Li Guangyuan immediately understood what she wanted to do and hurriedly comforted her, “I know it’s their fault, but my mom has already apologized to you at her old age, what else can she do? You know our family’s situation, we spent all our savings on my wedding, even if you cut my elder and second sisters now, the cloth won’t return, right?”
“Is that their attitude of admitting mistakes?” What’s even more infuriating was that Li Guangyuan didn’t even speak up for her.
“No no, let me apologize to you then, don’t worry, once I have money, the first thing I’ll do is buy you cloth and new clothes, lots of new clothes. You wanted me to do business, right? We’ll do business, make big money, and then I’ll buy you all the new clothes you want, isn’t that alright?”
Lin Jiayi finally calmed down after hearing him say this, turning to look at him, “Alright, let’s agree on that, we must find a business to do soon.”
Li Guangyuan nodded, “Okay, I’ll look into what business we can do later.”
While talking, his gaze fell on her package.
Lin Jiayi knew what he was thinking, and without fuss, she took out the two hundred yuan she had just put back and handed it over to him directly.
“You manage this seed money, do whatever you want with it, I know you can handle it.”
Li Guangyuan stared at the stack of money in his hand, his fingers trembling a bit.
Two hundred yuan, that’s not a small amount, he had never held so much money in his life.
His wife giving it to him was a sign of her trust.
“Jiayi, don’t worry, once I have money, I will definitely treat you well, and won’t let you suffer even a bit of grievance.”
Lin Jiayi leaned into his arms, a face full of happiness, “Remember what you said just now.”
…………
After the last experience, Chuxia didn’t ask her elder brother for help in picking tomatoes again, having already split the family’s responsibilities, she couldn’t always rely on others.
Instead, her in-laws got up early in the morning to help her pick tomatoes in the field.
Chuxia got up early, steamed a pot of buns stuffed with minced meat and green beans, placed mung beans at the bottom of the pot, and cooked mung bean soup. When heading to the field, she took both the buns and mung bean soup with her.
Mrs. Qin still felt a bit embarrassed, “I was thinking of cooking some meals and bringing them over once we were done picking.”
“Mom, there’s no need for that hassle, I had everything ready since I woke up early.”
“Then next time you don’t need to rush to the field, your father and I can start working early, and you can come over after cooking at home. You don’t need to get up so early, young people like you don’t sleep as much as us old folks and lacking sleep should be uncomfortable.”
Chuxia wanted to say that she was the earliest riser in her family regardless of the season, but she swallowed her words.
“Okay, I’ll listen to Mom.”
While speaking, she served a bowl of mung bean soup for both Mr. Qin and Mrs. Qin.
She had added Spiritual Spring water to this mung bean soup, and although she didn’t know if it could cure Mr. Qin’s illness, it could at least strengthen the couple’s health somewhat.
Perhaps because Qin Yang was not at home, and she was the newly wed daughter-in-law, the old couple treated her chores as their own responsibilities these days, giving selflessly without asking for anything in return.
Caring for her even more diligently than her own parents, she had never been taken care of like this by elders in her entire life.
Genuine care exchanged for genuine care, she was also willing to show filial respect to her in-laws, irrelevant of Qin Yang’s instructions.
Before noon, she picked all the tomatoes and similarly rode her bicycle with the rack to the vegetable station.
This was the time for delivering vegetables, and there were queues in front of every scale.
Chuxia glanced around, didn’t see Li Jian, and chose a queue with fewer people to stand behind.
Just a few steps ahead, someone called out to her, “Young lady, why are you queueing here? Come with me,” it was Li Jian.
Lin Chuxia did not refuse and followed Li Jian, pushing her bicycle forward.
Only after getting past the crowd did Li Jian ask her, “Didn’t I ask you to pick me up? Why did you go queue up again?”
“People weren’t many, just queuing for a while. Mainly because I have to save Brother Li’s kindness for when it’s really needed,” she replied with a half-serious, half-joking smile.
She was mainly worried that if asking Li Jian for help didn’t work out, not only would the person weighing the produce give her the cold shoulder, but the queuing farmers might spit at her too.
Li Jian, looking at her bright and sly eyes, didn’t expose her, and whispered, “Finish up and come pick a cart later. I’ll go ahead and wait for you over there.”
Lin Chuxia’s eyes lit up, this was truly an unexpected delight, “Then I thank Brother Li in advance.”
Although she didn’t know how this pie suddenly fell from the sky, Lin Chuxia quickly finished her portioning, handled the tomatoes, and without settling the account went to the spot where the broken carts were stored.
Seeing Li Jian standing there talking and smoking with someone, she silently breathed a sigh of relief.
“This is the young lady from our home I told you about. It’s inconvenient for her to deliver vegetables by herself on a bike. Look through this pile of junk and pick out one that can still be fixed for her.”
After speaking to that man, Li Jian turned to Lin Chuxia saying, “This is Brother Wang. He knows about your situation. You can pick out one of the carts here, 50 yuan, you see…”
“Okay, okay, thank you so much, Brother Wang,” Lin Chuxia quickly expressed her gratitude.
These days, buying a bicycle wasn’t easy. A Phoenix brand bicycle cost 168 yuan, not to mention needing coupons, let alone a cart which was impossible to buy even if one had money.
These carts at the vegetable station were all uniformly equipped during the People’s Commune period to distribute vegetables conveniently.
Nowadays, with the household contract responsibility system and the open markets, the role of vegetable stations is diminishing and many carts were languishing unused here.
As public property, even though they were unwanted, these couldn’t be disposed of randomly. In fact, many of the carts had no real issues – 50 yuan each was a real bargain.
Lin Chuxia didn’t carry that much money with her. She looked at Li Jian pleasingly, “Brother, I don’t have that much money on me right now. Could you front it for me? I’ll bring you the money once I’ve delivered the cart back home.”
Li Jian smiled and remained silent. Lin Chuxia moved closer and whispered, “Isn’t my bicycle as a pledge enough? I see Brother Wang is quite busy, let’s not bother him anymore.”
Li Jian thought to himself, are you afraid of troubling them again? Or are you afraid we might renege on selling you the cart?
Well, who asked him to care about her business.
Taking out 50 yuan from his pocket and paying Wang Cheng, Lin Chuxia had already picked out a cart.
The frame and wheels were still good, only weathered by the sun, rain, and a bit rusty, parts of the wooden boards of the cart were broken, and all three tyres were flat, but this was already considered pretty good.
After thanking Brother Wang again, Lin Chuxia handed her bicycle to Li Jian and pushed the cart home herself.
Mrs. Qin was cooking when she saw Lin Chuxia push back a cart and quickly came out of the kitchen; Qin Han also walked around the cart a couple of times.
“Sister-in-law, where did you borrow this cart from?”
“It’s not borrowed, I bought it. Let’s not tell elder brother yet, I need to deliver the money to them.”
“You bought it?” Qin Han was genuinely startled, buying a cart wasn’t easy.
Seeing her eager to head out, he quickly added, “Okay, then hurry over. Do you have enough money? If not, let me help you break some down.”
“It’s enough.”
Lin Chuxia went back to her room, took out 80 yuan, worried Li Jian might be waiting anxiously, and practically jogged back to the vegetable station.