Chapter 78 Retirement, Ye Tan was cleaning up in the yard...
Ye Tan was cleaning the fallen leaves and dead branches in the water tank in the yard.
The weather has gotten colder recently, so Ye Tan hasn't been going to the beach anymore. Whenever he wants to eat something, he goes to the fishermen to buy some ready-made food.
There are only a few fish in the tank now. They are all shallow sea fish and are more resistant to cold. They will not freeze to death in the tank in this kind of weather.
When Ye Tan woke up early this morning, he discovered that the water tank was showing signs of freezing.
She looked up at the sky, and the air she breathed out of her mouth and nose turned into white mist.
The air was getting colder day by day, and Ye Tan felt freezing even when he stretched out his hands in the morning.
She quickly picked up the dead leaves on the surface of the water, and then used a stick to disperse the layer of fine ice on the water surface. She carefully looked at the fish at the bottom of the water. Although they did not move much, she felt relieved when she saw the moving gills that they were still alive.
She found a piece of wood to cover the mouth of the water tank, trying to keep the fish warm.
"Xiao Tan, do you want to go to the store?" Aunt He and her daughter Xiao Feng passed by Ye Tan's house and greeted him when they saw Ye Tan in the yard.
Ye Tan wiped his hands and turned around. "Aunt He, Xiaofeng, are you guys going to the store to buy groceries?" Ye Tan was about to say that she wasn't going, as there was still plenty of food at home, but Xiaofeng said, "Sister Xiaotan, I heard from Xiaomei that the store has some wool in today, all in the latest colors. My mom and I are planning to buy some to knit a sweater. Do you want to come with us?"
Ye Tan swallowed her words of refusal: "What wool?" She seemed to have never seen Gu Zhao wear a sweater. She did have one herself, but it was an old style and the wool had become stiff. She left it in her hometown when she came here.
Ye Tan can also knit sweaters, and she knows many patterns. After all, it is also a type of clothing. She has specialized in this area before, but she just didn't think of knitting before. Anyway, she has nothing to do in winter, so knitting sweaters is a way to pass the time.
She asked them to wait for a while. She went back into the house, put some hand cream on her hands, took her handbag, closed the door, and went to the store with Aunt He and Xiaofeng.
When they arrived at the store, they saw that there were quite a few people inside. The three of them walked in and saw that most of the people were gathered around the place where wool was being sold. It seemed that they had heard the news and came to grab the wool.
When Aunt He saw that there were so many people, she was afraid that they wouldn't be able to grab the items, so she relied on her height and strength to clear the way and squeezed in with Xiaofeng and Ye Tan.
She quickly grabbed a ball of bright red wool and stuffed it into Xiaofeng's arms, while in her other hand she held a ball of gray wool and held it in her own arms.
Ye Tan saw that she had already started to grab balls of wool left and right, and the others were also stuffing them into their arms swiftly. Seeing the piles of wool in front of him gradually decreasing, he did not hesitate and reached out to grab a few balls that he liked.
She didn't take anything randomly, but just focused on two colors, one beige and the other light gray. Knitting an adult sweater requires at least one kilogram of wool. Ye Tan thought of Gu Zhao's physique and was afraid that it would not be enough, so she took two more taels.
Ye Tan was comparing the colors of the wool when a ball of yarn was handed to her. "Sister Xiao Tan, does this color look good on a scarf? Is it too tender?"
Ye Tan glanced at the wool in Xiao Feng's hand. It was light pink, which was good for knitting a scarf. "How could that be? You are young. A young girl should look good in pink and tender colors."
Xiao Feng was convinced by Ye Tan's vision. After hearing what he said, she took another ball and said, "Then I will knit it into a scarf when I get home."
Ye Tan was reminded by Xiao Feng that it’s okay to have too much wool, as it can be used to knit not only sweaters but also scarves and gloves, so it’s not a waste to stock up on more.
After choosing the yarn and buying some knitting needles, the three of them went to check out when Aunt He said, "I haven't seen Xiao Sun these past two days."
The salesperson who was giving the change was an elderly employee. Upon hearing this, he smiled and said to Aunt He, "Xiao Sun has quit his job. It seems he's found a girlfriend. I heard that he and his girlfriend are going to work in a factory outside."
"But the factory hasn't been built yet. The earliest it will start operation is in the spring of next year. It's not cost-effective to quit so early." A nearby older woman disagreed and shook her head.
