Chapter 75: Pie in the Sky

There were houses on both sides of Qingshui Lane, totaling 18 courtyards.

The size of the houses varied. It was said that they were once homes to members of a clan connected to a third-rank official. The official’s house was so prominent that it was lost during the war, but the houses of his clan members were preserved.

Over time, some families moved away and never returned, while others had no heirs left.

These unclaimed houses were taken over by the Housing Authority and redistributed to streets and factories.

Wen Jiajia looked up and saw a piece of iron sheet with “No. 8” written on it nailed to the wall next to the door in front of her. She said to Teacher Yan, “Teacher Yan, this is the house assigned to you.”

She took out the key, unlocked the door with a “click,” and pushed it open, revealing a square courtyard in front of Professor Yan.

He adjusted his glasses and walked in.

“The main house is a two-story building. There are two rooms on the first floor, one large and one small, and three rooms on the second floor, one large and two small.”

Professor Yan’s eyes lit up. He opened the large room on the first floor and looked around for half a minute, nodding. “Okay, the room has good light, and the window faces the yard. You can see the magnolia flowers when you open the window. Wait, is that a magnolia tree in the yard?”

“Uh, sorry, Teacher Yan, I’m not sure,” Wen Jiajia replied. It wasn’t magnolia season, so she couldn’t identify it.

Professor Yan examined it closely and said with certainty, “It’s a magnolia tree. My mother loves magnolias.”

He decided to reserve this room for his parents.

The reason he chose to come here was that his parents were getting older.

The school had allocated him a house of just over 80 square meters. While 80 square meters might be ample for others, it felt cramped for his parents, who had previously lived in the countryside.

Despite the noisy children at home, his parents, now in their early 70s, increasingly wanted to return to the countryside.

But why go back? Professor Yan was an only child and couldn’t bear the thought of his parents returning to their hometown after decades away.

The 80-square-meter house was the largest available in the school’s staff housing compound. Professor Yan considered renting a house when he came across the medical school’s recruitment.

When he learned he would bear this significant responsibility, he readily agreed, hoping it would come with a good house. He was pleasantly surprised by how excellent it turned out to be.

Wen Jiajia smiled and said, “That’s perfect. The elderly won’t have to climb stairs if they live on the first floor. Plus, the bathroom is right next to the room. Oh, and there’s also a bathroom on the second floor.”

Professor Yan immediately took a look around and discovered not only a bathroom on the second floor but also a large balcony with a glass door.

The balcony was spacious. From it, he could see a yard planted with magnolia trees and roses. Looking further, there were neatly arranged greenhouses, a river in the distance with rowboats, and even towering green mountains.

Professor Yan sighed with contentment. He felt that if he didn’t achieve something significant for the Medical Glass Factory, he would be unworthy of the house allocated to him!

The kitchen was also on the first floor, and there was a piece of unpaved dirt in the yard.

Wen Jiajia had arranged for it to be cleared out the previous day. It was a pity that such a beautiful yard didn’t have space for growing vegetables.

Professor Yan liked the place very much and said, “Now my parents won’t be thinking about going back to the countryside anymore.”

Wen Jiajia handed the key to Professor Yan and then took Professor Feng, who was looking around, to the next-door house. Professor Feng’s house was in Courtyard No. 9, right next to Professor Yan’s.

“Does my house have a two-story building?” Professor Feng asked.

Wen Jiajia smiled and replied, “Yes, there are only two two-story courtyards in Qingshui Lane. Since you and Professor Yan have larger families, I allocated them to you.”

The only difference was a slightly different layout. The house was L-shaped, with a wing room for the kitchen and dining area. The house was slightly larger but not as convenient as Professor Yan’s in daily life, making it hard to say which house was better.

Wen Jiajia opened the door for the other two professors. She initially intended to give them all the keys and let them open the doors themselves, but they all wanted to see each other’s homes.

The remaining courtyards were a bit more ordinary but each had high walls and a bathroom, which was quite satisfactory.

Several students shared a courtyard, with four people in each yard, and everyone was very happy.

After they settled in, Wen Jiajia took them to report to the factory.

