Chapter 54 Insomnia
Qi Tao did not go home after leaving the Xing’s house, but went out of the yard and walked around.
When he returned to the yard, the sky was already dark, but there was no one in the yard. When it was time to take a bath, wash clothes and prepare to go to bed, everyone was busy in the house.
He walked to the door of his house, but stopped and stood at the door.
In the bathroom, his daughter-in-law was bathing her daughter, and voices were heard from time to time, while his mother was sitting in the living room, squinting and mending his torn military trousers.
The thin needle went through the fabric. She pinched the needle and stretched the thin thread. The man also raised his head and asked, “What are you doing with the pestle at the door?”
“It’s nothing.” Qi Tao shook his head, walked in and asked, “Have you finished your bath?”
“I washed it after eating,” Mrs. Qi asked while mending her military pants. “Did you go out just now?” When she said going out, she meant that after he left the Xing’s house, he went out of the yard.
Qi Tao hummed: “I think of something to tell someone.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s about the camp.” Qi Tao said, as if he just remembered, “By the way, I’ll be on duty tomorrow night and won’t be back.”
“Didn’t you just work on duty yesterday?” After Mrs. Qi went to the island, she also learned a lot about things in the army, and knew that her son was on duty every three or four days.
Qi Tao said without changing his face: “It’s our deputy battalion. I have something to do tomorrow, let me help him for a day.”
“So, then you will remember to tell your wife later.” When talking about Yang Yi, Mrs. Qi’s attitude was the same as before, as if she didn’t take the apology a few days ago to heart.
Before today, seeing his mother so sensible, Qi Tao was very comforted.
His scheming is really not that deep. He heard many things that Xing Dong said for the first time. But he wasn’t that stupid, and he didn’t know anything about the fire in the backyard burning his eyebrows.
In fact, as early as when he returned to his hometown to pick up Yang Yi and the children to join the army, he saw that the relationship between his mother and his daughter-in-law was not as harmonious as before.
But biological mothers and daughters will inevitably have conflicts when they get along, not to mention that the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are not biological mothers and daughters, so it is normal to have occasional frictions. In the eyes of their men, as long as they don’t reach the same level as fire and water, it doesn’t matter.
What’s more, he has to take his wife and children to join the army. In the future, his mother and daughter-in-law will not be there, and the time has passed, and no matter how big the contradictions are, they will gradually dissolve.
Therefore, at that time, he did not go to the bottom of what caused their conflict, and felt that it was unnecessary.
This time his mother and younger brother came to visit him, and he was very happy. The last time he was reunited with his family was when Yang Yi came to join the army. He hadn’t seen him for a few years, and he missed his relatives very much.
Because he was overwhelmed with joy, at first he didn’t think about the discord between his mother and his daughter-in-law. But even if he remembered it later, when he saw their mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were in harmony when he got home, he thought they were reconciled.
Last week, he found out that his daughter-in-law was in a bad state. He doubted it, but when he asked her, he refused to say. As for his mother and brother, he said that the family was fine. In addition, he was busy with work at the time, so he didn’t care too much.
Then there was the quarrel between Lin Wei and his mother.
In fact, if they were arguing, even if he heard his mother muttering, he probably wouldn’t feel anything. But with Lin Wei’s words, he felt that those words sounded a bit harsh, and when he thought about his daughter-in-law crying secretly at night, he asked his mother to apologize.
His mother was unhappy at first, thinking that she was a mother-in-law, and it was a shame to have to bow her head and apologize to her daughter-in-law just because she said something wrong.
He could only break it up and reason with his mother, during which his younger brother also helped to speak, and finally his mother realized the mistake.
Is it true, recognized the mistake?
Qi Tao suddenly asked, “Has Ozawa made you angry recently?”
“Your brother is very obedient, how can you make me angry?” Mrs. Qi said good things to her younger son, and took the opportunity to ask, “Have you entrusted him with his work?”
