Chapter 34, Li Dongmei
It wasn't a secret that Lin Qingqing had gone to the Xie family for dinner; by evening, the entire educated youth team knew. Li Juan had almost forgotten about it, but when she heard about it after returning home, she asked as soon as she entered the house, "How was your trip to the Xie family today?"
Lin Qingqing was leaning against the bed reading a book when she heard her words. She put down her book and asked, "What? How?"
"Pretend to be stupid. What's the Xie family's attitude? Have you mentioned the wedding yet?" Li Juan put down her things, sat on the edge of the bed, and said while taking off her shoes.
Wang Fengxia, who was knitting, looked over when she heard her series of questions.
Although Lin Qingqing hadn't intended to keep them in suspense, she felt a little embarrassed by their stares: "Why are you staring at me when you can just talk?"
"Fine, we won't look at you." Li Juan turned her head to look at Wang Fengxia and asked, "Can you talk now?"
“When I went there today, it seemed that the battalion commander was busy and not at home. His mother and sister-in-law were both very nice,” Lin Qingqing said, pausing for a moment. “As for the marriage, we have discussed it. He is a soldier, so he needs to apply for marriage, and his family will also undergo political vetting. It will probably be delayed until the second half of next year.”
"Are you really talking about marriage?" Li Juan asked with a look of surprise.
Lin Qingqing rolled her eyes: "So you asked so many questions without ever considering that we would talk about this?"
“I didn’t think that way,” Li Juan chuckled, sitting down on Lin Qingqing’s bedside. “I’m just worried you’ll be deceived. You can tell if a man is sincere to a woman by whether he’s willing to get married. I’m thinking that if Commander Xie isn’t honest, I’ll advise you to break up with him as soon as possible, so you don’t get in too deep.”
"So, in your eyes he used to be a heartless jerk who played with people's feelings?" Lin Qingqing asked in surprise.
“No, in my heart Commander Xie has always been a hero.” Li Juan said, pushing Lin Qingqing. “Do you think I want to think of him like this? Isn’t it all for your sake? And now you’re trying to shut me up with your words? You have no conscience!” The more she spoke, the angrier she became, and she reached out to tickle Lin Qingqing.
Lin Qingqing was very ticklish, and she kept begging for mercy as she was being tickled: "I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong."
"Hmph! Let's see if you dare to mess with me again." Li Juan said smugly.
Wang Fengxia preferred quiet, so she sat to the side watching them bicker. After they separated, she asked, "Are you getting married right away, or are you getting engaged first?"
"Get engaged first."
Li Juan perked up immediately: "When are you getting engaged?"
"He said before the New Year, but the specific date will have to wait for his mother to choose an auspicious day before we can discuss it." The elderly always choose an auspicious day for their weddings. Lin Qingqing didn't understand these things, but she also felt that it was better for the Xie family to choose an auspicious day first.
Wang Fengxia agreed, saying, "It's important to choose an auspicious day for an engagement." She then asked if the Xie family had given Lin Qingqing a red envelope (gift money) when they visited her home.
Li Juan was still young and didn't quite understand these customs, so she asked, "What's this 'red envelope for visiting someone's home'?"
"It's a red envelope that elders always give when their partner visits for the first time," Wang Fengxia explained.
Li Juan suddenly realized what was going on and asked Lin Qingqing, "Did the Xie family give it to you? How much did they pay?"
"I gave it to you, it cost 18.8 yuan."
Li Juan wasn't sure if this was a lot or a little, so she looked at Wang Fengxia.
Although Wang Fengxia and her boyfriend haven't set a wedding date yet, they have already met each other's parents. At that time, the Chen family gave her a red envelope containing 8.8 yuan.
The Chen family were city dwellers, so eight yuan and eighty cents was actually a small amount; they usually gave twelve yuan and eighty cents, or even eighteen yuan and eighty cents. But Wang Fengxia wasn't the type to be picky or competitive. She was focused on living with Chen, the educated youth, and didn't care about this door-to-door red envelope, so she didn't say anything more.
Although she didn't care, she was still stunned when she heard that the Xie family had given Lin Qingqing 18.8 yuan. She only came to her senses when Li Juan urged her, and said with a smile, "That's too much."
