Chapter 227 Mud is just mud

Chapter 227 Mud is just mud

Chapter 227 Mud is just mud
When Li Changle got home, he saw several children gathered around the eight-immortal table. There were a bunch of new textbooks and a few calendar pictures on the table. "It's time to go home from school."

Li Xiaozhou turned his head and saw him, and quickly climbed down from the bench, "Dad, Amei and I are at the same table."

"Be quiet and stop quarreling." Li Changle slapped him and looked at Li Xiaohai and the others, "Do we have to wrap up all the new books?"

He remembered that his eldest son took good care of his textbooks. After Li Xiaoyang and his classmates graduated from elementary school, all their textbooks became toilet paper.

His were all neatly packed. Later, if a child in the village lost his textbook, he would come to his house to borrow it.

Li Xiaohai nodded vigorously, "Yes! Sister taught me how to wrap book covers."

"Do you still have to go to class this afternoon?"

"There are no classes in the afternoon. We need to do some cleaning."

"Every time school starts, we have to do a general cleaning." Li Xiaoyang looked depressed. "Our group was assigned to clean the toilets. It was so hot and it stinked."

"Alas!" Li Xiaohui sighed, "It's the same with our group. We were assigned to clean the women's restroom."

Li Changle recalled that when he was in school, he felt a chill in the school toilet. He shook his head and went to his parents' place.

Ge Changfa and Zhang Dejin were cleaning up the poker cards, and the room was filled with the aroma of jumping fish stewed with tofu.

"Why don't you fight?"

Ge Changfa smiled and pointed to the kitchen, "Auntie said dinner is ready, it's so delicious, my mouth is watering."

"How can jumping fish stewed with tofu not be delicious!" Li's mother came out with a bowl in her hand. "I happened to see people catching jumping fish coming ashore at the dock, so I bought a few pounds of them, and also bought some sand shavings to stew with bean flour."

"There's also sea cucumber stewed with chicken." Brother Li came out of the kitchen carrying a porcelain bowl and looked at them with a smile, "This lunch is all about nourishing food!"

Before he finished speaking, Zhou Ruonan brought out a bowl of sand bean noodles and placed it on the table.

Li Changle smiled and said, "We still have to unload a few ships of prefabricated panels this afternoon. If we don't prepare something good, how can we have the energy to work?"

Old Man Jin said with a smile: "Master, you are so polite."

Father Li exchanged a few polite words with him, and then everyone sat down to eat. They still had to carry prefabricated boards in the afternoon, so the family drank two glasses of old wine and started eating.

……

After lunch, Li Changle asked Li Xiaoyang to go to Xiang's house to call Xiang Xiaoyu, give him the money from selling the octopus, and then take him to the rocky beach to put the jars down.

"Xiao Yu, next time I go to Tuxia Bridge to sell fish, I'll take you with me. From now on, when Uncle Wei and I are not at home, you can go there to sell the fish by yourself."

"If you have a good harvest of octopuses, you can go back to where you bought the cans last time and buy some more cans and fish a few more groups."

Xiang Xiaoyu nodded, thought about it and asked again: "Uncle A Le, can I go?"

He remembered his father saying that every family had their own channels to sell goods and generally would not bring people to compete with their own buyers.

"Why not?" Li Changle glanced at him with a smile, "If you catch any good stuff, you can sell it yourself."

"But don't go to places with deep water or muddy beaches. If you get stuck, you know the consequences."

"I won't go." Xiang Xiaoyu stopped and looked at him, and said seriously: "Thank you, Uncle A Le!"

"Xiao Yu, other people can't help you for your whole life. Only the skills they have learned can be your eternal support." Li Changle rubbed his head and walked towards the cave entrance.

"Yeah!" Xiang Xiaoyu responded to him, lowered his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, then strode after him out of the cave, down the mountain to the rocky beach, only to see that the tide had receded.

Li Changle took the jar out of the sack and said, "Do you remember how I taught you to put the jar down that day?"

"Remember, I'll show you." Xiang Xiaoyu dragged the fishing line into the water and did not stop until the water was waist-deep. He tied the two ends of the fishing line to a bamboo pole, straightened it, and thrust it forcefully into the mud and sand.

Li Changle was sitting on the reef, and when he saw him looking back at her, she nodded at him, indicating that he had done nothing wrong. After he put down both sets of jars, she stood up, patted her butt, rolled up the sack and waited for him to come back.

"I have to go back to work. Do you want to go fishing?"

Xiang Xiaoyu nodded, "Grandpa said he would teach me how to dig out blue crabs, I want to learn from him."

Li Changle thought for a moment before remembering that it was Old Man Xiang. "Learn well. Blue crabs are good value. If you can get soft-shell crabs, the value will be even higher."

Xiang Xiaoyu remembered that Li Xiaoyang said he liked to eat jumping fish, "Uncle A Le, I can also catch jumping fish. I'll catch some and bring them to you later."

Li Changle didn't bother to be polite with him, "Uncle just had lunch today. If there's any left, send some to me in a few days."

"Hey!" Xiang Xiaoyu happily carried the bucket, waved at him, and walked towards the mudflat.

Li Changle walked to the top of the mountain and looked at the tidal flats below. He saw that many of the tidal flats had been dug into crab ponds.

Ridges were built between the crab ponds, and a green gauze net was erected in the middle of each ridge to prevent blue crabs from visiting other houses.

