Model Worker

"Meng Zheng, you have performed well and are hardworking in April 1972. Congratulations on being named a family labor model."

While mumbling to herself, Ye Min wrote on the award certificate she had drawn: "I am writing this certificate to encourage you! Signed..." After thinking for a moment, she wrote, "Meng Zheng's mother, dated April 8, 1972."

After writing the certificate, Ye Min twisted the two ends of the red paper with her fingers, raised it high and blew on it. When the ink was dry, she said to Meng Zheng, who was watching eagerly, "Okay."

As she spoke, she turned sideways to face Meng Zheng, coughed twice to clear her throat, and called out, "Little Meng Zheng!"

"arrive!"

Meng Zheng spoke loudly, and immediately stood up straight, with his chest out and his head raised, looking at his mother expectantly.

Ye Min started her speech with a serious expression: "You performed very well today and swept the floor very cleanly. After discussion with mom and dad, we decided to give you a certificate of honor."

"Um!"

Ye Min handed the award certificate to Meng Zheng and continued, "I hope you won't be complacent in the future and keep doing better. Can you do it?"

"I can!" Meng Zheng answered loudly and happily took the certificate. Although he only recognized a few dozen words in total, he still held the certificate and read it carefully. The more he read, the happier he felt and a smile spread across his face.

Thinking of his father cooking in the kitchen, Meng Zheng said, "I'll show my father the certificate!"

After saying that, he ran out happily, rushed into the kitchen holding the award certificate and said, "Dad! Dad! Mom gave me a certificate!"

Meng Cheng, who was cooking with a spatula and rolled up his sleeves, glanced back and asked in a flattering manner, "What certificate?"

Meng Zheng said proudly: "Model worker! Mom said that I was awarded this award because I have been performing very well recently and I swept the floor very clean today!"

"Hmm."

Meng Cheng took the food out of the pot, took the certificate from his son, looked at it and asked, "When your mother gave you the certificate, did you say anything?"

"She told me not to be complacent and to keep trying."

Meng Cheng asked: "Do you know what it means to keep going?"

Although Meng Zheng answered so readily in front of Ye Min, he really didn't know what "keep going" meant, and he lowered his head and said "hmm...hmm..."

Seeing that he really couldn't figure it out, Meng Cheng explained, "The meaning of continuing to do it again and again is to tell you not to be lazy in the future and to work harder."

"Oh!" Meng Zheng suddenly realized, but that was it.

Meng Cheng waited for a long time, but nothing came of it, so he took the initiative to ask, "What did you say to your mother at that time? Did you say you could do it or not?"

“Yes!”

Meng Cheng hummed and asked, "So from now on, all the land in our family will be left to you to sweep?"

Although Meng Zheng agreed very readily in front of his mother, it was because he did not understand the meaning of "keep doing it again and again". Now that he knew it, he was a little reluctant to do it. But if he didn't do it, would he still be a model worker in the future? And he had promised his mother that he would keep doing it again and again.

After struggling for a long time, Meng Zheng sighed and said, "Okay." After agreeing, he felt a little unwilling. After thinking for a while, he said, "But Dad, that broom is so heavy. It's so tiring to sweep the floor with it!"

So he hoped that his father could give him an easier job, preferably cleaning the table, because he thought a rag was much lighter than a broom.

But obviously, his father didn't understand what he meant. After a moment's silence, he said, "Okay, I'll talk to your mother and ask her to buy a lighter broom in the next two days."

"ah?"

Seeing his son's dumbfounded look, Meng Cheng held back his laughter and touched his head, encouraging him, "Come on!"

…

Because we came back from the hospital not too early, the meat stall had already closed, so we had a simple lunch, the most meaty thing being the egg pancakes.

However, the hospital has special meals for mothers, and every meal comes with free chicken soup, but the price is relatively expensive, so not many mothers are willing to buy it.

But Ye Min is not someone who would treat herself badly. She has been cherished by others, and even though she later became a invisible person in the family, she was not lacking in love. Therefore, she always puts herself first and would not do anything to treat herself badly just to save money.

