"How much does a washing machine cost?" Yan Zhao asked.
Chen Meilan estimated, trying to lowball it: "It should be over a hundred yuan."
"If Little Wang wants one, let's buy it. Use my money." The man who had just received his salary was different now; Yan Zhao made the decision.
Currently, the cheapest washing machines cost over a hundred yuan, but the more expensive ones could cost three to four hundred. Although Chen Meilan said they'd buy the cheapest one, when she took Little Wang to the department store, she still chose a Toshiba twin-tub washing machine for 480 yuan.
Although it was still manual, it could both wash and spin, which was much more convenient than a single-tub machine.
Washing machines were now considered affordable big-ticket items for most people, and Toshiba was a brand that even backdoor connections couldn't get you. Chen Meilan paid the money, chose the model, and got a queue number. It wasn't until the following weekend that Yan Zhao could queue up to bring it home.
Yuanyuan and Little Lang weren't interested in the washing machine.
Moreover, it was allowance day, and Chen Meilan had given them their new weekly pocket money. Little Lang had taken it upon himself to let Yuanyuan manage his allowance. The two ran in and out, buying popsicles and sorghum candy, eating with great delight.
Little Wang was busy trying out the new washing machine with his father.
They were washing the pink bedsheet that Yan Zhao had specially set aside last week.
But the current power supply was terrible. Just as Yan Zhao plugged in the washing machine, Little Wang shouted, "Dad, the TV turned off by itself!"
So Yan Zhao unplugged the TV and plugged in the washing machine. After washing for a while, Little Wang ran to the kitchen and started shouting again, "Dad, the fridge has no power!"
Alright, they unplugged both and plugged in the washing machine again. This time it started running well.
So, Little Wang plugged the fridge and TV back in.
Soon, the whole village was shouting, "Why is there another power outage?"
Well, the entire village's electricity had been burned out by Meilan's family.
...
Since Yan Zhao came home early and took over the housework, Chen Meilan could free up her hands to cook.
But in the blink of an eye, Teacher Huang was calling her from outside.
Today was the weekend, and also the day for tying the first-floor rebar circles at her construction site. The first-floor rebar circles were the most visible place for quality inspection. If they weren't tied properly and the ground cracked, there was basically no need to inspect other areas; it would already be considered a substandard project.
Teacher Huang should have been supervising the whole process today, so why did he get off work so early?
Did something happen?
"Meilan, go and persuade your sister-in-law. She says she wants to abort the baby." Teacher Huang was so anxious he was stomping his feet and almost crying.
Recently, Third Sister-in-law Huang had been on bed rest to protect the pregnancy. How could she suddenly want to abort the child?
"Teacher Huang, did you say something to upset her?" Chen Meilan asked.
Teacher Huang ran his hand through his graying hair, still needing to hurry back to the construction site: "Today she suddenly said she had a dream during her afternoon nap. She saw Xiaoxiang, and the child was crying, wanting to come home. She probably doesn't want to have another Xiaoxiang, so she wants to abort."
This was serious. Chen Meilan indeed needed to go and persuade Third Sister-in-law Huang.
The couple was only in their forties. If they didn't have a child, they would be lonely and miserable in their old age, even more pitiful than her in her previous life.
However, she had only visited Third Sister-in-law Huang on the day she was diagnosed with pregnancy. After that, she had been busy with the construction work and hadn't visited her again.
Of course, she couldn't go empty-handed. After leaving home, she first went to the state-owned grain store and bought ten jin of high-quality rapeseed oil. Then she went to the vegetable market. Among the several meat stalls, she still preferred the meat from the meat processing factory. The pork was fatty and the weight was generous. She bought five jin of fatty pork belly. Seeing the eggs piled in straw nests next to it, each one round, white, and large, she simply bought five jin of eggs as well.
Third Sister-in-law Huang's house was just opposite Chen Meilan's, separated by three courtyards.
Before her rebirth, why did Chen Meilan like this village?
It was because although Yanguan Village had its share of bad people, overall, the people here were warm-hearted.
