Chapter 20

Back then, it was actually Wang Mei who first fell for Zhao Donglin.

Like the farmers in the village, the educated youth who are transferred from the city to Shanghe village work in the fields to earn work points and food rations.

The male educated youth is fine. Even if they couldn’t do farm work, they still have their strength. As long as they were willing to do it, they can earn nine or ten work points a day. There’s a bit of a problem for female educated youth. First of all, they couldn’t do rough work, and they couldn’t do meticulous work. The village work-point recorder can’t rate them without conscience. This would be unfair to other members of the village who work hard to the point of exhaustion just to have five or six work points. If this would be converted into rations, then filling their stomachs would be a problem.

The difficult conditions in the countryside, coupled with the composition of some of the educated youth, some of them chose to settle in the countryside, so they became villagers. With this, they can justifiably enjoy the treatment of being village community members.

As for Wang Mei, her purpose was to return to the city. She could not simply live a day in rural life. No shopping malls, no stores, even her favorite chicken pastry, crispy short-crust pastry, were nowhere to be found.

Most importantly, she made a boyfriend at school. Although she didn’t have a bright road, she recognized him in her heart. In the beginning, she was transferred to the countryside because of family relations. Before going to the countryside, her boyfriend swore that he would wait for her to return to the city to marry her.

So Wang Mei always had a dream of returning to the city, until a year and a half later, she received a letter from the city, writing to one of her close female classmates, who told her that her boyfriend was already with someone else.

Wang Mei’s heart jumped. She refused to believe that he would break his promise. She turned around and asked the captain to take ten days off to go back to the city. She went straight to her boyfriend’s house to find him, but just in time to see him riding his bicycle into the hutong, with another girl sitting behind the car.

This scene deeply stimulated Wang Mei. She rushed up and questioned him, asking him why he did this, and why did he betray her?

“I’m sorry Wang Mei, but you can’t blame me. You went to the countryside, and there is no exact time when you can come back. I can’t spend all my life waiting for you.”

Wang Mei threw him a slap and shed tears of pain.

“I really misjudged you. I trusted you so much, and this is how you repay me!”

Before going to the countryside, she gave him everything, endured the hard conditions in the countryside, hoping to come back sooner to be her bride, and what happened was that he fell in love with another woman!

After returning to the village, Wang Mei’s mentality changed greatly. In addition, after returning home, she made the same decision as others, that is, to find a suitable person to marry in the village. Just at this time, Zhao Donglin appeared.

He is a soldier. Soldiers in this era are more popular. Compared with migrant workers, their military allowance is high, their welfare is good, and they are still good-looking. After inquiry, he was not married.

Wang Mei made up her mind to get close to Zhang Qiaoer. Zhang Qiaoer saw that the little educated youth from the city always smiled and called her “aunt” affectionately. Her vanity was greatly satisfied.

So later, Zhao Donglin told Wang Mei that he didn’t want to find an educated youth wife. Zhang Qiaoer insisted and Zhao Donglin didn’t want to disobey his mother, so he agreed.

Recalling the past, Zhang Qiaoer’s heart was bitter. She was silent for a long time. She tucked her cuffs into the corners of her eyes, and said, “Well, you can think about it. If you marry the daughter of the Dong family, you will be the topic of their gossip in the future. You have been divorced once. You will have to bear it yourself regardless of whether you have it good or bad in the future. You can’t let others see jokes. “

Zhang Qiaoer’s heart was also aggrieved.  In her son’s marriage, even if she was a little selfish for his son, she was already at this age. Maybe one day she would be gone. She wanted to find a better wife for her son. Wasn’t it for her son Donglin and the face of their Zhao family?

Donglin poked her heart with Wang Mei’s matter, a divorced woman. To tell the truth, Zhang Qiaoer was not very happy.

“Mom, I know you are doing this for my own good. But life is like choosing shoes, only you know which pair of shoes fit and which pair of shoes do not fit. The face is almost nothing, as long as it is comfortable on the feet. If you only intended to choose for your face and choose something that doesn’t fit you, will it not be even worse? “

He didn’t mean to make his mother unhappy, but this kind of thing happened once. If he had to find a woman he didn’t like and suitable for himself, how would he live in his next life?

“Cheng, you have a point. Anyway, I can’t say anything about you. Since you like it this time, you can find a matchmaker to talk about marriage. I’m too lazy to take care of it. Don’t take care of it much. I won’t want to be blamed later. “

She deliberately said such harsh words. Her meaning was, okay, I will not oppose, but I also do not support. If you want to do what you want to do, anyway, it is your choice, and you found her suitable.

She thought that her son would say a few good words, only to know that Zhao Donglin came directly to the sentence, “Mom, you just agreed. These are small things. I can handle them myself, so as not to bother you and make you suffer.”

This sentence choked Zhang Qiao’er up and down. Her tiger face drank half a bowl of porridge and then put down the chopsticks and left the table.

After Zhang Qiaoer left the table, the atmosphere at the table suddenly relaxed a lot, Zhao Manzhu, with his wrinkled eyes, looked at Zhao Donglin. He asked: “Son, have you really decided to marry the Dong family’s daughter?”

“Yes, Dad. I have decided.”

Zhao Manzhu nodded and reached out to touch the dry tobacco stick hanging at his waist, remembering that this was the dinner table and that there were three children there, so he held back.