A double room is more comfortable than a six-person room, so she wanted to stay in a double room even if she had to pay for it herself. Chicken soup is good for the body, so she fed herself chicken soup three times a day.

Perhaps because of this, she was not as haggard as other women in the ward after giving birth, and her body recovered quickly.

But drinking too much chicken soup is not without its drawbacks. The chicken soup she drank during pregnancy and after giving birth made her feel a little nauseous when she heard the two words now.

So she is not so greedy now, and she feels very comfortable eating plain tea and rice.

After lunch, Ye Min fed An An and changed her diaper for a nap. But she didn't sleep well because more neighbors came to visit her in the afternoon and evening.

The reason why so many people came was not because Ye Min and his wife were so popular, but because the news of Li Wenxiu stealing the child had spread throughout the compound. Some people came to visit in the afternoon and evening to show their genuine concern for Ye Min and her daughter, while others came just to watch the fun.

Ye Min was naturally grateful for those who truly cared about her, but she was not averse to seeing the excitement and treated them well.

She feels that human nature is complex, and not everyone will be sincere at the beginning of a relationship. However, this does not mean that the other person is insincere or a bad person. It may just be that their relationship has not reached that stage yet.

But as long as both parties have no bad intentions, after taking the first step, there will be a second step, and as time goes by, the friendship will become real. On the contrary, if both parties are false, no matter how long it takes, it will only be a superficial friendship.

Therefore, Ye Min feels that for some things, it is enough to judge by deeds rather than by intentions, and one should not take them too seriously.

No matter why these people came, at least after they arrived, they all cared about her, and when talking about the baby swap incident, they all looked indignant.

That's enough.

But not everyone is so normal. A military wife named Wei Chunhua expressed her disagreement when everyone was scolding Li Chunxiu: "If it were me, you shouldn't have gone to the hospital. Not to mention the huge amount of money you spent, your child was almost switched."

As soon as these words came out, the originally lively room was silent for two seconds, until Liang Juan spoke up: "What you said is wrong. Xiaoye's child was almost switched because of Li Chunxiu's bad intentions. What does it have to do with giving birth in a hospital?"

"Why is it okay? If she hadn't insisted on going to the hospital to give birth, would she have encountered that show you mentioned? Would such a thing have happened?" Wei Chunhua looked at Ye Min and said in a pretentious tone, "You young people just don't know how to live. You run to the hospital for the slightest thing. The child can be born anywhere, right? Why do you have to spend money to go to the hospital?"

Ye Min's face turned cold when she heard this, but she didn't get angry because there were other people in the room. She just said calmly, "I have money and I'm happy to spend it. What's your business?"

"So I say your idea is wrong. Great people have said that waste is a great crime. It's not impossible to have children at home. Isn't it a waste to go to the hospital to give birth?" Wei Chunhua looked unhappy and pointed at An An and said with a pout, "The four children in my family were all born at home. Look how healthy they are. Look at your girl, she looks sick. It would be fine if she was a boy, but is it worth spending so much money on a girl?"

"The great man said that corruption and waste are great crimes. The money I spent was earned honestly by my husband and I. And I don't think it was a waste for me to go to the hospital to give birth. Stop accusing me of that!"

Ye Min was completely annoyed and spoke rudely: "You said my thinking is wrong, and I think you have a problem with your thinking. Great people say that fathers and daughters can hold up half the sky and that gender equality should be achieved, but what about you? You keep talking about little girls, and it's not worth spending so much money. If I were your daughter, I would be heartbroken! Finally, my daughter is in good health. You might as well go back and feed your daughter more food instead of worrying about her. She has become as thin as a bamboo pole!"

Ye Min spoke so fast that Wei Chunhua had no chance to interrupt. She was so angry that her face turned pale and blue: "You, you! I'm trying to persuade you with good intentions, but you don't appreciate it..."

"Come on, if you are kind-hearted, then everyone in this world is a white lotus!" Ye Min interrupted her, "Since you are not here to see me sincerely, please get out of my house as soon as possible!"

Seeing Ye Min angry, the military wife next to Wei Chunhua quickly pulled her out with words and persuasion. The rest of the people also advised Ye Min: "She is just like that. She is not in a clear mind."

