Early the next morning, Xia Lian brought over the list of ingredients she had prepared, and also brought some homemade sesame sauce for everyone to try.
Gu Qinghuan happily accepted her sauce and told her to go back and wait. He would ask Lanting to deliver the food to her at the latest in the afternoon.
After Xia Lian left, Gu Qinghuan went to the door and quickly brought back the food and materials needed on the order. Of course, he placed the order at the vending machine.
It was a bit heavy, more than 200 kilograms, so she simply called two rickshaws and asked Lan Ting to accompany her to take it there.
As soon as Lanting left, Xiao Zhuo stepped on the accelerator and stopped at the door of the small western-style building.
"Brother Xiao, are you going to work? Have you eaten? My family made fried dough sticks this morning." Gu Qinghuan was already very familiar with him, so he spoke in a more warm tone.
"Well, I won't eat anymore. I came to tell you that there is news about the piano you asked me to find out about last time.
Coincidentally, the director of the Revolutionary Committee who had just been removed was investigated for taking bribes, and his family property was confiscated and is now being sold.
There is a Yamaha piano imported from Japan in it. He just bought it for his daughter at the beginning of this year. It is still brand new.
Since pianos are not very popular, no one is buying them at the moment, so the price is quite low, around NT$1,000. It is said that he bought it for NT$7,000 or NT$8,000.
If you are sure you want it, I will ask someone to help negotiate and see if I can give you a lower price.”
Gu Qinghuan was surprised. She had mentioned before that she wanted to buy a cheap piano to keep at home to entertain Zhong Luoqing. She asked him if he had any connections, but she didn't expect him to be so interested.
"That's great! It's what I want. If the price can be cheaper, that would be even better. Thank you, Brother Xiao."
"Okay, I'll go ask first and give you an answer when I come back this afternoon." Xiao Zhuo raised his head and glanced at the window of the upper floor of the small western-style building, but could not see anything. Then he stepped on the accelerator and drove away again.
Zhong Luoqing is a piano teacher. She has been learning piano since elementary school. When she got married, her family gave her a Yamaha piano as a dowry, but it was later sold by the Xu family, who said she had a capitalist style.
She hasn't touched the piano for a long time.
-
Xiao Zhuo left the office and made a phone call.
"Lei, is that piano definitely still there?"
"Brother Zhuo, you know, we also have a system. If you are caught selling things, it will implicate everyone. I'm sorry!"
Xiao Zhuo hesitated for a few seconds and said, "How about this, I'll take the buyer to pick up the goods this afternoon, but I'll keep half of the money and give it to you privately.
When she comes over this afternoon, don't tell her the real price. Just say that no one wants the piano and I'm selling it for a thousand. Don't let it slip."
A teasing voice came from the other side immediately: "Brother, you are such a hero, can't resist the temptation of beauty? What kind of beauty is worthy of your attention? I'll give you a thousand dollars if you say so!
But you have money, it's okay, haha."
Xiao Zhuo hung up the phone angrily.
-
As for Gu Qinghuan, just after Xiao Zhuo left, a military vehicle stopped at the door of the small western-style building.
She thought Xu Huaian had returned, and went over happily. She hadn't seen him for several days and missed him very much.
Unexpectedly, the person coming down from above was not Xu Huai'an, but a middle-aged couple.
Gu Qinghuan was confused.
Suddenly, the charming woman looked at her, her eyes lit up, and she came over and held her hand: "Oh, you are happy, right? This girl has changed a lot since she grew up. She is getting more and more beautiful."
“Um, may I ask how…?” Gu Qinghuan didn’t remember any relatives in his family who had military connections, except for his eldest uncle, who was still in the northwest.
"I'm Ruxue's mother! I'm really sorry to bother you. We just talked to Ruxue a few days ago and she said that you've been taking care of her all this time. I'm so sorry." The woman was clearly referring to Nan Sheng, Ruxue's biological mother.
The man took the gifts from the little warrior who was driving the car and said, "Please wait for us in the car."
The little soldier bowed and sat in the driver's seat unconsciously.
Looking at this posture, are you going to leave again soon? Gu Qinghuan quickly invited them into the house to talk.
Ming Ruxue was feeding rabbits with Xiaozhi in the yard.
"Ruxue, look who's here!"
Ming Ruxue looked back and found her irresponsible parents. She immediately turned her head away with tears in her eyes.
Although she was resilient and could survive alone, she had not seen her parents since she got off the plane during the days she was in China.
A little girl hasn't been back to her country for many years. She is unfamiliar with life here and will feel strange, scared and confused inside.
At this moment, all the emotions that she usually suppressed burst out, and she couldn't help feeling aggrieved.
"Baby, come here, let mommy hug you." Nan Sheng rushed over and gave her daughter a bear hug without saying a word.
Although Ming Ruxue felt aggrieved, she still hugged her mother awkwardly, and then burst into tears the next second.