He remembered that after the failure of blue crab farming, some people returned the contracted tidal flats to the village, and some went to other places to learn the technology and came back to farm seaweed, crabs, scallops, and clams. Those who persisted also made money. When he returned home, Li's father and others had already gone to the construction site. Just as he was about to go over, Brother Li rode his bicycle into the yard.

"Ah Le, I saw my aunt's family demolishing the wall. My uncle was also there. It looks like the two families worked together to do it."

"Who cares? Just don't come looking for us." Li Changle looked at him, "Where have you been?"

"As soon as you and Xiaoyu left, Uncle Dong came with a wire transfer slip. Ah Huan sent 500 yuan home." Brother Li laughed and said, "I don't know how long it took that kid to save up that much money."

"Give it to Madam to save for him. When he retires, he will need to buy a house. If that doesn't work out, we'll have to buy him some land near his workplace and build a house for him!"

Brother Li looked at him with amusement, "Do you really think you are the reincarnation of Yuan Tiangang? Just by counting with your fingers, you can know where he will work after returning."

"It's either the Border Police Station or the Maritime Administration. I think he's probably in one of these two places."

"It's really weird." Brother Li said, "When I came back, I heard them say that Shaji Village started performing on the ninth day of the first lunar month and continued for seven days."

"I heard that it was two wealthy families in the village who pooled their money with the village committee to hire a big troupe, not just a makeshift troupe from the village."

"Fuck! Who is so awesome that he can do it for seven days in a row?" Li Changle followed him into the house.

"Maybe the Zhou brothers? I heard the first show will be "Five Daughters Paying Homage" and "He Wenxiu."

When Li's mother heard that there was a play to watch, she hurried out from the inner room and asked, "A Ping, did Shaji Village really invite a big opera troupe to perform?"

"Yes! I heard that their village has started to build a stage." Brother Li handed her the money happily, "On the ninth day of the first lunar month, you all go to watch the show, and I will stay at home."

"You're in for a treat. Let's go to the theater on the ninth day of the first lunar month." Li's mother happily took the money and walked into the inner room. After thinking for a while, she said, "Give this money to your father and give him the money to buy the prefabricated panels. This way you don't have to go to get the money."

"Okay, we'll get it back to you when we're done." Brother Li took the money, packed it up, and went to Nanshan with Li Changle.

More people came to help in the afternoon, including Li Changqing and his father and Li Changshui.

Zhang Dejin and several of his fellow apprentices also came. Father Li, Old Man Jin, Mrs. Li Da and Mrs. Li Er stayed in front of the construction site to help with the mortar and deliver it to them to build the wall.

Among the ten dilapidated houses, only the walls of the middle ones are still intact, especially the two gables of the first house, most of which have collapsed.

They had to build up the gables, then re-erect the beams, nail the purlins and then cover them with tiles.

Li Changqing looked at the spacious grounds and said enviously, "Ah Le, isn't your place nice? If I had known, I would have approved this place too."

"Of course, am I just being picky?" Li Changle also thought it was great, especially the front and back yards, which only a few of them had in the entire village.

"Ah Le, I want to ask you something." Uncle Li pulled him towards the beach. "Ah Wei's new house is now built. Has he told you what he plans to do with his old house?"

"He didn't say, and I didn't ask. Uncle San, do you want to buy it?"

"What should I buy it for?" Uncle Li whispered, "I asked for Ah Shui."

"Did you come up with this idea, or did Ah Shui come up with it himself?"

"It was Ah Shui who came up with the idea. They wanted to move out of there."

Uncle Li said with a complicated expression, "That night you and Ah Shui found your fourth uncle, and after you left, the couple fought at home until they cried for their parents.

After having a fight with that crazy woman Xu Xianmei, Ah Si has become tougher. After returning to the port from sea, he goes directly to Tuxiaqiao Wharf to sell goods.

You didn't even give your Fourth Aunt the money you earned from selling fish, and you went home to settle accounts with her and asked her to give back all the money she had earned before."

"Is Fourth Uncle looking for a lover at Tuxia Bridge?"

Li Changle felt that men like Uncle Li Si were born spineless slaves. Unless he found another woman who could seduce him to work hard for her, he would not be so tough towards Xu Xianmei.

"I heard from several boat captains in the village that he seems to have fallen in love with a widow who works as a waiter in a restaurant." Uncle Li said with a sigh, "I went to Tuxiaqiao Wharf yesterday to take a look, and now he has dressed up like a decent person."

"He ran off to have fun with someone else. Xu Xianmei couldn't get any money, so she cursed like a mad woman at home every day. Ah Shui and Yufang were miserable, so they wanted to move out."

"Uncle San, you know about Aunt Si. I can't intervene in the matter of buying a house. Ask Ah Shui to ask Grandma Chen himself."

Uncle Li also felt a headache when he thought about Xu Xianmei's character. "Okay, I'll talk to Ah Shui later."

While the uncle and nephew were talking, they reached the seaside. After the cargo ship arrived, a dozen people shouted slogans and lifted the prefabricated panels onto trucks and took them to the construction site. Then they added oyster lime, stones and stone strips.

Cargo ships docked one after another, and construction materials were continuously delivered to the construction site. We were busy until dusk, when the cargo ships disappeared and all the materials were ready.

Zhang Dejin and his three fellow apprentices worked at an incredible speed. They repaired all the collapsed areas in just one afternoon, and the beams were also set up. The carpenters had already ordered the rafters and purlins for the two rooms.

The stove and chimney in Cantou's room were also repaired, so there is no need to boil water from the old house and send it here.

(End of this chapter)