Chapter 13 Mei Zhonghua Run into Trouble
Only Mei Xiaolei alone had no idea about what had happened. Seeing his father and sister were so excited, he asked weakly, “What is the matter that makes you all so happy about?”
“My dear son, the tuition for both of you has been settled, so Dad is not worried anymore.”
The thing that makes Mei Zhonghua most delighted was this matter. On this day, he earned almost one month’s salary of others. Plus the family’s original money, it was just enough for his two children’s tuition fee. Last night, he was so worried that he didn’t sleep all night. But today, after listening to his daughter’s words, he turned to Xia Dong Camp and pulled two carts of watermelons and earned the money back. This time, all the problems have been solved.
“What are you not worried about anymore?”
The moment Li Mingyun entered the courtyard, she happened to hear this sentence. When she entered the room, she saw the big handful of small bills piled on the table, and froze immediately, “This is…… Is this money enough for the children’s tuition?” She had originally thought that if it was not enough, she would summon up courage and open her mouth to borrow ten Yuan from her parents, to solve the children’s school problem first.
“Enough, enough!”
Mei Zhonghua gave all the money to Li Mingyun. “You put these away first and later use it to pay for the children’s tuition.”
“How did we end up with so much money this time ? Who did you borrow it from? “
Li Mingyun didn’t even think that this money was earned by Mei Zhonghua. She still thought about where he borrowed it from.
Mei Zhonghua neither able to laugh or cry, “Mingyun, you underestimated your husband too much. This was all earned by me.”
Now, Li Mingyun was even more surprised. Although she knows that her husband was doing the grains business outside but it will only sell when it is a market day. It’s also done sneakily in fear of being reported. Who has the courage to buy hundreds jin of grains at once? Usually, Mei Zhonghua earns only eight to ten Yuan at most in one transaction, and it only happens at an extremely good occasion.
“Mom, let me tell you, this is the money that Dad and I made from selling watermelons today.”
Mei Xiaoran is very pleased with herself. If she were not a mere teenage girl at this moment, she would really like to do these things by herself.
“Selling watermelons？”
Li Mingyun was really confused now. Her husband had never sold watermelons, so why did he suddenly think of doing this kind of business?
Meizhonghua told her the matter about selling watermelons, and in passing, also praised their own daughter, “Still, it was because Ranran is smart. If she hadn’t suggested to me about selling watermelons, I wouldn’t have thought of it even if I was beaten to death.”
Li Mingyun was both surprised and delighted, but at the same time also extremely distressed. “Ranran, the weather is so hot, you will become tanned.”
“Mom, I’m not afraid to bask in the sun since I was young. It’s not like you don’t know about it.”
They had been busy for a day, Mei Zhonghua was famished and he urged Li Mingyun to cook. “Prepare the food quickly. Ranran and I both are starving. Just some Lo Mein noodles will do. The sooner, the better.”
Li Mingyun went to cook without wasting any time. Thinking that the children’s tuition has already been collected, she generously stir fried chives and eggs to go with the noodles. The stimulating savory aroma that was separated by a wall even made Mei Xiaoran drooling with saliva……
Everyone enjoyed the meal with a happy heart.
After the meal, Mei Xiaoran cut the watermelon that had been cooled down for everyone to eat.
The watermelon had been soaked in the well water for almost an hour, tasted cool and sweeter when consumed.
Mei Xiaolei almost chewed clean the watermelon’s skin, “Delicious, delicious.”
“Leilei, eat slowly. Tomorrow our Dad will get you watermelon again. Rest assured.”
“Really?”
After Mei Xiaolei got the positive answer, he then slowed down and savored it carefully……
In the afternoon, Li Mingyun went to work in the factory. Mei Zhonghua was also taking a nap. Mei Xiaoran, who had been busy all morning, was lying in bed but could not fall asleep.
She was thinking about how to make the family rich as soon as possible, so that her parents need not work so hard anymore. But now it’s only the year of 1978, and the fastest time for the Chinese Economic Reform to happen is at the second half of next year. There is still one year to go. In this one year’s time, what can they do that won’t violate the regulations and make money at the same time?