It had only been seven or eight days since Third Sister-in-law Huang was diagnosed with pregnancy, but every day there would be several students' parents coming to visit her, bringing eggs or milk powder, in an endless stream.
Even many high school students who had been taught by Teacher Huang in the past would ride their bicycles to visit their teacher's wife.
Chen Meilan had just reached the door when she saw two children on bicycles laughing and chatting as they rode away.
At this moment, Third Sister-in-law Huang was crying to someone inside the house: "In my dream, I heard Xiaoxiang calling me, saying he wanted to come home. I feel like he doesn't want this little one, so I should just abort it."
Chen Meilan was about to lift the curtain when she heard Yan Zhao's voice: "Sister-in-law, I think Xiaoxiang might have heard about your pregnancy in the netherworld and was happy, that's why he appeared in your dream. I solemnly promise you, I will definitely investigate the truth about Xiaoxiang's car accident case and let the child's soul rest in peace. I'll investigate the truth, and you give birth to this child, how about that?"
Wasn't he just at home dealing with the laundry? How did he come to visit Teacher Huang as well?
And, was he Teacher Huang's student when he was young?
Hearing Yan Zhao mention his son's case, Teacher Huang drew in a sharp breath.
Third Sister-in-law Huang burst into tears: "Really?"
Chen Meilan's scalp tingled.
Teacher Huang's son, Huang Xiaoxiang, was handsome, smart, considerate, and had an exceptionally good temper. When he was alive, he often helped Chen Meilan with odd jobs, like helping to empty the manure pit, cleaning up garbage, and whenever it snowed, he would sweep the roads of the entire village.
Even for the dirtiest and laziest old man in the village, Old Man Yan, whose clothes and socks his son and daughter-in-law were too lazy to care for, Xiaoxiang would help wash them.
After that child was gone, the whole village never regained its cheerfulness. When Old Lady Yan Xishan was dying, she held her daughter-in-law's hand and instructed that if the hit-and-run driver who killed little Huang was ever caught, they must light incense to tell her.
Finding the culprit wasn't just Third Sister-in-law Huang's unresolved issue, but the entire village's.
Sure enough, Third Sister-in-law Huang asked Yan Zhao with a trembling voice: "How can you investigate? Wasn't it said that it was an unlicensed truck? The person has fled who knows where. How can you investigate?"
"As long as I have patience, I will definitely find out," Yan Zhao said. "I was one of Teacher Huang's first students, and I watched Xiaoxiang grow up. As long as you focus on having this baby, I promise I will investigate this matter thoroughly."
"So, should I have this child?" Third Sister-in-law Huang hesitated.
"I promise you, before you give birth, I will make sure this case is solved," Yan Zhao said.
"By the way, Meilan is really nice. She was too wronged with Xishan before. You should treat her well," Third Sister-in-law Huang added.
Yan Zhao was silent for a moment before saying, "In terms of being a good person, I'm certainly better than Xishan, but I'm not good at making money."
Chen Meilan was suddenly shocked. This cold-faced, hard-hearted man was actually quite insecure inside.
And he was insecure about not being able to make money like Yan Xishan?
Chen Meilan had never expected this.
So when facing Yan Xishan, did he feel inferior?
In this era of inflation, where nouveau riche were springing up like mushrooms after rain in the 1990s, public servants like them could never make money.
How should she comfort and guide Yan Zhao about this?
But at this moment, Sister-in-law Huang actually laughed: "Yan Zhao, you should understand, if people like you could make money, this country would be finished."
Teacher Huang also smiled bitterly: "If Meilan hadn't introduced me to work at her brother's construction site, wouldn't I also be poor as a church mouse? But someone has to do the job of teaching, someone has to do police work. Yan Zhao, you need to think positively."
Hearing Sister-in-law Huang's words from outside, Chen Meilan felt as if she had been struck by a bell, or received a sudden enlightenment.
Although Sister-in-law Huang might seem rough and sharp-tongued, her reasoning was not rough at all.
