Chapter 104 Visiting Relatives
Early in the morning on the second day of the New Year, Ju Peijun's car arrived as scheduled.
Chen Guilan felt very embarrassed by the strange looks from the villagers. She felt that the villagers would definitely spread some gossip, but she couldn't not go since it had been agreed upon. Su Jiaojiao sat in the car with peace of mind. Others could say whatever they wanted, and she couldn't stop them from talking.
Qin Shuang looked calm, she didn't think there was anything wrong.
She was a manager at the Jiali Garment Factory and often went in and out in this car. Ju Peijun was also her driver. Even if it was a company car for personal use, she had not used it many times, so Mr. Wu would not care so much.
When they arrived at Aunt Liu's home, Su Jiaojiao sighed that Aunt Liu was really a hidden rich person. Their family contracted an orchard and a fish pond on the mountain, raised chickens and ducks, and also reclaimed several vegetable plots.
The place where they live now is the original barracks, which was the house where the militia company lived before. The outer walls are all made of large stones. There are three rows of houses in total, with eight rooms in each row. There are no neighbors around, so it is very quiet.
We drink mountain spring water and eat chickens, ducks and fish raised by ourselves. It is like a paradise.
Even the air is sweet.
Aunt Liu and Ju Peijun's wife were very welcoming. They had already prepared the ingredients for the guests and even a barbecue grill.
Chen Guilan was a person who couldn't sit still, so she also went into the house to help them cook.
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law said that she was a guest and could not be asked to do any work, but they could not resist Chen Guilan's enthusiasm and had to ask her to help with the fire. They also brought her some fruit and a cup of water and placed them on the stove, treating her very attentively.
Ju Peijun showed Qin Shuang and Su Jiaojiao around the hilltop their family owned. "We used to live in the village down below, but since we started raising chickens and ducks, we couldn't leave the house at night, so we moved up here. Later, we stopped living in the village and just called this place home."
"Ju Peijun, you are so unkind. If we had known your family was so magnanimous, we should have come to your house to celebrate the New Year." Qin Shuang liked this kind of environment the most, with green mountains and clear waters, it was pleasing to the eyes, the body, and the mind. Ju Peijun chuckled, "If you don't mind my simple place, just come and stay. You can come anytime."
"With so much land at home, your aunt still goes to the market to sell vegetables. She's so hardworking." Su Jiaojiao admired Aunt Liu very much. The land at home alone was enough for her to be busy. Ju Peijun pointed to the vegetable patch below and said, "My mother can't sit still. She just started that vegetable patch before the New Year. She sprained her ankle and rested for more than a month before she recovered. She said she'll go to the city to sell roasted sweet potatoes in the spring!"
"You're all established landlords now, why are you still selling roasted sweet potatoes?" Qin Shuang teased him, "How's your income from these plots of land?"
"It's just so-so!" Ju Peijun glanced back at his wife's thin figure in the kitchen and said with emotion, "I go to work, and my mother can't do the heavy work, so it's all up to my wife to do it. She works from morning till night, and it's very hard. I mean, when the contract expires, we won't take it over, but it depends on my wife. If she wants to take it over, then she can. If she doesn't, we can move back to the village."
"Good man!" Qin Shuang patted Ju Peijun on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Your wife is so capable. If I hear that you treat her badly, I will settle the score with you."
"The only right thing I did in my life was marrying my wife," Ju Peijun praised his wife generously. "We never argue because my wife is always right."
"You two are truly a perfect couple!" Su Jiaojiao was happy to hear that. She finally met a good man.
Ju Peijun's two children live with their grandparents in the village below. They dislike the lack of TV here and rarely come here. They didn't come up today either.
Aunt Liu and her daughter-in-law were very welcoming. They cooked a table full of dishes for the six of them. What attracted Su Jiaojiao the most were the grilled skewers. She hadn't eaten such authentic grilled skewers in a long time. The cumin powder and pepper powder added a fragrant aroma to her lips and teeth. The more she ate, the more she wanted to eat: "My aunt's cooking skills are good enough to open a restaurant."
"I'm glad you don't mind." Aunt Ju was short and thin, with a pretty face. She smiled as she spoke and said modestly, "These are all home-cooked dishes. How can I open a restaurant?"
"It's really delicious." Qin Shuang praised it highly.
During the meal, Ju Peijun started chatting with Qin Shuang about the orders from Jiahe Group. "Boss Wu said we should focus on orders from Jiahe Group this year. Yesterday, he even asked me to post a job advertisement at the entrance of our factory, saying we will continue to build assembly lines and strive to set up a sewing workshop this year."
"I've said it before, four production lines are not enough, but the old man has refused to agree." Qin Shuang said disapprovingly, "Wu Jie and his wife are too conservative. They think the current scale is just right, enough to support their family."
"I heard it was Director Huang who disagreed. She felt that adding another workshop meant more expenses, and if there were no big orders in the future, the company would lose money." Ju Peijun has always had a problem with Wu Jie and Huang Jiajia. "Director Wu said they lacked courage. To put it bluntly, they just wanted to be lazy."
"Let them do what they want!" Qin Shuang has been working at Jiali Garment Factory for seven or eight years. Although she is also a member of the management, she is an outsider after all. She will only talk about her opinions on such matters if Mr. Wu asks her. If Mr. Wu doesn't ask, she won't interrupt.
After dinner, Ju Peijun took them to visit the two rows of houses at the back. The middle row was a warehouse filled with potatoes, cabbages, radishes, and various grains, and the row at the back was filled with various farm tools.
