1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 491 Extra 1: Swallow and Pink Pearl
"Aqiang, your Liang Jingcheng, is he here to study or to form a clique? There are only 20 to 30 people in the class, and most of them are his buddies! To be honest with you, no matter what I say in class now, he can't do anything!"

Lu Guangcai, whose hair was gradually turning gray, drank a sip of herbal tea and just as he sat down, he began to complain to Liang Ziqiang and his wife.

"This brat who deserves a beating, come back and I will teach him a lesson!" Chen Xiangbei heard from the side and said angrily, "Teacher Lu, he formed gangs in school, did he bully any students?"

"No!" Teacher Lu shook his head decisively, "You just put all your energy into making friends. You're a teen-year-old kid, why are you trying to get close to people and make a lot of friends every day? It's totally unnecessary. You're not putting your energy in the right place!"

"That's true. You still have to study hard," Liang Ziqiang said. "Whether this kid makes trouble in class or not, can he listen to the lecture?"

"He doesn't make trouble in class and listens attentively. In terms of grades, he should be in the top three or four. I think he's not stupid. If he spends less time on making friends and puts more effort into studying, he will definitely be the top student in the class! It's a pity that he keeps hovering between the top three and the top five!"

Lu Guangcai looked a bit disappointed with his friend.

"We need to try harder and push forward!" Liang Ziqiang started laughing.

When he heard that his son focused on making friends and studied as a side job, and still managed to rank among the top three or four for a long time, he was no longer angry at all. He even thought it was pretty good, as he could make friends and study at the same time. What was there to be angry about!
Lu Guang could tell that he was joking, and was a little annoyed by his nonchalant attitude. He put down his cold tea and said:

"He had too many weird ways of playing, such as throwing treasures, playing with foreign paintings, rolling hoops, playing with slingshots, spinning tops, throwing darts, and folding paper airplanes. All the little kids he brought with him became his followers, and they learned these playful tricks from him all day long. He could barely rank in the top three or four, but it was different for those kids. When they were too playful, their grades dropped!"

Liang Ziqiang finally figured it out. It turned out that Liang Jingcheng was able to stay in the top three or four not because of how well he studied, but because he dragged down other students in the class and lowered the overall score!

He now understood Mr. Lu's feelings. Not only did he understand, he also felt a little sympathy...

But before Lu Guangcai finished speaking, he said, as if to give a warning:

"He not only makes toys to attract boys, but I see he is also very good at talking. He can coax girls from grades above him to those who have just entered school.

I am worried about him because we are a family after all. He is still so young now. When he grows up, he will bring many girls to your house. I wonder if you two will still be able to smile when that happens!"

Seeing Lu Guangcai so serious and worried, Liang Ziqiang almost couldn't help laughing. This doesn't seem like a bad thing?

Lu Guang finally realized that he didn't take it seriously. He drank his herbal tea and didn't sit there for long, planning to leave.

Liang's mother chased after him and shouted, "Father-in-law, why don't you sit for a while and have a meal before going back!"

As soon as Lu Guangcai left, Chen Xiangbei gave Liang Ziqiang a look:
"You're still laughing! This kind of thing usually comes from your father. Do you think you were like this when you were a kid, using your big mouth to coax little girls everywhere?!"

"Me?" Liang Ziqiang complained bitterly. How could this be wronged by him? "When I went to Huagu Village for a blind date, it was the first time I looked at a girl carefully. You forgot that I seemed to blush when I saw you!"

"You, blushing? I haven't seen that in all these years, from the blind date to now!" Chen Xiangbei found that his ability to lie had improved.

"Aqiang was very shy when he was little, and he didn't like to interact with little girls!" Liang's mother hurried forward to repair someone's image, "Cheng Cheng, I think it was mainly because of the one-year-old celebration on the day of the celebration. I shouldn't have been careless and put a singing tape next to the chair!"

Liang Ziqiang still admired his mother. On the day when little Cheng Cheng turned one, he didn't touch or grab the pile of stationery, but ran to the side, picked up a cassette, and smiled at the beautiful female singer on the cover of the cassette in a very manly way.

Now, everything is attributed to the meaningful beginning of the "Zhuazhou" ceremony at that time...

In the afternoon, Liang Jingcheng came back from school, and the family felt that they should say a few words to him and give him some advice.

"Jingcheng, let me tell you something. You're good at making slingshots and spinning tops, which is not a bad thing! But why don't you just play with them at home? You're turning the school into an amusement park!" Liang Ziqiang reminded Cheng Cheng.

Liang Jingcheng rolled his eyes and realized that he had been reported by Teacher Lu. He admitted his mistake very quickly:
"Dad, I won't play those anymore! Besides, it's a bit boring to play with spinning tops all the time. There's nothing fun about it!"

