Chapter 368 Buying a Ship in Distress 1
"Mr. Tang is so thoughtful. He even knows that I like to eat wonton. Thank you!" Yi Ke thanked him sincerely.
"This is what Ziyi told me last night. I dare not take credit for it." Tang Jianguo raised his chin towards Ziyi.
Yike said to Ziyi in an even sweeter voice: "Brother Ziyi, thank you, I..." She almost blurted out "I love you to death".
Ziyi glared at him and said, "Speak properly."
Yike stuck out his tongue, then squatted down on the stool obediently.
"Girl, come over a little bit so I can warm myself by the fire now." Ma Youcai came over and said after patting the frost off his body.
Yi Ke moved a little further inside and said with disdain, "Look, you're a grown man, why are you so afraid of the cold?"
“Haha, if you were sitting on the back of a bicycle for half an hour, you would also feel cold.” Ma Youcai replied.
"You knew it was cold, so why didn't you ride your bike yourself? At least you wouldn't feel cold when you ride a bike. You'd feel hot instead. It's because you're lazy. You deserve to be cold." Yi Ke said contemptuously.
"Who is lazy? It's your brother Tang. He parked his bicycle at your house. Isn't he stealing my bicycle? I can't beat him." Ma Youcai argued unconvinced.
Yike remembered that it was Ziyi who drove Tang Jianguo home yesterday and the bicycle was indeed left at his home. Yike could only smile sympathetically at Ma Youcai.
"Girl, is your sister okay?" Ma Youcai asked in a low voice.
"That's great. I'm busy teaching children every day, and I also have to teach literacy classes at night." Yi Ke answered casually.
"Alas, you too. She's your sister. How can you bear to let her take such a heavy workload?" Ma Youcai said with concern.
"She wants to do that. I asked her to study for her high school lessons at night and let my aunt teach her so that she wouldn't go to the literacy class. But she wouldn't listen. First she went to my aunt's class, and then she went to teach the literacy class. I couldn't persuade her." Yi Ke shrugged helplessly.
"I have to go to classes during the day and study at night. This is not good. My body can't take it." Ma Youcai said worriedly.
"Well, I think so too. How about you go in and pick her up?" Yi Ke suggested.
"I asked her to come out with me last time, but she refused. What do you think of my mistake? It's not even a month since the wedding and the bride ran away from home. I know I was wrong at the beginning, but I also realized my mistake and corrected it. Why doesn't she still want to come back?" Ma Youcai stopped warming himself by the fire and squatted down with his fingers inserted in his hair, looking annoyed.
"You used the wrong words. The home in there is also your home. Doesn't she live in your house? She often asks you why you don't go home. It turns out that home in your hearts is in different places." Yi Ke said disapprovingly.
"Really? Your sister is also looking forward to my return home?" Ma Youcai raised his head suddenly, looking at Yi Ke with sparkling eyes.
"Of course, otherwise why did my sister work so hard to earn work points? She said that she wanted to rebuild a small bamboo house in the mountains, an independent one with more rooms, so that when she has children in the future they will have rooms to live in. She also said that she wanted to make the living room, or the main hall, bigger, saying that you have many friends. Humph, you are narrow-minded, and you blame my sister." Yi Ke said contemptuously.
"Yes, yes, you are right to criticize me. I shouldn't think that way. I just think that she is by my side and anywhere is home." Ma Youcai reflected.
"My sister will go out to study next year. Have you found a school? I think you should find a way to buy a house. This way she will feel at ease and won't have to work so hard to make money." Yike suggested.
"Okay, I'll keep this in mind." Ma Youcai nodded in agreement.
"Yike, it's time for breakfast. No need to light the fire. Turn off the fire." Ziyi shouted.
"This is red oil wonton and beef lasagna. The pancakes are delicious. Let's start eating." Yi Ke said and started eating first.
Everyone buried their heads in the food, no one had time to talk, and the breakfast was consumed by everyone working hard...
The aftereffects of the car ride were still lingering in Yike's mind. Today, Ziyi and Ma Youcai went to look for the seller of the boat, and she was not in the mood to join in the fun.
After Ziyi and the others drove away, she returned to her warm bed and took a nap.
If Yike had the ability of prophecy, she would never let Ziyi go out today.