Director Gao was already waiting at the gate of the small red building. When he saw them, he hurried forward to greet them. Director Shen also arrived, chatting and laughing with a bright smile that Wen Jiajia had never seen before.

Wen Jiajia breathed a sigh of relief, finally completing her task.

Time flew by, and two months passed in the blink of an eye.

With Professor Yan and others joining, the production department seemed to be running smoothly and progressing rapidly.

Wen Jiajia also had tasks in her office now and no longer needed to help organize documents.

She had moved to her own office half a month ago. Now she had a room of more than ten square meters all to herself, which was really comfortable!

Wen Jiajia also specially placed a stove in the office so that she wouldn’t have to go to the water room on the first floor to get hot water in winter.

The stove could also be turned into a kettle, which was great for making tea or even heating buns.

Director Gao nodded after seeing it and thought it was a good idea, but before leaving, he told her, “With this thing, you can’t keep the doors and windows tightly closed in the winter.”

She used to work on safety, and now she still kept the habit of advising others to pay attention to safety.

Of course, Wen Jiajia agreed. Seeing that 1974 was coming to an end and 1975 was approaching, society was about to take off, and she wanted to enjoy herself.

She had been very busy recently because she had to complete the goals set by the Municipal Bureau of Industry. All resources in the factory were directed to the production department.

Even Wen Jiajia was sometimes assigned to be on duty in the workshop, which was producing glass bottles in three shifts.

Morning, noon, and evening shifts, each shift was 8 hours.

Wen Jiajia sometimes worked the mid-shift and sometimes the night shift. When she worked the night shift, she had to stay overnight in the factory. Wen Jiajia couldn’t stand it, so she asked Wei Dai to buy her a camp bed. She relied on the camp bed to recover her energy during those few nights.

Unfortunately, the weather was getting colder and colder, and the wind would leak into the back when sleeping on the camp bed. Wen Jiajia was woken up by the cold for two days during her rest time.

She caught a cold because of this and had a runny nose for two days. She had to go to the pharmaceutical factory to see a doctor before she was cured.

There is a real shortage of doctors now, and there is no factory doctor. But to be honest, a factory with so few people doesn’t need a factory doctor.

After two months of hard work, the factory finally reaped the rewards. The goods were finally shipped out, and the people in Wen Jiajia and Liang Mu’s teams were also responsible for quality inspection, so they were still busy.

Wen Jiajia finally understood why there were so many people in her office. At first, she thought they were just there to organize documents or do liaison work, but who knew there was so much work, even quality inspection was their job.

By the time she was able to completely relax, it was already the beginning of winter.

At the beginning of winter, all things wither.

Because of the southward movement of the westerly wind, their area had recently experienced continuous rainy weather. When the weather gets cold and it starts to rain, it’s really unpleasant, and the wind is like a knife.

Wen Jiajia had been preparing New Year’s goods recently. This year, because Fang Hongjun would return to his hometown, she had to prepare in advance.

She made a lot of money by secretly selling hand warmers and portable water bottles. But most of the money was industrial tickets, and there were very few meat and grain tickets. It was hard to buy three pounds of meat. Not to mention the New Year’s goods, it was not even enough for her family to eat during the New Year.

Fortunately, Wei Dai got several of them from somewhere, and even got half a pig. When Wen Jiajia saw him carrying half a pig into the house the night before yesterday, she was almost scared to scream.

This was half a pig, weighing at least 100 kilograms. Just like a poor person who suddenly became rich, Wen Jiajia was at a loss at first, and then became very excited.

Unfortunately, after the excitement, they realized that the pork did not belong to their family, but to four families.

All right, Wen Jiajia’s excitement was immediately reduced by a quarter. But fortunately, there were two ribs, a pork leg, and four pounds of pork fat left at home.

Pork fat is naturally boiled into lard. A can of lard can be used until March next year if you save it.

She braised the ribs, but since it was fresh pork, she couldn’t just pickle it all.

As for the pork legs, of course, they are made into pickled pork legs.