Salesperson: "Who knows what he's planning? Maybe he wants to take a break."
Aunt He also glanced outside the station, but didn't say anything good or bad. She just said, "The factory is a good place to go. Xiao Sun is sweet-talking, so maybe he can find a good job."
Ye Tan listened without saying anything, but he felt much better. After Sun Chao left, he wouldn't have to see disgusting people when he came to the supermarket again.
Because of this good news, Ye Tan was in a better mood when she walked out of the store than when she came. She was so happy that she planned to knit a three-piece suit for Gu Zhao.
Aunt He glanced at Ye Tan's bulging cloth bag, then looked inside to see it was filled with wool. "So much, are you planning on knitting another scarf?"
Ye Tan smiled and nodded: "Thanks to my aunt for reminding me, I hadn't thought about knitting sweaters before. I was just busy making clothes all day."
Aunt He: "It's not too late to know now. The sweater can be knitted very quickly. It will be finished in half a month and you can wear it before the Spring Festival."
Xiao Feng took Ye Tan's other arm and said, "Let's knit a sweater together later."
The weather is cold in winter and no vegetables grow. People have nothing to do except three meals a day, so sitting together knitting sweaters and chatting becomes a good pastime.
Ye Tan also welcomed them to her home.
In the evening, when Gu Zhao came back, Ye Tan was holding gray wool in her hand, turning it over in her hands. She had already knitted two centimeters long.
Gu Zhao put down his lunch box and sat next to Ye Tan, watching her for a while. Seeing her fingers turning the yarn skillfully, he didn't expect Ye Tan to be able to knit a sweater. However, judging by the color of the yarn, it was definitely not her own. So he asked expectantly, "Are you knitting it for me?"
Ye Tan hummed and glanced at the sky outside: "Why are you back so early today?"
Gu Zhao then got down to business: "This is it, I won't be back for dinner tonight, I'll come back to tell you."
Ye Tan tilted his head: "Is there something wrong?"
Gu Zhao poured himself a glass of water and drank it while saying, "Captain Liu injured his leg during the last disaster relief operation. Although his leg was saved, he was left with a lifelong disability. He can no longer serve in the barracks and can only retire and return home. There are several others who want to retire for other reasons. They will all leave together the day after tomorrow. It's an old custom here to hold a farewell banquet for those who are about to retire."
As the head of a group, Gu Zhao naturally had to attend the event. Now he came back to tell Ye Tan and bring back some food for his wife from the cafeteria.
Ye Tan also thought of Captain Liu who came back with Gu Zhao. He remembered that his leg injury was quite serious, and Gu Zhao was injured because of saving him.
Gu Zhao's expression also showed a bit of regret: "Captain Liu is a hard-working person and a good person. He could have been promoted after this incident. What a pity."
Ye Tan also felt it was a pity. After all, this was the person Gu Zhao had risked his life to save, and now he had to change his career halfway and was left with a lifelong disability. His future life was almost over.
But that's how life is. You never know when an accident will happen to you, just like in her previous life, when she passed away without any sign, and she doesn't know what will happen in this life either. "Hmm..." Ye Tan was so absorbed in thinking that her index finger was poked by the needle.
Gu Zhao quickly pulled it over to take a look, and blew on his fingertips with concern: "Does it hurt?"
Seeing Gu Zhao frowning as if he was facing some big accident, Ye Tan couldn't help but smile: "It doesn't hurt anymore." In fact, it only hurt when he rubbed it, but after he softened it a few times, the feeling disappeared.
When Gu Zhao looked at the wool in her hand again, his anticipation faded. It was really not that easy to knit a sweater. It only took a short while and she already had it knitted.
Gu Zhao rubbed Ye Tan and frowned, saying, "Actually, they are also sold in shopping malls. If you want to wear them, let's go buy them."
Ye Tan pushed his hand away and continued to wind the thread in her hand: "Can the one you buy be the same as the one you knit yourself?"
"Don't bother me, just do what you need to do." She finally wanted to be a good wife, so he shouldn't just stand there and discourage her enthusiasm.
Being rejected, Gu Zhao sighed and put his head on Ye Tan's shoulder: "Then you can knit slowly, don't be anxious, the food I brought back is a little cold, remember to heat it up before eating."
Ye Tan said she understood, and Gu Zhao held her head and gave her a long kiss, which made Ye Tan's cheeks blush. She could hardly hold the wool in her hand, so she left reluctantly.
