Back To The 80s-Chapter 91 - 90: Live Treasure_1

"I borrowed it from the squadron commander’s house." Wen Dong didn’t hide it.

Upon hearing that the money was from Xiaobei’s house, Li Juan wanted to refuse with dignity, but thinking about how her parents nagged and found fault with her every day, she just silently accepted the money. This money felt really heavy!

After dinner, when Lu Zhanguo wanted to do the dishes, Gu Xiaobei didn’t allow him to. The communal washroom was crowded at this hour, and she didn’t want others to laugh at Lu Zhanguo. The prevalent chauvinistic attitude was still strong.

Gu Xiaobei went to the washroom with the basin and happened to run into Xiangmin who was chatting with a pregnant military wife, who was about five to six months into her pregnancy.

"They say cravings for sour food signify a girl and spicy cravings a boy, do you think that’s true?" Xiangmin asked the pregnant military wife named Wang Hongmei, who was a volunteer soldier’s wife.

"Sister, I don’t really know about this. My mother-in-law told me that it might be a girl by looking at my belly." Wang Hongmei said with a touch of disappointment.

"Having a girl is nice too. I’ve been wanting to eat sour food all the time, and everyone says it’s a boy. I actually prefer a girl." Xiangmin said insincerely.

"I actually don’t mind either way. It’s mainly my mother-in-law who wants a son." Wang Hongmei sighed. She had left home due to her mother-in-law’s attitude and came to her husband. However, she wasn’t qualified to live with the troops for long, she would have to return home after a while.

Gu Xiaobei was washing dishes and listening to their conversation. She wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping; they were just speaking too loudly. She knew that now was the strictest time for family planning, and most people’s preference for sons over daughters hadn’t changed. This phenomenon was even more severe in the Northwest or remote mountain villages.

After washing the dishes, Gu Xiaobei returned to her room, without glancing at Xiangmin.

After putting away the dishes and cutlery, she dried her hands and walked into the room, finding Lu Zhanguo reading the draft that she had translated at the table.

Seeing Gu Xiaobei enter the room, Lu Zhanguo suggested with a raised eyebrow, "I think if you have time, you can teach me English."

Gu Xiaobei agreed with a laugh, "Sure, we can use the time to study for the master’s degree to learn English."

"You’re being unreasonable again." Lu Zhanguo helplessly pulled Gu Xiaobei onto his lap, pointing to her draft paper and said, "You’re really amazing."

Gu Xiaobei became smug, snuggling in Lu Zhanguo’s arms, and said, "Yeah, so you’ve found a treasure, do you know?"

Lu Zhanguo nodded and said, "Mmm, a treasure, an animated one at that."

Gu Xiaobei almost choked on her spit. This guy was getting better with his retorts.

The two of them sat quietly for a while. Gu Xiaobei suddenly thought of Xiangmin’s and Wang Hongmei’s conversation at the washroom earlier and asked Lu Zhanguo, "Do you prefer a boy or a girl?"

"It’s the same to me." Lu Zhanguo said nonchalantly.

"What if we have a girl and your mom doesn’t like her?" Thinking about Wang Hongmei’s helpless look, Gu Xiaobei couldn’t help but ask.

Lu Zhanguo frowned: "What does having a baby have to do with my mom?"

Gu Xiaobei sighed inwardly. Okay, this man was oblivious to emotional nuances. Explaining further would be useless.

The next morning, before dawn, Gu Xiaobei was woken up by sharp arguing. Lu Zhanguo had already put on his trousers. Seeing Xiaobei awake, he said, "I’m going down to see what’s going on, you go back to sleep."

He fastened his belt after finishing his sentence, put on a vest, and went out.

Gu Xiaobei couldn’t go back to sleep. She got up, got dressed, combed her hair and followed him out. The bugle call for getting up had just sounded in the camp. As she walked out, she wondered: why hadn’t she ever heard the reveille call before?

