Chapter 24: A Child with a Mother is a Treasure

Right, he also told himself to meet Wu Xiuxiu and remember to ask her about her job.

“Xiuxiu, have you found a job?” Ye Xiaoli suddenly asked.

“Not yet.” Wu Xiuxiu shook her head. “What about you? Have you found a job?”

“I have. My parents helped me find a job at the radio station. I’ll start next week.”

Ye Xiaoli showed a slightly smug expression, thinking that Wu Xiuxiu hadn’t found a job after all.

She chuckled in her heart: Finding a job is so difficult these days. Someone from a simple family like Wu Xiuxiu wouldn’t be able to find one! Only someone like me can find a job!

“Xiuxiu, you have to find a job quickly. Otherwise, you’ll be sent to the countryside!” Ye Xiaoli said with a concerned look, her eyes flashing with anxiety, as if she was genuinely worried about Wu Xiuxiu.

Wu Xiuxiu nodded. She didn’t tell Ye Xiaoli about her plan to go on a blind date and get married to avoid being sent to the countryside. This was a very private and important matter. They hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and she couldn’t tell her about it.

Ye Xiaoli and Wu Xiuxiu chatted for a few more sentences before waving goodbye to each other. Before leaving, she specifically reminded Wu Xiuxiu not to be late and to arrive at the Taipei City Music Hall on time. They would meet at the main entrance of the Taipei City Music Hall.

After parting with Ye Xiaoli, Wu Xiuxiu returned home with Ding Hongjuan and Dong Xiaoye. Along the way, Ding Hongjuan and Dong Xiaoye both praised Ye Xiaoli for being a good person. She managed to get such hard-to-get tickets and thought of inviting Wu Xiuxiu to go. She was truly a good friend of Wu Xiuxiu.

Wu Xiuxiu nodded. According to the original owner’s memories, tickets for the eight model operas were very difficult to obtain. People with connections and means would easily earn more than ten yuan by reselling the tickets they got.

Ten yuan was a lot of money at this time. It was considered scalping tickets.

Unexpectedly, Ye Xiaoli, who hadn’t interacted with her for so long, managed to get such precious tickets and was willing to invite her to watch the show. This was truly too good to be true. She treated her as a good friend, which made Wu Xiuxiu feel a little strange.

If she truly considered her a good friend, why didn’t Ye Xiaoli interact with her after graduation?

Ye Xiaoli had never invited the original owner to her home. After graduation, the original owner wanted to find her but didn’t know where to go.

But she had been to the original owner’s home. She could go to the original owner’s home if she wanted to find her.

The more Wu Xiuxiu thought about it, the more questions she had in her heart. She couldn’t figure it out even when she reached her doorstep.

She shook her head in her heart. If she couldn’t figure it out, she wouldn’t think about it anymore. She would just ask Ye Xiaoli directly tonight.

“Xiuxiu, go to the bathhouse and take a bath. You should have taken a bath when you came back from the hospital. Now you’re going to listen to the opera tonight, so you need to take a bath and be clean.” Ding Hongjuan suddenly said.

“I was just thinking of asking you to go to the bathhouse to take a bath. Mom already said it before me.” Dong Xiaoye laughed.

“Okay, I’ll go to the bathhouse to take a bath now.” Wu Xiuxiu didn’t refuse and immediately nodded. She thought to herself that her mother and sister-in-law were really thoughtful and considerate. They thought of asking her to go to the bathhouse. She hadn’t even thought about taking a bath.

She hadn’t taken a bath in the past few days while she was in the hospital. Her body was starting to smell.

But compared to going to the bathhouse to take a bath, she would rather take a bath at home. Unfortunately, many families at this time didn’t have a bathroom, and the toilet didn’t have any bathing facilities. People would go to the bathhouse to take a bath.

She could only follow the local customs!

“Here’s the money for the bath.” Ding Hongjuan suddenly took out one yuan and gave it to Wu Xiuxiu. “It costs one cent to take a bath at the bathhouse. You keep the remaining nine cents to spend when you go out tonight.”

“Xiaoli, please go see [the movie] Sha Jiabin. When you meet her tonight, buy some delicious food and drinks to treat her and thank her.”

“I heard that there’s a grocery store near the city’s music hall that closes at 9 pm. I still have a sugar ticket and two popsicle tickets. Take them with you to the grocery store and buy some fruit candies and two popsicles to share with Xiaoli.”

As she spoke, Ding Hongjuan took out three tickets and handed them to Wu Xiuxiu. One was a sugar ticket and the other two were popsicle tickets.

During this time, popsicles required tickets to purchase. You couldn’t buy them without a ticket.

Wu Xiuxiu looked at the money and tickets in her mother’s hand and then raised her head to gaze at the loving smile on her mother’s face. Her heart felt warm.

This mother was truly good to her!

No wonder there’s a saying that a child with a mother is a treasure!

“Thank you, Mom. You’re so good to me. But you don’t need to give me this money and these tickets. I have my own money and tickets. I’ll buy things with my own money and tickets tonight.” Wu Xiuxiu pushed the money and tickets back to her mother.

Her mother only received a monthly allowance from her brother, and the amount wasn’t much. This money was surely saved and scraped from her mother’s teeth. She had money from selling eggs in the black market, so how could she take her mother’s money?

Besides, she had so many supplies in her space. There were all sorts of food, including dozens of kinds of fruit candies and other candies. She also had many different kinds of popsicles.

There was no need to spend money and tickets to buy them. She could just take them from her space later.

“You have money and tickets?” Ding Hongjuan was surprised. Dong Xiaoye was also surprised.

“You’ve always been a spendthrift, and you would spend money and tickets as soon as you got them. How come you still have money and tickets now?” Ding Hongjuan was a bit skeptical.

“Because of the matter of going to the countryside, my mood has been bad lately. I haven’t been in the mood to buy anything, so I still have some money and tickets left.” Wu Xiuxiu found a good explanation.

“Okay, I’m going to my room to get my toiletries to take a bath. We’ll chat after I finish bathing.” Wu Xiuxiu said.

“Alright, go ahead.” Ding Hongjuan nodded and waved her hand.

Wu Xiuxiu immediately went back to her room and opened her wardrobe, wanting to take out a change of clothes. However, she found that there were very few clothes in the wardrobe, only two jackets, one shirt, two pairs of pants, and one skirt.

Wu Xiuxiu wasn’t surprised. In this era of scarcity, ordinary people having two or three sets of clothes was already good. For girls, having a skirt, especially a plaid skirt, was even better.

Some people were so poor that they only had one set of clothes. They couldn’t even change clothes, so they just kept wearing them, patching them up when they got torn.

During this time, everything was bought with tickets, including cloth. Each person was only allotted six feet of cloth tickets per year, so they could only buy six feet of cloth. However, even a grown-up needed seven feet of cloth to make a garment, even if they saved on fabric.

Therefore, six feet of cloth was not enough. To make a garment and a pair of pants for an adult, they had to pool their cloth together as a family.

In the Wu family, only she had new clothes in the past two years because she took all the family’s cloth. Her mother, sister-in-law, and brother hadn’t made new clothes in two years. They were wearing old clothes made several years ago.

Thinking about this, Wu Xiuxiu felt a pang of guilt.