◎First update◎
Thinking of how Xu Shengjie didn't allow Xiaowei and Xiaoya to get close to the river because of his parents' death, she finally didn't ask, as it was tantamount to rubbing salt into someone's wound.
The silvery moonlight shines on the ground, illuminating the people on the ground as they head home. Two long shadows walk side by side, occasionally intersecting. Today is the autumnal equinox, and the weather has suddenly become much colder. The sun is still bright during the day, but a whistling wind blows at night.
Xu Shengjie held Liang Baozhen's arm and felt her body temperature. "Are you cold?"
"It's not cold. It was too hot a while ago, but now it's just right."
Walking all the way back to Yueya Hutong, the two pushed their bicycles to the gate of the large courtyard and saw a man walking to the gate. He was carrying a large package on his shoulder, a military green satchel hanging on his chest, and a woven bag fell at his feet. He was bending down to pick it up.
However, without paying attention to the consequences, the package on his shoulder was shaking and about to fall.
"Comrade, be careful." Xu Shengjie helped him pick up the package on the ground, "Where are you going? I'll carry it for you."
I don't know what's in the package, but it makes a ding-dong sound.
"Are you from this hospital?" The man looked at the strange man and woman in front of him and searched his memory carefully, but had no impression.
"Yes, we live in this courtyard, the Xu family. Are you here to visit relatives?"
"Grandma Zhou's house, right?" Hearing the name Xu's, the man immediately understood, "Xu Shengjie? He's in the army, right?"
Xu Shengjie had been away from the compound for many years, and could only come back occasionally for a family visit. He was not very familiar with the people in the compound, but he had basically remembered them. Who was this person? The man's facial features were a little blurry in the dark, but he seemed to have tasted some of them.
"I'm from the Zhang family, my mother is Zhang Rong."
"Are you Aunt Zhang's son who was an educated youth?" Liang Baozhen was the first to react. A while ago, Aunt Zhang said that she had found a job for her son in the city and wanted him to come back to the city. So now he's here?
"yes!"
......
"Auntie Zhang, Auntie Zhang, are you asleep?" Liang Baozhen knew that Auntie Zhang had been looking forward to this day. She was a little excited at this moment and hurried to the west room and knocked on the door.
Zhang Rong and Zhou Jun went to bed early. When they were half asleep, they heard a series of knocks on the door. The voices outside sounded familiar.
"It looks like Baozhen, the daughter-in-law of the Xu family."
"What's the matter at this time?" Zhou Jun and Liang Baozhen had only met once or twice, and no one knew why he was suddenly knocking on the door in such a hurry.
Zhang Rong put on her clothes and walked to the door, unbolting it. "Baozhen, what's going on?"
"Auntie Zhang, your son is back!" Liang Baozhen pointed at the man behind her and spoke excitedly.
Zhang Rong listened to Liang Baozhen's words and didn't react at first. Who came back? After a few seconds, she remembered that the person was talking about her son coming back.
There was a man standing in the dark yard. Zhang Rong took a closer look and found that it was Zhou Qingdang, the son she had been thinking about for many years!
"Qing Party?" Zhang Rong stretched out her right hand and pointed tremblingly toward the front. "Is it really the Qing Party?"
"Mom!" Zhou Qingdang put down the package, walked quickly to Zhou Rong, and called out loudly, "Mom, I'm back!"
"Qingdang, oh, he's really back!" Zhang Rong's eyes were filled with tears, and her eye sockets instantly turned red. She held her son's hand tightly and couldn't speak for a long time. She turned her head and shouted into the house, "Zhou Jun, Zhou Jun, come out quickly, Qingdang is back!"
After five years in the countryside, Zhou Qingdang finally returned to the city. Everyone who had been sleeping in the large courtyard wrapped themselves in their coats and came out, crowding into Zhou's house.
"It's really not easy, I'm glad the child can come back!"
"Qingdang, your father and mother have been waiting for you for many years, and they think of you every day." Zhou Guoping stood at the door, shouting that he wanted to help Aunt Zhang's family. "Now that Qingdang is back, it's a big happy event. If there's anything I can help you with, remember to ask."
"It's not easy for Qingdang's children. They suffered a lot when they went to the countryside."
Grandpa Wei and Grandma Li watched at the door for a while, then turned around and went home. Zhou Rong couldn't stop crying. Looking at Zhou Qingdang, he was also a young man with high spirits back then, but he has changed a lot after five years in the countryside.