Liang Ziqiang immediately felt that the boy was teachable, and looked at his son with great satisfaction. Then he saw his son take out a wooden gun and a handful of marbles from his arms:
"Xiaoqing, come and see. Brother made a wooden gun and got a bunch of marbles. Which one do you like to play? I'll teach you which one you like to play!"

Liang Ziqiang, who was so pleased just a second ago, almost fell to his death beside the table...

My daughter Liang Yueqing is now four or five years old. She is looking more and more like her mother, with delicate features and very cute.

The big eyes on the oval face were dark and he blinked twice. His words were soft but his meaning was very clear:
"Brother, you can play with the gun yourself, I'll play with the marbles!"

The brother and sister immediately started playing marbles on the table, flicking their own marbles with their fingers to hit the other party's marbles. If they hit, the other party's marbles would be theirs.

After playing for a while, Liang Yueqing became very interested in one of the pink marbles. She picked it up and shone it against the light outside:
"This is the most beautiful one! But I've seen a bead that's even more beautiful than this one. Do you believe it, brother?!"

"Where is it? Is it pink too?" Cheng Cheng asked her sister. "Yes! I'll show you and you'll know!"

At this moment, although Liang Ziqiang and his wife were also in the room, they were already busy with their own tasks. While they were busy, they listened to the brother and sister's casual conversation.

When they turned around, they saw Liang Yueqing closing the drawer. And there was a pink bead in her hand.

When they saw this scene, especially Liang Yueqing's little hands holding the beads, shaking them back and forth, as if they might fall to the ground at any time, Liang Ziqiang and his wife were immediately frightened!
“Where did you get this from?!” Chen Xiangbei threw away the work in his hands, ran forward, and almost called him a living ancestor.

"Mom, this is wrapped in a handkerchief," Xiao Yueqing pointed to the drawer, "I unwrapped the handkerchief and took it out. Isn't it for us to play with?"

"You can't play with this," Liang Ziqiang quickly told her, "This is Mom's stuff, it's very important to her, and she'll be very sad if you break it!"

Just kidding, this was a few years ago, he used a bottom trawler to haul up a large number of mother-of-pearl oysters. There were many pearls among the countless mother-of-pearl oysters, but there were only two pink pearls at that time.

If Pang Jiahui had sold it, the pink pearl would have been very valuable, but he was reluctant to sell it and left it to Chen Xiangbei. Of course, the most precious thing should be left to his wife.

"Mom, I'll give it back to you!"

Hearing what he said, Liang Yueqing behaved well and immediately returned the pink pearl to her mother.

The brother and sister simply ran outside to play. Chen Xiangbei picked up the pearl and looked at it again and again.

The pink color seemed to radiate from the inside, and the whole bead was very transparent. Chen Xiangbei still liked it very much. It was precisely because of her love for it that she was reluctant to wear it, but put it in a drawer, and wrapped it with layers of handkerchiefs, treating it as a treasure.

After being unable to let go of it for a long time, she opened the drawer, wrapped it up in a handkerchief again and put it back.

Then she was seen rummaging around in the drawer, and then looking for other drawers, wondering:

"Aqiang, didn't you peel two pink pearls like this that year? How come there is only one now? You still have the other one, didn't they lose it while playing?!"

The more she searched, the more anxious the daughter-in-law became.

Liang Ziqiang was also panicked. Fortunately, he knew she would ask about this, so he quickly pulled out another drawer:
"That's impossible. You must not have looked carefully enough. Look, it's right here!"

As he said this, he took out a bead from another drawer, the same size and the same pink color.

The two discussed it and learned from today's lesson. To prevent their son and daughter from rummaging around again, they moved the two pearls to another place and put them in the locked large wooden box together with the deposit slip.

Liang Ziqiang breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that his wife had no suspicion at all.

In fact, the pearl he just took out from another drawer was not the one from many years ago, but a new pearl he had just fished out a while ago.

He had already given the first pink pearl to a young couple.

He couldn't tell Chen Xiangbei who he gave it to.

"By the way, are you going to collect bird's nests again in a few days? I see you go every year, but you don't collect many bird's nests each time. Why do you have to go? Our family is not short of money for the bird's nests now, right?" the daughter-in-law asked again.

"Go and pick as much as you can. If Yuehai Restaurant needs it, no matter how much money they pay, I have to supply them with some goods, right?" Liang Ziqiang smiled.

In fact, this is certainly not the most important reason.

In the past few years, the purpose of going to the caves on Longju Island is no longer to collect bird's nests, but just to meet old friends.

A few years ago, when he went to collect bird's nests, he suddenly found a few words engraved at the entrance to the cave:
The wine is gone and there is no more to sell.

In addition, he also wrote the word "wealth" and drew a swallow.

There are a few numbers written on it, which are obviously the date.

From then on, Liang Ziqiang went to Longju Island every year according to the date on the number to meet an old friend...

(End of this chapter)