Li Caixia's ability to get along well with others is not just for Jiang Yun.
At the Military Service Center, Jiang Jun habitually selected the merchandise by himself, took out the calculated clothing size drawings, and pondered the patterns of the fabrics on the counter.
There were pieces of cloth on the counter that could be used to make smocks: a piece of olive-gray khaki, a piece of dark-blue khaki, and a piece of yellow and black checked cloth.
For a sixteen-year-old girl, a yellow and black checked twill smock was barely acceptable.
Jiang Jun wanted to ask Li Caixia's opinion, but when he turned around, he found that Li Caixia was chatting enthusiastically with two other salespeople at the Japanese sundries counter. One of them was Xiao Wang, and he had a rare smile on his face.
Long Xiaomin had been waiting to greet Jiang Jun for quite some time: "Teacher Jiang, are you going to buy some cloth to make clothes again?"
Jiang Jun nodded: "Yeah."
But I felt a little alert in my heart, because the other person had something else to say, and he used the word "again".
Li Caixia quickly ran over: "Teacher Xiao Jiang, are you okay?"
Jiang Jun pulled up the cloth and gestured to Li Caixia: "There are only a few colors. Which one do you think is good?"
Li Caixia likes the plaid one: "This one looks good!"
Jiang Jun looked at the numbers on the blueprint and said, "Sister Long, could you please cut me five and a half feet?"
Long Xiaomin said embarrassedly, "This piece of cloth is only this much, and we can't cut it anymore. After I cut it for you, there will be only one foot left, which will be hard to sell. Why don't you buy it all? Usually we give three or four inches more at the end of the cloth."
Jiang Jun looked at the cloth coupons in her hand. Her problem now was not that she couldn't afford the cloth, but that the number of cloth coupons was limited. She also wanted to buy some white Dacron embroidered handkerchiefs.
Li Caixia happily draped the plaid cloth over her shoulders, raised one arm, and looked down at it: "It's really beautiful. It looks great as a cotton-padded jacket. During the New Year, I will wear this to visit people!"
Long Xiaomin agreed, "The extra foot of cloth can be used to make two pockets. This year's popular smocks have flaps on the pockets. If you sew a button on them, they'll look really smart."
Li Caixia smiled and nodded repeatedly: "Yes, that kind of pocket looks good. I saw others wearing it when I came here to make tofu pudding this morning."
Long Xiaomin asked, "Did that person have short hair? Are his bangs permed and curled?"
“Yes, yes, yes!”
"She lives in our compound, in the building behind our house. All her clothes are bought from the Beijing Department Store!"
"Oh, do you know her? What's her last name? Can I borrow her clothes as a sample?"
"I just know her husband's last name is Deng. She doesn't usually live here, and I've never spoken to her."
Jiang Jun watched as Li Caixia chatted familiarly with Long Xiaomin again, refusing to take the plaid cloth off her body. So he said, "Sister Long, I'll take this cloth then."
Li Caixia was pleasantly surprised: "Teacher Xiao Jiang, this cloth is very strong and can be worn for ten or eight years without any problem. Oh, that's great! I just like this, I really like this cloth!"
Li Caixia has not yet learned to use honorifics, and can only repeatedly say "I like" to express her gratitude.
Long Xiaomin had asked Secretary Nie and heard that Li Caixia was the nanny hired by Jiang Yun. Now, seeing Jiang Yun personally buying cloth to make clothes for the nanny and being so accommodating to Li Caixia, she found it particularly incredible: "Teacher Xiao Jiang, you are so good to your sister!"
Li Caixia said quickly: "I'm not Teacher Xiao Jiang's sister. I'm her guarantor... well, I make buns for her."
Jiang Jun lowered his eyelids and counted the cloth coupons: "There are still two feet of cloth coupons. Keep them and we'll talk about it next month."
If it’s really not enough, go ask Ye Qingyin for some.
Think about the beautiful silks in Ye Qingyin’s cabinet, just placed there, and she said that just one look at them would make you feel good.
Jiang Yun secretly felt regretful. She dared to buy but not to make it, and even if she made it, she would not have the chance to wear it. She could only take it out from time to time to compare and look at it.
After leaving the military service center, Li Caixia tightly grasped the plaid cloth in both hands, feeling very happy, with an unconcealable joy on her face.
Jiang Jun couldn't bear to spoil Li Caixia's fun, so he just said calmly, "You're very familiar with them?"
Li Caixia shook her head: "I just met him the day before yesterday when I came here to hang out."
"We just met, how can we get along so well?"
"That Sister Wang, her husband's family is from the brigade next door to ours, only about ten miles away!"
Jiang Yun was speechless. Could they be so familiar with each other just because their homes were close to each other?
Li Caixia's face was filled with memories: "A few years ago, her husband's brigade produced a skilled worker who was very famous in the surrounding area. Sister Wang said that he was dating the women's team leader, and he could also drive a tractor!"
Jiang Jun was even more speechless. She couldn't understand why a teenage girl would be interested in these things?
Li Caixia continued excitedly, "Back then, we all went to his brigade to learn how to farm from that skilled laborer. Normally, one mu of land would yield three to four hundred kilograms of grain, but he could produce over a thousand! There were even people from other places who traveled hundreds of miles just to learn from him! People asked him how he managed to produce over a thousand kilograms per mu and insisted on seeing the land he was cultivating. And guess what? They suspected he'd miscalculated!"
Jiang Jun said "oh" casually.
Li Caixia covered her mouth and laughed: "Later, the young man who came to learn from him was dragged back!"
Jiang Jun was puzzled: "Take them back? Why?"
Aren’t you allowing others to learn from advanced experiences?
Li Caixia covered her mouth and whispered, "Later, I heard from the elders in our village that the reported yield of over a thousand catties per mu was a false number! An acre of land is so small, and you can only plant so many crops. No matter how much it grows, it's impossible to produce over a thousand catties per mu."
Jiang Jun didn't know much about farming, let alone yields, but he found Li Caixia's words amusing: "Boasting always comes back to bite you!"
Li Caixia laughed: "Yeah! It's a pity for the young man who was taken away. It was so unfair!"
Jiang Jun tilted his head and looked at Li Caixia. No matter how he looked at her, he felt that Li Caixia looked only fifteen or sixteen years old. Why was she so keen on talking about these trivial family topics?
If it were her, as soon as she heard these words, she would turn around and leave without staying for even a second.
If he were alone, Jiang Jun would be busy reading books or translating foreign materials. He would often immerse himself in them and have fun with the characters in the books, and would inevitably forget to eat and sleep.
Now, she can't just enjoy her own fun, but also has to consider Li Caixia's daily life rhythm and feelings.
To be honest, she felt very conflicted. When she was a child, she used to envy other people who dressed up as mothers or fathers, and she had imagined countless times snuggling in her parents' arms and acting coquettishly like a little princess.
Unfortunately, the time, place and identity were not right. The emotional dependence on her parents that she wanted became very awkward when she faced Li Caixia.
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