Chapter 48
Almost kidnapped
Mr. and Mrs. Chen came in May when the grass was green and the birds were singing.
Looking out the window along the way, He Laner kept exclaiming, "Hey, even though the road is full of wasteland and desert, the weather is warm. The border is really not bad."
Chen Bingcang also said, "There are few people. The main reason is that there are few people. If there are few people, there will probably be fewer troubles, right?"
He struggled for a long time and finally got a permit for visiting relatives, but the township government kept delaying it. It was not until Nie Bozhao went on a business trip to the oil field in Hongyan, the provincial capital, last month and personally asked the provincial government for permission to allow them to visit their relatives.
Of course, things will be easier if we can get to the Umayyad mining area.
As long as the mining area health hospital gives them a sick leave note, the two of them can live here permanently.
"This family is not bad. You should raise some chickens later. Why don't you do that?" He Laner said after turning around.
"Of course I would, but even though you can get sunburned in the afternoon, the weather here is freezing. If ten chicks are hatched, it would be good if one or two survive. On the contrary, wild ducks freeze by the Baiyang River every day and never die."
"If you ask your mother-in-law to come, she will definitely be able to help you take care of the chicks. Aren't you still going to work? It would be great to ask your mother-in-law to come and help you take care of the children." He Lan'er said again.
Chen Lina pretended not to hear.
In the kitchen, she made sorghum flour cakes, stewed a big pot of fish, and fried a large plate of wild duck eggs, which smelled delicious.
The young lady is neat and capable, and is said to be a big farm manager. He Laner is so happy that she can't express it in words.
"By the way, you've been married for half a year, why don't you look pregnant?"
Three times in half a year, the robot-like old Nie strictly abided by her own rules, just like the wolf that roared at the moon, she only had her period once on the full moon night, not to mention that she was born infertile.
"Oh, Mom, you just got off the train, aren't you dizzy? Can you go to sleep for a while? You're in the kitchen, so you can help."
"Doesn't your mother-in-law want to come too? She sends telegrams to the border every day, asking her to help you cook and take care of the children. Look how busy you are." He Lan'er couldn't help but say.
"I can take care of them myself, and these three children are very well behaved and obedient."
"Yes, I will fetch coal for my mother." Nie Weimin was the most expressive. As he spoke, he picked up the empty coal bucket, ran out and went to fetch coal.
"It's always better to have two old people at home. Don't disbelieve what your mother says." He Laner said.
"Mom, I won't say anything about Huang Guilan. Her family's second son Nie has six daughters. If Nie wants them to come, I have no objection. But if you want me to ask them to come, don't even think about it." Everyone should live their own life according to their own abilities. If the old couple comes, there will definitely be no end to the trouble.
"Mom still thinks it's better to have an old man. After all, you have to take care of the family and you still have to go to work. Mom sees that you have lost weight and is worried that you will be tired."
As she stood there, He Lan'er felt as if there was someone poking her with a small stick from behind.
When she turned around, Xiao Sandan was standing behind her, poking her with a fork.
"Go, go, go."
"Sandan, what are you talking about? This is also your grandmother, your mother's mother. You will live on the farm in the future. How can you chase her away? Where have you remembered the manners that your mother taught you?"
"I don't want grandma, nor do I want grandma, I just want mom. She scolds mom, and I hate grandma." The boy was very angry. In his opinion, the two women's chattering was just a quarrel.
"Kid, what are you talking about? She is my daughter. If you continue to be rude to me, I will take her away." As she said this, He Lan'er pretended to pull Chen Lina.
Oh my god, Sandan was so angry that he hit He Lan'er's head with the stick.
"Okay, Mom, go to sleep. I need to stew the fish for a while. Once the fish is cooked, the pancakes on the side of the pot will also be cooked. Then we can eat the boiled fish fillets and the pancakes together."
The delicious taste in the pot makes people salivate.
Chen Lina called Sandaner to the master bedroom alone. "Daner, Mom wants to ask you, why did you hit grandma?"
"She wants to take you away." said the boy.
Chen Lina picked him up and said, "No, you have been acting weird lately. You have been making trouble since your dad came back. Yesterday, you beat up Xiao Jinbao from Tiantian's house. As a result, Tiantian has not come to our house for the past two days. Mom wants to ask you, what's going on?"
Sandan is the youngest and has always been the most daring, with a big head and a thin neck, like a small carrot.
He curled his lips and said, "No."
"You did hit me, but you don't want to admit it?"
"Yes." This is true.
"Why? Tell mom. Our Sandan has always loved mom the most." Chen Lina was so gentle and picked up the kid.
At the beginning, she always felt that the baby was too heavy when she held him in her arms, but recently it has become better. The child has been getting fatter and taller, but when she holds him in her arms, he actually feels a lot lighter than before.
This is probably what the so-called mother-child bond means. This child is closest to her, and she never feels heavy when she holds him in her arms.
"I don't want to sleep separately from my mother." The young man finally revealed his thoughts, and said with great sadness, "Tear down the kang that Dad made, tear it down."
