Phoenix Girl in the 1990s - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The pickled vegetables are sweet and sour with a mildly spicy flavor, and the girls in the family all like them.

“This Chinese pickle is good, although it doesn’t taste the same as the one our mom pickled before, it’s quite appetizing. Xiao Qing, let’s make some more tomorrow, and I’ll bring a few jars to school when school starts.”

When Xia Lin heard that her big sister wanted to bring some pickles to school, she said that she also wanted them, and at the same time, she was concerned, “But we don’t have that many jars at home.”

The reason why Xia He and Xia Lin wanted to bring pickles, besides being appetizing and delicious, was that they also wanted to save some money when they went to school.

In addition to being delicious appetizers, they also want to reduce the expenses by bringing them and just eating two steamed buns which can save them a few cents cost for a meal.

As the oldest and second oldest in the family, they were both sensible and knew that it wasn’t easy for their parents to provide for their education.

Many of their peers from families like theirs in the village have already dropped out of school early to work in the city.

Some of them have excellent grades but their parents are not willing to continue to support their studies.

As girls, they are already happier than most of their peers around them to have the opportunity to go to university.

How could Xia Zhimin not understand his daughter’s thoughts, he was both relieved and saddened.

Relieved to have daughter’s which are understanding and sensible, and sad that he as a father, could not provide better living conditions for his children.

If he wasn’t a farmer, he could have been a better man.

If he hadn’t been a simple farmer, or had been more flexible and known how to earn money like Zhou San, their family wouldn’t have had to struggle for money.

This family wouldn’t have to compromise themselves for money.

He gave each of his daughters a helping of meat and put it in their bowls with a loving look on his face.

“Xiao Lin will be starting school in a few days. I was thinking of sending you to school to enroll, but now it seems that dad might not be there. Tomorrow I’ll go to the village to ask around and see if there’s someone who can go with you on the train.”

This ordinary sentence, He does not know but it touches the heart of Xia Lin!

Tears accumulated in her eyes, but she did not want her family to see, buried her head and pretended to be eating.

Of course she wanted her father to send her to the capital, but the situation at home really didn’t allow it.

Tickets to and from will take dozens of yuan, to get to the school by themselves is easy

But her father still had to take the train back, in case he couldn’t make it in time and needed accommodation, it would be another expense!

But with Dad’s temperament, he would definitely rather sleep on the streets than spend this money.

“Yeah, I’m old enough to go by myself alone.”

Xia He patted his sister’s shoulder, and consoled, “It’s okay, now it’s the peak of the school year, along the way, you can definitely meet a lot of enrolled students, and when you meet the ones you get along with, it’s also good for you to interact with them more, and when you go to college you have to look at yourself as an adult.”

Xia Lin nodded her head with a mumble, “I know, it’s just that I have to go to such a far away place, my heart is still quite reluctant to leave home.”

Xia He’s university is in the provincial city, close to home, unlike the capital city.

With a distance of thousands of kilometers, the train alone would have to take more than ten hours of travel, for a little girl who had never left home to go out, it was inevitable that she would be a little nervous.

At the same time, Xia Lin is the novel heroine, the heart is more intimate, seeing that Xia Lin is in a difficult state of mind, she coaxes her to comfort and says.

“Sister, you like to eat pickles then I’ll do it for you tomorrow, buy a few small jars on the way back, or find people who have eaten out of canning jars as well.”

Xia Lin’s attention was certainly grabbed by the pickles, “Good, then let’s do it together tomorrow and I’ll give you a hand.”

Li Xiuqin’s health changed for the worse after she was discharged from the hospital, and when she woke up in the morning, she was weak after only doing some simple housework.

She felt both uncomfortable and chagrined in her heart, feeling like she had become an invalid.

Early in the morning, Xia Zhimin was called to repair the windows, and Xia He and Xia Lin went to pick corncobs in the field with their vegetable baskets.

Xia Wen went to the river to wash clothes, Xia Qing cleaned up the kitchen and came out to see Li Xiuqin sitting under the begonia tree in the yard, more or less understand Li Xiuqin’s feelings.

“Mom, I have an idea that can make money, do you want to hear it?”

Xia Qing sat down by the well with a porcelain basin, which contained the snails that Xia Zhimin had fished up from the river the night before

After being kept in the basin of water with salt for a night, the sand in the snail’s flesh was practically cleaned out

Xia Qing used a sewing needle to pick out the snail meat and saved it for the tofu soup at noon, which tasted very fresh.

Hearing that there was a way to earn money, Li Xiuqin really raised her interest, “What kind of idea to make money, tell me about it.”

If the 3rd daughter had said this ten days ago, Li Xiuqin wouldn’t have believed it, but from the time she had the accident, she had no idea.

The third daughter seems to have grown up all of a sudden, talking and doing things in an organized manner, so that people unconsciously treat her as an adult.

Xia Qing is wearing a white cotton dress, and she thinks it’s inconvenient to wear her long hair on her shoulders.

She wore her own hair in a bun, and when she lowered her head to pick the meat of the snails, she revealed the back of her slender, snow-white neck.

There is also a beautiful butterfly bone, Li Xiuqin can not describe it, and for the first time found that this daughter is so beautiful.

Xia Qing did not know that Li Xiuqin was sizing her up, raised her head and smiled and said

“Mom, you see how good the location of our land, three junctions, our village, neighboring villages are passing through our door, There are now quite a lot of people doing small business, our family can build a hut in the courtyard entrance to open a store, so that you can earn money sitting at home watching the store, selling household goods, even if you don’t earn a lot of money, a day’s income of a few yuan is also good ah.”

From the time she came to this world, Xia Qing had been thinking about how to improve her family’s living conditions, although in the novel, the Xia family’s life would get better and better.

But that started when the Xia family’s daughters graduated from university one by one, and it would still be years before they could do so.

The pressure on the parents to provide for the four of them during these years was still great.

Difficulties could sharpen one’s quality of hard work and endurance, but Xia Qing couldn’t bear to watch her sisters work so hard during college either.

While their classmates were able to wear beautiful clothes and participate in various campus activities, the older sisters had to scrimp and save, and every yuan had to be counted and spent.

Li Xiuqin listened carefully to Xia Qing’s proposal and made some serious calculations in her head

Thinking that the idea was feasible, Shui Liu Village was close to the town and no one in the village thought of opening a store

But when she was walking around other villages, she had seen the ” mini store ” that 3rd daughter had mentioned, and it did seem to generate some money.