Restarting life by going to the countryside to support medical work

Chapter 630 Spread
Li Yancheng escorted Jin Zhihai to the gate and watched the Jeep's taillights disappear into the alley. Instead of rushing back to the courtyard, he stood there and lit another cigarette for himself.

He kept recalling the case in his mind until he was sure that his judgment was correct, and then he breathed a sigh of relief.

From the day he saw the crime scene photos at the case analysis meeting, he felt that the place where the first victim died was somewhat strange.

Actually, he quite hoped that his judgment was wrong. If the first victim wasn't an accomplice of the murderer, then at least he could be considered to have died in the line of duty. No matter how much money the country could give him, at least his children could hold their heads high in the future.

But what if he really is the murderer's accomplice...?

Then his child's life would be ruined.

There's also the motivation, which is something he hasn't figured out yet.

Unless it's a sudden act of passion, every criminal has a motive when committing a crime.

That's why he did it.

According to previous investigation results, the first deceased was doing quite well in terms of family, life and work. He was a typical case of being neither the best nor the worst off.

He is a very tactful person and gets along well with his colleagues and neighbors.

Theoretically speaking, such a person is unlikely to commit crimes, especially murder and theft.

Li Yancheng knew very well that if the motive for the crime could not be found, even if the murderer was caught in the future, the murderer would identify the first victim as his accomplice, and it would be difficult for others to believe him.

He believed that if, as he judged, the first victim was indeed the accomplice, then this person must have had a reason for doing so.

They haven't found the reason yet, but he thinks Kim Ji-hae will definitely be able to find it.

"Hey, Da Cheng, what are you thinking about standing here all by yourself?"

"Aunt Cai, I just saw a friend off, what brings you here..."

It was already past eight or nine o'clock at night, and the temperature outside was around minus ten degrees Celsius. Li Yancheng had been standing there for ten minutes, but there wasn't a soul in the alley. Everyone was too cold, and unless there was an unavoidable reason, no one wanted to go out at this hour.

The woman speaking, Aunt Cai, lived in courtyard number 22. She hadn't just come out of her own courtyard, but rather turned out from the entrance of another north-south alley not far away.

“I just went to Old Shen’s house over there. Old Shen’s youngest son is getting married, and I’m the matchmaker for the young couple.”

"Aunt Cai, you've done another good deed, you absolutely deserve praise." Li Yancheng grinned as he heard Aunt Cai say that she had brought together another couple.

Many elderly women in the alley, or those in their forties or fifties, are enthusiastic about introducing potential partners to single men and women, which is a good thing.

This Aunt Cai is no exception; she has helped several couples get together, and they are all living quite well. She has done a small service in the field of marriage.

"Haha, yeah."

Aunt Cai is seventy years old this year. Her husband passed away two years ago. Her son and daughter have their own families, and her grandchildren are all grown up and don't need her help to take care of them. She usually lives here alone and likes to do matchmaking when she has nothing to do.

Seeing that those single young people had found homes with her help and were living quite well made her happy.

"Dacheng, are your biological mother and grandfather planning to live with you from now on? What about your biological father?"

During this period, the most talked-about topic in the alley was Li Yancheng's family.

The elderly people in the alley were happy for him to find his biological family, but of course, they also had plenty of gossip to ask about.

Before the liberation, the Cheng family was not well known to people living in Beijing because their headquarters were in Tianjin. However, Fu Shuyi's family was a different story.

Many elderly people in this alley used to make a living under the Fu family's banner, so they know the Fu family very well.

If it weren't for the old man who adopted the original owner deliberately concealing it, he might have been found long ago.

Hearing Aunt Cai ask this, Li Yancheng smiled and explained, "They definitely won't stay here forever. They have their own homes. They came here mainly to seek treatment from me, and they will leave once their treatment is almost complete."

"Oh, I see. I forgot who told me this during the day, but they said they came mainly for medical treatment. I thought it was just something our neighbors were saying, but it turns out it's true."

