Chapter 57:  Scrap Station

Lin Yue and Zhang Yuandong had a lot of things to buy today. After the kitchen was moved to the annex, they needed to add a new pot to the stove.

    Because they didn’t need to stir-fry, Lin Yue wanted to buy a big earthenware pot, which could be used to heat water while burning the kang in winter.

     Besides an earthenware pot, they also needed to buy a new broom, dustpan, mat, bamboo basket, kang mat, chopping board, and so on.

 Before buying these things, Lin Yue took Zhang Yuandong to the old man’s stall where he made furniture.

She had been tricked by this old man before, and she really didn’t want to deal with him anymore.

But who else made furniture in this area with the best craftsmanship and durability? If they wanted to order furniture, they still had to go to him.

     Lin Yue had dealt with him a few times before, and each time she had wrapped herself up tightly. The old man definitely wouldn’t recognize her now. Even so, Lin Yue didn’t want to talk to the old man much, so she pushed Zhang Yuandong to the front and let him handle it.

     The old man was indeed a businessman. As soon as he heard that the two of them were going to make so much furniture, his attitude immediately improved. He even praised the two little ones, saying that they would surely be successful when they grew up.

    Lin Yue knew his nature well and thought it was really hard for him to say so many nice things.

     After confirming the date for picking up the furniture, the two of them went to buy other things.

     They bought so many things, and the road was bumpy. Zhang Yuandong’s sidecar couldn’t fit so many things, so Lin Yue secretly moved most of the things into her space. She held Lingling in the sidecar, protecting the child with one hand and holding the kang mat with the other.

     Zhang Yuandong tied Little Wanli to his back, securely wrapping the child with his clothes, before he dared to slowly set off.

     His wife and children were both in the car, and he didn’t dare to drive too fast along the way. He could only drive slowly, even the ox carts in the village were faster than them.

    The ox cart was full of people from Tian Village, and they joked: “Wanli’s mother, your man is no good. He’s so slow. You should get off the cart and walk back. You might even get home before him!” Lin Yue just laughed and scolded a few words, but Zhang Yuandong blushed, his face stiff and serious, looking like he was angry.

     Lin Yue thought for a moment, it seemed that men were quite sensitive to being told they were “no good,” so she patted his arm and kindly comforted him: “Don’t listen to them talking nonsense. You’re not often in the village, you don’t know they just like to joke, they don’t mean any harm.

    ” Zhang Yuandong didn’t know what was wrong. People were just joking casually, and he didn’t know what string he had touched, but he felt very flustered. When she patted him, he became even more flustered, the car swerved, and he almost drove into the ditch.

     When they arrived home slowly, Wang Xiuxiang was almost done cooking.

     Liu Jianhua was pregnant and couldn’t come to help anymore, so Lin Yue went to find Sun Meifeng to help.

     Sun Meifeng already had two sons and a daughter to take care of, and last year her father-in-law became paralyzed in bed, so she, as the eldest daughter-in-law, became very busy. She almost never went out when she wasn’t working.

    Although she came to Lin Yue’s place to help, she actually only cooked two meals, which was quite relaxing. This time, her mother-in-law felt sorry for her and wanted her to take this opportunity to get some fresh air.

     Sun Meifeng was good at getting things, but she wasn’t very good at cooking, so she could only help Wang Xiuxiang.

     This morning, Lin Yue asked Zhang Yuandong to kill two chickens. She didn’t like eating old hens, so she asked Zhang Yuandong to specifically choose two old hens to kill.

     When they came back, the chicken was already stewing in the pot for several hours.

    Wang Xiuxiang had already made steamed buns and was about to put the chicken in the pot. She asked Lin Yue to go back and get a few potatoes, peel them, cut them into small pieces, and stir-fry them with the chicken.

     The locust plagues a while ago had almost wiped out the vegetables in the vegetable garden, and now the only thing they could use for stir-frying was potatoes.

     Lin Yue could cook, but she wasn’t as quick as Wang Xiuxiang. In situations like this, she would just help out.

     The salted vegetables she had made in the past few days were almost gone. Wang Xiuxiang had known before that she liked to make some salted vegetables to store, and she even said that it was fortunate that she had this skill, which saved them a lot of trouble.

     At dinner time, it was still the women and children who ate at the small table on the side, while the men had another table, but they all found it troublesome and almost all squatted on the ground to eat.

     The two little ones had eaten sugar balls in the morning, so they weren’t very hungry now and weren’t very enthusiastic about eating.

     Sun Meifeng was a more introverted personality, but her mood was obviously good today, and she was smiling at everyone.

    Seeing that the two children didn’t eat much of the meat today, she felt anxious and wanted to feed them.

    Lin Yue stopped her: “Sister-in-law, don’t feed them. They ate sugar-coated hawthorn sticks in the morning, so they’re not very hungry now. It’s okay if they eat less. Let’s eat ours, don’t worry about them.

