The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 268 Jiang Juan invites classmates to her home

March 22nd, 9pm, raining.

Jiang Cheng got off the train from Shenzhen to Changcheng. He was a little hungry, so he took out a tea egg and some pot stickers from his storage space and ate them while leaving the platform.

Nowadays, tea eggs are basically only sold in Hong Kong, and only some important places in China use tea eggs to entertain guests.

Those later novels and short plays that describe people traveling back to the early days of China's reform and opening up to sell tea eggs are pure nonsense. Only those who have truly lived in this era know how precious tea is in China at that time.

You can go to the countryside to collect eggs, but you can’t collect tea leaves. Tea eggs became a common street snack at least after 1983, starting in some big cities and then gradually becoming everywhere.

As for the contents of many novels and short plays, you really have to put your IQ aside to read them. Making a tea egg is like everyone has never seen the world.

Tea is exported first to create foreign exchange, which leads to domestic tension. After two years, the country has transformed from exporting raw materials as the main source of foreign exchange income to processing to earn foreign exchange, and many things will be easily available to domestic people.

In fact, before the liberation of China, tea eggs were sold by vendors at train stations, and Nanjing also had five-spice tea eggs.

In this era, at least in the past few years, don't say that some university professors are not as good as selling tea eggs. Because people who can get a lot of tea can make a lot of money selling tea, and don't need to sell tea eggs at all.

Jiang Cheng swallowed the peeled tea egg in one gulp, then took out a bottle of juice and drank it, and then ate the pot stickers one by one. Anyway, it was really nice to eat hot food outside when it was raining at night.

After leaving the train station, Jiang Cheng found a deserted place and got the car out.

Only with a license plate from Shenzhen and a work permit for a foreign-funded enterprise driver can Jiang Cheng drive a car in China with peace of mind. Otherwise, if he simply brought a car from Hong Kong, Jiang Cheng would be detained if he was checked casually.

After driving back home, Jiang Cheng, with the identity of a driver, could bring home things in large and small bags again.

At this time, everyone in the family was asleep. However, Jiang Juan had just laid down and was about to fall asleep when she heard a noise. Someone was walking by the window.

When Jiang Juan came back in the evening, she would first help Zhou Lingying with housework and take care of the children, and would review her homework after dinner. So she would usually go to bed around 9:30, which was considered late in this era.

Zhou Lingying is going to bed earlier and earlier every day. The fourth child, Jiang Sisi, is almost two months older since the Chinese New Year, so she doesn't need to be fed too frequently.

Before, I had to get up around 11 o'clock to feed him, and he could last until four or five in the morning. Now he is well behaved after being fed around 9:30.

Hearing a knock on the door next door, Jiang Juan got up, opened the door and poked her head out to take a look. Although she couldn't see the face of the person knocking clearly in the dark, she could recognize who it was from his height and outline.

"Uncle, you're back." Jiang Juan said in surprise.

"Juanzi, you haven't slept yet so late." Jiang Cheng said with a smile when he saw his niece Jiang Juan.

"I was about to fall asleep when I heard the noise. Uncle, do you need my help?" Jiang Juan replied.

"Then put on your coat, take an umbrella and go with me to get the things from the car outside." Jiang Cheng nodded in response.

It's still March, and it's raining outside, so the weather is still a bit cold.

Jiang Juan immediately turned on the light and put on her clothes after hearing this. She was wearing thin pajamas. She was especially surprised when she heard her uncle say he was going to get something from the car.

She knew that her uncle Jiang Cheng had lost his job, but she hadn't told anyone back home. And her aunt had told her that her uncle could drive a car, which was a technical job. It would be easy for her to find a job after she had another child, so she didn't need to worry about the financial situation of her uncle's family.

As long as Jiang Juan studied hard and got good grades, she would be supported to continue her studies. In fact, if she really went to high school, the cost would be lower, because in this era, high school students received a subsidy of 8 to 10 yuan per month, and the tuition and miscellaneous fees were only yuan per semester.

If Jiang Juan could pass the high school entrance exam, she could survive on the allowance alone during her school years, but her life would be hard, and it would be impossible for her to eat meat as often as Jiang Cheng did.

Only when I went to university did I no longer need financial support from my family. I would receive a monthly food allowance of 19.5 yuan and a scholarship of a few yuan.

With so many subsidies and scholarships, some college students from poor families can save a little at school and send ten yuan back home every month.

With Jiang Juan's current grades, it will be no problem for her to continue to study in high school. At that time, there is really no need to give her pocket money, just provide her with food and accommodation.

Now when Jiang Juan heard her uncle Jiang Cheng say he was going to get something from the car, her first reaction was that her uncle had a job again. Otherwise, how could he have a car to drive? But she didn't know whether he had gone back to work at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative or had found a new job.