"Hey, Da Cheng, your biological parents went abroad before the liberation, didn't they?"

"correct."

Li Yancheng openly admitted it; there was nothing to hide. Things are different now than they were a few years ago. Back then, anyone who dared to have overseas connections was in big trouble; they'd be lucky to escape with their lives.

The situation is different now, especially since April of this year when the government issued foreign exchange certificates for foreign guests and overseas Chinese. With these foreign exchange certificates, they can shop at designated stores, such as Friendship Store, without needing special tickets.

Not only do you not need special tickets to shop, but you can also buy many things that you simply can't buy in other stores.

During this period, although resources were scarce in China, special coupons were required to buy grain, non-staple foods, or other items such as cloth and cotton. The average wage was not high, mostly a few dozen yuan a month, and a hundred yuan was considered a high wage.

But precisely because of this, ordinary people often have money but can't spend it.

There aren't many other places where you need to spend money. For example, housing is allocated by the government, and some require monthly rent payments, but the monthly rent is only a few dollars.

For medical treatment, as long as you have a job, your medical expenses will be fully reimbursed, and you will hardly have to spend any money.

After eliminating the two major expenses, the remaining expenses are clothing, food, and transportation.

Clothes. Back then, people liked to say, "New clothes for three years, old clothes for three years, and patched and mended for another three years." It wasn't that they didn't want to buy new clothes, but they couldn't collect enough cloth coupons. At most, they could buy some cloth before the New Year and try to make a set for their children. If there were many children in the family, then there was no way to make a new set.

Food, that is, food, including grains, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, vegetables, meat, eggs, melon seeds, peanuts, sugar, etc. Almost everything that you eat requires special tickets. Don't have a ticket? Well, sorry, you can't buy it, or you can go to the ghost market to buy it.

Finally, there's the matter of transportation. At this time, people mainly relied on bicycles for getting around, supplemented by buses, and oh, Beijing also had the subway. Buying a bicycle required a ticket. Although it can't be called a luxury item now, it was still a major purchase for any family.

When getting married, there are three turns and one sound, representing seventy-two legs. One turn refers to a bicycle, the other two are a sewing machine and a watch, and the sound is a radio.

As for the seventy-two legs, they represent furniture, with each piece of furniture having four legs, so let's make do.

Of course, this is the ideal situation. In fact, nowadays, very few young men and women who get married would make such an excessive request to have everything ready.

Sometimes it's not that we don't have enough money, but that we don't have enough tickets.

But if someone had overseas connections and could get some foreign currency to exchange for foreign exchange certificates, then using those certificates to buy things at the Friendship Store would be a very prestigious thing.

Two years into the reform and opening up, although the changes are not yet obvious, many people's thoughts are already different from before.

Just like the old master Cheng and Fu Shuyi who are now living in Li Yancheng's house, if this had happened a few years ago, it would have been a different story. People would have come knocking on their door long ago. No matter who you are, it wouldn't matter if you are Luo Lao's son-in-law or anyone else.

Now, the neighbors in the alley can only envy Li Yancheng for not only finding his biological family but also having overseas connections. Tsk tsk, how come all the good things happen to one person?

He not only holds a high-ranking leadership position, but also has such enviable relatives.

In fact, Li Yancheng had heard all of this. There were quite a few rumors about him circulating in the alley. People can say whatever they want, and as long as they weren't too outrageous, he didn't bother to pay attention.

He happened to run into Aunt Cai today, and he was thinking of using her to spread some information so that people wouldn't say anything more.

"Aunt Cai, they came here for several reasons. First, to reunite with their relatives. Second, to help me get medical treatment for my biological mother. Third, their family is preparing to respond to the national call to return to China and invest in building a factory."

Well, they came back with good intentions, wanting to bring back some advanced foreign technologies to contribute to the country's development.

Also, I have no intention of going abroad with them, and Huansheng and Xiaoyu will not go abroad with them either. Others may not know, but you should know, Aunt Cai. I used to work at the Social Affairs Bureau. Although Xiaomin is now in school, her file is still at the Social Affairs Bureau, so she belongs to the Social Affairs Bureau. There is no way for either of us to go abroad.