“Well, it’s your own business. Just make your own decision. I’ll tell your mother. I’ll do it for you.”

Zhao Donglin smiled and said, “It’s okay dad, for what mom said. I don’t really care.”

Zhao Manzhu also smiled, “Yes, your mother is such a person. A mouth like a knife but with a bean curd heart.” 

After eating, Zhao Meixiang cleaned up the pots and bowls, while Zheng Yuefen and Zhao Donghe took their son Shitou back to the house.

“Your brother is really going to marry a divorced woman back, huh?”

Zheng Yuefen’s bright eyes looked at her husband with a gossiping face. Zhao Donghe made a blank face while shaking his head, “I don’t know. Didn’t we listen to this together?”

Zheng Yuefen looked at her husband with her son in her arms and said with interest in a blink of an eye “I thought your mother was going to find a fairy wife for your brother. Unexpectedly, she finally found a divorced woman. What do you think of your brother? Was it really for Heidan and Yingbao?”

“Otherwise, my brother has been smart since childhood. He must have his reason for doing things. Don’t be unpredictable. Hurry to take a bath and sleep for Shitou. He has been skinned all day and should be sleepy later.”

Zheng Yuefen kicked him discontentedly, “Why should I go? Shitou is also your son. You can’t give him a bath?”

After saying that, she stuffed her son into Zhao Donghe’s hand.

The next morning, Zhang Qiaoer finished making breakfast in the pot and went out with a basket of vegetables, just like Zhao Donglin said. She said no matter what, her heart was still relieved. After all, getting married and marrying a wife is a big deal. She has to see for herself what she has to do.

The first thing that she remembered is that Dong Changgui’s family was in the first brigade, and she has an older sister in the first brigade that she is familiar with. So for today, she was going to find her old sister to inquire about the situation of the Dong family’s daughter.

After entering Dayu village, people in twos and threes in the village had breakfast and were ready to work in the field. At this time, there was not much work in the field, that is, hoeing the grass and fertilizing.

According to Zhang Qiao’er’s memory of the route, she found herself walking on a stubble road. In recent years, the team has built a lot of new houses. It’s been a long time since it was changed.

Zhang Qiao’er carried a vegetable basket looking around. Just behind her, the door of someone’s family opened. A girl wearing a straw hat with broad eaves came out of the yard with a little girl in her hand.

“Hey, little girl, I want to ask where does Li Jinzhi’s family live? I haven’t been to this village for years, and I can’t find her house at once. “

Zhang Qiaoer met none other than Dong Jiahui, who was holding her little niece, Tianniu, in her arms.

“Li Jinzhi?”

Dong Jiahui’s head grew big when she heard this. She was originally a Xibei goods*. Many people in the village didn’t know each other. Usually, they would call them third aunt or fourth aunt. How could she know who Li Jinzhi was? But she looked at the aunt sweating on her forehead and asked in a hurry. She was embarrassed to go back and didn’t know her directly.

^[1]TN: Xibei goods means, a counterfeit or fake. 

“Aunt, how old is the person you’re looking for? And who are the other people in her family? I can’t remember who it is when you said this name. It’s better to talk about the names of other members of her family. Maybe I can remember it.”

When Zhang Qiao’er heard her talk, she only assumed that she was asking a person who wasn’t born and raised in Dayu Village. It’s unfortunate that she had asked a girl who was married from another village for help. For her, not being able to recognize Li Jinzhi is normal.

“She is more than fifty years old, married a man named Cao Congxi. There are three sons, the eldest son is called Cao Hongjun, the second son is called Cao Hongqi, and the third son… what was he called? I forgot all of a sudden.”

This time, when Dong Jiahui heard these names, she came to understand. She smiled and nodded and said, “Then I know you are talking about Cao’s fifth aunt. Her family lives to the east of the intersection. I just want to go there to find someone. Why don’t I take you there? “

Zhang Qiaoer was immediately grateful. She looked at the girl with thin skin and smiling eyes. She was kind and pleasant. Although she was thinner, she was not the kind that would fall in the wind. Besides, she still held a little girl in her hand. Her face was not red and breathless, which showed that her body was not bad.

“This girl is very good-looking. It’s up to you. You see, she doesn’t cry or make trouble with her hands. Her eyes look at people. She’s smart and clever.”

Tianniu is 17 months old. She was wearing a small-flowered coat made by Dong Jiahui, with a small sun hat on her head, and a small flowered bag on her shoulder, which contained some peanuts, water chestnuts, caramel, and other food.

Tianniu is good-natured and looks good. Dong Jiahui has no natural resistance to lovely children. Now that the weather is hot and staying under the sun is not good. Dong Jiahui told his sister-in-law Zhou Yindi that it’s better to leave Tianniu l with her. Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to bring Tianniu.

Zhou Yindi is naturally happy to follow Dong Jiahui. These days, Tianniu sticks to Dong Jiahui tightly. Children can best tell who is good for them and who is bad for them. This aunt not only makes her good-looking clothes, buys delicious candy for her, but also tells her funny stories and teaches her to recite Tang poetry and count. Now, besides her mother, Tianniu likes Dong Jiahui best.

Today Dong Jiahui had to go to a home to deliver her freshly made clothes, so she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone at home, so she took the child out with her.