In the main room, Zhou Lingying woke up when she heard the knock on the door and opened it.

Zhou Lingying had never thought that Jiang Cheng would come back so late at night. It was rare to see him once a year. Because there were still some street lights in the central area of ​​the city, but they were not dense. There were no street lights on the roads outside the city, and the roads were not good.

Unless there is an emergency, drivers today would not choose to drive at night.

Jiang Cheng would only continue driving when he was almost home and it was getting dark, but in that case he would arrive home at 7 or 8 at the latest. If the distance was far, he would choose a place to eat around 5 o'clock, and then find a place to rest after eating.

And now it was almost ten o'clock, and Jiang Cheng was back. Zhou Lingying also heard Jiang Cheng asking Jiang Juan to put on her coat and go outside to get something from the car, so she naturally didn't think that he came back by train.

"Jiang Cheng, you drove back? Did you find a job?" Zhou Lingying asked with concern after walking out of the room.

"Well, but it's not Changcheng's job. Juanzi and I will go to the car to get things first, and we'll talk about it when we go to bed." Jiang Cheng responded.

Jiang Cheng had a lot of things in his hands, so he asked Zhou Lingying to sort them out first. With his niece Jiang Juan to help, she didn't have to put on her clothes and hold an umbrella. Once the things were brought over, she could sort them out at home.

Jiang Juan quickly put on her coat, took her umbrella and followed Jiang Cheng out to the yard.

Jiang Juan walked through the alley and came to the side of the road. She followed her uncle in one direction and saw that there was a car parked where the Jiefang trucks were often parked.

In China, sedans are more advanced than Jiefang cars, and only high-ranking officials can ride them. Jiang Juan didn't know this before, but she heard about it after she moved to the city. The leaders of the county may only be able to ride in jeeps at the highest level, so if there are sedans, it must be something special.

Jiang Cheng opened the trunk and found the same things he always brought in. Hens, fish, shrimps and meat. In addition, there were some things packed in cartons, and it was impossible to tell what they were without opening them.

"Uncle, there is so much meat this time." Jiang Juan couldn't help but say as she looked at the nearly half-filled pork ribs.

"Eat slowly, and make meat pie soup and braised spareribs tomorrow." Jiang Cheng said with a smile. Jiang Juan couldn't help swallowing her saliva after hearing this. She would walk faster after school tomorrow and get home several minutes earlier.

"Uncle, can I invite a classmate to my house for dinner tomorrow?" Jiang Juan looked at the things she was carrying and thought of a good classmate in her class. Her family situation was a bit special, so she wanted to invite him to her uncle's house to improve the food.

"Male classmates and female classmates." Jiang Cheng asked.

"Uncle, of course it's a female classmate."

It was dark, and when Jiang Cheng asked Jiang Juan whether they were male and female classmates, she blushed immediately, but it was not visible in the darkness.

"Female classmates are welcome. This is your home as well. You can invite not only classmates to your home for dinner but also friends to your home to play. But you have to be sensible when making friends. You can't make friends with people of bad character." Jiang Cheng said.

Jiang Juan nodded and briefly told Jiang Cheng about her classmate's situation. Her family was poor, and like Jiang Juan, her father died early.

The junior high school Jiang Juan attended had a cafeteria, but it was a teachers' cafeteria, but it was also open to the school. Those who lived far away and whose families were well-off would also let their children buy meal tickets in the cafeteria, and students could also get food in the cafeteria just like the teachers.

Jiang Juan lived not too far from the school, so she usually went home for lunch. As for her classmates, they didn’t live too far away either, but they brought their lunch to school every day.

She usually ate steamed bread and pickled vegetables, and when it was time to eat, she would go to the school cafeteria to get some hot water to soak in. When she was in the first grade of junior high school, people in her class laughed at her, saying that she was from the countryside, just like they laughed at Jiang Juan at the beginning.

There was no way, even if Jiang Cheng had brought Jiang Juan to the city and changed her clothes, the way rural people spoke and their accents were really different from those in the city.

Moreover, when the school started, the students would introduce themselves to each other. Jiang Juan did not hide anything and directly said that her hometown was in Kaiyang Village, Jinhe Commune.

Although I was laughed at by my classmates when I first went to school, it was not only because of my rural origin, but students of this generation were not so snobbish. The key issue was my accent, which made my classmates think it was funny.

But later on, Jiang Juan's grades improved and her accent gradually adjusted. Now her classmates basically don't make any comments about her being from the countryside.

Of course, the school has held several parent-teacher conferences in the past two years. Even though Jiang Juan is from the countryside, her uncle and aunt are not ordinary people in the city. Zhou Lingying went to the school to hold a parent-teacher conference for Jiang Juan, but she was embarrassed in front of her classmates' parents.