Ziyi and Ma Youcai drove a jeep straight to Yuefeng Village. Yuefeng Village is a mountain village near the river in Xi County. Yuefeng Village is a village of shipbuilding families with superb skills, where there are many skilled craftsmen who have passed down their craft for generations.
The wooden farm boats they built could carry passengers, grain and other dry goods. They were easy to use, but their disadvantage was that they required more maintenance. Their advantage was that they were not expensive.
Ziyi and Ma Youcun set out by car at 6:30 in the morning and didn't arrive at Yuefeng Village until 4:00 in the afternoon. The long journey was one thing, but mainly because they were unfamiliar with the road and there was no navigation in that era, so they had to rely entirely on asking for directions.
Ziyi and Ma Youcai found the Yuefeng Village Office, where they were received by a man in his 50s. After introducing themselves to each other, they found out that he was the village party secretary.
The village secretary was thin, wearing slightly faded clothes, and had rough, slightly dark skin. With a round face, if it weren't for a pair of triangular eyes, he would look like a simple and honest person. But with a pair of eyes like that, and the shrewd light coming from his eyes, no one would find him easy to talk to.
Ziyi showed the letter of introduction to the village secretary and explained his purpose. The village party secretary did not make things difficult for them, but took them directly to see the boat.
Ma Youcai doesn't know anything about ships, but Ziyi owned a luxury cruise ship in his previous life. He knows a little about ships, even though he only knows a little bit about them, but he is not afraid of being cheated. The main reason is that people of this generation are honest. This is their perception, but they were slapped in the face at night.
After Ziyi and Ma Youcai pretended to take a look, they started to negotiate the price.
Ziyi and Ma Youcai were both good bargainers. Even if the secretary called the captain and accountant of their team, he was still unable to gain an advantage. Ziyi and Ma Youcai still managed to buy a small wooden boat of about three tons at the lowest price.
The boat was sent to the county town by someone from Yuefeng Village. Ziyi called Tang Jianguo and asked him to go to the dock to pick up the boat.
(Here is a special explanation of why they didn't take the boat back, or go back alone and leave one person to drive. The main reason is that the jeep has arrived, so they have to drive back. The journey is long, a few hours' drive, and the road is not a flat highway like today. There are only a few mountain roads with 9981 bends, and driving requires high concentration, so two people have to take turns driving.)
After Ziyi and Ma Youcai had agreed on everything, it was already dark. That night, Ziyi and Ma Youcai temporarily stayed in their village.
The secretary warmly invited them both to dinner, and he also asked the accountant to drink with them.
The main dish on the table was fish, and the soup was also fish. The secretary laughed and said that the only thing their village had in abundance was fish.
After dinner, the secretary arranged for Ziyi and Ma Youcai to live in the house of a landlord in the village.
There had been no one in the landlord's house for a long time. The whole family had died of poisoning in the house after eating the wrong food, so no one dared to live in the house. During years of disaster, beggars who passed by would go in and stay for a while, but Ziyi and the others didn't know about this.
There was no bed in the room, so the accountant found two wooden boards and put them on the ground to serve as bed boards for them, and also borrowed a quilt for them to cover themselves with.
Ziyi used money to ask the accountant to rent a bed and quilt from the other members, so that he and Ma Youcai could sleep separately.
In the middle of the night, the son of the accountant of Yuefeng Village Brigade came to knock on the secretary's door, and the secretary's daughter-in-law got up and opened the door.
The accountant's son asked if his father was here? When he learned that they had left long ago, he became anxious and shouted loudly for the secretary.
After being woken up, the secretary came out and asked about the situation in detail, then went to the captain's house with a flashlight to inquire.
There was no one at the captain's house, so the secretary took his accountant son to the landlord's house where Ziyi was staying to check on him. As soon as they reached the door, they found that the oil lamp that had been lit just now suddenly went out.
The secretary knocked on the door vigorously and shouted, "Open the door!" Ziyi heard someone knocking on the door in a daze, so he got up and looked for a flashlight, but he couldn't find it.
He wanted to light the oil lamp, but found that it was out of oil and could not be lit. He heard urgent shouting outside, so he groped in the dark and pulled open the doorpost.
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