Ye Tan pursed his lips which were numb from being sucked, leaned back on the sofa to relax, and after a while, he evened out his breathing and a smile appeared on his face.
The days now are not as long as in summer, and it is already dark before six o'clock. Ye Tan stopped weaving when the light in the house dimmed.
She sat down and drank tea for a while, then felt hungry and went to heat up some food. It was only seven o'clock in the evening when she finished eating, so it was still a little early to go to bed.
Thinking that Gu Zhao might drink alcohol during the farewell banquet, she went to make some sobering tea. She added ginger slices and honey to half a pot of water. It was very simple to make.
Ye Tan saw that Gu Zhao had been cooking for so long, so he thought he could do this. After all, the taste of the sobering liquid was not important, as long as it worked. And he heard that the harder it tasted, the better the effect.
After cooking, she put it in the pot, washed up, went upstairs, and started reading the high school textbooks on the bedside table.
After the spring, it will be the year of the college entrance examination, and it will be only half a year before the college entrance examination resumes. She starts reviewing the textbooks now, combining the knowledge she learned before with the current era. It is easy to understand, but it is a bit boring to read through it bit by bit.
Ye Tan flipped through the textbook for a while, rubbed her eyes and put it down. When she opened her eyes, she glanced at the newspaper that Gu Zhao usually read on the small table on the other side. Her eyes fixed on a corner of information exposed on it.
Ye Tan is not usually a person who likes to watch the news. In the past, she would just watch the financial channel at most. After coming here, she has no interest in social news, and national affairs do not require her to worry about them, so she is too lazy to even take a second look at the newspaper.
That's why I discovered that there were commercial advertisements in newspapers at that time.
Ye Tan reached out and took the newspaper, looking at the small advertisement in the corner. After reading it, he found that it was not really a small advertisement, but a slogan of a clothing factory inviting the general public to participate in clothing design submissions.
Three prizes are listed below: first prize is 180 yuan, second prize is 100 yuan, and third prize is 50 yuan.
Ye Tan didn't look at the fifty-yuan note, but instead focused on the one hundred and eighty-yuan and one hundred-yuan notes. It said that there was no restriction on the identity of the participants, and anyone from China could submit an entry.
Ye Tan held his chin and lightly tapped the address column below with his finger. There was no investment cost anyway, so why not give it a try?
Ye Tan took out her notebook and wrote down the address for submissions. The submission period was one month. Although the date had passed more than ten days ago, there was still plenty of time for Ye Tan. She was not in a hurry. She wrote down the address and put it aside, planning to deal with it after getting up tomorrow.
It was almost nine o'clock in the evening when Gu Zhao came back with a faint smell of alcohol. Ye Tan had fallen asleep leaning against the headboard of the bed, but was woken up by the noise he made. Before the man could get close, she reached out and pushed him away: "You stink of alcohol, stay away from me."
Gu Zhao sat on the edge of the bed and sniffed his collar: "Is the smell strong?"
Ye Tan wrinkled his nose, "How much did you drink?"
Gu Zhao looked at her expression and said carefully, "Not much."
Ye Tan gathered up the scattered hair, narrowed his eyes and asked, "How much is a little?"
Gu Zhao weighed it and said, "Five or six cups..."
Not too much, but not too little either. "You've only been injured for a few days, don't you know what to eat?"
Seeing his wife was about to get angry, Gu Zhao quickly explained, "The cup is so small, I didn't even take half a mouthful. In total, I probably only took two or three sips. I didn't feel anything. Besides, he was leaving soon, and we won't have the chance to see him again. It's hard for me to refuse his toast."
Ye Tan hugged the pillow with his backhand and glared at him: "You think you're right, don't you?"
Gu Zhao quickly stood up to prevent his wife from getting angry and attacking him, "I'm going to take a shower now."
Gu Zhao hurried downstairs to the bathroom to wash up. Ye Tan listened to the sound of water downstairs and was afraid that he would wash with cold water again without caring, so he got out of bed, put on his clothes and followed downstairs to check.
As soon as he arrived at the bathroom, Gu Zhao was running cold water. He had taken off his clothes and was holding a wet towel in his hand. It seemed that he was about to wipe his body, but he froze when he saw Ye Tan coming over.
Gu Zhao tried to remedy the situation: "Actually, the water is not very cold, it's a little warm."
Ye Tan stretched out his hand to test the water temperature. It was not as cold as outside, but it was still irritating enough to get splashed on his body.