In order to give the three children a separate room to live in, after returning from Base No. 3, Nie Bozhao built a small bungalow in the yard as a warehouse. He vacated the small warehouse next to the study, made a big kang, and rebuilt the fire wall to make a kang for the three children.
Nie Weimin was very happy, and led his soldiers to add bricks and tiles every day to help his father. Erdan was a little mud pig, and he didn't care about anything. Only Sandan was the most unhappy, because once the kang was built, it meant that he would leave his parents and sleep alone.
"Both brothers will take care of you."
"I want to sleep with mom, or I'll play Jimbo." After all, mom smells the best, while the two brothers are stinky.
What kind of logic is this? Just because your parents want to sleep on a separate bed from you and can't do it, you go and beat other people's children.
In the future, as a hacker, Sandan will use only a computer to attack the national security websites of major European and American countries until they are paralyzed after a country's embassy abroad is bombed. You know, he can't even move at that time.
One can imagine how shocked the National Security Bureau was when they investigated the nursing home and saw that the leader of the huge hacker group they thought was actually a disabled man who was paralyzed in bed and could only move his hands. And how great a negative impact that incident had on Nie Bozhao.
A senior engineer and business leader, whose company was about to go public, had his two elder brothers shot to death, leaving only the younger one, whose whole body was paralyzed and only his hands could move. He could still do something earth-shaking.
As expected of a little villain, he has had very unique thoughts since he was young.
"Okay, mom will separate your eldest and second brothers for now, and you can sleep on the same bed with us. Now go and apologize to grandma."
"Thank you, Mom." After saying this, the boy went to apologize to his grandmother seriously.
Of course He Lan'er wouldn't argue with the child, but she really wanted to stay and help the lady take care of the child. After dinner, of course she touched the child here and there, and finally said, "Lina, no, Mom won't go to the farm. I'll stay and cook for you guys."
"No, mom's cooking is the best." Erdan's voice was like a broken bellows, and his face was alert.
Nie Weimin has always been good at doing superficial work. He picked up the broom and started sweeping the yard. "Grandma, you see we are very obedient. We can take care of ourselves." It was obvious that he didn't want it.
When it was time to go to bed at night, He Laner said, "I see that these three children are all fine. No matter how they grow up, they were filial and good children when they were young. It's just that it's hard for you to raise them. What should I do? Mom really wants to share the worries with you."
"Okay, you haven't started changing the soil and water yet, just worry about yourself. Although there is no fighting here, the climate in the frontier is not easy to endure. When you get to the farm, you must take care of your health, because your health is the best for us."
As usual, Chen Lina didn't say anything to her mother, and according to the base's regulations, even if someone came to visit relatives, they had to leave after staying overnight at most. So she sent her mother to the farm the next day.
I first saw the days when Chen Lina and Nie Bozhao were all together, and then I went into the caves in the farm and saw that every meal was filled with cornmeal. Only then did I realize that the life of the second daughter was truly that of a cadre.
Fortunately, Wang Hongbing is the deputy director of the farm.
As soon as they entered the door, they recruited a group of university professors and plant experts who were undergoing reform. They came to accompany Chen Bingcang to drink the bitter brick tea unique to the frontier, chat with him, and tell them interesting stories about when they were sent down to work.
As for the fact that the old couple survived the fight in Qisi Township, they thought that the suffering they had endured was rare in the world because of an old woman. But when they heard that these experts and scholars were even worse off than them and were also being paraded through the streets with signs on their names, they realized that they were not that miserable at first.
The couple finally smiled with relief from the bottom of their hearts after fighting for more than half a year and escaping to this barren frontier.
One day, Chen Lina was driving back from the farm when she ran into Liu Xiaohong and Liu Xiaogang, a brother and sister, who were waiting for a truck on the side of the road.
A dark-faced man, who could be identified as Liu Han's brother by his appearance. There was also a woman holding Liu Xiaohong's hand.
"Aunt Chen, goodbye. We are going back to our hometown."
"Oh, are these two your relatives?" Chen Lina asked.
Brother Liu Han said, "Yes." The other said, "Leader, me too."
Chen Lina immediately became alert. "Our Mr. Liu is from Sichuan, are you going back to Sichuan?" The woman spoke with a Henan accent.
"Yes." They both said yes at the same time, but with completely different accents.
Seeing the big truck coming, Liu Xiaohong waved goodbye to Chen Lina with a smile, then followed her uncle and the woman into the truck.
"This girl is so young, why did I come all the way with you? Really, she is so young, not worth thirty dollars. Give me another five dollars."
"Lang Ge, if you think it's too small, I'll find another family. I don't believe that such a lovely girl would not be wanted by anyone." The truck was shaking, and the Liu Han brothers and the black-faced woman were whispering to each other.
Because Liu Han had already left the base, the future of Liu Xiaohong and his sister had indeed become a problem. The base notified his family to come and pick them up.
So their uncle who lived far away in Sichuan came to pick them up. They were of course very happy and thought they could go back to their hometown in Sichuan.
As a result, as the truck was moving, several trucks were chasing it from behind. A car overtook it directly from behind, turned around and stopped in the middle of the road, forcing the truck to stop.
At the same time, security captain Qin Sheng got on the car with his men.
