Back to 1984: Earning Money, Raising Kids, and Keeping the Household Busy

Chapter 39 The Cautious Fang Aiguo
Lin Qin offered to help them scoop them out, saying, "Look, they're all alive! The supply and marketing cooperative charges 1.6 yuan per jin, but we'll charge 1.5 yuan. They're clean and beautiful, perfect for anyone who's had a baby and wants to produce breast milk!"

"Oh! One dollar and fifty cents isn't cheap! It's so small, not big enough!" Several old ladies began to complain and nitpick.

Lin Qin explained gently, "Grandma, this is about the right size of the crucian carp. If they were any bigger, we would have sold them all in the city. We wouldn't be selling them so far away, right?"
"It's over an hour's drive from here to Nanxi! We've walked all this way, and we're only selling it for 1.5 yuan a pound. We're barely making any money!"

"Can you make it cheaper?" The old lady who had asked the price first saw that Lin Qin was speaking sincerely, so she didn't want to argue anymore. She just wanted to bargain again.

After several rounds of heated debate, the deal was finally struck at 1.4 yuan per jin.

The old woman led the way for Lin Qin and Chen Wenjun, and they helped deliver the fish to her house.

On the way, Lin Qin casually asked, "Grandma, what's your name?"

“My maiden name is Huang. I came to Fangshan Village when I was a teenager! The roads in the village are not easy to walk on, so please be careful.” As she spoke, Grandma Huang reminded Chen Wenjun to be careful and not to stun the fish.

Lin Qin and Chen Wenjun indeed slowed down.

Passing by a large courtyard with red brick and tile houses, Chen Wenjun asked curiously, "Grandma, whose house is this? It's so grand!"

"This is our village chief's family! They're rich! I heard his daughter married far away and found a son-in-law with excellent conditions. He's the first household in our village to have ten thousand yuan!" Grandma Huang said with great pride.

Lin Qin and Chen Wenjun exchanged glances and looked inside.

Lin Qin asked, feigning envy, "The village chief's daughter married so well, is she very beautiful or exceptionally educated?"

"What?! She's just lucky! She's not bad looking, but her education is so-so. She didn't do well on the college entrance exam, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten married so early. If you ask me, no matter how well a girl studies, it's not as good as marrying well. After all, you still have to get married after you've studied, so what's the use!"

"Grandma, if that's the case, then none of the girls in your village go to university! They all get married early!" Lin Qin teased, feigning sarcasm.

Grandma Huang nodded solemnly.

Lin Qin looked incredulous.

When Grandma Huang saw this, she became anxious. "I'm serious! The girls in our village only graduate from high school at most, and they all get married. And you don't understand, the more girls study, the more open-minded they become. Take a girl from our village named Fang Ying, for example."

She failed the college entrance exam, and her family wanted her to get married, but she refused. Later, a matchmaker found her a boyfriend who was willing to offer a generous dowry, but Fang Ying was ungrateful and ran away.

Lin Qin's mouth dropped open in shock. "No way! How can a young lady like you run around like this these days? I hope nothing bad happens to her!"

Grandma Huang shook her head, "Who knows! To be honest, our village chief is really kind and righteous. He was the one who introduced Fang Ying to her boyfriend. After Fang Ying ran away, the village chief was even more worried than Fang Niu Fen's family. He mobilized all his relatives to help look for her."

Unfortunately, they still couldn't find her. Everyone guessed that Fang Ying had been kidnapped. Fang Niu Fen and his wife were furious and told the public that they would pretend they didn't have a daughter.

So what do you mean? It's completely useless for girls to study so much. Look at Fang Niufen and his wife, they raised them for so many years, and they haven't gained any benefit from it. What's the point?

As they were talking, they arrived at Grandma Huang's house.

On the way, they also ran into Fang Aiguo, the village chief, who was preparing to go home.

Fang Aiguo stared sharply at Chen Wenjun and Lin Qin, and asked slowly, "Where are you from?"