"That's right. There are so many families with daughters in the compound, but her family doesn't treat the daughter as a human being, as if she herself is not a woman. I just can't understand it."

"That's fine, but she doesn't know what's going on in her mind, and she has the nerve to gossip about it in front of others."

From what everyone is saying, it can be seen that Wei Chunhua has a really bad relationship with people.

Liang Juan was an official from the Women's Federation. She couldn't directly say that the military wives in the compound were bad, so she just tactfully advised, "Don't take it too seriously with her. It's not worth ruining your health over such a person."

"will not."

Ye Min smiled. She must have been angry when Wei Chunhua said those things. But they were not that familiar with each other. If they were unhappy, they could just say it back. They wouldn't be too upset.

Seeing that she really didn't care about Wei Chunhua, everyone felt relieved. However, it was already late, and such a bad thing happened, so no one wanted to stay for long, so they dispersed soon.

After they dispersed, Meng Cheng also sent away his comrades who came to visit him, and came in to ask, "I heard that Battalion Commander He's wife said some unpleasant things in front of you?" Battalion Commander He was Wei Chunhua's husband.

Ye Min did not hide anything and told Wei Chunhua everything she said and her words against others. She then asked, "Is this not going to cause you any trouble?"

"No." Meng Cheng frowned. "She came to our house to cause trouble. I'm glad I didn't cause trouble for Mr. He." Because he was angry, he directly changed his address to Captain He as Mr. He.

Ye Min smiled: "Okay."

After a brief greeting, Meng Cheng looked at the young lady again, touched the diaper to make sure it was dry, then went to get some water for Ye Min to wash her body, and then asked Meng Zheng to take a bath.

While the father and son were taking a shower, Ye Min got up and walked to the closet, took out a metal box from it, and opened it with a key. Then she picked up the coat hanging at the end of the bed, fished out the remaining bills from this hospital stay from the inner pocket, and prepared to count them and put them together.

She acted rather suddenly this time and was in such a hurry that she didn't have time to think about so many things. After opening the box, she grabbed two bundles of money and a handful of bills and left. It was only after she gave birth that she realized she had taken a full two hundred yuan.

She is a military dependent and works in a health center, so the basic hospitalization expenses were fully covered. The only things she had to pay for were upgrading to a double room and the cost of food and drink after hospitalization, so she had more than 170 yuan left.

Also, because she had not slept well in the days after giving birth, her body was in pain, and she could not think much, when Liang Juan went to buy food, she always took the whole money and came back with a lot of change.

So the money taken out looked like a lot, but in reality it was all just 50 cents or 21 cents, which was quite troublesome to count.

Fortunately, Ye Min was not in a hurry. He broke up the money and counted it patiently.

But before she could count the money, she was attracted by the bullet screen that popped up above the lady's head:

[Wow! That's a lot of money! There must be thousands of dollars in the iron box, right?]

[You can tell by the color. The bundles of black banknotes in the iron box are all ten yuan each. If we count ten yuan per bundle, there are at least two thousand yuan in the iron box.]

[Fuck! I don’t even have 2,000 yuan in savings! I actually lost to someone from the 1970s [tears]]

[In fact, the most valuable thing is not the money in the iron box, but the change on the bed. The yellow one-cent note from 1953 is worth 500 yuan, the train head two-cent note is worth 2,000 yuan, and the red one-yuan note is worth 3,000 yuan each when it is old.]

【Wow!】

【Wow!】

【Wow!】

[I've thought too much before. Let's not talk about whether people who lived in that era would have money left unspent until now. Just say that these recycling prices seem to be very high. In fact, they are just for reference. This industry is very complicated. Ordinary people may not be able to sell old coins at a high price. Instead of saving the money to sell now, it is better to save it and buy more houses in the 1980s. Maybe you can catch up with the demolition and get rich.]

…

Ye Min, who originally wanted to exclaim "Wow", felt a chill in her heart when she saw the latest comment, but then she was suddenly enlightened when she saw the last part.

Buying a house in the eighties, right?

She remembered.