Yan Zhao was the captain of the investigation team in a branch of the Public Security Bureau, overseeing mines, coal, various factories, nightclubs, and all places where nouveau riche might emerge.
Every day, he came into contact with people who had suddenly become wealthy. If he didn't lock his drawer, there would be many people stuffing cash into it.
If he was willing to amass wealth indiscriminately, if he also went to make money...
Wouldn't that just prove that the country's judicial system, from top to bottom, had completely collapsed?
If the judicial system collapsed, wouldn't the entire country be finished?
The country's prosperity and development came from these nouveau riche, but didn't law and order and stability come from judicial personnel like Yan Zhao?
Chen Meilan was initially in a hurry, but upon hearing this, she felt that she didn't need to persuade the child herself, as Third Sister-in-law Huang would give birth anyway. She simply left all the items in Third Sister-in-law Huang's kitchen and returned home.
Back at home, Little Wang was helping his father wash clothes.
His father's pink bedsheet was specifically put in the washing machine to be spun today.
As a matter of course, seeing that the water in the washing machine had already cleared, she prepared to turn off the machine and hang the clothes. However, as soon as she twisted the knob, the washing machine stopped washing, but with a clanging sound, it suddenly started to jump.
Little Wang dropped the snake-skin hose and came to shut off the machine: "You're supposed to be the mother, and you can't even handle this. You turned the wrong part; that's the spin-dry barrel."
"Quickly turn it off." They had just washed the clothes, and now they were about to run wild all over the yard.
Little Wang gave it a twist, and sure enough, the washing machine bounced a few times and then stopped.
"Alright, I can wash and hang the clothes myself. You go make dinner. You've been running to the construction site a lot lately, and dinner's been late. Little Lang must be starving," Little Wang said as he scooped clothes from the large tub into the spin-dry barrel, carefully putting the lid on.
There was a knack to putting on that plastic lid of the spin-dry barrel. It had to be balanced just right for it to spin; otherwise, it wouldn't work.
Chen Meilan felt that since she had done this before, she knew the principle, and guessed that Little Wang hadn't yet mastered the trick.
Seeing the young man acting as if he knew everything better than anyone else, she wanted to wait for him to make a mistake so she could teach him.
But as soon as he turned it on, with a swoosh, the washing machine started to spin-dry.
Waste water flowed out from the water pipe towards the drain by the door. In less than four minutes, when they took the clothes out, they were already half-dry.
"Big brother Wang is really capable," Yuanyuan said sincerely.
Little Wang chuckled and stuck out his tongue.
He disliked little girls the most, but he was nice to Yuanyuan at the moment because she could sing sweet songs.
Seeing that it was about to get dark, Chen Degong was still at the construction site. Although he always cooked for himself at the site, and after being scared by his second brother last time, this time when his elder sister-in-law wanted to come along to help him cook, he didn't even want her to.
Chen Meilan had bought a chicken today and planned to cook it all in one pot, then take half of it over to let Chen Degong treat the workers to a meal.
After all, today they had to tie steel bars and pour the concrete floor all at once, which would keep them busy all night. Farm workers rarely ate meat, and giving them some meat to eat would give them the strength to work.
Chen Meilan was chopping the chicken in the kitchen when Little Lang came trotting in and stuffed something into her mouth: "Mama eat."
It was half a sausage, and it smelled quite good.
"Little Lang, even if your brother bought it, you shouldn't eat any more snacks. Your belly is too full; you'll turn into a little fatty this way," Chen Meilan said.
Little Lang stubbornly insisted: "Grandma gave it, I give it to Mama to eat."
This child didn't have a grandmother.
"Yuanyuan, did you buy sausages for Little Lang today? You shouldn't buy them anymore in the future, understand?" Chen Meilan said.
Yuanyuan ran in: "No, Mama, what's a sausage?"
Half a sausage, branded "Chundu," had just become popular in this era. There were advertisements on TV, but it wasn't sold outside yet.
The child took a deep sniff: "So this is a sausage. It smells really good."
Chen Meilan, holding the half sausage, thought for a moment and went next door.