Chen Wenjun grinned and said, "These are fish from Nanxi, caught by ourselves. We've been selling them all morning and haven't sold them all yet. Do you want some? There are still some left."

Grandma Huang got anxious and hurriedly said, "I'll take all the crucian carp, village chief, you can't take them from me."

Fang Aiguo looked down and saw that the bucket contained only crucian carp and common carp, each weighing only four or five ounces. He thought the fish had too many bones and was too bony to eat! He frowned and left.

The group arrived at Grandma Huang's house. Chen Wenjun asked her to bring a bag, scooped the crucian carp into it, and weighed them. The seven or eight crucian carp weighed only three jin and seven liang (approximately 1.35 kg), totaling five yuan and eighteen fen (0.18 yuan). Grandma Huang then bargained them down by another eighteen fen, so they only made five yuan. Both of them were quite upset.

Grandma Huang grinned from ear to ear as she watched Chen Wenjun and Lin Qin continue hawking their fish. She happily carried a bucket of fish back to the kitchen.

Chen Wenjun and Lin Qin hawked their wares in the village for a while longer, and finally sold all the remaining carp at a price of 1.2 yuan per jin.

The couple can finally go home.

Unexpectedly, they ran into Fang Aiguo again at the village entrance.

Seeing him riding his bicycle, the two nodded to him and then pushed the bicycle home.

Fang Aiguo kept a distance behind them and followed them the whole time.

Lin Qin whispered, "That village chief is indeed suspicious!"

Chen Wenjun quickly said, "Don't say it, let's talk about it when we get back."

The two continued on their way back to the fishing boat on Nanxi.

Even after boarding the boat, Fang Aiguo could still be seen standing motionless on the riverbank in the distance.

Chen Wenjun used a bamboo pole to move the five-awning boat away from the shore, then took down the drying racks from the deck, tidied them up, and prepared to put the racks back on.

Lin Qin was busy tidying up, sometimes carrying a basin to pour water into the river, sometimes carrying a bucket in and out.

Fang Aiguo stood there for almost half an hour before leaving.

At this moment, Chen Wenjun was already preparing to lower the cage.

He waited until he finished setting the traps before entering the cabin and whispering to Lin Qin, "Let's go."

Lin Qin clutched her pounding chest and plopped down on the ground. "My God! That scared me to death! That old man was too cautious!"

Chen Wenjun's expression was grave. "Although this trip was risky, it wasn't without its gains. At least we know that Fang Ying didn't go back. Also, judging from the village chief's reaction, there's something wrong with him."

"Should we continue to keep an eye on it?" Lin Qin was still shaken.

Chen Wenjun thought for a moment and hesitated, then said, "We don't need to go every day, but we still need to go occasionally. Anyway, we don't do anything special, we just sell fish properly, so he can't do anything to us. I just hope that everything goes smoothly for Fang Ying and that nothing goes wrong."

Fang Ying, on whom they had placed high hopes, was still lingering outside the Provincial Polytechnic Institute. For more than a month since she came to the provincial capital, she had come here every day to wait for the principal. In fact, she did not know who the principal was. The security guards at the gate would not let her in, and she dared not say why she was looking for the principal. So they were stuck in this stalemate.

As a result, many teachers and students in various schools became aware of Fang Ying's existence during this period.

Today happened to be the day when provincial leaders came down for an inspection. The head of the security department immediately thought of Fang Ying, who had been standing outside the gate for a month and looked like a homeless person, and ordered the security guards to drive her away.

The two security guards, having received orders, reluctantly approached Fang Ying. "Comrade, our leaders have spoken. You must leave. You can't stay here any longer; it's negatively impacting the school's image."

Fang Ying cried with red eyes, "I want to see the principal! I want to see the principal! Please!"

She knelt down and kowtowed to the two security guards.

It terrified the two of them.

(End of this chapter)