"Brother Liu, you said this woman is your relative, so let me ask you, where is your marriage certificate?"
“We didn’t bring any.”
"Where's the letter of introduction and the household registration certificate?"
“I also forgot my home.”
"Bullshit, with the current security situation, without a marriage certificate, a letter of introduction, or a household registration certificate, who are you trying to fool?"
Under the car, Chen Lina reached out and hugged Liu Xiaohong down. "Captain Qin, this woman is definitely a human trafficker. Listen to her accent, it's Henan accent, and listen to the Liu brothers, they have Sichuan accents. Population mobility is so tightly controlled now, and this woman is more than ten years older than the Liu brothers, how could they be a couple?"
The security team simply dragged these two evil guys down and trampled them into the desert.
The Liu brothers were still very stubborn. "My brother has become a counter-revolutionary. I am lucky enough to help him raise his son. A little girl can't earn work points and is useless. How can I raise her? I should sell her. She is the daughter of my Liu family. You have no right to interfere."
"You can just kidnap a daughter of your Liu family. Oh, why don't you kidnap your own child?"
"I have given away three of my own children. Who can control me? I have already received money for this child. Anyway, I will not pay it back."
Qin Sheng hissed angrily, "I'm afraid it's not a gift. If money is involved, it's called kidnapping. Well, it's useless to reason with people like you. Let's go. Our security team has a good place that can clear your mind."
Turning around and saluting, he said, "Captain Chen, I'm really sorry. It's our security team that didn't do their job properly, and let these two people take advantage of the situation."
"It's not your fault. Who would have thought that their uncle would sell their children?"
People nowadays are still simple and honest. They have not been fooled or cheated too many times. Unlike Chen Lina, who has been struggling all her life, she can tell who is a bad person and who is a good person at a glance.
"Aunt Chen, what should we do?" Liu Xiaogang asked helplessly as he stood in the desert and looked at his uncle who was taken away by the security team.
"You have hands and feet, and can help the base to light the stove. You can stay here for now, and I'll find a way to do something else." Chen Lina said. She then whispered to Liu Xiaohong, "Isn't it enough that I give you three yuan a month?"
Liu Xiaohong nodded quickly, "It's enough."
"That's all. Just stay in the base for now. Don't follow this kind of shady guy. If you need money, just ask me."
Oh my God, Chen Lina thought to herself, Nie Weimin, I am now paying off my lifetime debt of favor to you.
I don't know if the silly boy was sad when this little girl became Nie Weimin's mistress when she was fifteen or sixteen years old and was shot to death for taking the blame for him.
Nian Gong seems to be very irritable recently, really irritable. Also, the weather has become warmer, and the children's kang has become dry. The two older ones have already slept separately, leaving only Chen Lina and Sandaner sleeping together.
There were only a few quilts in the house, and the new ones had not come down yet. Chen Lina took down the smaller cotton clothes of the children and made a small quilt for him. However, he was too tall and strong to cover his feet, so he had to use it as a mattress.
"Just come and sleep with us. The quilt will always be enough to cover you. You were fine before. What happened in the past two months?"
"No, I can just sleep in the small bedroom."
"Why, Lao Nie, am I ugly, or innocent, or ugly, so that you are too lazy to even sleep with me?"
"No, no, no, you are the snow lotus of Tianshan Mountain, you are Awarguli, but this is my problem, you don't have to worry about me."
It's driving me crazy. It's okay if I'm on a business trip, but when I'm at home looking at the calendar every day, I find that a month is really long.
However, he was like a well-made, tightly wound machine, because ever since his deceased wife, he had been observing the rule of having sex once a month and refused to break it.
After all, warriors in peacetime do not need to face the enemy's sugar-coated bullets and threats and inducements.
However, the decadent trends in life are tests. He is a time-tested revolutionary fighter and he will never be defeated by the rules he sets for himself.
But recently, as Sino-US relations are on the verge of breaking the ice, the Soviet Union is ready to make moves, with helicopters circling in the sky every day. The oil fields in several major bases in the mining area have all stopped large-scale production, and Lao Nie has become idle.
This was like adding insult to injury for him, so he planned a trip to distract himself.
"I've been quite free recently, Comrade Chen, and your farm has just finished its spring planting. Tell me where you want to go and have some fun. I'll go with you."
"Dad, we are going to the Devil City. I heard there are devils there." Nie Weimin suddenly rushed in from the door.
"Wei Min, Dad has a request for you. Can you please stop eavesdropping on our conversations?"
"I didn't eavesdrop, but didn't you tell Xiao Zhu this morning that you would work overtime to finish the work and then take us out to play?" Nie Weimin said righteously.
"Devil City? Let's go. I've only heard of it but never seen what it looks like?" said Chen Lina.
Nie Bozhao first asked, "Has Xingshucha taken you to a place before? If you want to go to a place he has been to, I will take a detour."
"No, he only goes to Uruguay when he comes to the border. Umay is his sad place, and he has never set foot there. Is that okay?"
"Very good, then our whole family will go to the Devil City together. After that, I will take you to the Dushanzi base to soak in the hot springs, okay?" said Nie Bozhao.