Because when Qi Tao was born, Mrs. Qi and his wife were nearly middle-aged, so even if they couldn’t talk about the birth of pearls from mussels, they would definitely favor them.
When the old man died, Qi Tao was already in the army. Although the allowance was not much, he was filial and sent it back to save money.
Therefore, although Qi Ze lost his father at a very young age, he was spoiled by his mother before, and loved by his sister-in-law later.
In the third year of Qi Ze’s junior year, classes were suspended. He mixed with people in the school, and put up big-character posters on people’s hats. When Qi Tao found out, he felt that this would not work, so he wanted to bring him to the army. He studied late and was old enough to be a soldier.
But Qi Ze felt that it was too hard to be a soldier and was not happy, and Mrs. Qi was reluctant to let her youngest son be too far away from her, so she refused. However, the people stopped and stopped hanging out with those with armbands.
In 1968, when he went to the mountains and the countryside, Zize returned to his own brigade. But there is no need to go to other places to cut the queue. At most, it is more convenient in life. No one will give him special treatment.
Qi Ze worked for less than half a month, and couldn’t stand it anymore. Mrs. Qi felt sorry for her son, so she went to ask the captain to arrange a light work for him. Seeing Qi Tao’s face, the captain agreed, and arranged for him to pick up the weeds and harvest the rice with the half-eldest child, but after two or three months, he still couldn’t stand it.
Later, when he went to the commune, he met an old classmate and saw that he was wearing a new work uniform. When he found out that he had entered a state-run factory, he started to think.
When Mrs. Qi heard that he wanted to be a worker, she wanted to agree with both hands and feet. How respectable, she told Yang Yi about it. At that time, before Mrs. Qi turned her face, Yang Yi sincerely hoped that her brother-in-law would be well, so she called Qi Tao to mention it. Then Qi Tao found an old friend and got an apprenticeship in a state-owned factory.
It was a flour mill. The unit was not big, but the work was relatively easy. Zize did it just like that. Later, he got into a relationship with a female colleague from the same unit. The two got married when they were young.
Half a year after Qi Ze got married, Yang Yi joined the army, and he probably had a family. He had a stable personality and solid work. Last year, he became a team leader.
Everything was going in a good direction, until he followed Old Qi this time.
At the beginning, Mrs. Qi was beating around the bush, saying that the work in the flour mill was not good or not, and she wanted to ask Qi Tao to change her young son’s job.
But Qi Tao didn’t agree, and he didn’t have to ask for favors when he arranged the work. What’s more, his younger brother has become a team leader in the flour mill, and he has to start all over again when he goes to another unit, so why bother.
Seeing this, his mother had to explain honestly. It turned out that Zize didn’t come here on leave at all. He had already resigned from the flour mill. But Qi Tao is not so easy to fool, saying that there must be a reason for resignation, let them hand over the reason, the mother can’t do anything, so he told Qi Ze offended people and lost his job.
But who offended someone and what kind of trick the other party did, neither of them would say anything, so the matter of work froze.
But this time Qi Tao didn’t want to talk about his brother’s work, so he just asked: “Then how did the next door say that when you go to work in the morning, you always hear you scold Ozawa at home?”
“When will I teach you a lesson…” Mrs. Qi remembered as she spoke, and quickly changed her mind and said, “I’m just a little louder, so how can I be scolded? It’s not that exaggerated.”
Qi Tao pointedly said: “You don’t usually have such a loud voice. It must be Ozawa who made you angry. Tell me what happened, and I’ll teach him a lesson.”
Madam Qi originally wanted to talk about things to fool the past, but when she heard this, she dared not, her younger son could not stand the eldest son’s lesson, so she said with a stiff face: “It’s all right, I’m just worrying about his work now. , you said he is a big man, he has a wife and children to support, how can he do without a job? Taozi, you are a brother, but you can’t ignore your brother.”
“Mom, it’s not that I refuse to help him, it’s that you didn’t say much, how did he get caught, why was he forced to quit his job, I don’t know about these things, how can I arrange a job for him?”
