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Chapter 357: Chapter 347 Settled Down
The last issue was what to do with the two little ones at home after their mother went to class.
The principal had already agreed that the kids could be brought to the classroom if there really was no one to watch them, but bringing two kids to class was too conspicuous, and Shen Yunfang didn’t want to attract attention that way. Li Hongjun also didn’t want his wife to be in that position, so they still needed to find someone trustworthy to help watch the children.
In the past few days, they both felt that Ma Huilan was a good candidate. First, she was very gentle and attentive, and the children were willing to be close to her after she had helped take care of them for a few days. Second, she didn’t have a job and had plenty of time during the day, usually just cooking for Chen Jing and the children at home. If they could ask her to help watch the kids during the day, she could manage her own household and also increase her monthly income. In Yunfang’s view, this arrangement couldn’t be more suitable.
Thus, that evening, the Li Hongjun family of four made a simple dinner at their new home and invited Chen Jing’s family of three to join them. At the dinner table, Hongjun brought up the idea of asking his sister-in-law to help look after the children, and of course, because it’s best for siblings to be clear about financial matters, he also mentioned the compensation. It would be almost six days a week of babysitting, and as soon as Yunfang got home, Ma Huilan’s work would be done. The salary would be ten dollars a month.
Ma Huilan didn’t speak and just looked at her husband; Chen Jing was the one who called the shots at home.
After thinking it over briefly, Chen Jing nodded and said, "Alright, I won’t stand on ceremony with you, brother." As for what the ceremony entailed, there was no need to say, for all was understood without words.
After Li Hongjun had made arrangements for his wife and children, he saw that the holiday was almost over and took the overnight train back to the military base on the very last evening. 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
When Shen Yunfang woke up in the morning, she felt the ice-cold spot beside her and had a hard time adjusting to life without Li Hongjun. Sigh, having gotten used to comfortable days, it seemed that her body and mind were a little overwhelmed at the thought of returning to the hardship of the past.
She hugged her younger son for a while, pretending he was his father.
The weather was still very cold at the end of February. Yunfang put on her clothes, lit the stove in the house, set a kettle of water on it, and then went outside to the kitchen to cook.
By "outside," she didn’t mean another room in the house, but the actual outdoors, the stove by the door.
Although it was very cold at the end of February, the ice had melted. When Shen Yunfang stepped out of the house, the rest of the courtyard’s households had already started cooking, making her the last one to begin.
There was no helping it; everyone else had to go to work, and she was the only one who was still unemployed. She had already registered at the school, but the semester hadn’t started yet.
After chatting with a few neighbors and sisters-in-law, Yunfang squatted in front of her own stove to start a fire. Once the fire was going, she went back inside to fetch a scoop of water from the water jar in the partitioned area and sloshed it around in the pot a few times. Then she washed some rice, boiled water, and started making porridge. Once the porridge was boiling, she placed a sieve on top of the pot and added four sweet potatoes and a cornmeal bun.
This breakfast was fairly common because the stoves were all outdoors, so Shen Yunfang couldn’t cook anything too extravagant. Of course, in addition to these items, her breakfast table also held a boiled egg and a sweet bean bun for each person.
When Li Hongjun was here, Chen Jing had taken them to explore the black market, so when Li Hongjun spent a morning out with his wife and returned with a bag of cornmeal, a bag of sweet potatoes, and other food and vegetables, no one was surprised.
Of course, when Li Hongjun was around, they did more than just that little bit. While he and his wife were browsing the black market, they also found a second-tier dealer who seemed very reliable and sold some of the excess inventory from his wife’s storage space.
For various dried vegetables, they sold ten pounds of each variety. As for fresh vegetables, Shen Yunfang managed to produce about one or two hundred pounds of each type (which was just a drop in the bucket compared to her storage), but the main event was meat. Even though the storage space kept things fresh, she felt it wasn’t great to have it stored for too many years, so after ensuring she had enough for the next five years, she sold all the extra pork. Of course, if she miscalculated and they ended up with too much pork, that wouldn’t be a problem either. After all, she had several hundred pounds of wolf meat hidden in her storage space, which she hadn’t let Li Hongjun know about over the years for fear he might question its source and fuss over not letting her go to the mountains. So, the wolf meat was barely consumed.
The other things that could be sold from the storage space were sweet potatoes and corn, and these were not counted by the tens or hundreds of pounds, but by the thousands.
Shen Yunfang didn’t know how Li Hongjun managed it, but her role was just to find a secluded place to take out the goods, and she left the rest for Li Hongjun to handle.
As far as they could tell, no problems had occurred. Shen Yunfang’s pocket was now heavier by 18,700 yuan. Along with what she already had and minus her spending over the past two years (she hadn’t spent much), her savings had reached 29,000 yuan.
After finishing the meal, she washed the dishes with hot water and wondered whether she should go out to fetch a load of water. The water vat had been filled by Li Hongjun the day before he left, but after bathing her child and herself last night, in addition to the water used for cooking that morning, she had just noticed that the vat was more than half empty.
Before she had decided when to go, she heard someone calling her from outside. When she went out, it turned out to be Chen Jing, who had brought water for her with a carrying pole.
"Brother Chen, you don’t need to trouble yourself to fetch water for us. I grew up in the countryside too; I can handle it," Shen Yunfang said, feeling embarrassed about someone else fetching water for her. Once or twice was okay, but if it became a daily habit, she didn’t know how she would ever repay the favor.
Chen Jing looked at his sister-in-law. With her soft and delicate appearance, it really didn’t seem like she was part of the vast numbers of laboring people.
"It’s no trouble at all. I have to fetch water for my house every morning anyway, so I can just carry a load for you as well. It’ll be enough for you and the children, and it’s not a big deal. Alright then, I’ll be heading home. If you need anything, feel free to come find me or your sister-in-law," he said. It wasn’t appropriate for him to linger at his brother’s home while only the delicate sister-in-law was there.
Shen Yunfang escorted him out and watched him until he was far away before returning inside. Of course, regarding the curious glances from the neighbors, she chose to ignore them. This situation was likely going to be a common occurrence in the future, so they might as well get used to it.
After tidying up the house, Shen Yunfang carried the younger child and led the older one, taking both kids with her to explore the streets.
During that time, there weren’t really any streets worth roaming around, but her goal was to familiarize the children with the environment and look for potential money-making projects.
It was already the late ’70s, not long before Xiao Gang Village’s "household responsibility system" would be introduced and the emergence of "individual businesses."
S City, according to later terms, was a second-tier city, not far from E Country by train, just a four or five-hour trip. Taking advantage of its proximity to the border, the variety of goods in the supply and marketing cooperatives was diverse. It dazzled Shen Yunfang, who had only been used to seeing a monochrome world. With money in hand, she was all set to buy, buy, buy. However, the shop assistant’s call for "ration coupons" brought her back to reality, and she dejectedly took her children home.
