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

Chapter 50 Taking over the job
Huang Wenlong stated his requirements in one breath.

Chen Wenjun was somewhat intrigued and asked, "How many of you are there?"

"Including me, there are about twenty-five people. Only half of them came today. The rest stayed there to watch the site. We have to go back right after we finish eating. The next project will be similar, with about twenty or thirty people."

"Um... can I go back and discuss it with my wife, and then I'll give you an answer later."

“No problem!” Huang Wenlong stood up immediately when he saw Zheng Guoxing start serving the dishes. He laughed heartily and said, “The next project won’t start for another month. Sister-in-law, take your time to think it over. I’ll only cook one meal a day and I’ll be responsible for buying the groceries. It’ll be thirty yuan a month.”

Chen Wenjun nodded repeatedly.

After settling the bill with Zheng Guoxing and saying goodbye to Huang Wenlong, he left.

As soon as he left, Huang Wenlong immediately took his food to the kitchen to find Zheng Guoxing, and also stuffed a shrimp cake into his mouth, saying indistinctly, "I just asked Chen Wenjun's wife to come and cook for us."

Zheng Guoxing raised an eyebrow and glanced at him, asking, "Did they agree?"

"I said I'd think about it, but I think it's a good idea!" Huang Wenlong shoveled a mouthful of rice into his mouth, glanced at the shrimp cake, and squinted his eyes happily. "Your cooking is really good, it smells so good!"

As he spoke, he took another one.

Zheng Guoxing glared at him irritably, "You come here to eat and take things, and you're trying to cut off my source of income? Get out of here!"

Huang Wenlong immediately tried to appease him, saying, "We really had no other choice! It's fine if I eat here every day, but they can't afford it! It's just that this project is almost finished and it's hard to hire people, so we're all just making do for a while."

In fact, they had hired someone to cook before the project started, and to keep the profits within the family, they even hired the wife of one of the workers.

The other party didn't dare to deduct money, but being stingy, they would also pass off inferior goods as superior ones, managing to take a lot of vegetables home every day. If it weren't for the other workers accidentally discovering it, they would still be unaware of it.

After the incident escalated, the man still argued righteously, and his workmate felt ashamed and quit.

A perfectly good relationship just fell apart like that.

Having learned from his previous experience, he dared not ask his relatives and friends to take on this job again, but he didn't trust anyone else. At this time, the appearance of Chen Wenjun and his wife gave him hope.

Putting everything else aside, this couple has been building a house for a long time. As long as they need his help, they won't offend him for such a small gain.

Once Chen Wenjun's house is almost finished, his project will also be nearly complete. Whether or not to continue using Chen Wenjun's wife will then be up to him.

Zheng Guoxing snorted coldly, "Don't play the victim with me, I know you too well! But this time you've chosen the right person, Chen Wenjun's wife is definitely no bad!"

"My judgment has always been very accurate!"

"You're making such boasts without even seeing the person! Besides, if you were really that accurate, would you really lose ties with your brothers?"

Huang Wenlong: "." Why bring up something you shouldn't have said, you son of a bitch!
Chen Wenjun kept thinking about this matter on his way back from Guoxing Hotel.

When he arrived at Nanxi, he came to his senses and shouted.

Chen Ping'an, who was fishing and keeping watch at the gap, heard the shout and quickly turned around. "Grandpa, my dad is back!" Lin Yi limped forward, quickly put away the two children's fishing rods, and led them onto the boat to pick up Chen Wenjun.

Pole a boat with a bamboo pole. It's not exactly difficult, but it's not exactly easy either. It requires skill. Fortunately, the water here isn't very fast-flowing, so Lin Yi didn't have much trouble pole-pole the boat.

Wait for the fishing boats to dock.

Chen Wenjun quickly loaded the items onto the boat one by one, panting as he asked, "Is Aqin still working on Nanyu Island?"

Lin Yi nodded. "All morning, the whole island was filled with rolling stones. I was worried that the children would get hit, so I didn't dare let them get close. The three of us huddled in the gap to fish. And let me tell you, the water there was deep, and there were quite a few big fish."

These two kids are as lucky as ever. In just one morning, they've caught over a dozen big fish, the smallest weighing over a pound. All I can do is help them reel in the fish; it's not much of a help.

Upon hearing this, Chen Wenjun laughed, "Dad! Who said you're useless? This deserted island is all ours, we can start clearing it and growing vegetables."

"Hehe! That's what I was planning too! It's just that Qin won't let me touch the hoe, otherwise I would definitely cultivate a small plot of land!" Lin Yi shook his head, obviously he had already made up his mind, but he couldn't do anything because of Lin Qin, who was a stumbling block.

As the two chatted and laughed, the fishing boat approached the gap.

Chen Wenjun had already taken the opportunity to eat lunch. After getting ashore, he immediately shouted at the top of his lungs, "Aqin, come down here for a moment!"

As soon as he finished speaking, two more stones rolled down, and a figure carefully climbed down from the mountainside.

Chen Wenjun quickly went over to help her up and told her about what had happened that day.

When Lin Qin learned that Huang Wenlong wanted to hire her to do some work, she was both surprised and delighted, but also a little timid. "Can I do it? That's a meal for twenty or thirty people! What if I don't cook well and people complain about it?"
But if I take this job, wouldn't it be much easier for us to buy cement from him?

In her view, Huang Wenlong was a contractor, and it was impossible for him to help them for no reason just because of Zheng Guoxing's face. You have to know that if you save thirty yuan per ton of cement, that's three thousand yuan for a hundred tons!

They saved them thousands of dollars; they owe them a huge favor.

Chen Wenjun nodded and pondered, "That's what I was thinking too. Since they're willing to help us, we can't refuse them. Why don't we just agree? The saltiness of the food doesn't matter. We can get the hang of it after cooking it once or twice. Buying vegetables will be even easier. We can start by cultivating a vegetable garden on the island."

Before you harvest the vegetables from the garden, I'll help you harvest them at the market. Grandma Li's vegetables are always good; not only are there more varieties than others, but they're also cheaper. Most importantly, her vegetables are picked fresh every morning.

We'll supply the fish and shrimp, and the price will be one cent cheaper than the market price. We can keep the accounts as they normally would, or we can let Mr. Huang calculate it himself. A little error is fine, after all, we can save a lot of money when buying cement.

"I'll come over and help you after I finish delivering the fish and shrimp here, okay?"

Lin Qin grinned, "Alright! I'll do as you say! Give them a straight answer tomorrow!"

Seeing her beaming smile, Chen Wenjun dropped another bombshell: "There's also the Liu family matter. I heard that Fang Meixiang and her father were both sentenced to three years in prison and fined a lot of money. This matter involves a lot of people, even the director of the Education Bureau was affected. It's causing quite a stir in the city."

However, most people don't know this; it was Boss Zheng who told me that Liu Yongming has resigned from the Land and Resources Bureau and returned to the school. I guess he went there to lay low.

Don't worry about him not being in Anshi. Go wherever you want, don't be afraid!

(End of this chapter)