“I didn’t ask you to bring him back to the original unit. Why do you have to know what mistakes he made in the past when you change jobs?” Mrs. Qi didn’t understand, and played emotional cards, saying, “Taozi, that’s your younger brother. If you don’t help him, no one will help him.”
“Because he is my younger brother, I have to ask him what he did.” Qi Tao waved his hand and said, “Before you think about whether to explain it, don’t mention the work.”
Mrs. Qi had to say more, Qi Tao’s daughter Zhenzhen came out of the bathroom.
Zhenzhen just turned six years old in September, and she was still young. She didn’t realize that the atmosphere was not right when she came out. She jumped up in front of Qi Tao and said proudly, “Dad, I learned to write your name.”
When Qi Tao, who was still frowning just now, heard the girl’s words, he smiled and asked, “Really?”
“Yes, I’ll write it for you.” After Zhenzhen finished speaking, she looked around, ran to the master bedroom, took out her small schoolbag, dug out her pencil and notebook, and squatted by the coffee table and wrote the words “Dad”.
Qi Tao, who was full of anticipation, looked at the words with a stunned expression, and then laughed.
Seeing her father smiling, Zhenzhen thought she was happy, so she confidently pointed to the two words above and asked, “Dad, right?”
Qi Tao said helplessly: “The word is correct, but this is not my father’s name.”
Zhenzhen widened her eyes, looked at Qi Tao, and then at the words on the book, puzzled: “But I just call you dad.”
Yang Yi, who came out of the bathroom after her work, heard her daughter’s words and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“The teacher taught us how to write Mom and Dad today. I learned it. I wrote it for Dad, but Dad said it wasn’t his name,” Zhenzhen asked suspiciously, “Mom, is that Mom your name?”
Yang Yi explained: “Mom and Dad are names, not names, just like when a younger brother calls your sister, but your name is Zhenzhen.”
Zhenzhen suddenly realized, turned her head and asked, “What are the names of parents?”
Qi Tao glanced at his wife, picked up the pen and wrote on the notebook, saying, “Mother’s name is Yang Yi, and father’s name is Qi Tao.”
Seeing the happy family of three, Mrs. Qi couldn’t help thinking of her little grandson in her hometown. She originally said she wanted to go back when things were done, but now because of her eldest son’s stubbornness, she couldn’t make a decision on her return journey.
Thinking of this, Mrs. Qi felt that the smile on the eldest daughter-in-law’s face was particularly dazzling.
The eldest son has always been very affectionate and refused to do it because of his daughter-in-law’s provocation.
Thinking of Qi Tao asking her to apologize to Yang Yi a few days ago, saying that after she married into the Qi family, it was not easy to be filial to her mother-in-law and raise her brother-in-law, and I couldn’t help sneering in my heart.
Whose daughter-in-law is married, she is not allowed to be filial to her in-laws and take care of her younger siblings? On the other hand, she is precious, and without much work, she feels that she is the noble of their old Qi family.
He only said a few words to her, and then he put on an appearance of being greatly wronged, and the mother-in-law apologized to her, and she even took it calmly.
The more she thought about it, the more angry Mrs. Qi felt in her heart, and she closed her eyes until the sky was getting brighter.
…
There are many people who have insomnia this night, and Gao Xiulian is one of them.
The official job name of the vegetable washer is actually a handyman, but after the opening of the state-run restaurant, the first person to do this job ridiculed himself like this. After a long time, everyone called it that way, but they forgot the original job name.
It doesn’t matter if you forget the name of the type of work, anyway, there will be a lot of work. For example, Gao Xiulian’s current job includes many chores such as washing vegetables, washing dishes, and cleaning the kitchen.
Of course, the director of the state-run restaurant is not a capitalist, so he will not exploit Gao Xiulian so much, so besides her, there is also a vegetable washer in the back kitchen.