Li Juan was very happy for Lin Qingqing upon hearing this. Although she didn't understand the significance of a red envelope given on a first visit, she knew that the attitude during the initial visit could reveal a lot. The Xie family giving an 18.8 yuan red envelope meant that, even if they didn't consider Lin Qingqing a friend, they certainly didn't look down on her, and their attitude was far from perfunctory.
Lin Qingqing was not too upset. She had seen the Xie family's attitude towards her clearly during the day, and she didn't need to prove anything with the amount of money in the red envelope. She picked up her book again and continued reading.
After reading only a couple of lines, Lin Qingqing remembered the fruit she had brought back. She threw back the covers, got out of bed, walked to the desk, opened a drawer, and asked Li Juan, "Do you prefer apples or pears?"
"Apples." Li Juan said without hesitation, then realized, "You bought apples?"
Lin Qingqing took out the apples, walked to the bedside and handed them to her, shaking her head and saying, "Xie Wei bought them. His mother insisted on packing a few for me when he came back."
"I was just pretending for you, look how pleased you are." Li Juan nudged her arm with her own while holding the apple.
Lin Qingqing almost lost her composure because of what she said, and said with a straight face, "I gave you food and you still have so many questions. If you don't want it, give it back to me."
"That won't do, you've already given it to me." Li Juan stuffed the apple into her bosom, then asked Wang Fengxia if she had any apples. After receiving an affirmative reply, she said, "Then I'll eat this apple myself."
"It was originally meant for you to eat," Lin Qingqing said with a smile.
"Yes, you're the best," Li Juan said flatteringly, walking to the desk to put down the apples and taking out a bottle of Friendship brand Snow Beer from the bag she had brought back.
She handed the cream to Wang Fengxia, saying, "Here, Sister Wang, this is some face cream I brought for you."
Then he took out a pair of cloth shoe soles and gave them to Lin Qingqing: "These are the soles I brought for you, size 37, try them on."
Lin Qingqing took the sole and held it up to her foot; the sole was quite large. However, if she wanted to make cotton shoes, the upper would take up some space, so she needed to choose a sole two sizes larger than her foot. She put the sole down and thanked Li Juan.
Li Juan waved her hand and said, "You're welcome." Then she asked her if she knew how to make shoes.
Lin Qingqing shook her head and said, "No, I'll find some time to ask Guozhu's wife in the next couple of days."
Li Juan nodded: "Ask her, that's fine too."
...
Lin Qingqing originally planned to ask Chen Xiufang if she could make shoes, but in the end, Chen Xiufang came to her first with the finished clothes. This was mainly because there were too many visitors to the Women's Federation office after New Year's Day, and she was so busy that she really didn't have time to deal with the clothes and shoes.
After seeing the visitors off, Director Yang returned to his office with slumped shoulders and sighed to Lin Qingqing, "I used to worry about no one coming, but now I'm afraid of anyone who comes."
While organizing the information of the visitors over the past few days, Lin Qingqing said, "Actually, I think this is a good thing. In the past, everyone had their troubles but didn't say anything. Your work may seem easy, but in reality, the internal conflicts within the families of the brigade have not decreased but have continued to deepen. The situation of the women comrades has also become worse under this superficial calm."
“Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to change this situation, but just now…” Director Yang’s eyes lit up as he walked up to Lin Qingqing and asked, “Comrade Lin, what do you think about Li Dongmei’s matter?”
"You're asking for my opinion?" Lin Qingqing put down her pen and pointed to herself as she asked.
“That’s right,” Director Yang nodded, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Lin Qingqing. “With the success of the last meeting, I believe you are capable. You have also read so many relevant legal books. I think you might have some good ideas. Of course, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. It doesn’t matter whether the method works or not.”
Lin Qingqing placed her hands together on the desk, recalling Li Dongmei's situation.
Li Dongmei's situation is quite simple: her parents favored sons over daughters, wanting to use their daughter's dowry to pay for their son's marriage. However, Li Dongmei's parents were even more despicable, completely disregarding their daughter's well-being and trying to marry her off to a paralyzed man for money.
Driven to desperation by her parents, Li Dongmei overheard Director Yang talking about freedom of marriage and came to her for help. However, Li Dongmei's parents felt that they had raised her for twenty years...
Can't we even make decisions about her marriage? They threatened that if Li Dongmei refused to marry, she shouldn't come home again.
Li Dongmei went to see Director Yang on New Year's Day, and she is still living in Director Yang's house.