    ” When the two children were younger and didn’t eat enthusiastically, Lin Yue would be a little anxious, but now she had become indifferent. It was just one meal; they would naturally know to eat when they were hungry.

She made a few hand gestures, and if this were her home, her children would have gone crazy for such good food.

Lin Yue had been with her for a long time and could generally understand what she meant. He smiled and put a few more pieces of meat in her bowl, urging her to eat more.

She had nothing to do in the afternoon, so she went to the scrap yard in town with Zhang Yuandong and bought a lot of old newspapers.

The scrap yard was basically full of old newspapers and books, and there were piles of iron and copperware in the yard.

Unlike what Lin Yue had imagined, there wasn’t just an old man guarding the gate of the scrap yard. There were quite a few workers in the scrap yard. There were several packers standing in the yard, and there were salespeople and cashiers in the house. Because this place belonged to a state-owned enterprise and the work was relatively leisurely, it was a job that many people dreamed of.

In this era, no one would sell their old furniture to the scrap yard. Furniture that was worn out could still be used as firewood, so there was almost no furniture in the scrap yard, and even wood products were rare.

Lin Yue took a general look and gave up the idea of picking up bargains, but she did find a lot of books. She picked out a few well-preserved books, such as the Four Great Classical Novels and the Investiture of the Gods, as a collection.

In a few years, these books would be difficult to find on the market. She also found some picture books suitable for children and thought about giving them to them when they were older.

When she was checking out, she found that Zhang Yuandong had secretly paid for two books separately.

Out of respect, Lin Yue pretended not to see it, but she was curious about what those two books were.

The next day was Sunday, and the new house was basically finished, but the newspapers on the walls hadn’t been pasted up yet. They had to wait for the cement to dry before they could go in.

The annex only had a frame, and it needed to be dried before the interior could be decorated. It was estimated that they wouldn’t be able to finish it before they moved.

But there really wasn’t anything to do today. Lin Yue was completely free today.

She liked to sleep in when she wasn’t busy, but with Zhang Yuandong around, she didn’t dare to sleep in in the morning and got up early.

As usual, Zhang Yuandong boiled water in a big pot and washed the vegetables.

There was a small clay stove next to the stove that Lin Yue used to cook porridge. Zhang Yuandong thought that the pot was too small and couldn’t hold much water, so he never used it.

Every morning, Lin Yue had to force a smile and pretend to be happy so as not to dampen his enthusiasm for doing chores.

She thought that she still had to rush Zhang Yuandong. Before he went out for his morning run, she had boiled hot water so that she could sleep a little longer.

Zhang Yuandong saw her get up and was quite concerned about her. “Why did you get up so early? You’ve been tired for several days. Why didn’t you sleep a little longer today?” Lin Yue actually wanted to push him back onto the kang and let him experience the temperature of the kang himself. Her smile was very stiff. “It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep either. I’ll make dinner. What do you want to eat this morning?” Zhang Yuandong pointed to the peeled tomatoes on the chopping board.

Well, this guy learned to peel tomatoes just for eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

Lin Yue quickly scooped the water out of the pot and fried four eggs. After the eggs were fried, she scooped them out and then fried the tomatoes.

When frying, you should add sugar and salt first, which helps the tomatoes to soften faster.

Lin Yue used a spoon to flatten all the tomato pieces in the pot, almost turning them into tomato sauce, before she thickened the sauce and poured in the previously fried eggs.

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes are simple, but as far as she knew, many people’s methods were different. Anyway, in her previous life, her best friend was quite disgusted with her method.

Fortunately, Zhang Yuandong and the two children liked it, especially when they ate it with noodles.

The bureau usually didn’t take weekends off. He was just on a rotating shift these two days.

The two little ones were envious of others going to the beach to catch seafood. He kept it in mind.

Since he had nothing to do today, he asked Lin Yue, “Do you want to go to the beach?” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. How did this sentence sound like he was asking his beloved girl out on a date?

Hearing that they were going to the beach, Lin Yue immediately raised her head.

She saw that Zhang Yuandong looked a little uncomfortable, and his two ears were red. She couldn’t help but think crookedly. The images of sunshine, beaches, bikinis, and swim trunks involuntarily popped into her mind, and her eyes became distant.

Fortunately, she stopped in time and realized that what Zhang Yuandong was saying was not what she was thinking.

There was no beach here. The tidal flats after the tide went out were not sandy beaches either.

But there was a lot of seafood. Many people in the village had been there.

Lin Yue also wanted to go, but she never had the chance and could only envy others.

Now she heard Zhang Yuandong say that they were going to catch seafood. Her eyes lit up as she looked at him, her face full of anticipation.

Zhang Yuandong was embarrassed by her gaze. He suddenly felt a lot of pressure and reached out to touch his crew cut. “But today is not a big tide day, so we can only walk along the beach. We might not get much.”

As long as she could go catch seafood, Lin Yue was already very happy. She didn’t care about that much.

She happily stamped her feet and went to wake up the two children, telling them the good news.