Chapter 405 Zhai Sanhe

The old man looked at the things Xiao Jiu brought back in surprise and listened to her detailed arrangements with great curiosity.

"You're saying you bought this? Where did you buy it? How come it contains Japanese stuff?"

Xiao Jiu winked mysteriously at him: "I don't know about that. Anyway, I bought it from someone with money. I tasted it. Although the taste was a bit unsatisfactory, it's still meat. Steamed meat doesn't have any smell, so I don't have to worry about the neighbors coming over to smell it. It saves me from being constantly bothered by people."

"Sigh, it's all because of poverty. If you don't taste anything in your own mouth, you just want to smell what other people's rice bowls taste like. Alright, I've remembered everything you said. But be careful out there, don't let anyone target you. Save your money, Grandpa has some more if you're not enough."

He reached into his pocket for money, but Xiao Jiu quickly stopped him.

“Your granddaughter is rich, really. Don’t let my current status as a student fool you; I’ve won quite a few awards in competitions!”

Of course, that was impossible. At her age, being in high school already attracted attention, so she didn't participate in any of the provincial competitions organized by the school. She just wanted to get into university and be done with it, and didn't want to be in the limelight anymore.

But I can say it here, since the old man doesn't understand and won't bother to find out what awards he's received.

For example, right now, she said she bought it with her prize money, and the old man is already beaming with joy.

"My drinking is a sign of success, more successful than all your brothers!"

Whenever this happened, Grandma would stand beside her, looking at her with a kind smile on her face.

She didn't care what the grandfather and granddaughter said; as long as she looked at her little granddaughter, she felt a warm glow in her heart and was incredibly happy.

This is probably a kind of obsession, a kind of love that can only be genuinely cherished by those who have personally experienced it.

Regardless of blood ties, if someone raised you with their own hands, that's family, and no amount of words can shake that bond.

The commune has begun to mobilize all its resources to build a protective dike. This means that in addition to the normal daily work, time and manpower will be set aside to build the dike in order to prevent the entire village from being submerged by a flood like last year.

The protective dike stretches for dozens of miles across farmland, completely separating the riverbanks from the villages. This is a huge project that will take at least three to five years to complete.

Neither the Tao nor the Tang families could spare any people, so each household was counted based on the number of people receiving basic rations from the brigade.

A strong laborer can't even earn ten work points a day, mainly because he has daily production tasks to complete; this can only be considered extra labor.

Therefore, the overall assessment is three work points, one work point is approximately 0.026 yuan, and three work points is 0.078 yuan.

The Tao family currently has four registered residents: the grandparents, Xiao Jiu, and Tao An. These four people need to pay 0.312 yuan per day.

Among the Tang sisters, only the eldest, fourth, seventh, and eighth sisters are currently registered at home, so their share is also 0.312 yuan.

However, this money does not need to be paid for the time being. The team leader said that we should settle accounts with them after a quarter or half a year has passed and the working hours have been calculated. This way, we will have a clear reason and be more convincing.

Xiao Jiu felt that the captain's arrangement was very fair and just.

Moreover, this involves the fact that even among those who go to work, the amount of work done varies each day. It's unfair to calculate the work points based on three for everyone, from the elderly to the young. These issues will definitely need to be discussed further later.

There was another piece of good news when I came back this time: Tang Cuihua has passed the nursing certificate exam and has successfully become a full-time employee. Her monthly salary has increased from a dozen yuan to twenty-five yuan. This twenty-five yuan is just the salary; there are also various vouchers and benefits distributed at the end of the year. I can't say for sure about the specifics of each department yet.

In just one year, Tang Cuihua turned her life around, going from a temporary worker earning 12.5 yuan a month to a permanent employee earning 25 yuan a month. It's truly a remarkable achievement.

In this way, she is both a formal employee, receiving a worker's salary, and a rural resident with a basic food ration every month. Although this is much less than what a true urban resident receives, it is still quite good to have such a salary and benefits without leaving home.

Sure enough, as soon as she was officially hired, her colleagues in the department helped her find a good match. However, Cuihua had already spread the word that her family was looking for a son-in-law, and families with many sons and heavy burdens could recommend her. She was not opposed to going on blind dates.

Perhaps because she felt she was getting older, and didn't want to be gossiped about every day, she decided to just find someone decent enough to live with and get married.

In fact, Cuihua's standards for her future partner are not high: he must be taller than her and capable than her. She also wants to avoid helping her in-laws after marriage.

A son-in-law who moves into his wife's family home should act like one, just like a woman moving into her husband's family home.

Don't assume she went too far just because you changed your perspective.

Actually, Cuihua wanted to be even more direct: she wanted to marry someone who had no parents.

It wasn't that I was afraid of being too direct and making it harder to find a partner, so I compromised and settled for this. But because of this one point, I've received a lot of criticism from men.

Cuihua didn't care about this. If it's over, it's over. Anyway, she didn't find anyone she liked. Nobody liked anyone else, so wasn't that good enough?

Later, somehow the news of her blind date reached the ears of the Huang family, and Huang Xin even asked someone to intercede on her behalf.

“He said he could give up everything and was willing to marry into the Tang family directly.”

After hearing this, Tang Cuihua shook her head with some disdain. "No need. As the saying goes, a good horse doesn't eat the grass it has already grazed. We're no longer meant to be."

He's a veteran, how can he be so spineless?

If it weren't for his previous identity, and the assumption that his character couldn't be too bad, who would want a disabled person?

If you marry her, you'll have to take care of her and do nothing but wait on her to support you. You must have been out of your mind to get engaged to someone like that.

Fortunately, he brought this upon himself and broke off the engagement with her; otherwise, he would never have had the chance to hold his head high in triumph.

Tang Cuihua felt increasingly relieved as she thought about it. She realized that she was already at this age, so a few years later or earlier wouldn't make much difference. She wasn't in a hurry and would take her time finding someone.

Unexpectedly, after Xiao Jiu returned to school, Niu Feng brought a demobilized soldier directly to their door.

"Sister, this is my comrade-in-arms, Zhai Sanhe. He is thirty-two years old this year. His parents have passed away, and all his immediate family members have also passed away. Before he is transferred to civilian work, he wants to settle down in advance so that he can be assigned to a job in the area where the woman is located. He asked me to help introduce him to someone, so I thought of you, sister, and brought him here to meet you."

Tang Cuihua looked at the burly man who was 1.8 meters tall in front of her, somewhat incredulous: "Do you know that I'm looking for a son-in-law to live with me?"

Zhai Sanhe spoke in a straightforward Northeastern accent: "Oh, my brother Niu has already told me about this. I'm an orphan with no relatives, and I grew up relying on the kindness of others. If you're willing to take a liking to me, what's wrong with becoming a live-in son-in-law?"