"I almost didn't recognize it. The Qing Party is in trouble."
"Going to the countryside to do construction work means working in the wind and sun. He looks like he's several years older. I remember he and Fang Hongming were born in the same year, right? Now it seems like they are seven or eight years apart."
Zhou Rong looked at her son carefully. He had become much darker due to the sun, and his hands were rough and worn. His eyes were full of sadness. He said that he had been on the train for five days and there was nothing he could do about his untidy beard. He was just looking forward to his coming home.
"Didn't you say that if the procedures couldn't be completed quickly, you couldn't leave? Why did you come back so suddenly?"
Zhou Jun has two children, a son and a daughter. At that time, one of the children was to be sent to the countryside. The eldest son, Qingdang, took the initiative to go himself and let his sister stay in the city. He did not come back even when Zhou Qinghua got married last year because he could not leave.
"I used a lot of connections and finally gave three packs of cigarettes to the cadres of our commune. I said a lot of nice things and finally got everything done. I got a letter of introduction to go back to the city and immediately bought a train ticket." Zhou Qingdang never dreamed that he would actually return to the city and his deceased family. "The cigarettes that Qinghua sent me during the Chinese New Year came in handy."
"Glad you're back, glad you're back!" Zhou Rong wiped her face with her hands. Knowing that her son rushed home as soon as he got off the train and didn't have time to eat, she immediately got up to cook him a bowl of noodles.
"Auntie Zhang, is there anything you need at home? I still have noodles at home."
"Wait a minute, we have some wowotou over there, I'll bring a few over."
Each family gave some food, and there was a lot of food on the dining table in Zhang Rong's house. Seeing that it was not easy for Zhou Qingdang to go to the countryside, everyone let him have a good rest and then went home.
Yao Guangrong's family who lived in the east wing were even more worried. They had a daughter who was living in the countryside and had not found a job for her to come back.
After the crowd dispersed, Zhou Qingdang ate a large bowl of scallion noodles and gnawed a few steamed buns. He stopped only when his stomach was so full that he could no longer bear it.
"Don't eat too much at night, or you'll have indigestion." Zhou Rong felt sorry for her son's hardship in the countryside, and had already planned to get up early tomorrow morning to queue up to buy meat. He must make up for it.
"It's too late now. I'll go inform your sister tomorrow morning." Zhou Jun felt much more at ease thinking about his child coming back. Finally, the family was reunited.
Zhou Qingdang's sister Zhou Qinghua worked in a towel factory. This time, she also asked around and found out that someone in the towel factory wanted to sell a job. The salary was 900 yuan per person, which was not a small amount. Even so, there were still many people competing for it. Zhou Qinghua still got the opportunity by using her connections. The family scraped together money from everywhere and even borrowed 200 yuan to get the job.
Otherwise, Zhou Qingdang cannot return to the city now.
"I'll make the bed for you. Take a shower and have a good sleep. Mom won't call you tomorrow. Just sleep until you wake up. I'll make you your favorite pork belly."
"Okay, Dad, Mom, you two should take a rest." Zhou Qingdang finally felt relieved when he saw his parents busying around for him.
......
Liu Nianhua's family also went out to join in the fun. Xiaolong and Xiaohu loved to look around, and after returning home they talked about Zhou Qingdang's return. This was the first educated youth in the courtyard to return to the city, so it was inevitable that people would talk about him.
"This Zhang's family is really happy, such a large sum of money, wow." Zhou Guoping just heard a few times that Zhang Rong's family used their connections to save 900 yuan to buy a job for Zhou Qingdang. They were really willing to spend money. "But I think Zhou Qingdang has been in the countryside for several years. I'm afraid he has become useless. He doesn't look like a human being."
Liu Nianhua listened to the man's mumbling and suddenly felt that she could not see through this man. In her memory, Zhou Guoping had always been kind and considerate. He had just said nice things in front of Aunt Zhang. But now, with a sneer on his face and the way he was disparaging the son of the Zhou family, he just made people feel unfamiliar.
"It's not easy for people to return to the city. Life will only get better and better in the future."
She couldn't help but say something, and looking at Zhou Guoping's slightly surprised eyes, she went straight back to the house.
"Hey?" Zhou Guoping looked at his wife and thought she might have taken the wrong medicine today.