Getting to the staircase, she saw many people standing around. Lu Zhanguo, Guo Huaqiang, and Zhang Lijun were in the middle, while Li Juan’s parents were on one side, and surprisingly, Li Hao and Liu Cuicui were on the other. Li Juan and Wen Dong stood helplessly behind Li Hao and his wife.

She heard Zheng Chunhua say, "Are you hell-bent on not going back home today, fourth?

Li Hao didn’t say anything, as if he had defaulted to Zheng Chunhua’s accusations.

"You vixen, hooking my son, making my son reverse-marry to your family, I only have one son, who will support us in our old age and conduct our funeral rites in the future? For the sake of you, a vixen, my son has lost his future and now he doesn’t even want his own parents...." Zheng Chunhua pointed at Liu Cuicui and scolded her fiercely.

Liu Cuicui was looking down, fiddling with her clothes, and didn’t dare to make a sound. Li Hao stood in front of her, completely ignoring Zheng Chunhua’s scolding of Liu Cuicui.

The more Zheng Chunhua cursed, the worse and worse it became. Lu Zhanguo frowned, and Guo Huaqiang spoke up, "Madam, if there’s something to discuss, let’s sit down and talk about it properly. Arguing and cursing solves nothing."

Zheng Chunhua was someone who was fractious at home. She looked at Guo Huaqiang, who seemed like an official-type. Looking at the man with a black face to the side, his cold eyes were quite frightening. Her blustering spirit immediately disappeared, and she quietly stood next to Li Juan’s father without uttering a word.

Lu Zhanguo looked around at the people and said to Guo Huaqiang, "Let’s talk inside if there’s something to discuss. You go check it out. I will take Lijun to the camp for morning exercise." After he finished speaking, he glanced at Gu Xiaobei and left with Zhang Lijun.

Guo Huaqiang felt helpless, but being a political worker, who else would do this? He said to Li Juan’s uncle, "Uncle, let’s go inside and talk."

Family disputes are hard to mediate. After hearing the details of the issue, Guo Huaqiang didn’t know what to say. On one hand, it was right for the old people wanting the children to stay near them. On the other hand, it wasn’t wrong for the children to want good development opportunities outside.

In the end, all he could do was pull Wen Dong aside and say, "I’ll give you a day off, you try to enlighten them."

Wen Dong gave a wry smile, "I can’t persuade them. Forget it, you don’t have to intervene anymore. No matter how you intervene in my family’s affairs, it will only result in me being stuck between a rock and a hard place."

Guo Huaqiang also felt that was indeed the case. He patted Wen Dong on the shoulder, "Just try to speak nicely. It’s not good to disturb the others in the compound with all this arguing and fighting."

Wen Dong nodded and saw Guo Huaqiang out of the door. Zheng Chunhua grumbled inside the room, "This unfilial son, his leader doesn’t care?"

Li Hao impatiently said, "He’s not my leader, can he manage me? If you guys make a scene again, Cuicui and I will move where you can’t find us."

Zheng Chunhua glared at Li Hao, snapped her mouth shut and said nothing. Li’s third brother kept his head down and after a while said, "You two don’t have to go back, just send twenty yuan back home a month."

"What?" Li Hao bulged his eyes. "We only earn that much in a month, and we have to send twenty home?"

"If that’s not alright, just come back. It’s up to you to decide." Li’s third brother said stubbornly.

Li Hao didn’t say anything. Gao Dailin said that he would give him three hundred a month, but after going out and experiencing the world, and getting addicted to drugs, three hundred was not enough. Where would he find the extra money to send home?

Liu Cuicui wanted to agree. She thought that, with Li Hao’s monthly earnings of three hundred yuan, twenty could be sent home and still plenty would be left over. But she couldn’t make that decision and could only sit quietly to one side.

After Gu Xiaobei returned to her room, she thought about the change in Li Hao she had just seen. He used to be a lively young man, but how had he become so debauched looking, and lost so much weight? Even though it was hard to travel around delivering goods, it shouldn’t have changed him this much.