At night, Mei Zhonghua went to Sixth Brother’s house to borrow a bike.
Mei Xiaoran had a very deep impression on this Sixth Uncle. Sixth Uncle and her dad are distant relatives with the same surname in under five generations. Their relationship was actually not that close, but Sixth Uncle went to the city and settled down early. He was honest towards others. After Mei Zhonghua went to the city, the two families also happened to live in Dongguan. The more one moves around, the closer the relationship that they got. It can be regarded as the closest relationship they had besides with the maternal grandmother’s family. If it was other people, it would not be so easy to borrow a bicycle.
The next day, Mei Zhonghua got up even earlier. Before dawn, he rode the bicycle towards Xiaodong Camp to pull the watermelons.
This time, Mei Xiaoran didn’t follow along. One had to know that one cart of watermelons weighs hundreds of Jin. If her dad brought her along, it would only add dozens more jin as his burden, so she doesn’t want her dad to work that hard. But she also has something to do. Today, she decided to take Mei Xiaolei to the vegetable market, so that he could also experience everyone’s hard work. And along the way, let him open up his mind, as Mei Xiaolei had never experienced even a tiny bit of hardship at all in her previous life. Li Mingyun raised him up the way a big young master would be raised. Now, she doesn’t want to indulge this stinky behavior of Mei Xiaolei.
Mei Xiaoran and her younger brother, this pair of siblings, brought along two small stools to the vegetable market. It was still at the same spot as yesterday’s. They laid the sacks down and waited for her dad to pull the watermelon back.
It’s just a quarter past six but Mei Zhonghua already pulled back a cart, unloaded the watermelon and left again. His goal today is three carts of watermelons, two of which will be put down on the market street for sale, and the other one is going to be sold in Beiguan street. There just happens to be a market fair being held today. There will definitely be no shortage of people in the Beiguan firewood market!
Mei Xiaoran and her younger brother were guarding the watermelon stand. It’s just a little over seven o’clock when people start to come over, and most of them were the customers who bought the watermelon yesterday. They didn’t even haggle with the price but just picked it up and left. When other new customers saw this situation, they followed suit……A little after eight o’clock, half a cart of watermelons had been sold.
Mei Xiaolei was overjoyed, “Elder sister, our Dad really has the skill to pick watermelon, or else there won’t be so many people who want to buy it.”
“That is just a matter of course. To begin with, our dad is really able to pick watermelons.”
Mei Xiaoran is very proud of this. From their childhood till they grow up, as long as it was the watermelon bought by her dad, it would certainly be delicious.
However, there was also a little worry inside her heart. That cart of watermelons before, her dad just used up a little more than one hour’s time to run back and forth. Now it was already two hours but he hasn’t come back yet.
Mei Zhonghua didn’t come back until nearly nine o’clock. When he came back, the sun had already risen very high, and his face was all tanned reddish-black.
“Dad……What’s wrong with you……” Mei Xiaoran noticed the abnormality. Her father was covered with dust and it seemed as if he had fallen down.
The two siblings quickly helped Mei Zhonghua to get down from the bicycle. Mei Zhonghua’s elbows were broken and blood seeped out. There were also several broken watermelons on the cart.
“Dad, where else did you get hurt? Is it serious? I’ll go and get you some gentian violet potion* to put on. “
(TN : it is an antiseptic dye used to treat fungal infections of the skin.)
At that time, whether it was adults or children, as long as they were bruised with either scratches or collisions, they were all disinfected with gentian violet potion. This liquid medicine was cheap and had many uses, but it didn’t look good when it was put on the skin.
“Don’t go. What is this little scratch amount to? Don’t waste that money. “
Seeing her dad’s bad complexion, Mei Xiaoran couldn’t help but ask him the cause, “Dad, what is going on actually? “
“Don’t mention it anymore!”
In fact, half of Mei Zhonghua’s injuries were because of scratches and the other half were caused by other’s beating.
Yesterday, he ran twice simultaneously towards Xiaodong Camp, and attracted other people’s attention. When he pulled the second batch of watermelon just now, someone deliberately ran over him from behind.
Pinnochies' Little Translation Corner 