"We had a bumper potato harvest on the mountain this year, but we harvested it a week late, so all these are unsold," Ju Peijun said, pointing to a room full of potatoes. "If we can't sell them, we'll just have to feed them to the pigs."
"Uncle Ju, there's a seed supply company over at Wujiaohua Company, the same place you delivered the goods to me. Why don't you take them there and try selling them as potato seeds?" Su Jiaojiao suggested. "Actually, those two office spaces were originally used to sell these, but winter is the off-season, so I rented them to sell down jackets."
"Yes, I hadn't thought of this before you told me!" Ju Peijun's eyes lit up. "I don't know the boss of Wujiaohua Company. I don't know if he would agree."
"I know him!" Su Jiaojiao was happy to help him. "Wujiaohua Company won't be open until after the Lantern Festival. I'll ask Mr. Fan if he's interested. If he is, we can go talk to him together. It's better than feeding pigs."
"We have to hurry up and not wait until the Lantern Festival. Spring potatoes need to be planted around the Lantern Festival," Chen Guilan reminded. "If you miss the solar term, you won't be able to sell them."
"Then I'll ask now." Su Jiaojiao asked Qin Shuang for a cell phone and asked her for Fan Jianhua's home phone number and called. It happened to be Fan Jianhua who answered the phone. After listening to Su Jiaojiao's words, he immediately said, "As long as the potatoes are of good quality, we'll take whatever amount you want, provided we take 20% of the profit."
"No problem, 20%, 20%." Ju Peijun agreed happily standing by. He simply took the phone and told Fan Jianhua about the situation of his potatoes. Fan Jianhua asked him to deliver the potatoes to Wujiaohua Company tomorrow. Ju Peijun thanked him repeatedly, "Okay, Mr. Fan, see you tomorrow."
"It's a win-win deal like this. Jiaojiao, you're going to get kickbacks from both sides." Qin Shuang put the mobile phone in his bag and said with a smile, "I hadn't thought about Wujiaohua Company buying Tudou!"
"I really want to thank Jiaojiao." Having solved his urgent problem, Ju Peijun felt very relieved. He asked her with a smile, "When will your school start?"
"School starts on the 16th, and your Jiali Garment Factory will start work on the 6th. I will go back to the snack street with my mother on the afternoon of the 5th." Su Jiaojiao had already agreed with Qin Shuang that she would go to the Jiali Garment Factory with them on the 6th. They would go to work, and she would do her homework on the fifth floor of their office building.
Qin Shuang said that Qin Xiuming had been doing his homework on the fifth floor of the office building, and would go to the guest room to rest when he was tired.
Mr. Wu takes good care of his employees' children. He has mentioned this many times in meetings. He said that as long as there are no customers staying on the fifth floor, they can bring their children to the fifth floor to do their homework, whether it is weekends or holidays.
There are no customers in the factory now, so Su Jiaojiao can go to the fifth floor to do her homework.
"Then it's a deal. I'll pick you up from the village on the afternoon of the fifth day of the New Year." When Ju Peijun heard that Su Jiaojiao was also going to the Jiali Garment Factory, he patted his chest and said, "If you need anything, tell me. You can't tell me anywhere else. The Jiali Garment Factory is our territory. No one dares to bully you."
"No need, we can go back by ourselves." Chen Guilan didn't want Ju Peijun to pick her up. Su Jiaojiao just made a phone call, so why should she mobilize Ju Peijun? She felt bad about it.
"It's okay, Sister Guilan. He's just sitting around doing nothing, so it's just a matter of stepping on the accelerator." Qin Shuang said indifferently, "It's the company car anyway, so it's a waste if we don't use it."
"Thank you, Uncle Ju." Su Jiaojiao didn't want Ju Peijun to pick them up, but Ju Peijun had already asked, so she couldn't refuse. It would only make things more troublesome.
Qin Shuang had to go back to the factory to work on duty on the third day of the Lunar New Year, so she did not go back to the village with them and went straight back to the unit.
She still has a lot of things to do. She has to write a production process sheet, draw patterns, hand them over to the technical department for typesetting and proofing, select fabrics and accessories, cut them, make samples, and then get the final approval from Jiahe Group before she can put these work clothes into mass production.
The preliminary preparation work is very cumbersome.
The only relative Chen Guilan and Su Jiaojiao had to visit during the first month of the lunar year was to have dinner at Chen Guisheng's house.
Originally, Chen Juan should have gone to their house to pay New Year's greetings on the second day of the Lunar New Year, but every year on the second day of the Lunar New Year, Xu Yue'e's nephews and nieces would also visit her, and Chen Juan had to cook at home and was busy. Gradually, Chen Guisheng and Chen Guilan reached a tacit understanding and went to Chen Guisheng's house to get together on the third day of the Lunar New Year.
Chen Juan is as diligent as Chen Guilan and prepares meals a day in advance.
I stewed the chicken early and cleaned the house.
Even when Chen Guilan went there, there was nothing to do.
The food is stewing in the pot and there is no need to add firewood.
Xu Yue'e knew that it was the New Year, so she changed into new clothes. She took some medicine and her mind was very clear. After dinner, she sat on the kang and talked to Chen Guilan about the past. She could not remember what had happened recently, but she remembered the past very clearly.
Chen Guisheng sat on the edge of the kang and listened to the two people talking without saying a word.
Neither the brother nor the sister mentioned divorce.
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