After reviewing the whole story of Li Dongmei's incident, Lin Qingqing asked, "Is Li Dongmei sure she doesn't want to marry into the Yang family? Even if her parents don't acknowledge her?"
“This child is very opinionated. I asked her several times, and she always said she wouldn’t marry him,” Director Yang sighed. “You don’t know the situation of the Li family. That couple is very ruthless. They only care about their son and not their daughter. Dongmei also has an older sister. She married a mentally challenged man to fill the hole left by her older brother’s marriage. They haven’t had any children in several years, and her in-laws have changed their attitude towards her. She has been mistreated to the point of being unrecognizable.”
Lin Qingqing spread her hands and said, "Since her parents don't care about their daughter, I think it's good that she leaves home. That way, she won't be forced to marry, and her parents can give up the idea of selling their daughter."
"It's easy to say, but where can Dongmei, a young woman, go if she leaves home?" Director Yang thought Lin Qingqing's words were too foolish. "Besides, if she really leaves home, what will she do when she gets married? Who will take care of her? What if her husband's family mistreats her after she gets married?"
Despite being the director of the Women's Federation, Director Yang still believed, due to the limitations of the times and environment, that women needed to get married and have children to have someone to rely on. And having a husband and children alone wasn't enough; a reliable family was also essential.
But Lin Qingqing didn't think so, and asked in return, "When Li Dongmei's sister was being mistreated by her in-laws, what did the Li family do?"
Director Yang was taken aback upon hearing this, then shook his head: "No."
"Was the marriage arranged by the Li family for Li Dongmei a good one or a bad one?"
Director Yang had previously said that Sister Li Dongmei was being mistreated by her in-laws, so her marriage was naturally not good. He muttered, "Bad."
"Since she's staying at home and being forced into a bad marriage, and her family won't help her when she's being tormented, will it really be worse for her to leave home?" Lin Qingqing asked again.
Won't.
Director Yang already had an answer in mind, but she insisted on asking, "But if she leaves home, where will she live, and what will she eat?"
That hit the nail on the head. Lin Qingqing asked, "Is she a member of Xingfeng Brigade?"
"Of course."
"Since she's a commune member, shouldn't the work points she earns, along with the grain and cash coupons, be enough to support herself? As for housing, when I first settled in Xingfeng Brigade, the brigade provided me with two places: one was a room arranged by the brigade, and the other was a place to live at the educated youth settlement." Lin Qingqing pointed to herself as she said this.
"Actually, I think Li Dongmei's situation is quite similar to my situation before I settled in Xingfeng Brigade."
What she meant was, if she could be arranged in this way when she settled in Xingfeng Brigade, why couldn't Li Dongmei, as a member of Xingfeng Brigade, be arranged in the same way?
“This…we can’t possibly assign Li Dongmei to the educated youth settlement, can we?” Director Yang shook his head after saying that. “No, if we arrange it that way, the educated youth team will definitely have objections.”
"If we can't assign her to a youth settlement, surely we can provide her with an empty room?"
"Isn't it unsafe for her to live alone?"
“If you are worried about safety, I can live with her, which will save you from troubling the educated youth team again.” In fact, Lin Qingqing felt that if the brigade set up a resettlement site, there would definitely be more than just Li Dongmei who would move in. After all, the first thing to do is to start something new. If there is Li Dongmei, there will always be Wang Dongmei and Chen Dongmei.
She felt it was good to arrange these things now, so as to avoid chaos when there were too many people.
But Director Yang was still a little hesitant. Although she always wanted to change the mindset of the brigade members, she herself hadn't changed her own thinking yet. So while others took action, she became the one who hesitated.
Lin Qingqing decided to add fuel to the fire: "In the Li family's situation, the choice is not actually in Li Dongmei's hands. If we don't provide her with a way out, she will eventually become a victim of her parents' favoritism and become a second Li Chunmei. But if we give her a way out, she might be able to get out of it. As for her parents, they feel that she can't live without them now, so they are fearless. But when they find out that Li Dongmei is doing well after leaving, they might compromise."
"Moreover, Li Dongmei was the first person to come to us for help. If she ultimately gives in to her parents, do you think anyone else will trust our Women's Federation in the future?"
Hearing this, Director Yang finally made up his mind, stood up and said, "I'll go find the brigade leader."
Author's Note: Second update
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