Chapter 454 - 452: So Magical
Lin Lan turned her bike around and went to the clothing and insole shop to take a look. Little Xue and Xiang Qun gave her a list of items that needed to be restocked.
With the list in hand, she went to the post office to make a call, order the goods, and wire the money.
These days, for small shortages, they wired money to a few long-term wholesalers and had them ship the goods over.
Perhaps it was good luck, but after a dozen or so shipments, not a single one had been lost. Lin Lan found it quite convenient.
After leaving the post office, she went to the pastry shop. Qiaohui whispered to Lin Lan, "Cousin, just now a woman chased Yuezhen into the shop demanding to borrow money. Yuezhen ignored her, so the woman started making a scene. It was Liying who helped chase her away."
"That was probably her sister-in-law!" Lin Lan parked her bike and went to the backyard. She found Lin Yuezhen slicing ham. With the Mid-Autumn Festival just over twenty days away, the shop had started to put out a small selection of mooncakes.
"Sis, did Zhou Chunlan come to cause trouble for you?"
Lin Yuezhen nodded and gestured emphatically. "She came to my house first thing this morning, saying Guohui wasn’t working and just played cards all day. She even said they couldn’t afford tuition for their two kids. Brother Yong said they’re a bottomless pit and forbade me from lending her money."
As she spoke, tears streamed down her face. "I don’t feel sorry for Guohui and his wife, but I feel for my nephew and niece! Little Lan, what do you think I should do?"
Lin Lan looked at her, hesitated for a moment, then said, "Sis, since you’re asking me, I’ll be blunt. I think Brother Yong is right. Guohui and his wife are leeches, bloodsuckers. Once they latch on, you’ll never be able to shake them off."
"You have to think about the baby in your belly. School, buying a house, finding a partner—all of that will cost money in the future. Being soft on them is being cruel to your own child."
After hearing this, Lin Yuezhen touched her stomach and looked at Lin Lan gratefully. "Little Lan, I know you truly have my best interests at heart. I won’t lend them any money."
Lin Lan patted her shoulder, tied on an apron, and started to work.
The late-summer heat was particularly fierce. Among the pastries in the shop, only the kidney bean rolls were selling well; the others weren’t moving much at all.
She added some crispy little fried dough twists and the mooncakes, and the daily revenue didn’t drop by much.
The next day, Li Xiangyang hired two tractors to haul sweet potatoes, potatoes, red-mouthed taro, ramie roots, and paper mulberry trees back to the Central Brigade’s pig farm.
Yang Zhigang and Brother Yong saw him return and hurried over to greet him. Spotting the paper mulberry trees in the tractor’s trailer, they laughed. "Why’d you bring all the paper mulberry trees back?"
Li Xiangyang chuckled. "They’ve already taken root. Wouldn’t leaving them behind be a gift to that bastard? I’m not worried about the paper mulberries surviving. Tomorrow morning, I’ll hire a few people from the brigade to plant them in that barren patch of land behind the pig farm."
"Alright!" Yang Zhigang and Brother Yong quickly climbed onto the tractor and started unloading the paper mulberry saplings, whose roots were wrapped in straw.
"Xiangyang, who’s the bastard that’s trying to snatch our pig farm?" Brother Yong asked in a low voice.
"The new brigade leader and his brother-in-law. I found the leader, a man named Yang, and threatened him a bit. In the end, I paid a five hundred yuan subcontracting fee."
"It’s better to subcontract it to them anyway. With the brigade leader and his brother-in-law eyeing the pig farm, we wouldn’t have had any peace there."
Li Xiangyang nodded. "How much longer until the pigsties are ready?"
"We hired a dozen or so people. The septic tank is already dug and cemented. The master craftsman is still laying the bluestone slabs. It should be finished in ten days at most."
"Good. I’ll have Shuiqing take the tractor back to Red Star Brigade and keep an eye on things. The brigade leader’s brother-in-law is a real piece of work, and I’m worried he’ll pull some tricks."
"Shuiqing’s inside. I’ll go get him."
