Chapter 22

Qiao Baozhu had no idea that Bai Lianhua was about to start making trouble, as she was busy entertaining the guests.

No one knows when the groom Shen Xiao will come back, and he can’t let the relatives and friends who are sending them off go home hungry.

Qiao Baozhu pulled Qiao Changhai aside to discuss: “Dad, so many people are here, it’s not good to let everyone go home with empty stomachs.”

“How about I take the money and you take these people to a state-owned restaurant for dinner?”

Qiao Changhai looked at his daughter deeply, and a helpless smile appeared on his serious face.

“With so many people going to a state-owned restaurant, how much does it cost?”

Qiao Baozhu was stunned. She was only thinking about not disappointing the customer and didn’t calculate the price carefully.

But this can’t be entirely blamed on Qiao Baozhu. She has achieved financial freedom for many years and didn’t react in a hurry.

“What should we do then?”

Seeing his daughter’s sad face, Qiao Changhai comforted her with a distressed look on his face: “You can think of inviting everyone to dinner, which is progress.”

Qiao Changhai walked to the front of the carriage with Qiao Baozhu with a proud look on his face, and lifted the felt cloth on it with his big hands.

Only then did Qiao Baozhu discover that there were not only grain and autumn vegetables on the carriage, but also pork and soybean oil.

“Dad, where did you buy all these things?”

At this time, food is distributed regularly and in fixed quantities. Take Qingyanshan Farm as an example. Every month, 30 kilograms of food, 15 kilograms of vegetables, 2 kilograms of lard, and 1 kilogram of salt are distributed. This is mostly for those who do heavy physical work. Adults in the city only get 27 kilograms of food and half a kilogram of oil per month.

The old couple are not regular workers, Qiao Changhai is a temporary worker in a repair shop, Bao Huihua makes money by sewing shoe soles. Qiao Changhai bought six carts of stuff, how much did it cost?

Qiao Changhai could see the worry in his daughter’s heart at a glance, so he walked over and smiled softly.

“Girl, if we collect this truckload of food, your mother and I will be hungry, right?”

Qiao Baozhu’s eyes were filled with tears. She looked at her adoptive father and choked up, “Isn’t it?”

Seeing how Qiao Baozhu felt sorry for him, Qiao Changhai felt that his life was worth it.

He pulled Qiao Baozhu aside, making sure that no one could hear what the father and daughter were saying, and then Qiao Changhai explained to his daughter.

“I kept it a secret from you at first because I saw that you were unstable and I was afraid you would leak the news. Now that you’re married, I have to teach you a thing or two about how to live a normal life.”

Qiao Changhai lowered his voice and first explained how he got Qiu Cai.

Qiao Baozhu opened her mouth wide and stared at Qiao Changhai in astonishment: “Can this be possible?”

“snort……”

Qiao Changhai looked at his daughter with amusement and said jokingly, “Have you ever noticed that the variety of autumn vegetables we stockpile every year is more than that of other families?”

Qiao Baozhu blinked her eyes and laughed dryly: “I was like an idiot when I was a kid, how could I think so much.”

“There is a regular customer in the store who often comes to take care of business. He is a purchasing manager of a state-owned factory. His company has to collect a batch of autumn vegetables in the countryside every year. The vegetables that are not fully harvested from the fields are enough for many families to eat. Every year when the vegetables are harvested, he asks me to go over and pick some vegetables to eat.”

Qiao Baozhu suddenly realized that she had always wondered how her adoptive parents could save so much money.

After Qiao Changhai came to the city, he followed the craftsman Master Liang to learn how to repair clocks and watches. He was smart, good at studying and able to endure hardships. He became an apprentice in two years and stayed in the Huaguang Repair Shop where Master Liang worked as a temporary worker.

Huaguang Repair Shop is not an ordinary place. It mainly repairs watches, clocks, radios, sewing machines and bicycles. The customers who come here for repairs are all wealthy and prestigious people.