However, this work is divided into morning and evening shifts. The morning shift is the same as the rest of the kitchen. They start working at 4:00 in the morning and continue to work at 2:00 in the afternoon. The evening shift goes to work at 10:00 in the morning and stays busy until 8:00 in the evening, so their work overlaps. The time is not long, and the work that needs to be done is only a lot more than that of the window.
Gao Xiulian went to the morning shift some time ago. She got up at 3:00 am every day, and was busy at work until 2:00 pm when she got off work. After returning home every day, she just wanted to lie down and sleep, but she was afraid that she would not be able to sleep at night if she slept too much.
But people are really tired, and have no intention of going out to find someone to chat with, which has also caused her recent news to lag behind a lot.
She finally made it until she had to change shifts. Thinking of going to work tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning, Gao Xiulian had a good night’s sleep after returning home from get off work. She woke up at five o’clock hungry, and then got up to wash and take the children back from school to dinner.
During the meal, Gao Xiulian thought that her days and nights were upside down. Not only did she let the children eat at the restaurant in the morning, noon and evening, but she didn’t even talk to them much. She was exhausted from work every day, and she really didn’t like to hear the children chatter when she got home. crooked.
But today she was in a good mood, and she remembered her responsibilities as a mother and cared a few words about the children’s learning.
As a result, I don’t know if I don’t ask, and I’m half dead when I ask.
It turned out that when she was buried in her work, her second daughter, Zhao Mei, experienced three stages of injury to the main teacher—no teacher in class, forced to study by herself—with a new substitute teacher, and the class returned to normal.
Of course, this is not the most important thing, although after joining the army, Gao Xiulian could not arrange any good jobs because of her educational background, and realized the importance of studying. But parents of this era are far less concerned about their children’s learning than later generations. In Gao Xiulian’s view, it is not a problem if there is no teacher in class for a day or two.
What made her angry was that the new substitute teacher arranged by the school was Lin Wei!
Although Lin Wei is currently only a temporary substitute teacher and can’t work for a few months, but when Gao Xiulian thinks about her exhausting work every day and her desperate performance, she still doesn’t know when she will be able to transfer back to the window from the back kitchen.
However, because of her high educational level, Lin Wei quickly became a substitute teacher for the military district primary school after she was hired by her to get a good job in the pharmacy of the hospital.
Her mind collapsed uncontrollably.
That night, whenever Gao Xiulian closed her eyes, she couldn’t help but imagine Lin Wei’s appearance on the podium, and her heart burned uncontrollably.
So the next morning, Gao Xiulian went to work with two big dark circles under her eyes.
…
Lin Wei also went out the next day with two dark circles under her eyes, but she was not insomnia, but was tossed by Zong Shao.
Because of that letter, Zong Shao was in a bad mood at night, so Lin Wei pampered him a little when they were making out. Then he slipped into an eternal hatred, and was tossed and tossed until the middle of the night before he was able to fall asleep.
It’s okay to sleep late, what’s even more annoying is that before five in the morning, Lin Wei was woken up by Zong Shao. Thankfully, today was not a day off, so he rushed out to the camp, otherwise she really felt like she was going to fall apart.
But now she’s not much better, squinting and lying beside the bed, want to sleep, she seems to be a little awake, want to get up, her head is still dizzy.
Looking at Zong Shao who was standing in front of the closet pulling clothes, Lin Wei couldn’t help grinding his teeth.
Zong Shao put on his shirt and turned around. Seeing her small expression, he couldn’t help laughing. He buttoned his buttons and walked in front of her, bowing his head and wanting to kiss her.
It’s just that before he lowered his head, Lin Wei covered his face with his hand, and then he heard her say, “I think you’ll be punished if you smoke today.”
“Um?”
Lin Wei gritted her teeth and said, “Abstinence.”
Zong Shao sighed and asked, “Can the reward be upgraded again?”
Lin Wei immediately said, “No way!”
Zong Shao looked disappointed: “Well then.”
It wasn’t until Lin Wei woke up and remembered this that she suddenly realized that she didn’t agree to the reward proposed by Zong Shao, what level did she upgrade?
cunning!
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