Back to my 1980s

Zhao Hua placed the wood on the ground.

Looking at Meng Qinghe's red eyes, he felt a little guilty.

He wasn't stupid; how could he not know Meng Qinghe's subtle thoughts? However, Zhao Hua felt that in Meng Qinghe's heart, it was more likely a reluctance to part with her friend, probably similar to the resentment of a child whose new toy had been taken away.

He'll get used to it in time, but he still feels a little guilty. At the same time, he understands a bit why Meng's father acted so irrationally earlier; it turns out it was because Meng Qinghe cried that he caused the commotion.

He scratched his head, bent down to straighten the wood, and then ran to the house site in a flash.

There were only a dozen or so half-rotten pieces of wood; it wouldn't take the two of them long to move them over.

After moving them, Zhao Hua and Meng's father aligned one end of all the logs, then ran to the other, uneven end, exposing the section to be buried in the ground. They stretched it taut with a rope and then marked it with a brick.

After marking the holes, Meng's father straightened up and breathed a sigh of relief, saying, "It's done. I'll just dig the holes according to the marks in a bit. Qinghe told me you wanted to go look at some asbestos tiles, right? Well, you can go look. I can bury the wood myself. I'll go get the asbestos tiles tomorrow after I've looked at them."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hua pursed his lips and turned to look at Meng Qinghe.

When Meng Qinghe saw Zhao Hua looking over, she nodded to her father and then turned around and walked out of the courtyard onto the main road.

Zhao Hua scratched his head, glanced at Meng's father again, and asked, "Uncle, how are you going to build it now that you've planned it?"

Meng's father nodded and said, "What's the big deal about planning a shed? As long as it doesn't collapse, it's fine as long as it's usable. Just build it however you like."

Zhao Hua glanced at the markings they had just made and asked, "Uncle, are you planning to build a flat-roofed one, not a sloping one?"

Mencius' father nodded and said, "Yes, a sloping roof wastes too many tiles, but a flat roof isn't unusable either; every little bit helps."

Zhao Hua turned to look at Meng Qinghe, who was standing on the road waiting for him. He couldn't think of any other topic to drag things out, so he said, "Yes, a flat top with a slight slope works just as well. Uncle, I'll go now."

"Go on, go on." Meng's father walked to the base of the fence and looked around for a while, then began to untie the rope tied to the fence.

Seeing this, Zhao Hua turned to look at Meng's father, then turned to look at Meng Qinghe, and walked towards Meng Qinghe with a stiff upper lip, saying, "It's in the next village, not far from here, let's go."

Meng Qinghe didn't reply to him, but silently followed behind him.

On the way, Zhao Hua pretended to be nonchalant and tried to start a conversation, but Meng Qinghe didn't respond at all.

They walked silently to the edge of the soybean field, where there were no houses or people around. Meng Qinghe then spoke in a hoarse voice, "You're getting engaged, aren't you?"

Zhao Hua scratched his head and said, "Yes, it was prepared a month or two ago, but it was only recently finalized."

Upon hearing this, Meng Qinghe stopped in her tracks, raised her head, closed her eyes, and took a few deep breaths.

Zhao Hua stopped in his tracks and looked at Meng Qinghe's expression. He almost burst out laughing, but felt it would be impolite to laugh out loud, so he forced himself to hold it back.

He wasn't laughing at Meng Qinghe, of course. He just suddenly remembered a short video he'd seen in his later life, where a son was wailing and saying to his father, "You don't understand what love is. You'll understand when you're my age."

He felt that Meng Qinghe's expression was exactly like that of a child howling and wailing, while he was the old father watching the show with schadenfreude.

"Has it been agreed upon?" Meng Qinghe turned to look at Zhao Hua.

"What did we agree on?"

"We're engaged," Meng Qinghe said, her voice trembling slightly.

Zhao Hua clicked his tongue and said, "Damn it, I'm just getting engaged, can you stop making that face like I'm about to die?"

Meng Qinghe turned her head away, squatted down, and began to sob softly.

Actually, Zhao Hua didn't want her to cry either, but he didn't know how to comfort her. He couldn't just throw away his wife who had taken care of him all his life in his previous life because she was crying, could he? That would be terrible.

He had no choice but to squat down next to Meng Qinghe and gently pat her back.

Meng Qinghe twisted her body to prevent him from getting close, and Zhao Hua did not force her. Anyway, this was the middle of nowhere, and no one would see her crying no matter how much she cried. If she wanted to cry, she could cry. Maybe she would feel better after crying.

"No, wait a minute! Big sister! Stop crying! We're going to the asbestos tile factory soon! If your eyes get swollen from crying, it'll look terrible if someone sees you!" Zhao Hua quickly stepped forward and shook Meng Qinghe.

To everyone's surprise, Meng Qinghe cried even harder after hearing this, and turned to hug Zhao Hua, wiping her snot and tears all over Zhao Hua's clothes.

Zhao Hua pursed his lips. He found it quite amazing that someone could still find the time to use his clothes as a handkerchief even after crying like that.

After a moment, Meng Qinghe's crying finally subsided. She looked up at Zhao Hua and saw that he didn't say a word. She probably understood that there was no way to salvage the situation. She used Zhao Hua's clothes as a towel again, then got up and walked forward with her head down.

When Zhao Hua saw that she had stopped crying and was even walking towards the asbestos tile factory, it meant that she still wanted to run the small shop, which meant that she wasn't actually that sad. He breathed a sigh of relief and silently followed behind Meng Qinghe.

The two walked to the asbestos tile factory, where the workers were indeed staring at Meng Qinghe, and Zhao Hua also attracted a lot of attention.

After being directed to the factory, the two found the factory's accountant, who was in his early thirties, thin and with dark circles under his eyes.

After the two explained their purpose, the accountant stared into Meng Qinghe's eyes for a while and said, "Your husband, are you reluctant to spend the money to buy tiles?"

Zhao Hua looked at him suspiciously. He looked unfamiliar and shouldn't be from Shuanghuai Village. He must be from the previous village, otherwise she wouldn't have misunderstood his relationship with Meng Qinghe.

However, Zhao Hua didn't reveal the answer. He smiled and asked, "How much are these tiles? How much per tile?"

The accountant smiled and said, "It depends on how many you want. They're 1.8 meters long and 70 centimeters wide. Less than ten pieces will cost 1.6 yuan, and more than ten pieces will cost 1.5 yuan."

Zhao Huamo calculated that 1.8 meters long would be enough, 3.6 meters would not be enough, and 3.54 meters long would be enough to block a light rain. The width would be about 7 meters, so that it could block the sun when it was setting in the west.

That would cost thirty yuan, making it only thirty-five yuan in total. Building a shed with asbestos tiles is really cheap. This space is bigger than the main room of many families. No wonder asbestos tiles became so popular later, and every family started using them to build small partitions.

After mentally calculating, he laughed and said, "Then we'll need thirty yuan. How do we pay?"

Meng Qinghe reached out and tugged at him. She only had a little over twenty yuan on her, which was all her family had left, and they couldn't afford to buy that many tiles.

Zhao Hua smiled and took her hand aside. Since he was already planning to help with the procurement, he might as well go all the way and help her to the end.