Chapter 196 Going to Lucheng

Chapter 196 Going to Lucheng

Chapter 196 Going to Lucheng

The next morning, Li Changle was awakened by Zhou Ruonan in his sleep, "Have you packed your things?"

"Aniang and sister-in-law are still cleaning up."

Zhou Ruonan looked at him with a smile, "When Dad went to find someone to cut bamboo, he met Uncle Dong. He said that comrades from the border police station called the village and said that they would come to present the award to you and Awei tomorrow afternoon."

Li Changle sat up happily after hearing this, "Did you tell us what reward we will get?"

"No!" Zhou Ruonan handed him the clothes with a smile, "What else could it be? It's just a thermos, an enamel basin, or something like that."

"Alas! I can't even get back the money from selling the scrap metal." Li Changle took the clothes and shook his head. He found that his hands were more sore than before he went to bed last night.

I had expected that today would be more sore than yesterday, but I didn't expect it to be so severe.

"You're just talking nonsense all day long. It's only ten bucks, so just spend it. It's not as meaningful as a prize!"

"Our teacher Zhou is still of high ideological quality." Li Changle came close to Zhou Ruonan, made a painful expression, and looked at her pitifully, "Wife, please help me, I can't lift my hands."

"You're making trouble again!" Zhou Ruonan rolled her eyes at him, took out the active oil, and gently patted his arm. "Turn around and sit properly. I'll apply some more medicated oil on your shoulders and arms."

"You're so fierce. You're nothing like our lovely teacher Zhou!" Li Changle reached out and pinched her earlobe with a playful smile.

"Crazy guy!" Zhou Ruonan slapped him. "If you keep making trouble, you'll miss the early bus."

Li Changle sat down quickly when she heard that. Suddenly she remembered that she forgot to tell her about the beads last night. "Anan, I want to keep three golden beads and make a set of jewelry for you."

Zhou Ruonan smiled quickly after hearing this and said angrily, "I don't want it. It's such an expensive thing. I'd be heartbroken if I lost it. It's better to sell it and save the money to buy a tin boat later!"

"Your husband will earn the money to buy the iron boat!" Li Changle held her hand and looked at her with a smile, "My wife is so beautiful, she looks no worse than a movie star when she wears jewelry."

"You've given me another dose of magic potion!" Zhou Ruonan's lips curled up, her heart as sweet as if she had drunk honey. "If I really want to keep it, I might as well pick it from that bag of irregular beads..."

Li Changle felt a little uncomfortable when he saw his frugal wife, "Anan..."

"Listen to me!" Zhou Ruonan glanced at him softly, "There are several teardrop-shaped and oval-shaped beads in that bag, and I like the teardrop-shaped ones the most.

It's a little bigger than a pea, and I'll make a pair of cloves and a pendant. It's much better looking than the ones you mentioned, which are big and round."

"I'll rub it myself. Go get it out for me to see." Li Changle took the medicine bottle, poured some medicated oil into the palm of his hand, and rubbed it.

Zhou Ruonan rolled her eyes at him and said, "You couldn't even put on your clothes just now, how come you can do it now?"

"I'll hold back. Picking out beads for my wife is more important." Li Changle laughed. "Hurry up, or you'll miss the early bus."

Zhou Ruonan looked at the time, went out to wash her hands, came back to open the drawer, took out the bag of unshaped beads and spread them on the bed, and picked out a dozen teardrop-shaped and oval-shaped beads.

These beads come in gold, white and pink. Their shapes do look nice, but they are not as elegant as the round beads.

"If you like this kind, we can just keep it. If you don't like the gold ones, we can keep the three white ones."

"Ah Le, it's not about the color, nor is it that I can't bear to part with it. It's mainly because I really don't like the big, round ones. How about we just keep the three small ones?"

Two hundred yuan each, three beads could buy a second-hand fishing boat. She really couldn't bear to part with them!

Li Changle thought she really didn't like it, so she nodded and said, "Okay, pick three that you like and keep them."

"Hmm!" Zhou Ruonan looked at the shapeless ones, "Do you want to take these away too?"

"Pick out the ones with good looks and put them aside. You can share them with sister-in-law and Awei's wife later. And give the order that Adong opened last night to sister-in-law. When Adong gets the money, give him the order."

Li Changle capped the medicine bottle, put on his clothes, and walked out to the toilet.

I saw a large vat for pickling jellyfish in the yard, filled with bamboo flats, with silver pomfret and mantis shrimps drying on it. There was a large net covering it, and there were a lot of flies flying around on it early in the morning.

The taste of seafood is like this, with a strong fishy smell. It is better when the wind is strong, but in sunny weather like this, if you don’t cover the fish and shrimp with a net to dry in the sun, it won’t take half a day before the fish and shrimp are covered with fly eggs.

After he came back and had breakfast, Li's mother, Li's eldest sister-in-law and Li's second sister-in-law moved the packed dried oysters, dried fish and dried shrimps to the eaves.

There were a lot of things in the backpack, including two chickens, which seemed to be prepared for my mother-in-law.

Li's mother handed him a list and said, "Ah Le, you have to give some extra weight when you divide the goods. When you deliver these dry goods, you have to give your mother-in-law some extra weight, so that she won't lose money in the end."

"I know!"

Li Changle took over the list. After drying so many oysters, they produced 575 kilograms of dried oyster meat, 116 kilograms of green bream, 85 kilograms of swordfish, 30 kilograms of water mackerel, 25 kilograms of dried shrimp, and 39 kilograms of dried eel.

