When Shi Zhen came by, Guan Jianguo had already finished dinner, the lights were on in the main room, the old lady was sitting on the side, and several children were playing in the room.
Guan Jianguo and his wife both made money, and their family was well off. They only had one daughter and they doted on her. Not only could other people’s children eat a few candies when they came over to play, but they also wouldn’t be scolded. On a daily basis, nearby children of similar age all liked to gather at Guan Jianguo’s house.
At this moment, several children were playing with syringes without needles. After pumping water, they fired it into the bamboo tube a few steps away to see who could accurately get the water into the bamboo tube.
Shi Zhen went over to talk to the old lady and asked her if she could fold ingots, saying that he wanted to find someone to help him fold ingots. He would give her two yuan after folding a pack of tin foil paper into ingots.
The old lady said without thinking that she could fold them. Seeing that Shi Zhen had many packages of tin foil paper in his hands, she told Shi Zhen that she could fold them all.
Shi Zhen said, “I want these ingots tomorrow night. If I give them all to you, you can’t finish folding them all. How about this? Come to me tomorrow after you finish folding this package. I’ll give you the money and give you the next package.”
The old lady agreed immediately, and then asked Shi Zhen what kind of ingot he wanted.
Shi Zhen chatted with her and found out that she could only fold the simplest ones and could not fold the more complicated ones he wanted, so he could only teach her on the spot.
Fortunately, after learning it a few times, she got the hang of it.
After she learned it, Shi Zhen took the remaining tin foil paper packages to find other old ladies.
There was very little money to be made from folding ingots, but the old ladies in the village were very willing to do it. They were all rural people and usually had no income at all. For them, every yuan was good.
Shi Zhen walked around the area. Whenever he met an old lady, he asked her if she wanted to fold ingots.
He gave out a total of six packs of tin foil paper before walking back. When he was approaching Guan Baiyu’s house, Shi Zhen saw that the door of Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father’s house was open. Guan Baiyu’s adoptive mother was sitting at the door, sorting leeks, so he went over and asked, “Auntie, I’m looking for someone to fold ingots. I’ll give you two yuan after folding a pack of tin foil paper. Do you want to fold it?”
He had a job available. If he only asked unrelated people and didn’t ask Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father’s family if they wanted to do it, it would look bad, so he came to ask specifically.
Zhang Xiumei asked, “What kind of ingot do you want to fold?”
Shi Zhen took out a piece of tin foil paper and folded one on the spot to show her.
Zhang Xiumei said, “I have never folded this before. If you teach me, I can fold it.”
Shi Zhen showed her twice more. Zhang Xiumei was young and learned it quickly.
When Shi Zhen saw this, he planned to give her a pack, but Zhang Xiumei said, “Do you have four more packs? Give them all to me.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Zhang Xiumei smiled while holding the four packages of tin foil paper, then picked up a handful of leeks from the ground and gave them to Shi Zhen. “Do you want leeks? The first crop is very tender.”
“Thank you.” Shi Zhen smiled and accepted them. He took the leeks and was about to leave. But before he took a few steps, he was stopped. “Hey, wait a minute.”
The person who stopped Shi Zhen was Guan Baiyu’s adoptive sister, Guan Jinjin.
When Zhang Xiumei heard her daughter shout “Hey”, she immediately scolded her, “Jinjin, you can’t shout “Hey” when calling others!”
Guan Jinjin was not afraid of her mother and immediately said, “I don’t know what to call him*! Hey, Guan Baiyu’s cousin, Guan Baiyu was bullied in school yesterday. Did you know?”
Guan Jinjin was two years younger than Guan Baiyu and was in the first year of junior high school.
Nowadays, there were not many entertainment activities, and children in the countryside basically gathered together to play. Guan Jinjin had been going to her friends’ houses to play for the past two days.
Then she heard from her friends that Guan Baiyu was bullied by Yan Jiangtao in school and went to Yan Jiangtao’s house to complain.
Old lady Guan refused to take care of Guan Jinjin, her granddaughter. Guan Jinjin had always been taken care of by her parents. When her mother went to cut grass, she would put her in a basket, and when her father went to farm, he would let her sit on the edge of the field.
She had little contact with Guan Baiyu and was not familiar with him at all. She was the kind of person who didn’t hate or like Guan Baiyu and didn’t want to have contact with him.
But recently, Shi Zhen occasionally gave them some braised dry tofu and the like, and she had a very good impression of Shi Zhen.
The thirteen-year-old girl had a cute, dark and round face, but when she grew up, her round face would become square due to the strong genetics of the Guan family.
Although this girl didn’t study much, she was very capable when she grew up. She bought a house and settled in Changxi City on her own…
Shi Zhen asked, “Guan Baiyu was bullied? By whom?”
Guan Jinjin said, “It seems that his name is Yan Jiangtao. I didn’t know it before. Someone just told me about it this afternoon. They said that Yan Jiangtao beat Guan Baiyu in school… I heard that Guan Baiyu couldn’t stand it anymore and went to Yan Jiangtao’s house to complain. Yan Jiangtao supposedly got a beating, but I’m not clear what happened.”
