Chapter 16
Lu Qing was worried that the gangster who raped the duck farmer was the same bastard who drugged Jiang Yao, but Jiang Yao knew that the bastard was herself.
Although this matter had nothing to do with her, Jiang Yao, out of professional inertia, still asked curiously: "Why didn't the duck farmer tell you at the beginning? Now that more than a month has passed, it's difficult to get evidence."
"Oh, maybe she has given up now." Lu Qing sighed.
It turned out that after the duck farmer was bullied that day, she was afraid of being ridiculed and ostracized if others knew about it, so she kept silent. However, she did not expect that she became pregnant more than half a month later.
She definitely couldn't keep the gangster's child, so she secretly went for an abortion. However, an accident caused heavy bleeding. Now she is alive, but she will basically not be able to get pregnant in the future.
A woman who cannot bear children is like a hen that cannot lay eggs. It is basically impossible for her to get married in this era.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She was going to live out her life alone anyway, so she wasn't going to let that bastard go. So she went to the police station to report the case and demanded that the man be brought to justice.
"The gangster hasn't been caught yet, so you must not go out at night in the future. Ask me to accompany you if you go out during the day. Do you understand?" Lu Qing warned.
"Sister Qing, I understand." Jiang Yao felt Lu Qing's concern and immediately nodded in response.
For the whole day, the whole Qingyuan production team and even the whole Pingshan Commune were discussing this matter. Jiang Yao didn't care about it and stayed at home to prepare to sell jelly.
The cost of making 80 kilograms of jelly is not high, but it is not easy to make.
First of all, she needed a big pot. Also, there were no disposable bowls and spoons in those days, so when selling jelly, she had to bring her own porcelain bowls and spoons.
Her own pot was small and she didn't have that many sets of bowls and spoons, but the once wealthy Lu family did.
Many of these bowls and spoons were chipped because they had been smashed before, but Jiang Yao searched hard for a long time and finally found ten pairs of almost perfect bowls and spoons.
She cleaned the bowls and spoons, drained them, then went to the Lu family's farm tool room to get a bamboo basket and placed the bowls and spoons in it.
The next day, she and Lu Qing got up early, planning to go to the paper mill to line up early, hoping to get the raw materials for handmade products. It was dawn when they left, and Lu Che was worried, so he sent them to the paper mill. Seeing that there were already six or seven women lining up, he felt relieved to go to work in the sugarcane field.
The matter of the duck-raising girl was still a hot topic, and the woman at the front of the line was talking about it enthusiastically. Lu Qing and Jiang Yao listened quietly without interrupting.
After waiting for about fifteen minutes, the village cadres who were distributing the raw materials arrived. The paper mill had received a lot of raw materials this time, and since they arrived early, Jiang Yao and her friends were able to obtain the raw materials smoothly.
After returning to the Lu family, they had breakfast first and then did handicrafts in Jiang Yao's room.
"By the way, tomorrow is market day. You said yesterday that you would go to sell jelly with Lu Che?" Lu Qing asked as he remembered.
"Yes." Jiang Yao said, "My brother sent me about a pound of jelly grass, which can probably make 80 pounds of jelly. It's not realistic to eat it all by myself, so I want to set up a stall next to the theater tomorrow and sell it to moviegoers."
"That's a good idea." Lu Qing said with a smile, "Lu Che has always been cold-tempered. I never thought you would get along so well with him that you could even set up a stall together."
Obviously Lu Qing didn't mean anything else, but Jiang Yao felt guilty for some reason and didn't dare to continue talking about this topic with her. She just responded with a smile and said, "Sister Qing, I've done this craft so many times, but I still don't know what these glued papers are used for."
"These are all for worship." Lu Qing said in a low voice.
"Didn't we say we should break feudal superstitions? Why are we still doing this?" Jiang Yao asked puzzled.
Lu Qing: "We can do it because it's all for export. Actually, this paper mill was established with the help of a relative of Lu Qianyuan."
"Is there such a thing?" Jiang Yao suddenly realized, "No wonder Chen Shuanglian dared to use the company car for personal purposes."
"Do you think Lu Dazhou doesn't care about the diesel money? He sometimes has no choice but to turn a blind eye to Lu Zhisen's actions." Lu Qing said.
Jiang Yao: "Isn't Lu Dazhou afraid that Chen Shuanglian will win over the hearts of the people and push his man or son to be the leader of the production team and take his position?"
"I'm not afraid of that." Lu Qing said, "Many people like to take advantage of small opportunities, but the villagers are not stupid. If Lu Qianyuan or Lu Zhisen were really made the production team leader, they would be the ones who would suffer."
“That’s the same reason.”
When Lu Che got off work at noon, Jiang Yao asked him to pick more banana leaves when he got back from work in the evening. Lu Che guessed that it was related to business, so he agreed without asking any more questions.
In the evening, Lu Che brought back the banana leaves. Jiang Yao washed them and then had dinner and took a bath. Before eight o'clock, she soaked three kilograms of rice in water and told Lu Che to get up around 12:30 tonight to grind the rice milk, and then went to bed.
Because she was worried, Jiang Yao did not sleep soundly. She woke up at half past twelve and walked into the yard to see Lu Che grinding rice paste.
"I was going to call you after I finished grinding the rice milk, but I didn't expect you to get up by yourself." At this moment, only the moonlight above was shining in the yard. It was very dark around. Jiang Yao couldn't see Lu Che's face clearly, but it was not difficult to hear the teasing in his tone.