Li Xiangyang nodded. When Shuiqing came out, they all unloaded the paper mulberry trees and the produce set aside for pig feed—the red-mouthed taro, sweet potatoes, and potatoes. After a word with the craftsman, Li Xiangyang headed back to the East Market.
He and the driver unloaded everything from the tractor at his home. The driver then took the tractor to Limin Street to pick up Shuiqing and take him to Red Star Brigade.
Lin Lan looked at the small mountain of taro, sweet potatoes, and potatoes piled in the courtyard. "How did you guys grow so much?"
Li Xiangyang smiled. "We planted over three acres with these. The low-quality sweet potatoes, potatoes, and mother taros were all unloaded at the pig farm. All this here is only about five hundred pounds."
"Let’s send some over to Auntie and Xiuyun, and some to my mom and dad. We can make starch with the rest!"
"Okay." Li Xiangyang patted Little Douzi. "Go tell Little Hai and Dandan to bring over some baskets and get some."
"Okay!" Little Douzi ran across the way.
Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang walked into the house. "Dad already ate and went out for a walk with his friends. We thought you weren’t coming back today, so we didn’t wait for you. Do you want me to cook you some noodles, or would you rather have some cold congee?"
Li Xiangyang smiled. "Cold congee would be perfect."
"Dad made pan-fried tiger-skin peppers and a cold cucumber salad. I’ll make you a couple of century eggs, too!" Lin Lan took out two preserved eggs. "Xiuyun’s relative made them. They’re quite good."
Li Xiangyang took the eggs. "I’ll get it. You go outside and check on those little rascals. They’re having a taro fight. If they break the red-mouthed taro, the sap will make their hands itch like crazy."
Lin Lan glanced outside and saw Little Douzi, Dandan, and Little Hai running around the pile of taro. She chuckled, "Let them be. They’ll learn their lesson after this and won’t waste food next time."
Li Xiangyang peeled a preserved egg and handed it to Lin Lan. He suddenly remembered it was already the first of the month. "School started today. Did you get Little Douzi registered?"
Lin Lan nodded. "Yep, registered him this morning. He’s in first grade, class one."
’The tuition is so cheap these days,’ she thought. ’Only four and a half yuan for a whole semester at the city’s Number One Elementary. The teacher even gave out a handful of pencils and more than ten notebooks each for math and Chinese.’
The two of them finished preparing the preserved eggs and carried the dishes to the small dining table in the kitchen. Li Xiangyang picked up his bowl of mung bean congee and took a big gulp. "Nothing beats congee in the summer."
Lin Lan smiled and sat across from him. "Dad said he came back at noon to cook it and let it cool. He simmered the mung beans until they turned into a paste."
Ever since she got pregnant, whenever Li Xiangyang and Old Li were home with time on their hands, they would fight over who got to cook. Knowing she couldn’t stand the smell of garlic, they had even put all the garlic away.
It was the same at her parents’ house. Whenever she went over for a meal, her mom and dad would remind her two sisters-in-law to never use garlic in their cooking.
’Being reborn into this life and meeting them is heaven’s greatest blessing!’
"Mom, our hands are so itchy!" The three children, led by Little Douzi, ran in rubbing their hands. "So itchy, so itchy..."
Lin Lan looked at their red, irritated hands and scowled. "And you call yourself a farmer’s son! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to play with taro?"
Rubbing their hands, the three of them admitted their mistake. "We won’t throw taro next time."
"Come with me!"
Lin Lan led the three of them to the faucet, washed their hands with soap, and dried them. Then she took them to the coal stove. "Put your hands over the stove, like you’re warming them in the winter. Toast them back and forth for a bit, and the itching will go away. Be careful now, and don’t get too close to the fire."
"We hear you!"
The three pairs of little hands hovered over the stove for a while, and sure enough, the itching stopped. Dandan looked at the two adults. "It was that simple? That’s amazing."
Little Douzi sniffed his hands. "Haha, they smell like barbecue."
Little Hai sniffed his, too. "Like roast suckling pig!"
Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang looked at the three children and shook their heads with a smile.