In fact, it is a simplified version of pickled ham. The pork leg is pickled with pepper and salt for a few days, then rolled in white wine, and finally air-dried for more than ten days. After drying, it can be eaten. It is very good to chop it into small pieces and make pickled pork with preserved vegetables.

As for the leftovers, they can still be hung and cut off when you want to eat them. But they have to be eaten before the weather gets hot. Wen Jiajia is now just praying that the temperature will not rise after the beginning of winter, otherwise the pig legs will easily go bad. She is also thinking of cutting two pounds of pig legs for her family as New Year’s goods.

In addition to various kinds of meat, Wen Jiajia also specially bought some glutinous rice this year, preparing to make some rice cakes and rice cakes as New Year’s goods.

There’s no way. The locals don’t eat rice cakes very often, and even if Wen Jiajia wanted to buy them, she couldn’t find anywhere.

As for rice cakes, they were extremely expensive. After calculating the price, Wen Jiajia decided to make them herself.

With nothing to do, she took out a piece of paper to plan her New Year’s goods. When she finished writing the words “brown sugar rice cake,” someone knocked on her office door and said someone was looking for her.

“He said his surname is Lu.” The person knocking on the door was Dong Qi.

Dong Qi was recently converted to a regular employee. Because she had worked the morning shift and the night shift for nearly half a month, Wen Jiajia applied on her behalf and asked Director Gao to help her get converted to a regular employee.

The factory is short of people, and it wouldn’t be a big deal for Director Gao to lend a hand to someone this hardworking and capable.

Dong Qi was happy about this for almost a week. It was said that her family took her to a state-owned restaurant for a meal. Lan Lan also said that Dong Qi cried while eating, which shows how much this formal job meant to her.

Wen Jiajia: “Last name, Lu? Oh, I see.”

It must be Sister Lu.

Wen Jiajia stuffed an apple into Dong Qi’s pocket and said, “Take this apple and eat it.”

Dong Qi smiled and said, “How can I feel so embarrassed about this?”

She quickly put the apple in her pocket and went back to the office.

“…”

Wen Jiajia was quite speechless. She closed the door and went downstairs to the factory gate. The person standing at the gate and talking to the gatekeeper was indeed Sister Lu.

“Sister Lu.” Wen Jiajia went over and called for her.

In the past two months, Wen Jiajia has had a lot of contact with Sister Lu, and they have gradually become familiar with each other.

Sister Lu was from a commune near Linhe. She married a worker from the city more than ten years ago, and it was not until 1970 that she got a temporary job at the railway station.

According to her, her parents are still alive, and there are six brothers and sisters in her family, with only one eldest brother. After getting married, the eldest brother had four children, three of whom were girls.

The eldest girl is her niece, who often comes to her house. It turns out that she doesn’t come to enjoy the good life at her house. She is not the head of the family yet and has no ability to let her niece enjoy the good life.

She comes to help look after the children and the elderly.

Sister Lu has three children, aged ten, four, and two. Except for the ten-year-old, it would be really difficult for her to manage without someone to take care of the other two children.

Her mother-in-law is frail, so she can’t even take care of the children. It’s good enough that she doesn’t have to let her four-year-old granddaughter take care of her.

Her father-in-law and husband were still at work, so she had no choice but to ask her niece for help.

On one hand, she really needed help, and on the other, she felt sorry for her niece. She felt that she was somewhat similar to her niece in that both were not loved by their parents and both needed to make a living on their own.

Ever since she learned that Wen Jiajia could get a place, she has been interested in it.

Regardless of pride, she took the initiative to find Wen Jiajia, and fortunately, she did not ignore her.

After several interactions, she got to know Wen Jiajia, and Wen Jiajia also got to know her.

Sister Lu has a good reputation, both among her neighbors and colleagues.

Some said she was hardworking, some said she was motivated, some said she never talked bad about others, some said she was kind-hearted… Even the people who had argued with her couldn’t specifically point out what was wrong with her. They just kept saying that she was from the countryside and became a city dweller by getting married.

But is there anything wrong with this? Is this a problem? Obviously not.

Wen Jiajia went to inquire about her niece again. Her niece Lu Xiaoqian was a high school student, or to be more precise, she had only finished her first year of high school.