"Sister-in-law, second sister-in-law, when I arrive in Lucheng, I will temporarily deduct 15 catties from the dried oyster meat, 3 catties from Qingzhan, and 2 catties or 1 catty from the others."

As the old saying goes, if you want to avoid cheating, you have to cheat against your conscience. But if you want to run a long and prosperous business, operating with integrity and never cheating anyone is the right way to go.

Mrs. Li smiled and said, "You don't need to tell us. Just do it yourself."

Li Changle: "I have to say this too. It's the same for brothers and friends. Only when the accounts are clear can our cooperation last long." Li Ersao felt that the third brother, who was diligent and hardworking, seemed like a different person in the way he spoke and acted compared to before.

Mother Li nodded repeatedly, "Ah Le is right, you two can discuss things in a harmonious way, and we old people are happy too."

Zhou Ruonan pushed the tricycle out of the house, and her sisters-in-law moved the dry goods onto the car, and then Chen Yongwei came on his bicycle.

Li Changle saw him carrying a bamboo basket and a duck, "What are you doing with these?"

Chen Yongwei put the bamboo basket and the old mallard quacking in the net bag onto the tricycle. "Grandma is at home drying fish. She asked me to bring these two things to you to take to your aunt-in-law to thank her for helping sell dried goods."

Zhou Ruonan said hurriedly: "Awei, no need, my mother and sister-in-law have already packed dozens of salted duck eggs, and there are also a lot of dry goods!"

"My family's eggs are duck eggs, and my aunt's eggs are salted duck eggs. They are different." Chen Yongwei smiled and worked with Li Changle to tie the oilcloth bag with a rope to prevent the bag from falling.

After the dry goods were tied up, Chen Yongwei rode a tricycle to take them to the station. Li Changle hung the backpack on the back seat of the bicycle and took Zhou Ruonan to the station.

It took less than half an hour to reach Panzhen Bus Station, and the bus to Lucheng was already parked at the station.

Li Changle thought that there were several hundred kilograms of dried goods, and it would cost at least three or four yuan to buy tickets for all of them. He would also have to deliver the goods to Lucheng in the future, so he might as well buy a pack of cigarettes to build friendship.

"Anan, you buy the ticket first. I'll go buy a pack of cigarettes."

"Yeah!" Zhou Ruonan took a few steps, thought about it and turned back, "A Le, we need to buy invoices for so many things."

"Buy a freight ticket first, and the rest will be decided after they ask!"

"Oh!" Zhou Ruonan went to the ticket window.

Li Changle went to the store at the entrance of the station, bought a bag of Da Chongjiu and put it back in front of the bus. Zhou Ruonan had already bought the ticket and came back. The three of them moved the oilcloth bag from the tricycle to the luggage rack on the roof of the bus.

Just as the dried oysters were loaded onto the tricycle, a middle-aged man with a crew cut and a stack of receipts came down from the tricycle and walked to the front of the tricycle. "Hey, did you buy the receipts?"

"I bought it." Li Changle showed him the invoice with a smile, and stuffed the cigarette into his hand. "Master, the two of us are taking some dried fish to Lucheng. It looks like a lot, but it's not heavy at all."

The crew-haired guy took it and put it in his pocket. "Someone in Datian wants to unload the goods. You should keep an eye on it."

"Okay, thank you! Thank you!" Li Changle responded gratefully.

Seeing that they had agreed, Chen Yongwei hurriedly brought the oilcloth bag and the two quacking ducks up and placed them on top. Li Changle got on the car, covered the ceremonial net, and tied it with a rope.

Chen Yongwei put the bicycle on the tricycle and said, "Brother, I still need to collect those cans later. I will go back first."

"Ah~" Li Changle patted his head, "Luckily you remembered those jars, I had completely forgotten them."

"I just remembered it this morning too." Chen Yongwei said hello to Zhou Ruonan and rode his bike out of the station.

Two hours later, the two arrived in Lucheng, unloaded the goods from the luggage rack, and called two rickshaws to go to Laojie.

As soon as I reached the street corner, I saw my two sons playing with some other children.

"Xiao Hai, Xiao Zhou!" Zhou Ruonan shouted happily.

The two children turned their heads, saw the two people, cheered, left their friends behind and ran towards them.

"Mother, Father, why did you come to pick us up just now?"

Zhou Ruonan looked at her son with a smile on her face, "Slow down, slow down! Don't fall."

Li Changle felt that the child seemed to have grown a lot taller after only ten days of not seeing him. He stretched out his hand and pulled the two into the car, "Do you miss your father and mother?"

The two brothers snuggled in the two men's arms, "I miss them, and I also miss Grandpa, Grandma, my brothers and sisters!"

Li Changle stroked his son and said, "You'll be able to see them when you get home this afternoon."

"What if we go back and miss grandma?"

The two brothers looked at their grandmother who was walking towards them with a smile on her face, and they were reluctant to leave.

"Come visit grandma during the holidays!"

Li Changle jumped off the car, greeted Zhou's mother with a smile, and then busied herself with the rickshaw driver to move the things off the car.

When several old neighbors saw that the things they brought filled two rickshaws, they started to talk about it in a low voice.

"This country son-in-law of Axia's family may have made some money. Look, the two times he came, he brought chickens and ducks, as well as large and small bags."

"I heard from Axia that her son-in-law bought a fishing boat and went out to sea to fish. He also planned to dry the fish to sell. Last time, she gave me some dried shrimp and oyster meat. They tasted pretty good."

"No wonder she found someone to buy so many old containers. It looks like she brought a lot this time."

(End of this chapter)