Everyone in the class knows that Jiang Juan’s uncle is a driver for the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and can buy many things that others cannot buy.

The classmates Jiang Juan is talking about now are in a similar situation to hers, with good grades and no father either. At the beginning, she was poor and had poor lunches at school, which made her laugh.

But Jiang Juan's classmates are young but sensible. They know the family situation and never compare or complain to others. They just say that she comes to school to study hard.

After a long time, coupled with the correct ideological guidance of the school teachers, everyone will only sympathize with others and no longer laugh at others for eating poorly or having poor family conditions.

After listening to Jiang Juan's brief introduction, Jiang Cheng said that he would ask her aunt to make more rice tomorrow when he returned home.

Jiang Juan had to carry a lot of things on her body, so it was difficult for her to hold an umbrella, so she clamped the umbrella handle around her neck.

Jiang Cheng also took out a one-meter-high box from the back seat of the car and carried it back home. When he got home, Jiang Cheng also put the box directly in the side room where Jiang Juan lived.

After putting his things away, Jiang Cheng returned to the main room. Zhou Lingying immediately poured him some water for washing his face and also prepared a towel.

After washing her face, Zhou Lingying saw Jiang Cheng taking off his pants to wash his butt, and she knew what he wanted to do that night. Thinking that she had peed before going to bed, she just had to get up and wash herself.

Zhou Lingying knew Jiang Cheng's personality, and they were separated for a little longer each time. After returning, he really didn't mind dirt, and he couldn't eat anything.

As the night turned into the night, Jiang Cheng panicked. Because this time, Zhou Lingying did not let him escape unscathed at the last minute. Suddenly, he remembered that the fourth child was four months old in February before the New Year. Now it is late March, and the fourth child is almost half a year old.

My daughter-in-law Zhou Lingying is preparing for pregnancy again. During this period, she is as ferocious as a wolf.

The next day, Jiang Cheng slept until quite late. When he woke up, the third and fourth children were lying beside him. The eldest and second children were playing in the room. If Zhou Lingying hadn't warned the eldest and second children not to disturb their father, Jiang Cheng would have never thought of sleeping in.

It was still raining outside today. When Zhou Lingying was making breakfast in the morning, she heard Jiang Juan say that Jiang Cheng came back in a car. She even went to the side of the road to see what was coming back, and it turned out to be a brand new car.

Because of the rain, the car got wet. When Jiang Cheng drove back yesterday, he got some mud and water, but it was all washed away.

A sedan was now parked where the Jiefang truck used to be. All the neighbors who went out in the morning saw it and directly suspected that it was Jiang Cheng.

However, some knowledgeable people did not think that Jiang Cheng was driving the car, because the license plate was not from Changcheng. No one thought that Jiang Cheng would go to other cities to be a driver, and family planning was being implemented nationwide, so even if he moved to another city, he would not be able to solve the problem.

"Jiang Cheng, why did you bring back so much pork this time? Are you going to pickle it?" Zhou Lingying walked to the bedside, picked up the fourth child, and asked while feeding him with her breasts exposed.

"Pickled ones don't taste good. Have you opened the big box in Juanzi's room?" Jiang Cheng said as he got up from the bed and put on his clothes.

When Jiang Zhaozhao saw that his father was about to get up, he stopped playing with his sister Jiang Panpan and just turned into a follower.

Jiang Panpan was standing by the table, prying into the several cardboard boxes on the table, thinking there might be good stuff inside.

"No, I've been busy with this and that since early morning. I don't know what's in there." Zhou Lingying replied.

"You'll know when you open it later. Juanzi said yesterday that she would bring a classmate to her house for lunch today. Did she tell you? Make more food for lunch." Jiang Cheng said.

"No, I don't know why, but our daughter always listens to you. And my niece Juanzi likes to tell you when she has something to say." Zhou Lingying said angrily.

The daughters were all rebellious in front of her. In front of Jiang Cheng, they would do whatever she asked them to do. Zhou Lingying asked her daughters to scratch her back, but they refused. But when it came to Jiang Cheng, several daughters were vying to scratch her back.

Jiang Cheng smiled but said nothing. He actually knew that it was not easy for Zhou Lingying to take care of several daughters. Sometimes she had to be ruthless in disciplining them, but Jiang Cheng doted on his daughters more. One was a good-looking man and the other was a bad-looking man, so Jiang Cheng was naturally more likable.

After getting up, Jiang Cheng went to wash up. He walked to Jiang Panpan who was standing at the table, bent down and whispered in her ear: "There are biscuits and cakes in it."

(End of this chapter)