On the second day, every household in the compound could smell the aroma of Zhou's meat. It was almost the end of the month and everyone hadn't eaten meat for a long time, so they were really craving for it.
Xu Shengwei ate sweet potatoes and smelled the aroma of braised pork, looking intoxicated, "This smell makes the sweet potatoes taste even better."
"Auntie Zhang stewed a pot of pig's trotters today. They were fat and big." Xu Shengya swallowed her saliva and glanced outside.
The Xu family has already used one kilogram of the two and a half kilograms of meat coupons allocated for this month. The remaining one and a half kilograms will be saved for the New Year, and they will have to eat only for the remaining few days.
"Xiao Jie, can we buy some pig offal from Hong Saner this month?" Zhou Yun felt distressed when he saw his grandchildren had no taste in their mouths.
"The meat processing plant is also in a state of tension this month. They say there aren't many benefits." Xu Shengjie didn't need to ask, Hong Saner had reported it himself.
"I'll buy some meat when I get my pay in a few days." When Liang Baozhen was about to receive her first pay, she counted the days on her fingers. As the pay was about to arrive, she prepared to treat her family to a good meal.
"Great! Sister-in-law, let's eat braised pork at home too!"
“The roast pork and potatoes are the best!”
"Okay, I'll have enough potatoes then."
Liang Baozhen flipped through the calendar on the wall every day, tearing it off as the day went by. Finally, it was the beginning of October, when payroll was due.
Since she has not yet been converted to a formal employee, her salary this month is the most basic level, 21.5 yuan. Once she is converted to a first-level employee, it will be 32.5 yuan.
I felt like I was dreaming when I first joined the National Cotton Mill, but now that I’ve actually received my salary, it feels like I’ve returned to reality. Money is such a good thing! It’s something that you can actually hold in your hands and use to buy things!
She and Xu Shengjie had already agreed on the future salary arrangements for the two of them.
"Your monthly salary is 43 yuan, and mine is 21.5 yuan, which adds up to 64.5 yuan. We should keep 15 yuan for our family's living expenses and give it to grandma. If we need to buy extra things, such as furniture, clothes, or cloth, we can take out extra money. As long as it's not a big deal, we should save 30 yuan every month. What do you think?"
Xu Shengjie had nothing to say against it. He had never cared about how much he got paid or given allowances before. He always sent 30 yuan home, and then spent the rest himself and put it into his savings account at the end of the year. Only then did he know how much money he could save. Now that Liang Baozhen had planned everything well, he naturally had no objection.
"I'll do whatever you say."
"We both have salaries, so we can keep five dollars for living expenses. Xiaowei and Xiaoya are also older, and sometimes they need money to buy food at school, so we can give them five cents a week as pocket money. As for grandma, we give her five dollars a month. I found that grandma also likes to save money and especially loves to count money."
"You know all this?"
"That's right." Liang Baozhen put down the pen in her hand, remembering that when they were counting the food bills at home not long ago, Zhou Yun counted a handful of loose bills back and forth several times, and he looked so happy.
"Okay, grandma will definitely be happy with it."
"If we save 30 yuan a month, we can have 360 yuan a year. In a few months, I will be a regular employee and should be able to save 40 yuan. At least we will have more than 400 yuan a year. In two years, we can use the money to start a business or buy a house..."
Liang Baozhen is thinking about her better life in the future. Once the policies are relaxed, life will only get better and better.
"Do business? Buy a house?" Xu Shengjie smiled. He thought his wife was quite thoughtful. Speculation was being severely punished nowadays. This woman was very courageous and wanted to do business. "Aren't you afraid of being arrested?"
"Oh, I just said it casually. Maybe, who can say for sure." Liang Baozhen almost let the cat out of the bag and immediately added.
"I'll put the money away first, and when I save up a hundred yuan I'll put it in the passbook." Liang Baozhen wrapped the fixed amount of thirty yuan in a handkerchief, hid the handkerchief in the pillowcase, patted the pillow and put it back in its place, feeling very satisfied.
The author has something to say:
Liang Baojun: Stop talking, this is the fixed place where we Liang family hide our money. Baoling does it, Baozhen does it, and I do it too!
Thanks to the cuties who irrigated the nutrient solution: Qiyuanyi 12 bottles; Zhaizai 1 bottle;
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