Chapter 2 She is not a money-loser
The sun sets and the evening breeze blows.
The sunset is beautiful.
Su Jiaojiao took a simple shower, changed her clothes, moved a small stool, sat at the kitchen door, and watched Chen Guilan light a fire and cook.
The plane trees outside the wall stand tall and majestic like a canopy, the orange rays of light dance and flicker on the leaves, the air is filled with wisps of smoke, four or five bluestone slabs in the yard are laid crookedly to the door, the chickens in the chicken coop flap their wings back and forth, clucking, and raising clouds of dust.
Everything was just as she had dreamed countless times.
It was the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the beginning of autumn, but the weather was still very hot, and mosquitoes were rampant. There was no air conditioning or fans in the countryside. Su Jiaojiao was sweating just after sitting down. She got up and went to the inner room to find a palm-leaf fan, and happily fanned herself with it: "Mom, let's buy a fan!"
"Fans are so expensive, how can we afford one?" Chen Guilan was busy cooking. She made some porridge and went to the inner room to get two eggs and put them in the pot. Thinking that her husband might be home tonight, she went to get another egg, opened the pot and put it in. "I heard it costs eighty or ninety yuan!"
Su Jiaojiao smiled.
Yes, eighty or ninety yuan is not a small amount of money for her now.
I have to find a way to make money quickly.
Seeing her daughter in a good mood, Chen Guilan carefully advised, "Jingjiao, when your father comes back later, you should admit your mistake to him and say that you were just upset at the moment and that you won't do it again. Then the matter will be over. As for the matter between you and your cousin, I will tell him."
Su Houli is soft-hearted and does not respond to harsh treatment.
After all, she was his own daughter, and she felt that he would not push her into a desperate situation.
"I'll take care of these things, you don't have to worry." When Su Jiaojiao mentioned Su Houli, her eyes turned cold. Su Houli's heart was no longer in this family. He did things without considering Chen Guilan's feelings at all, and only cared about his own pleasure. It didn't matter whether there was such a father or not.
Xu Yuxiang always praised Su Houli for his filial piety and ability to everyone she met.
In fact, Su Houli was indeed a capable man. He was doing very well in a garment factory in the city. Within a few years, he became the deputy factory director and had a secret affair with a workshop director named Gao. After Chen Guilan passed away, he married that woman as a matter of course, bought a house in the city, and ignored her, his biological daughter.
Thinking of this, she asked Chen Guilan again: "Mom, when was the last time my dad came home?"
She still doesn't know whether Chen Guilan knows that Su Houli has a woman outside. If she doesn't know, she doesn't want Chen Guilan to be kept in the dark. If she knows, she will face it with Chen Guilan.
At worst, we can just get divorced, it’s no big deal.
"Your father came back early last month and said he wanted to move his household registration. The village said that once you move your household registration, it will be difficult to move back. He said that he would only move his own, and that ours would remain intact, and that he would not move back. Then the village asked him to go back to the factory to get some kind of certificate. I haven't heard your grandmother mention this in recent days, and I haven't asked about it." Chen Guilan stuffed the firewood in her hand into the stove, the flickering flames obscuring her expression. "The garment factory is busy, and your father has to work overtime every day."
"He's so busy, he must make a lot of money every month, right?" Su Jiaojiao saw Chen Guilan sweating profusely, so she fanned her with a palm-leaf fan. Chen Guilan was not yet forty years old, but she had white hair on her temples. The short-sleeved blue plaid shirt she was wearing had long been washed white. It was an old piece of clothing worn by her Gusu Xiumei. In her previous life, she was only concerned with escaping from this small mountain village and did not accompany her mother well. By the time she was able to do so, there was no chance anymore.
"Your father is the director of the technical department and earns 400 yuan a month!" Chen Guilan said proudly, her face brightening. "I heard from your grandmother that the factory wants to promote him to deputy director recently, and his salary will be increased."
"Since you make so much money, you still can't afford to send me to high school?" Su Jiaojiao looked at Chen Guilan again. Four hundred yuan in 1995 was already a lot. Chen Guilan was stunned and said embarrassedly, "Although your father lives in the dormitory for free, he needs to eat and spend money on social activities, so there won't be much left."
These are Su Houli’s original words.
At most, he would give her three to five hundred yuan to buy seeds and fertilizers during the busy farming season, and buy some fish and meat during the holidays, but there was no more.
"In the end, it's because he doesn't want to support me!" Su Jiaojiao saw that she was still speaking for Su Houli and asked again, "Is he unwilling to support me because he dislikes me because I'm a girl, or does he have other thoughts?"
"Jingjiao, don't misunderstand your father. Even if you're a girl, you're still his biological daughter. What else could he possibly want?" Chen Guilan sighed, her eyes full of pleading. "I only ask you not to do anything stupid again. If your father doesn't agree to your studies, I'll borrow money from your second uncle and sell everything I have to support you, okay?"
"Tuition is a later matter." Su Jiaojiao saw that Chen Guilan didn't look strange, so she stopped talking about her father's trivial matters and said seriously, "Right now, we are a team. Let's finish the matter between me and Liang Kun first. As for how to do it, I have my own ideas!"
In this family, only Chen Guilan is the closest to her.
Everyone else is just bullshit.
"Okay." Chen Guilan nodded repeatedly, "I'll listen to you."
Su Jiaojiao's house is at the easternmost end of the alley. Next door is her uncle Su Houde's house. The two neighbors at the west end, one of whom has a grown-up son, have moved into the new house at the east end of the village after the village allocated them a residential plot and built a new house.
The other family was an elderly widow named Mrs. Yin, who made a living by fortune-telling. She had a nephew who ran a small shop in the village. He came to help her with laundry, cooking, and housework every day, and he would also take the gifts given by people who came to see her fortune and sell them in his shop.
There are only three families living in the alley.
Chen Guilan prepared the meal but didn't rush to serve it. She moved a stool and sat next to Su Jiaojiao, fanning her with a palm-leaf fan to swat away mosquitoes. "Let's wait for your dad. He'll be back soon."
"I'm not hungry." Su Jiaojiao smiled. Just as she was about to say something, she heard her cousin Su Jinbao crying from next door: "My sister took my skipping rope and beat me!"
Su Jinbao is nine years old and in the second grade. He is the apple of the eye of the whole family.
Xu Yuxiang had just returned from a phone call at the brigade village committee. As she entered the alley, she heard her precious grandson crying. She angrily walked over and scolded Su Cuicui, "You stupid girl! How old are you? Why are you trying to steal something from your brother?"
"He snatched it from me." Su Cuicui cried angrily, "Grandma, you are biased towards your grandson."
"Yuefen, come out! Look at your good daughter. She dares to talk back to me." Xu Yuxiang quickly walked over to Su Cuicui, poked her head and scolded her, "You worthless, money-losing things, yet you all act so precious."
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