Shi Zhen took a deep breath and smiled at the little girl. “Thank you for telling me this.”
Guan Jinjin waved her hand generously. “You’re welcome!”
Shi Zhen left quickly. When Shi Zhen left, Guan Jinjin said to her mother, “Mom, Guan Baiyu’s cousin is so good-looking!”
The men here were generally short. The younger ones were a little taller now, but many of them were less than 1.7 meters tall.
Standing among all these people, Shi Zhen stood out from the crowd.
He also had good facial features and a calm temperament that was different from others.
Every time Guan Jinjin saw him, she had to take a few more glances.
Zhang Xiumei glanced at her daughter and asked, “Have you finished your homework?”
“It’s done,” Guan Jinjin said. In fact, she hadn’t done it yet, but she didn’t want to do it… anyway, her mother was illiterate and wouldn’t know.
Zhang Xiumei said, “After you finish your homework, come and fold ingots. You can get two yuan after folding a package. If you fold them, the money will be given to you.” Zhang Xiumei, who didn’t have a good look toward Guan Baiyu, doted on her own daughter.
“Mom, please teach me!” Guan Jinjin said immediately. With two yuan, she could spend one yuan to buy a long hair tie and the remaining one yuan to buy snacks.
No, how could only two yuan be enough? She wanted to fold enough for four yuan!
Guan Jinjin learned faster than her mother, and she started folding as soon as she learned how.
She was nimble with her hands and feet, and within a short time she was able to fold better than her mother, and even faster.
Seeing her mother teaching her father how to fold… Guan Jinjin grabbed two packs of tin foil paper and said, “Mom, mom, give me two packs. I’ll fold two packs and you can fold two packs!”
Zhang Xiumei did not object. She spent a lot of time teaching her husband how to fold. However, her husband’s fingers were too thick and he could not do delicate work well. When folding, his chapped hands would rub off the silver powder on the tin foil paper.
“Forget it, you go and sort the leeks. I’ll fold them.” Zhang Xiumei gave up on having her husband help fold.
From time to time, their family would go to town to sell vegetables, which could be considered an income.
Guan Guangguo smiled and went to sort the leeks. He tore off the yellow leaves on the leeks, cleaned them one by one, tied them in bunches with straw, and said, “I will take these leeks to town to sell tomorrow, and you can fold ingots at home.”
“Yes.” Zhang Xiumei responded.
Guan Guangguo added, “I heard that raising chickens is very profitable. Do you think I should buy some chicks and raise them?”
“Our family has no place to raise chickens, right?” Zhang Xiumei hesitated.
Guan Guangguo said, “We can raise them in these two rooms. But if you want to raise chickens, you can’t raise silkworms this year… They say that you can earn five or six thousand a year raising chickens, while raising silkworms you can only earn a thousand. It’s better to raise chickens.”
Their family used to raise a lot of silkworms, several batches of them, but they only earned around a thousand a year – sometimes their own mulberry leaves were not enough, so they even had to buy mulberry leaves from others.
Zhang Xiumei said, “Then you have to ask people how to raise them before we can start raising them.”
They discussed while doing the work at hand.
When Shi Zhen returned home, he saw Guan Baiyu peeling eggs.
Boiled eggs had to be peeled first and then marinated. At this time, Guan Baiyu had already peeled a large basin of white and tender eggs.
“Brother, what were you doing outside?” Guan Baiyu asked.
“I want to sell folded ingots in town during the Qingming Festival, so I bought some tin foil paper and asked others to help me fold them,” Shi Zhen said.
“Are there any more? I can fold too.”
“You have a lot of things to do at home. Don’t worry about this.” Shi Zhen wanted to ask about Yan Jiangtao, but he didn’t know how to ask – Guan Baiyu’s eyes were red at noon today, right? Was it because he had been bullied? But Guan Baiyu didn’t tell him anything.
Guan Baiyu thought about how he had to watch the stove at home and peel eggs. There were indeed many things to do, and wasn’t much time to fold ingots.
He had already finished peeling a pot of eggs, so he wiped his hands with a towel. His fingers were wrinkled because he had been fishing for eggs from the water. He said to Shi Zhen, “By the way, brother, I have something for you.”
“What?” Shi Zhen asked subconsciously.
Shi Xinghuo had fallen asleep behind the stove again…
Guan Baiyu glanced at Shi Xinghuo, turned his back to him, then took out a roll of money and gave it to Shi Zhen, whispering, “Brother, my grandma left me three hundred yuan…don’t you want to buy a cycle rickshaw? Is this enough money?”
***
T/N: *Chinese culture is very strict on hierarchy and politeness. How you address someone indicates your relationship with that person – usually if siblings are close, Guan Jinjin should follow Baiyu and call Shi Zhen brother (ge), but they’re not close so she doesn’t know how to address/call Shi Zhen. It is considered rude for her, who is younger, to just call “Hey” to Shi Zhen, which is why her mother scolded her.
