When he woke up, the room was still dark.
Shi Zhen went to bed very early last night, and naturally woke up very early today. He got up from bed, unbolted the door bolt, opened the wooden door and walked out.
It was still dark and a bit cold, but it was all very real.
He was back.
Shi Zhen had the urge to shout to the sky, feeling indescribably happy.
Taking a deep breath, the coolness in his lungs told Shi Zhen that making money was imminent.
Not to mention anything else, since he and Shi Xinghuo were living here, they had to buy some daily necessities.
For example, the toilet.
The rural areas of J city were all connected to running water and electricity, but almost no one had installed flush toilets. They were all equipped with pits for toilets.
The latrine was usually at the back of the house. A small hut would be built there and a toilet would be placed at home to avoid having to run outside if you wanted to use the toilet at night.
As for him and Shi Xinghuo, they were both men. They could make do without a toilet for a short time, but certainly not for a long time.
And… if he had no money, how could he let Guan Baiyu live a good life?
In his previous life, he was able to recruit a group of fellow villagers to work as construction workers to make money because his uncle, Shi Xinghuo’s father, lent him 20,000 yuan out of the compensation received from the contractor after Shi Xinghuo’s death.
Now that he was so poor, he didn’t even have the money to pay for the villagers to leave the village. How could he have money to buy tools?
Here in J City, family planning* was implemented very well, and there were almost no excess births in rural areas.
However, according to the regulations of Z Province, if someone with a rural household registration had a daughter as the first child, she could have another child, so many rural families still had two children.
However, if a woman gave birth to a daughter the first time, she would not necessarily give birth to a second child. Firstly, no one could guarantee that the second child would be a son. Secondly, some local factories recruited only female workers. If a woman had a job, they naturally had the right to speak at home on whether to give birth to a second child or not.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents only had one daughter, and Guan Jianguo also only had one daughter.
Guan Jianguo’s daughter, who was four or five years old, was one of the children playing at the door yesterday. She had short hair, a round face that was tanned, and her eyes were round and black. She looked very cute.
Shi Zhen saw the door next door open. When he went in to look for Guan Jianguo, he saw this cute child holding a bowl and sipping congee.
People here usually had congee in the morning and rice at noon and in the evening.
But they were not rich after all, and the side dishes were relatively ordinary. At this moment, there was a big bowl of pickled vegetables on the table for the whole family to eat together.
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.
”Uncle Guan, is there any place recruiting workers nearby? We want to find a job.” Shi Zhen explained his purpose.
He told Guan Jianguo yesterday that he and Shi Xinghuo came here from their home village in the next city to look for jobs and relatives, so it was not unexpected for him to ask Guan Jianguo about work now.
Guan Jianguo looked a bit fierce, but had a good temper. “It’s hard to find jobs. For women, it is easy. They can go to the chemical fiber factory and textile factory and ask. However, for men, many factories don’t want to hire men… But you can do small jobs.”
There were quite a few factories here in Anshan Town. Especially in the past few years, those villages learned from Huaxi Village and so on, and many of them set up factories.
There were two large factories in their village. One was a chemical fiber factory and the other was a cement factory.
However, factories generally recruited female workers, and if a worker was missing, someone would soon take over, leaving out outsiders.
Guan Jianguo muttered a few words, saying that his wife used to work in the chemical fiber factory and had been working for several years, but since she had to nurse the baby after giving birth, she was not allowed to go back and she was replaced by someone else.
As for men, the cement factory wanted men, but it was not easy to get in. He had a friend who worked in the cement factory, and he only got in after asking the town cadres.
However, there were many places hiring small-time workers. As Guan Jianguo said this, he remembered something. “I know someone who drives a tractor. He has been selling mud recently. He wants to find someone to help with digging mud. Are you guys willing? But he only wants one person.”
”We are willing,” Shi Zhen said without hesitation.
He only had about thirty yuan left now. In terms of purchasing power, it was less than three hundred yuan in later generations.
The so-called selling mud meant digging mud and selling it to the cement factory.
This usually involved finding a place where mud could be dug, and then painstakingly digging out the mud and sending it to the cement factory.
The person who drove the tractor had to work hard to dig alone. To make it easier, he would hire someone for a few yuan a day to help him dig.
As for that man, he originally asked his brother-in-law to help him dig mud, and he was paid ten yuan a day. However, his brother-in-law was too lazy and asked him to drive the tractor to his mother-in-law’s house every day and wait for him to get up. The mud he dug was less than half of what he dug himself.
He couldn’t bear it, so he decided to replace him.
Shi Zhen remembered that at this time in his last life, he was working as a laborer in J City, and his income was only ten yuan a day. The pay was quite high, but it must be very tiring – his brother-in-law could be lazy, but they certainly couldn’t.
Shi Zhen told Guan Jianguo that he and Shi Xinghuo could work together first, and after they were accustomed to the work, Shi Xinghuo would work there alone.
In Shi Xinghuo’s case, he could only do manual labor, but construction sites these days didn’t pay as much attention to safety as later generations, and there were many safety hazards.
Shi Zhen didn’t dare to let Shi Xinghuo go to a construction site. It was best to let Shi Xinghuo do simple physical work like digging mud.
As for himself, Shi Zhen wanted to find another job.
Guan Jianguo let Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo have congee at his home before taking them to the home of the tractor driver.
That man was about the same age as Guan Jianguo, and like Guan Jianguo, he had worked hard to buy a tractor and make money.