I've also heard some rumors circulating in our alley recently, and I'd like to ask Aunt Cai to help me explain. If these rumors spread too much, it will affect both me and my family. When that happens, I will definitely find a way to find out who is spreading these rumors and protect my own interests.

We've all been neighbors for a long time, and I don't want things to really come to that point, so thank you for your help.

Aunt Cai used to have a job, and she even had a rank. Although she was only a section-level cadre, because she worked in the propaganda department of a newspaper, she had much more contact with, knew, and understood than ordinary people.

She knew very well what kind of organization the Social Affairs Bureau was. When she learned that Li Yancheng had reunited with his relatives and knew their identities, she immediately understood why he had been transferred from the Social Affairs Bureau to work at the Public Security Bureau.

Hearing Li Yancheng say this, she nodded without hesitation: "Dacheng, even if you hadn't said it, I was already planning to talk to you about it in the next couple of days."

"I've heard about those rumors you mentioned. They're really exaggerated. Don't worry, Dacheng, I'll definitely help you suppress those rumors. We can't let them spread such nonsense anymore."

"Thank you, Aunt Cai."

"You're welcome. I've watched you grow up. You're a child from our alley, one of our own. We certainly can't let anyone bully you."

By the way, you just said that your biological parents are planning to return to China to invest in building a factory?

"That's right, they've already started looking in the south. If they can find a suitable location with good conditions in all aspects, they will invest."

"When they build factories in the country, are the factories state-owned or their own?"

"Of course it belongs to them."

"Then...isn't that just going back to the old ways before liberation? How could anyone possibly want to work in the factories they built?"

“There will definitely be people willing to go. Not to mention other places, just in our hutong, Aunt Cai, you should know how many people are still unemployed and just wander around aimlessly every day.”

Although their factory is privately owned, they will definitely pay every penny of the monthly salary. If you were given the choice between being unemployed and working in that kind of factory, what would you choose?

"Uh……"

In the eyes of people in this day and age, only working for the government is considered a job. Being self-employed is a last resort. As for working for a private company? That's just being exploited.

Of course, apart from a few Hong Kong-invested enterprises that have been established and are under construction, there are no other private enterprises at present, so it is not yet possible to talk about working for private individuals.

There is a garment factory under construction in Beijing. It is invested by a Hong Kong businessman. It is not large in scale and is a trial project. Because it is still under construction and has not started work, it has not yet started recruiting.

Many people go to the gate of the garment factory under construction every day to look around. Everyone is talking about it, wondering what it will be like when the factory starts recruiting workers.

Li Yancheng was certain that someone would volunteer, because there were just too many unemployed young people. Everyone wanted to wait for the government to arrange jobs for them, but the supply was far more than the demand.

Some people come from families with slightly better financial conditions, so waiting a couple more years isn't a problem. But for others, it's different. There might only be one person working in their family, and the money they earn has to be shared by several people. To put it bluntly, they might not even be able to feed themselves. If a job were offered to them, whether it was a government job or a private one, earning money would be the most important thing.

Anyway, it's better than going hungry.

However, while some people will take the initiative to recruit, others will simply observe. The first recruitment drive will definitely not be able to fill all the positions, and in the end, the government will certainly need to step in to help solve the labor shortage problem.

Once the first group of people who tried this new approach received their wages, the next time such a recruitment event occurs, there will be virtually no need to worry about not being able to fill all the positions.

Even someone as worldly-wise as Aunt Cai would have such thoughts, so it's no surprise that other ordinary people would too. People's deeply ingrained ideas need to be gradually changed.

Just like the state-owned enterprise reforms in a few years, when everyone's so-called "iron rice bowl" is smashed, people will understand many things.

After chatting with Aunt Cai for a few more minutes, Li Yancheng returned to the courtyard.

(End of this chapter)