Ye Tan snatched the towel from his hand, put it on the rack beside him, put clothes on him, and said calmly, "Go boil some water."
Gu Zhao didn't say anything, turned around and went to the kitchen. He lifted the lid of the pot and saw light yellow ginger water inside.
Gu Zhao was stunned: "What is this...?"
When Ye Tan saw it, he remembered the hangover tea he had forgotten: "The hangover tea I made for you should be completely cold."
Ye Tan went to the side with a pair of tongs to clean the stove and heat up some water for Gu Zhao. Gu Zhao reached out and pulled a small stool over, letting Ye Tan sit by the fire while he used the tongs to clean the stove.
Ye Tan used a small pot, which heated up quickly. When the tea was almost ready to eat, Gu Zhao scooped it out, changed to a larger pot to continue boiling water, and then sat next to Ye Tan to drink the sobering tea.
After taking the first sip, Gu Zhao froze slightly.
"Actually, I'm not drunk, so I don't need to drink the hangover tea."
Ye Tan glanced at the bowl in his hand and noticed that he didn't take a second sip after the first one. He asked in confusion, "Is it hard to drink? Let me try it."
Ye Tan reached out to take the bowl, but Gu Zhao quickly dodged: "I'd better drink it, otherwise I will have a headache and can't sleep well in the middle of the night." Then Gu Zhao continued to drink it one sip at a time without changing his expression.
Ye Tan was laughing secretly where he couldn't see, and she lowered her head with a pair of tongs to pick out the coal slag under the stove. The stove burned more vigorously after the coal slag was picked out, and the water in the pot soon bubbled up white smoke.
Gu Zhao took it directly to the bathroom and added cold water. Ye Tan saw that he had started washing and was about to leave. Gu Zhao said from behind: "I can't wipe it from behind, help me."
Ye Tan could only turn around and roll up her sleeves to rub his back. It was cold, and she was not afraid of men making trouble in the bathroom.
Gu Zhao was indeed very honest throughout the whole process. He just rubbed Ye Tan's back, unlike before when the weather was warm and he liked to touch her. Every time he coaxed her to rub Ye Tan's back, it would end with Ye Tan being bullied and exhausted.
Ye Tan wiped Gu Zhao carefully and went upstairs.
After a while, Gu Zhao came back after washing and got into the quilt. At first, he didn't dare to approach Ye Tan for fear of freezing her. He waited until he warmed himself up before reaching out to hug her.
Ye Tan was feeling sleepy, so he turned over and fell asleep with his back to him.
However, Gu Zhao saw the books on the bedside and asked curiously, "Why did you start reading textbooks recently? Do you want to be a teacher?" Ye Tan was a high school graduate and was fully qualified to be a teacher.
Ye Tan closed her eyes and answered, "I don't want to." She didn't have the ability to teach.
"I'm making preparations in advance."
Gu Zhao didn’t understand. If he wasn’t planning to be a teacher, then what did he need to prepare for?
Ye Tan turned over and lay flat on his back, looking at the ceiling. "I have a feeling the current situation won't continue forever. Social development requires knowledge to advance. Look, the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers University was restored before. I have a feeling our country will change soon. Do you think we'll reinstate the college entrance examination?"
Gu Zhao didn't say anything. How could a small regiment commander like him know about such national affairs? However, Gu Zhao also understood the importance of knowledge. It is not impossible to resume the college entrance examination in the future, but it is hard to say when it will be resumed.
It could be ten or twenty years.
But when he saw the expectation in Ye Tan's eyes, he couldn't bear to say these words to hurt her. Anyway, it always does not hurt to read more textbooks and other things.
Gu Zhao reached out to turn off the light, then lay down, hugged Ye Tan, kissed her forehead, and said gently: "Then you should study hard. I'm waiting for our family to have a college student to make me proud."
Ye Tan was very confident and hugged his neck with a smile, "Just wait, you will be the husband of a college student soon."
Gu Zhao smiled and lowered his head, kissing the corner of her proud lips, then turned over and pressed her under him, and lowered his deep and sexy voice into her ear: "Now let me taste what the future college student tastes like, is it sweeter and softer?"
Ye Tan was completely awakened by his agitation and soon began to tremble under his touch.
Gu Zhao laughed in a low voice, pinching the slender hips with his big hands, pressing so hard that his fingers sank deep into the body, and soon suppressed sobs were heard from under the quilt.
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