"Qin Yu, do you give Ningning pocket money? Has she ever bought sausages for Little Lang?" she asked first.
Qin Yu smiled: "Sausages? Aren't these not available in the market yet? It smells really good."
Ningning jumped up: "I know, I know! An old lady gave it to Little Lang. I wanted to eat it too, but Little Lang wouldn't give me any."
What would become known as "junk food" in the future was a luxury item now.
"By the way, Qin Yu, did Ningning sign up for the paint factory selection? Was she chosen in the end?" Chen Meilan asked again.
Qin Yu sighed: "Don't even mention it. They wanted a little boy, and a chubby one at that. They wanted the child to act as if the paint smelled good, smear it all over their body and put it in their mouth. How could that be okay? Wouldn't that be making my daughter eat paint? I'd have to be crazy to let my daughter do that."
Returning home, Little Lang was still following Chen Meilan with half a sausage.
The little one wanted to save it for his mom, but he was really craving it, so he would lick it once, then offer it to Chen Meilan. Seeing that she wouldn't take it, he would lick it again.
Chen Meilan bent down and looked at Little Lang for a while, then asked the little silly: "Am I your mama?"
"Yes."
"What's my name?"
"Um, Zhou Xueqin... I think," Little Lang said after thinking for a moment.
"Who told you that?" Chen Meilan asked again.
"Grandma... I think. She said not to forget mama, to love mama," Little Lang said.
Chen Meilan took the sausage, took a big bite, then said: "Now go home and run laps in the yard. The more you run, the better."
Run laps?
"Don't want to, tired." He was a little lazy bones.
Chen Meilan patted his bottom: "Mama will fry some sausages for you to eat later."
The sausage already smelled good, if it was fried, wouldn't it smell even better?
Shaking his chubby bottom, Little Lang went into the yard and really started running laps around it.
Coming out of Qin Yu's house, Chen Meilan wasn't in a hurry to go home. Although there weren't any of these plastic-wrapped little sausages sold outside, there were vendors selling garlic sausages in the market. Those needed to be pan-fried and tasted even better than these.
After buying a string of garlic sausages, Chen Meilan needed to go to the First Team.
If she guessed correctly, the person who had given Little Lang the sausage earlier should be Zhou Xueqin's mother, Wu Lianlian.
Zhou Xueqin herself had abandoned the child, either out of shame or fear that the child would cling to her, and didn't dare to show her face.
Her mother had come to give Little Lang the sausage.
Just the other day, Chen Meilan had run into Zhou Xueqin trying to borrow money from Song Huaihua but getting turned down.
A few days later, she heard Song Huaihua say that Lu Jingyu had bought some bonds and lost quite a bit of money, and the two of them were really depressed for a while.
So Zhou Xueqin wanted to make big money, but any business needed capital, and she was currently lacking capital because she had lost it all.
She had just been reborn and had signed up Lv Erniu, wanting her to endorse paint, but that must have fallen through too, because Lv Erniu was ugly and the paint factory didn't want her.
Originally, Chen Meilan thought it was just accidental paint ingestion, which would have been okay, at least Erniu was older and definitely wouldn't accidentally ingest paint.
But now it seemed the factory deliberately wanted to cover the child in paint from head to toe and even have the child eat paint.
And Zhou Xueqin, she knew about this.
Also, Chen Meilan had always been biased in her impression of Little Wang and Little Lang.
Because not only her sister-in-law, but even Jinbao, Zhenzhu, and Baozhu, when mentioning Little Wang and Little Lang, would just shake their heads.
Moreover, Little Lang was too young to remember things, and although Little Wang was close to Yan Zhao, from the time they had lived together, Chen Meilan had also observed that he never mentioned his birth mother in front of anyone, not even Yan Zhao, and had never said a bad word about Zhou Xueqin.
This was normal, just like Yuanyuan, even though Yan Xishan would point at her nose and scold her for being a money-losing commodity and a disgrace to him whenever he was drunk.