The kind that is surging and overwhelming.
This made Nan Sheng cry too.
Many things are dilemmatic. Not that they don't love their children, but that the responsibility on their shoulders is too heavy.
If they don't take up this responsibility, there will be tens of millions of children like Ming Ruxue who will have no place to live and no food to eat.
From the perspective of the country, they are righteous and noble, scientists with great contributions, the main persons in charge of the research and development of national secret projects, have made great contributions to China, and are the most admired scientists.
But they are the worst and most incompetent parents, and they have not fulfilled their parental responsibilities to their children.
When Ruxue was a child, she often ate at other people's houses. After she came to the United States, she took care of herself and often didn't see her parents for ten days or half a month. Now she is even more like this after returning to China.
If Gu Qinghuan hadn't taken her in, she would still be living in the Overseas Chinese Hotel.
In Ming Ruxue's memory, she has been drifting like a wandering duckweed.
Mingcheng stepped forward helplessly to comfort the mother and daughter.
Gu Qinghuan took the little one away and left the space for the family to reunite.
"Ruxue, you've gained weight!" Ming Cheng was speechless. If he were in later generations, he would definitely be called a terminally ill straight male.
Ming Ruxue was originally feeling sad, but her father's words made her so angry that she forgot to cry.
"Dad, Sister Huanhuan said that I'm still a child and growing up! Only chubby ones are cute."
"Okay, just pretend I didn't say anything!" Ming Cheng spread his hands helplessly.
He actually didn't think there was anything wrong with being fat, but he was surprised that his daughter, who was very picky about food and had been skinny for so many years, suddenly gained weight.
"Our Ruxue will look good even if she gains some weight." Nan Sheng pinched her chubby little face.
"In fact, the food that Sister Huanhuan cooked was so delicious that I couldn't help but eat more. Now Lanting and I go to the same school, and I eat at Sister Huanhuan's house every day.
Sister Huanhuan let me live in her room as I pleased, refused to charge me, and bought me new clothes and shoes for the New Year, she was very good to me.” Ming Ruxue wanted her parents to know how much Gu Qinghuan cared for her.
"We got it. We came here today specifically to thank her."
In fact, Mingcheng and Nansheng had already known about it through intelligence, and they took time out to come here today just to thank Gu Qinghuan and to meet Ming Ruxue before the New Year.
Although they are careless, they are still very concerned about their daughter's safety, and someone will tell them about her recent situation for a period of time.
Especially since he just moved into someone else's house, they were worried at first, but when they knew he was the little girl from Gu's family, they felt relieved.
When they were still in China, the two families were neighbors. When they were busy, the children would basically visit their house and eat and drink for free. Many of the beautiful clothes and skirts that Ming Ruxue wore when she was a child were given to Qinghuan by her.
Zhong Jun was a gentle woman who loved Ruxue very much and treated her as her own daughter. She braided her hair, taught her to go to the toilet by herself, and sent her to kindergarten.
It can be said that Ming Ruxue did not become unhappy in her childhood due to the absence of her parents, and Zhong Jun made a great contribution.
Ming Ruxue is an adult now, and may not remember many things from that time, but as adults they cannot forget, and this love must be repaid.
As soon as they returned to China, they plunged into intensive research without stopping, and even had no time to settle their daughter.
I just learned about what happened to the Zhong family.
While Nan Sheng was scolding Gu Yunchuan, she was secretly trying to find out the news.
Get the answer, wait!
In fact, the Zhong family did nothing wrong. The mistake was that the Zhong family was a scholarly family with high-level knowledge.
That year, the call was to "thoroughly expose the bourgeois reactionary stance of the so-called academic authorities who are against the Party and socialism, and thoroughly criticize the bourgeois reactionary ideas in the academic, educational, journalistic, literary and artistic, and publishing circles."
"To defeat the so-called bourgeois experts, scholars, authorities, and ancestors and to wipe out their prestige."
Intellectuals have become the first targets of the struggle. They have done nothing wrong, but they are being blamed for some remarks.
During this period, the persecution of knowledge reached an alarming level.
That year, among the more than 170 senior intellectuals and deputy senior intellectuals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, 111 were listed as targets for overthrow or investigation. Originally, the Zhong family was not among them, but Gu Yunchuan reported the Zhong family for no reason for his own selfish interests and dragged them into the water.
The situation was extremely tragic. More than a thousand households had their homes ransacked and more than two hundred people were persecuted to death.
The humiliation of knowledge has also reached its peak. Knowledge has almost become a crime, and knowledge is almost a criminal. They have been relegated to the bottom of society.
If the Ming family had not moved away, their fate would probably have been the same as the Zhong family.
After so many years of changes, many people have truly realized the importance of knowledge to national development, and some even invited them to come back from the United States to help. It seems that the day when the fog will be lifted is not far away.