Chapter 81

Yang Yuyan was on her way home in a yellow cart.

Roadside vendors than in previous days to be much less, now not even dusk, wandering stalls have been invisible a few.

Passers-by are in a hurry, I don’t know if it’s because she has something in mind that she will look at people with color.

She always felt that even the face of the pedestrians are born with a lot of sadness, not as relaxed as before.

Although the whole country is suffering, but the people of this city used to be very relaxed, this is still the center of the city, is the most prosperous place. Big signs, big pictures everywhere on the streets. The dance halls, the theaters, where the traffic flowed every day and every night.

It seemed that the quarrels and conflicts were concentrated in the newspapers and in the areas where the foreigners congregated, and that they had nothing to do with them.

She liked to listen to the adults talk and they all agreed that “where there are foreigners, there will be no fighting, the foreigners are still there”.

“Foreigners just want money, they’ve emptied the Forbidden City, they’ve already withdrawn.”

“I don’t think it’s the foreigners who will fight us, it’s the people from Shantung or Shanxi who will fight us.”

“Adults are bickering, one of them will come out and take the throne and there’ll be peace.”

The world can’t be summarized by a few lines of text, a few numbers, a few place names in a textbook. Every second she spent here made her more overwhelmed and unsure of what to expect.

She didn’t have a clue, couldn’t think of a single idea. Even she didn’t know what she knew, so how could she tell Zhu Yanshu and Su Chunjun.

It seemed like she could only watch and could only be with her family. As long as they were together, no matter what the difficulties were, she only wanted to be with her family.

The yellow cart sent the sisters home.

Yang Yuchan jumped out of the car, helped Yang Yuyan down, pulling her quickly up the stairs. It was the end of the day, and the building was full of people. Yang Yuchan didn’t want to talk to others, and was afraid of being pulled by others to ask questions.

But even so, she was still pulled by someone.

It was a family surnamed Ding on the first floor, a married couple who rented a house and sent their children back home. Mr. Ding used to work in the theater as a screenwriter, and would also write some articles, and occasionally write a few small books. Later the theater he worked for was robbed of its stage manager, and the theater collapsed, so he went around stringing together performances, doing a role as a matinee, and he knew a little bit about speaking and singing, and he could also play the erhu.

Mrs. Ding was an ordinary woman, except for her inability to breastfeed her children, there was nothing else wrong with her. She doesn’t do anything, and after she finishes her household chores every day, she just goes to the east and walks around the west. She was thin, like a piece of paper when viewed from the side, but she was very pretty and spoke in a small, fast voice.

Zhang Ma did not like Mrs. Ding, because she had given birth to a child without milk, and the child cried all night when it fell to the ground, so hungry that she could not sleep.

When the baby was born, she cried all night and couldn’t sleep because she was hungry. Mrs. Ding would knock on her door and force her to make rice soup to feed the baby, but when she came back, she would say, “You’re so cheap! She couldn’t even feed her own child, but she had to wait for her mother-in-law to come and take her back to the countryside to feed her.”

Yang Yuyan was shocked when she first heard about it, “Won’t the child starve to death?”

Zhang Ma pushed her to go back to bed and told her to stay out of the way: “She can’t get up at night, but she still feeds the child during the day, but not enough, and a child who doesn’t get enough to eat is going to cry all the time.”

Yang Yuyan: “Then why doesn’t she feed the child?”

Zhang Ma: “She doesn’t want to clean up the child’s feces and urine! She doesn’t want to wash the diapers!”

Although Zhang Ma said this, Yang Yuyan didn’t really believe her. Because she thought to herself, a child will die if he doesn’t get enough to eat, especially a child who has just landed on the ground, is there really a mother who doesn’t want to wash the diapers and purposely doesn’t feed her child enough? It’s impossible, right?

But when she arrived, she bumped into Mrs. Ding giving birth once, not long after she was discharged from the hospital. Mrs. Ding didn’t give birth again, so she didn’t have a chance to confirm it.

It was said that Mrs. Ding had given birth to four children, all of whom her mother-in-law had taken back to the countryside to raise.

Mrs. Ding ran up and grabbed Yang Yucan’s arm, “Missy, let me ask, when will that security fee be collected?”

Yang Yucan was very unhappy to be grabbed by her on the stairs, she raised her chin and pointed to the notice posted on the front door and said, “It’s written there, the 25th, that’s tomorrow.”

Mrs. Ding: “How much does that family charge?”

Yang Yuchan: “Three dollars and three cents for one family.”

Mrs. Ding’s shrewd eyes rolled and she muttered, “Three yuan three, ah ah, but that’s a bit much.”

Yang Yuchan: “Every family has to pay. It’s not us who collect it either, it’s the gendarmerie, so if you have a problem with it, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the gendarmerie to talk about it.”

Mrs. Ding hurriedly said, “No, no, where’s the opinion? It should be, it should be.” She hurriedly let go of her grip on Yang Yucan’s hand, and politely watched the sisters go upstairs.