After listening to Guan Jianguo’s introduction, he was willing to accept Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo, but he also said, “Even if there are two of you, I will only give you ten yuan a day. If you work slowly, it will be even less.”
Shi Zhen agreed immediately.
When he met Guan Jianguo through Guan Baiyu in his previous life, Guan Jianguo no longer drove a tractor but a van.
He went to Guan Jianguo to rent a room, and actually planned to find a way for Shi Xinghuo to move goods through Guan Jianguo.
Of course, if he couldn’t find another job temporarily, he could also move goods first.
Nowadays, digging mud was almost like moving goods.
Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo sat in the tractor. When they arrived at the digging place, they worked hard without dawdling.
He and Shi Xinghuo were both used to working in the village. Although they looked thin, they were quite strong.
Although he was very rich in his previous life, he actually didn’t enjoy it much. Now he was not opposed to being asked to do manual labor.
The man driving the tractor worked with the two of them, and within a short time, the three of them had filled a cart full of mud, leaving the man stunned.
He used to work with his brother-in-law, and they could only dig one cart in an entire morning.
When the cart was full, the man drove the mud to the cement factory.
While he went to deliver the mud, Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo were not idle and continued digging with shovels.
When that person came back, they loaded the excavated mud into the cart.
The job of selling mud was to sell more and make more. Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo worked very hard and did the work of many people. In the end, this man not only took them home for lunch, but after finishing the work in the evening, he also gave them fifteen yuan.
After all, he made a lot more today than usual.
As for the lunch treat… He was also from the countryside. In addition to driving a tractor, he also worked in the fields. Now was not the time when food was scarce and everyone ate shared meals from a big pot. They were working hard to take care of the fields, and there was still enough food to eat.
Shi Zhen accepted the fifteen yuan the man gave him.
While he was working with this man, he kept chatting and asked about many things in the local dialect, including Guan Baiyu’s situation.
Guan Baiyu had indeed not been living well these past few years.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father and Guan Baiyu’s biological father actually had a bad relationship since childhood.
Guan Baiyu’s biological father was fostered in the Guan family and the Guan family was given money to raise him. In the 1950s and 1960s, this money was not a small amount for the Guan family, and it could even be said to be life-saving money.
Therefore, the old lady of the Guan family was very kind to Guan Baiyu’s biological father. If there was anything delicious to eat or drink, she always thought of Guan Baiyu’s biological father first.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father was treated worse, so naturally he had a bad relationship with Guan Baiyu’s biological father.
Later, Guan Baiyu was brought back. Although he was registered under the Guan household, Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father was not willing to take care of him. When he had his own child, he was even more unhappy to take care of Guan Baiyu.
But in the eyes of the villagers, he had done a good job. After all, Guan Baiyu had grown up well, and he didn’t let Guan Baiyu do any farm work.
But food alone was not enough for a person to live. Guan Baiyu needed clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc. Guan Baiyu couldn’t buy these things without money, so these years, Guan Baiyu basically wore other people’s old clothes.
When this person talked about Guan Baiyu, he felt a little sympathetic, but he didn’t feel that Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents had done anything wrong.
Shi Zhen didn’t bear any grudge against Guan Baiyu’s adoptive parents. In his previous life, Guan Baiyu never cut off contact with them. They were not close and he just treated them as ordinary relatives.
And that couple, after he and Guan Baiyu got together, did not ask Guan Baiyu for money. After Guan Baiyu’s adoptive father lost money raising chickens when Guan Baiyu was in high school, the couple concentrated on farming. As a result, they made money by growing vegetables and selling them. The days were slowly getting better.
Guan Baiyu’s adoptive sister did not continue studying after graduating from junior high school. Instead, she went to learn hairdressing and later opened a hairdresser’s shop and made a lot of money.
When he died, this woman had moved her hairdressing shop from Anshan Town to Changxi City to facilitate her children’s studies, and her son had just been admitted to the best high school in Changxi City.
In the evening, Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo ate the unfinished rice noodles and rabbit meat they brought from the village.
After finishing eating, Shi Zhen looked at Shi Xinghuo. “Brother*, I’m going out for a while. You stay at home.”
He wanted to talk to Guan Baiyu.
After meeting Guan Baiyu at noon yesterday, he had been thinking about how to contact Guan Baiyu, and now he had thought of a way.
Shi Zhen went to knock on Guan Baiyu’s door.
Guan Baiyu opened the door quickly and saw Shi Zhen and looked surprised.
Shi Zhen smiled at him. “Are you Guan Baiyu? I am your maternal cousin*.”
***
T/N: Pretending to be Guan Baiyu’s cousin… this will definitely come back to bite Shi Zhen lol.
*Family planning is a general term used to refer to China’s one child policy, which was in effect from 1979-2015.
*哥 (ge) means older brother in Chinese – Shi Xinghuo and Shi Zhen are paternal cousins, but it’s common to call cousins (and even close friends) brother and sister in China.
*maternal cousin – the Chinese is 表哥 (biaoge) – older cousin brother of a different surname. I’m specifying here that he is his maternal cousin, but will just use cousin in the future.
Dumbass just wow he’s so dumb
Ah yes, pretending to be biologically related, very seductive Shi Zhen 🤦♀️
I just found out about KaiShin being cousins (Detective Conan) and now this…. Why god why!!???
I understand that he was a dumb and presumptuous young guy in his past life. But what’s his excuse for this dumb decision now? Anyway I hope he remains platonic cousins with him for a long time until Guan Baiyu becomes independent. I truly hope Guan Baiyu doesn’t become a dodder flower.