But Yuanyuan would never say anything bad about Yan Xishan in front of anyone.
Because children are born to their parents, and children don't speak ill of their parents, this is human nature.
But just because children don't say anything, doesn't mean their parents are truly good.
Just like Zhou Xueqin.
If Chen Meilan was only guessing before, she now dared to be certain that Little Lang had fallen ill because he had been made to endorse paint for the factory.
Having a child covered in paint and eating paint would make consumers feel that the factory's paint was safe.
In her previous life, Zhou Xueqin could say she didn't know either, after all, in this era, people didn't have knowledge about toxic paint, but hadn't she been reborn now?
Couldn't she find anywhere else to make money? Did she have to sell her son again?
If Zhou Xueqin really still wanted to let Little Lang participate in the paint factory's selection, then she wasn't human, she was simply as cruel as a snake or scorpion, worse than pigs and dogs.
Chen Meilan didn't mind having a private confrontation between reborn women with her.
Even if it meant ruining Zhou Xueqin's face, she wanted to ask Zhou Xueqin why she would do such a thing.
However, before she even entered the First Team, she ran into the village chief Yan Yong's wife, Liu Xiaohong. Liu Xiaohong had quite a fiery personality, and since they were sisters-in-law, they naturally considered themselves family.
"Meilan, why are you here?" Liu Xiaohong asked.
Before Chen Meilan could speak, Liu Xiaohong pursed her lips: "You probably don't know, but Zhou Xueqin left our First Team today and went to the capital."
Zhou Xueqin had actually gone to the capital?
Was it Zhou's Mother who took it upon herself to give Little Lang sausages to eat?
Another woman said, "I overheard the couple talking. They said they were going to resell some treasury bonds, which is extremely profitable. They also took that chubby girl with them, saying there's a children's singing competition in the capital, and if she participates, she could become a little star."
Er Niu's singing foundation was indeed impressive, and she had a particularly strong competitive spirit. She was also good at stage performances, so it wasn't impossible that she could become a little star if she entered the competition.
As for Zhou Xueqin's talk about reselling treasury bonds, it was like this: the government had recently banned the local buying and selling of treasury bonds, but they could still be traded in different regions. This gave rise to a large number of people engaged in inter-regional treasury bond trading. Some people could make tens of thousands of yuan overnight, but any money-making business carries risks. Among those people, it wasn't just competition; for the sake of grabbing treasury bonds, some even resorted to murder for money.
It was a business where you could either become rich overnight or die suddenly. Zhou Xueqin could be described as both wild and spicy in this lifetime.
However, since she hadn't laid a finger on Little Lang, Chen Meilan decided not to say anything.
As Chen Meilan was about to leave, Liu Xiaohong added, "Oh, by the way, Zhou Xueqin came up with an advertising slogan for a sausage factory. It's called 'The Dancing Sausage.' They used it and gave her several boxes of sausages. Her mother is out there selling them. I bought a few. Meilan, do you want some? I can give you a couple."
So, while Chen Meilan was thinking up advertisements for mattresses, Zhou Xueqin had done the same for a sausage factory?
And the sausages Zhou's Mother gave to Little Lang weren't even bought, but were freebies from the sausage factory?
She wouldn't even give a single sausage to Little Wang, only to Little Lang, and wanted him to remember his birth mother forever?
How could this maternal love be so cheap?
Upon returning to the village, she happened to run into Yan Zhao coming out of Teacher Huang's house.
"Where did you go?" Yan Zhao asked.
Chen Meilan smiled, "Nowhere special. Let's go home, I have something to tell you."
She hadn't expected this man would feel inferior because of her ability to make money.
Nor had she imagined that Zhou's Mother could stoop so low, using a few free sausages to buy cheap maternal love.
She needed to have a good talk with Yan Zhao about all these things.
After all, as Third Sister-in-law Huang had said, if Yan Zhao really knew how to make money and get rich, this country would be doomed.
And if Little Wang and Little Lang were to be touched by Zhou's Mother, who had already brought down a wool factory, they would probably be doomed too!