"What?" Jiang Yao pursed her lips and said, "I am still very motivated if there is work to do, not to mention that I can make money."
Lu Che didn't argue with her, he just said: "The rice slurry has been ground almost, you see how to do it, I don't understand."
"I'll go cook the grass jelly first." Jiang Yao turned back to the kitchen and started busying herself preparing for her first stall.
In fact, it is not difficult to make jelly. First, boil the jelly grass until it is soft, then filter out the slurry with a filter bag. Then, add clean water to the slurry, boil it over high heat, then reduce the heat and add rice slurry, stirring while cooking.
Because it was a big pot, it was quite laborious to stir it, so this task fell on Lu Che, while Jiang Yao was responsible for burning the firewood.
She sat on a stone with her head down, occasionally adding firewood to the stove.
It was very quiet except for the occasional crackle of burning wood.
Now she only needed a small fire, and she added more wood once in a while. Whenever she had free time, she could not ignore the shadow falling on her head.
She couldn't hold it in for a long time and secretly looked up at him.
At this moment, his hand was stirring the wooden stick again and again, his eyes were on the pot, his expression focused.
In the past, she thought that the profile of a man holding a pen and writing or typing on a computer was the most attractive. At this moment, she suddenly discovered that a man holding a stick and cooking was also very good-looking, so good that her heartbeat quickened again.
Feeling her face burning, Jiang Yao decided that she couldn't watch any longer. Just as she was about to look away, Lu Che's eyes suddenly moved downwards.
She was caught red-handed.
"..." The air was stagnant for two seconds. She relied on her ability to remain calm in the face of danger, squeezed out a calm smile, and said, "Look, the starry sky is so beautiful tonight!"
Hearing this, Lu Che didn't look up, still staring at her, and said, "Really? Is there anyone pretty?"
"..." Jiang Yao had reason to suspect that he was flirting with her, and she had evidence.
Even the darkness could not block someone's scorching gaze. Jiang Yao lowered her head and did not dare to look up until the jelly was ready.
After the jelly is cooked, the rest is up to time. It is ready after it cools and solidifies.
Lu Che asked Jiang Yao to go to sleep while he went to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables.
Tomorrow, they will not only sell jelly, but also vegetables. She wanted to help him, but he insisted that she rest, "You can only sleep for two hours. We have to leave at four o'clock, otherwise we won't be able to take the seat next to the theater."
"Okay." Jiang Yao didn't insist and went back to her room to sleep.
At 3:50, Lu Che woke her up. When she came out after packing up, he had already put all her things on the ox cart. After she got on, he drove the cart and set off.
The sky is still dark at four in the morning in summer. There are other farmers in Qingyuan going to the market today, but no one is as early as them, and they are the only ones on the road.
Because they started early, they successfully occupied a stall next to the theater.
In the early morning, they mainly sold vegetables and eggs, and only started selling jelly when the cinemas opened.
It was pretty much as Lu Che expected. Many people thought the jelly at eight cents a bowl was too expensive. But Jiang Yao added a piece of banana leaf to the bottom of the bowl before putting the jelly in it. The packaging made it look more upscale. Coupled with Lawyer Jiang's eloquent tongue, the jelly was shipped out faster.
However, 80 bowls of jelly were not a small amount, and they continued selling until five in the evening before going home.
Compared to the previous trip, the return trip by oxcart was much easier. Jiang Yao sat on the oxcart, counting the pile of things like a little money-grubber.
"Wow, including vegetables and eggs, we earned 11.97 yuan today." Jiang Yao said excitedly: "A factory worker's monthly salary is usually 20 to 30 yuan. We earned nearly half a month's salary today."
Lu Che, who was sitting in the front driving the ox cart, turned his head and looked at her satisfied smile. The corners of his lips curled up and he said, "It seems that you have a good mind for making money."
Compared to the big boss's future business empire, her 11.97 yuan was really nothing. She smiled modestly and said, "I still rely on your help, otherwise I can't accomplish anything on my own."
She couldn't even carry the 80 kilograms of jelly.
Jiang Yao thought the boss would be polite after hearing this, but he just said "hmm" and said, "That's true, but I won't help everyone."
“…” Boss, your words can easily be misunderstood.
After a tiring whole day, the two of them had sweet potatoes and jelly for lunch. They were already starving, so Jiang Yao planned to go back and make a meal of pure white rice without sweet potatoes to reward herself and him.
Especially him, he has not slept for almost a whole day and night from twelve o'clock last night until now, and has been doing only hard labor.
After a long time, they finally returned to the road leading to Lu's house, but they saw many people standing in front of the door of Lu's house from afar.
Lu Che turned around and exchanged a confused look with Jiang Yao. Before they could figure out what was going on, they heard someone shouting, "The gangster is back, the gangster is back... As expected, I am a bastard..."
Then, two police officers ran out of the Lu family, rushed to Lu Che and held him down. "Lu Che, we suspect you are involved in a rape case. Please come back with us for investigation."
"Impossible." Jiang Yao knew that he must be talking about the duck-raising girl case. Just as she was about to speak, Lu Che turned his head, looked at her, and said word by word: "Don't say those useless things. Those who are innocent will be innocent. I will be back after the investigation is clear."
"No..." Jiang Yao knew that he asked her not to talk about what happened that night, fearing that it would affect her reputation, but she had only said two words before he interrupted her. He curled his lips at her, his voice gentle as if he was coaxing a child, "Be good, it's okay, wait for me to come back."
As soon as she finished speaking, a tear overflowed from her eyes.
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