At eight o’clock, Su Chunjun returned. Zhu’s family was still waiting for him, and Zhang Ma had even left dinner on purpose.

When Su Chunjun came back, she went to the kitchen to make it, and later brought it up and put it in front of him.

Su Chunjun took a look, it was crab.

He immediately got up and thanked Zhang Ma, “Zhang Ma loves me like a son.”

Zhang Ma was embarrassed and pushed him to sit down, “Eat quickly, don’t talk, it will get cold later.”

Only then did Su Chunjun sit down to eat.

Zhu Yanshu and Yang Yucan both got up and left, only letting Yang Yuyan sit down to eat with him.

Yang Yuyan had also eaten, holding an abacus and rattling beads, rattling them, looking at the copied down mnemonics, and chanting with her mouth.

Su Chunjun ate quickly and finished his meal in one big gulp. He put the dishes aside and walked over to see her. Seeing that she was having a hard time memorizing, she reached out to pluck the beads.

Yang Yuyan slapped her face and said, “Don’t make a mess!”

Su Chunjun: “Actually, I’ve learned, let me teach you.”

He took the abacus over, put it in his hand first reset, and then read a phrase on the playing out, smooth as playing the piano, less than five minutes he finished playing the phrase, and then clicked to reset the position, and dashing and handsome.

I did not expect to see people planning a disk can also see a handsome, Yang Yuyan are a little dumbfounded.

“How do you know this?” She took it over and continued to play it herself with difficulty according to the mnemonic.

Su Chunjun: “Professor Dai taught me, and I even once wanted to become a bookkeeper.” It’s all about him working to earn his living expenses back then, “But it didn’t work out in the end, the bookkeepers in those stores are all family members and don’t need me as an outsider.”

Yang Yuyan muttered, “Is there anything Prof. Dai won’t do?”

Su Chunjun thought about it and sighed, “No, right? He seems to know everything.” He used to think that Prof. Dai was the son of a great man also because Prof. Dai could also play the piano and the violin, and he could even sing a few lines of opera. It turned out that Prof. Dai confessed that he went to learn it because he wanted to make friends at school, and in the end of course friends were made and he learned the piano and violin and singing as well.

He can also play chess, can play bridge, can play mahjong, can play poker …… In short, Professor Dai said that he wants to learn everything he sees, and then once he learns it, he knows it.

Yang Yuyan barely managed to get the password down, and slowly dialed the beads all the way back to their original position and didn t want to play. She pushed the abacus to the side and looked for Su Chunjun to chat: ”What have you been doing lately? Why are you always coming back so late?”

Su Chunjun leaned back in his chair and stretched, “Went to be a filial son to the directors.”

The head and deputy directors were all in the hospital, so of course he went to offer filial piety. The real son hadn’t gone every day yet, but they, the subordinates, went to report every day.

Yang Yuyan laughed, “The hospital is about to be full of adults, isn’t it?”

Su Chunjun shook his head and wiggled his fingers to give her a count, “The mayor and vice-mayor aren’t here, and a few other adults aren’t here either. They’re recuperating at home. The hospital is for people who can’t hide away, like our director.”

Yang Yuyan worriedly asked, “Then …… your director is hiding, will you people be okay? Will it implicate you.”

Su Chunjun touched her braid and said with a smile, “It’s fine.” He spread his two hands and said, “Because there’s really no money, it’s useless for them to find us. Not a single penny. Those people know very well that they can’t get any money by looking for us, and they don’t have any money by looking for the Chief.”

No money means no money.

The reason for this lack of money is not that there really isn’t any money, but that now each person only cares about himself and can’t care about others. In the past, there was still the need to maintain a false appearance of peace in the world, and the government had to pretend to do things that the government should do, such as caring for culture and education, caring for the poor and needy, worrying about people’s livelihood and the economy, and so on.

But now it is obvious that the Government no longer has the energy to maintain the false appearance. Stripped of this false mask, all these grown-ups are more concerned about their own safety and well-being, their own blessings and misfortunes.

Let’s put it this way, whoever wants money now deserves allegiance.

But since there are so many mountains, those people don’t know exactly who to pledge allegiance to. What if they pledge their allegiance today and tomorrow this mountain falls?

Everyone covers their chips and refuses to give them away easily.

That’s why it looks like chaos all of a sudden. The situation can only be stabilized again when everyone has bought and left.

Yang Yuyan whispered, “The pork sellers that our family used to go to are all closed. When I came back today, there were fewer people on the road and fewer stalls. Zhang Ma and my sister both said that it’s hard to buy vegetables these days because a lot of people don’t come into the city anymore.”

There was no fresh vegetables in the city, it all depended on farmers and vegetable farmers in the suburbs to transport vegetables to the city daily, and when they didn’t come to sell, the vegetables became less and less day by day.

Fortunately, in the past few days, Zhang Ma and Yang Yucan have stocked up on a lot of things to eat and use, so the family isn’t short of food and clothing.