A master like Qiao Changhai, who has a simple and kind appearance, excellent skills, and is good at reading people’s expressions, is quite popular.

Especially since he was disabled and had a mute wife at home, the old couple looked even more pitiful, which made the well-off guests feel even more sympathetic.

All the unused clothes at home, old fabrics that had not been used in time, vegetables that were not liked to eat, pastries that were about to go bad, even shanks that were too thin in meat, and pig intestines that were too lazy to clean up would be thrown to Qiao Changhai.

Everyone in the Qiao family thought that they had left their self-sufficient countryside and would definitely live a hard life picking vegetable leaves and eating cornmeal porridge in the city.

In fact, this family of three has never suffered from any hardship when it comes to talking.

Especially since they met the purchasing manager, every year when it was time to stock up on autumn vegetables, Qiao Changhai and Bao Huihua would pull a cart and follow the purchasing department to pick up vegetables.

Just like the several sacks of autumn vegetables on the carriage today, they were all pulled back to the city from the countryside by Qiao Changhai and his wife on a cart.

“There are so many dishes, why didn’t I see them when I went home last time?”

Qiao Baozhu looked at the two sacks of potatoes, two sacks of radishes, two sacks of cabbages, and one sack of mustard greens. She could not imagine how so many things could be hidden in her small shack.

“You are such a fool. If you take these vegetables home and let the neighbors see them, won’t it be exposed?”

It turned out that Huaguang Repair Shop had a large warehouse where they recycled old radios, broken bicycles and some spare parts.

Qiao Changhai usually drank with the old man who was the gatekeeper. When he was picking up autumn vegetables, he also brought a portion for the old man. Naturally, a secret place was reserved for him in the warehouse.

I didn’t spend a penny on the autumn vegetables, but I bought the rice, flour and coarse grains on the black market with real money.

Qiao Baozhu was heartbroken, and what made her even more distressed was the several trucks of furniture that her adoptive father had.

“I roughly calculated that this much furniture must cost several hundred dollars, right?”

In this day and age, you don’t need a car, a house, or even a dowry to get married. But you can’t get married with nothing. In addition to the 3’3″, 6’6″, or 9’9 cloth that Qiao Changhai mentioned before, the more particular man will also have to provide furniture.

The worst ones had to have 36 legs, the better ones had to have 72 or even 108. After the reform and opening up, more respectable families would also buy three turns and one bell.

In her previous life, when Qiao Baozhu married Zhao Haiyang, he got a kang table, four square stools, an old kangqin and a broken cupboard that had been used by who knows how many generations, and he managed to put together 28 legs. Together with a side table and two stools that Qiao Changhai gave her, he barely managed to get together 36 legs.

Even with this little stuff, Zhao Haiyang still boasted to everyone that he bought a piece of furniture with 36 legs for his wedding.

Qiao Baozhu looked at the furniture that was supposed to appear half a year later, and she felt an indescribable feeling in her heart. She had lived two lives, and when she got married, her adoptive father always paid for her dowry. She was really useless.

“Dad, where did you get the money to buy all this furniture?”

Qiao Changhai raised his eyebrows and smiled slyly: “We are not rich people, can we buy ready-made furniture?”

“These are 12 pieces of wood that I bought from a furniture factory for 88 yuan. It took me 12 nights to secretly carry them back from the furniture factory one by one. Usually there is not much work in the repair shop, so I polished the furniture in the backyard. It took me a year and a half to finish it.”

“Including the cost of buying miscellaneous materials and paint, the cost was less than 120 yuan. The paint was completed the summer before last, and it’s been waiting for you to use it for your wedding.”

Qiao Baozhu was extremely shocked. It turned out that these furniture were made long before she came of age?

A voice flashed in her mind: Parents who love their children will definitely plan for them in the long run.

It turns out that Uncle San loves me more than I thought…