money from selling houses in the village, live the most comfortable lives.
Because the money earned by the power station in recent years was used to build a hydroelectric power station in another place, the villagers who invested money can get a large dividend every year. Those households that did not invest in the power station in the beginning are regretting it very much.
Every time the old couple in the first wife saw the villagers coming out of the pickle factory with their passbooks in their hands and smiling, they would get so angry that their blood pressure would soar when they thought of how the second wife had secretly bought houses and shops in the city, and even took the third wife to buy land in the city to build a building. They would regret having gone against the second wife in the first place.
Zhou Huaian, who was standing on a high stool picking papayas, saw the mother and daughter coming out, jumped off the stool, and looked at them with a smile, "What does my Xiao Mi want to do?"
Xiaomier walked over and stretched out her chubby little hands to flip the papayas in the basket, and said in a baby voice, "Looking for my brother!"
Zhou Huaian pulled her little pigtails, "The little rascal has left us Xiao Mier and run away again. Daddy will catch him and spank him!"
Xiaomier shook her head, "No!"
Zhou Huaian turned his head and looked at Yang Chunyan, "Look, she's still protecting me from being beaten!"
"Of course not!" Yang Chunyan laughed, "I wanted to make her little skirt, but the little rascal was crawling around beside her. If I didn't let her get her crayons, she would go looking for her brother. Where did those kids go?"
"Ieyasu and a few others are catching wild crabs in the ravine behind the mountain." Zhou Huaian bent down and picked up his daughter. "My eldest sister-in-law said that we can have lunch at her place. You can send the papaya over to stew the pork ribs. I will take Mi'er to find them."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan picked up the vegetable basket and walked towards Zhao Huifang's house.
Zhou Huaian turned around the south wall of the courtyard and went to the back mountain, where he saw the old man and Lao Xiazi playing chess under a pear tree.
Lao Xiazi now lives in the brewery of the brigade headquarters, looking after the pickles that are drying and the vehicles that are coming in and out. When he has nothing to do, he plays chess with his grandfather and the elderly people in the village. He gets a salary every month, and someone takes care of his food and clothing, so he is becoming more and more energetic as he gets older.
"Grandfather!" Xiaomier shouted, and ran over with his short legs, picked up a chess piece, and put it on the chessboard with a "snap". "Checkmate!"
The old shrimp said with a smile: "Little cutie also knows the general!"
"Grandpa Xia!" Xiaomier called him sweetly, leaning on the old man's legs, "Grandpa, look for my brother!"
"Okay, let's take Xiaoyao to find it!" The old man held Xiaomier's hand and said to Zhou Huaian, "The mountain temple should be completed in September, right?"
After Zhou Huaian decided to renovate the mountain temple, Zhou Huairong's three brothers, Zhou Yiding, Secretary Xu, Zhou Datian and Xu Hongbing also took the initiative to donate money.
When the villagers of Funiu Village learned that the mountain temple was going to be renovated, they also wanted to donate money. After learning that enough money had been raised, everyone went to the construction site to help with odd jobs whenever they were free.
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "It will be completed by the end of August, and then the road will be widened and paved with asphalt, which will make it convenient for everyone to worship the gods in the future."
Old Shrimp: "I see there are a lot of people working at the mountain temple, so it won't take long even if the road is being repaired."
Zhou Huaian: "Yeah! I didn't expect so many people to go!"
Old Shrimp: "Everyone's life is better now, and building bridges and roads is a good thing to accumulate merit, so naturally more people are willing to do it." (End of this chapter)
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