Chapter 27 Pen Pals
Xia Lanlan felt a little sour in her heart. Brother Lu was such a good man, but he knew that she did nothing at home and yet he beat her up for no reason?
Lu Weiguang naturally didn't know, and even if he knew he probably wouldn't care too much.
After returning, Lu Weiguang talked with Xia Ruhai and Li Dongmei and expressed his full affirmation of Comrade Xia Zhizhi. If nothing unexpected happened, the marriage was settled.
After work, the couple couldn't suppress the smiles on their faces. When they came back and saw that dinner was not cooked, they didn't bother to scold Xia Lanlan.
Li Dongmei first put the three pounds of sugar on the table into the cabinet in her room and locked it. After thinking for a while, she took out a few pieces and put them in Xia Zhizhi's room. She smiled and said, "I'll put the rest away first. I'll give it to you after you finish eating."
Xia Zhizhi was lying on the bed reading a book. Hearing this, she nodded indifferently.
"Read a book first. I'll call you when dinner is ready." Li Dongmei considerately closed the door for her when she went out.
After going out, she did not rush to cook, but went to Xia Lanlan's room, took the flowered shirt that she could wear, took the vanishing cream, gave a few hairbands to Xia Fangfang, and finally left a dress for Xia Lanlan.
Xia Lanlan felt very aggrieved, it was clearly bought specially for her by Brother Lu!
Xia Zhizhi bought so many clothes, shoes, toe ropes, and lotion, but Li Dongmei never touched them. Now she wanted to share these few things with her. It was really too much... She was so angry that she didn't eat dinner.
She could eat it if she wanted, and she wouldn't be starving even if she had one meal. Because she didn't eat, everyone got an extra spoonful.
It was the summer of 1966, and the Special Period was getting closer. Although many people did not understand what was happening, they could feel the tense atmosphere. One obvious thing was that there were fewer people strolling around the streets.
Xia Zhizhi went to the black market to sell goods once and got a lot of money in return. Uncle De said that he would take a break for a while after selling all the stocks he had on hand. It turned out that he had someone in the upper echelons and knew the news early.
But it had no effect on Xia Zhizhi. She went to school, ate, drank and strolled every day without any delay.
Soon it was time for the exam. She usually studied hard, so the test paper was not difficult for her. After the exam, while everyone was checking their answers, she looked relaxed, squatting beside the school's green brick flower bed and peeling eggs to eat, while she ate, she counseled Li Ling.
There were a few days of vacation after the exams, and Xia Zhizhi waited quietly for her diploma. But for other students who wanted to go to college, this period was very anxious and they were full of confusion and anxiety about the future.
Li Ling was also troubled for a few days, but after being comforted by her, she finally got over it.
After Li Ling finished her exams, her parents arranged for her to visit relatives in the county. Reluctantly, she held Xia Zhizhi's hand and told her, "I have to go to my grandmother's house these few days and can't play with you. If you are bored, you can play with others, but you still have to think of me as the closest to you in your heart. Don't miss me too much. My grandmother's qingtuan is especially delicious. I will bring it to you when I come back."
"Don't worry, just have fun." Xia Zhizhi felt in her heart that she was like a good wife who reminded her husband to remember to come home after playing outside, but she didn't dare to say it out loud.
Yang City is a very small place, but she visited all of it and watched all the movies in the cinema. With nothing to do during the holiday, she strolled to the post office where Fang Yuan worked to see if there was any letter for her.
In the past few months, she has made two pen pals, both of whom she met through stamp collecting. One is a classmate of Fang Yuan’s second brother who works in a printing factory in Kyoto. She is a female classmate named Tan Xiaoying, who is 22 years old and a native of Kyoto.
I haven't met her in person yet, but according to Fang Zheng, she is a slender, kind, gentle, pretty and enthusiastic girl, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her.
She suspected that Fang Zheng had a crush on her, but he thought that the girl's family was better off than his, so he was a little embarrassed to make a move.
Fang Zheng wrote a letter to Tan Xiaoying once, and she sent him a package in return. This package almost helped her collect several editions of stamps that are currently more difficult to find, and there were several copies of each edition.
The stamps currently in circulation on the market are priced at 4 cents, 8 cents, and 12 cents.
In the early days of the People's Republic of China, money was high and several editions of stamps were priced at thirty, fifty, or one hundred yuan. She calculated the price as 4, 8, or 12 cents and first made up the price according to the face value.
She had read Tan Xiaoying's letters and felt that she was a particularly gentle and romantic person, plus Fang Zheng had said that she was fair and slim.
She bought a blue dress with small floral patterns from the store, made some minor alterations to it, made it slimmer at the waist, and found some fabric of a similar pattern in her spare time to add ruffles to the dress.
Then I found a beige thin knitted cardigan jacket from my own inventory as a return gift, and sent it over along with a letter and the ticket price.
Seeing that the skirt was damaged, Fang Yuan bought a skirt of the same style but in a different color and a pound of fine wool, and insisted that she help knit one.
Xia Zhizhi was very smart. She could help to alter the skirt since it was quite fast with a sewing machine, but she really couldn't knit a sweater.
She returned the wool and picked out a wool cardigan to match the skirt from the space, saying that she had asked someone to bring it from Haishi. Fang Yuan let her go and gave her ten yuan as compensation.
Later, in order to treat everyone equally, she bought one for Li Ling as well. Li Ling also gave her ten yuan in compensation, and then unilaterally announced that she would be her best friend for the rest of her life.
She didn't want the postman to deliver the letter home, so she left the address of Fang Yuan's workplace, using the excuse that her mother didn't allow her to have pen pals.
Xia Zhizhi went to the post office, and Fang Yuan took out all her letters, two letters and a small package, one of which was from Tan Xiaoying.
Fang Yuan was a bit busy today, so she didn't stay long. She took the things and went back to unpack.
In Tam Siu Ying's reply, she first thanked Xia Zhizhi for the return gift, expressing her deep appreciation for the gift. She said everyone said it looked good when she put it on, and attached a photo.
In the photo, Tan Xiaoying was wearing the skirt and cardigan that Xia Zhizhi had sent her. Her hair was braided at the back of her head and hung in front of her chest. She was smiling at the camera with a smile on her face.
To be honest, she is not particularly beautiful, but she looks gentle and generous, and she is a real beauty in the eyes of Fang Zheng's lover.
Tan Xiaoying was surprised that the clothes she had chosen were so fitting to her body shape and taste, even though she had never met her before. She sighed with emotion, thinking that there was someone who understood her so well from thousands of miles away. It was indeed a fate destined by heaven.
The letter also included two boards of stamps specially provided by the civil service department, and she also said that if there were any more stamps needed, I could write to her and she would help keep an eye out for them.
Another small package sent to me contained a Mont Blanc fountain pen, which feels great in the hand and writes great. I bought it at an overseas Chinese store and it was probably a return gift for the outfit.
The letter said that they gave it to her because they thought her handwriting was beautiful. Xia Zhizhi didn't know the exact value of it because they didn't sell it, but she estimated that it would be at least 10 to 20 yuan.