No matter how powerful Su Chunjun was, he couldn’t possibly conjure up vegetables, much less have the ability to get vegetable farmers to come into the city, he just sighed when he heard this and said, “That’s good.”

Yang Yuyan was not frustrated, her topic focused on the latter sentence, she whispered, “Prof. Dai said that he has vegetables planted there, and asked me to follow suit, so that our family will not be short of vegetables then.”

She also followed to weed and deworm today, and for the first time, she saw that the green vegetables actually grew similar to weeds, and not as watery as weeds.

Su Chunjun smiled and touched her braid again.

She inclined her head to open his hand, “Don’t touch it, it’s all messed up.”

Zhang Ma stood outside the door of the restaurant, looking over with cold eyes, and was about to clear her throat when the door knocked, so she had to turn around to open it. Only then did Su Chunjun and Yang Yuyan in the restaurant see her and unanimously sighed in relief.

Zhang Ma opens the door, and outside is Mrs. Ding, wrapped in an old shawl and standing shrunken in the shadows.

Zhang Ma: “Yo, it’s so late, what do you have that you can’t talk about tomorrow? It’s time to rest.”

Mrs. Ding sneaks around, piling on smiles and looking towards the house, “Is Ms. Zhu in? I have something to find her.”

Only then did Zhang Ma open the door and let her in.

As soon as Mrs. Ding came in, she looked around, and Mrs. Zhang said, “Come this way with me, don’t go into the kitchen.”

Mrs. Ding only came in once a month when she paid the rent, and sometimes she didn’t even enter, just stood at the door and gave the money. She came in for the first time, her curiosity soaring, and when she was scolded by Mrs. Zhang, she had to follow her into the living room.

Through the glass, she also saw what looked like two people in the dining room across the street, one of them a man.

But without waiting for her to stick her neck out to find out what was going on, Zhang Ma cleared her throat loudly, and she hurriedly retracted her neck.

In the living room, on the sofa, Zhu Yanshu was sitting on this side flipping through the pictorials, and on the opposite side of the sofa was Yang Yucan writing the account book. Both of them were waiting for the two in the dining room to finish talking and come out.

Seeing Mrs. Ding, Zhu Yanshu put down the pictorial and stood up, “Mrs. Ding, you’re here? Please have a seat quickly.”

Mrs. Ding sat down very restrainedly, and Yang Yucan also looked up to greet her, “Hello, Mrs. Ding.”

Mrs. Ding hurriedly said, “Is Missy writing an essay? Write, write, I won’t bother you, I just came to see Ms. Zhu.”

Zhang Ma rolled her eyes, she didn’t believe it. Purposely coming over at night to avoid the neighbors’ line of sight was definitely not a good thing. Then again, when she thought about the fact that she had to pay the security fee tomorrow.

Maybe she came to rely on this money!

Zhu Yanshu guessed that it was the same, glancing at the time, it was already late, she didn’t want to chat with Mrs. Ding here.

She said, “Mrs. Ding is here about the security fee, right? I’m sorry, this is not something I can accommodate. Otherwise, if you come today and he comes tomorrow, there will be more than a dozen households upstairs and downstairs, and I won’t be able to explain to the others if I undercharge anyone.”

Mrs. Ding quickly said, “Yes, yes. I’m not talking about the security fee, I’m, I’m saying, we’re not renting …….”

Since the words had been spoken, it was easier to say them later. Mrs. Ding said that life was getting harder now, and Mr. Ding hadn’t been paid for several months in a row. The most important thing is that the father-in-law in the countryside suddenly died, and the mother-in-law asked them to go back.

“There are still four children at home, we think …… it is better to go back.” Mrs. Ding said, finished, she sighed softly.

Zhu Yanshu also had no way to persuade.

Pork store bosses are running away, that is because everyone can see, the rising security fee is just the tip of the iceberg, in the future there is no telling how much money will go up.

The days are getting harder and harder, so they can only leave.

Zhu Yan Shu also sighed, “After so many years, we are like family. Since you’re leaving, I have to practise for you anyways.”

Mrs. Ding hurriedly said, “No, no ……”

Zhu Yanshu opened his wallet, took out two ten yuan bills from it, rolled them up, put them in Mrs. Ding’s hand, held her hand and said, “Have a safe trip.”

Mrs. Ding’s eyes immediately flooded with tide, they picked today to say, just don’t want to pay that security fee, and almost live a full month, other than that there is no loss, even the health fee, water, electricity can be reneged on all together.

I didn’t expect Ms. Zhu to be so nice.

Mrs. Ding gripped the roll of money tightly, stood up and bowed squarely to Zhu Yanshu.

Mrs. Ding: “You are a good person.” She said sincerely, “Good people have good rewards. I will pray to the heavens every day in the future that you are safe and sound, and that all is well!”

After that, still wrapped tightly in her old shawl and shrinking her head and neck, she went out through the front door and went downstairs lightly.