If she had married someone else, she might not be living the life she has today.
When Lao Zhoutou was young, he was lazy and not very good at caring for others, but that was not his fault alone. Qian could see it very clearly. Which man in the village didn't have these faults?
Even for her eldest brother, her sister-in-law used to choose the water tank at home, then it was the nieces and nephews, and now it is the grandchildren who choose it...
The reason why Zhou Jin is mentioned is that he is lazier than ordinary people, but he also has his own considerate qualities that others cannot find.
Even though women in the village are now able to run the house, and even the money is placed with women, there are not many women who can really make the decision when big money is needed or when there are major issues at home.
Not to mention when the man in charge of the house disagrees with her.
But Qian can.
In Lao Zhou's family, Mrs. Qian seemed to rarely care about outside affairs, leaving them to Lao Zhou to arrange. But she didn't say anything in return. Once she did, the family still had to listen to her.
If this had happened in someone else's house, the man would have gone crazy.
But Lao Zhou will not turn over.
Perhaps because old scores had been settled, Lao Zhoutou felt guilty. He got up before dawn, earlier than Qian woke up.
He groped around in the house for a while, which woke up Qian, and finally he opened the door and went out.
Qian opened her eyes, glanced at his back, and closed her eyes again.
Lao Zhoutou squatted in front of Man Bao's room door.
Man Bao stretched herself out, her hair disheveled, and was about to come out to fetch water to wash herself. When she opened the door, she saw her father. She was so frightened that she almost put the wooden basin on her father's head.
"father?"
Lao Zhoutou hissed and took a careful look at the fourth child's room. Seeing that there was no movement next door, he breathed a sigh of relief. He immediately pulled his good girl into the room and asked, "Man Bao, daddy, please give me a break."
It’s something.”
Man Bao nodded while holding the wooden basin, "Father, tell me."
"Are you rich?"
Man Bao nodded affirmatively, she was very rich.
Lao Zhoutou breathed a sigh of relief, with a bright smile on his face, and whispered: "Dad, I want to borrow some money from you. I..."
Old Zhou thought about it for a while. He didn't seem to have a chance to save money. He became entangled, "What do you think dad will pay you back in a few years?"
"Dad, don't you have some private money?"
Lao Zhoutou took out the private money that he had taken out early in the morning and showed it to her. It was not much, just a bunch of money strung together with more than a dozen coins.
He sighed, "Your mother holds all the money at home, and she knows every penny. I have saved this one hundred and sixteen penny in the past few years."
Man Bao looked at her father blankly. Even Si Tou and San Ya had more than this amount of savings from her.
Old Zhoutou asked Manbao, "Do you have a lot of money?"
Man Bao nodded, at least it was much more than her father's.
"Then, can you borrow some money from dad?"
"Dad, what do you need money for?"
"I want to make a silver bracelet for your mother. It doesn't have to be big, it can be smaller." He said distressedly: "I looked at it last time I went to the county seat, but the money your mother gave me didn't leave much to buy the fabric.
, so I didn’t buy it. I originally thought I could wait until she was older before buying it, but..."
But wasn’t an old score settled yesterday?
Although his wife's face was not angry, he always felt that she was not very happy. Last night, Lao Zhou stayed up for most of the night just thinking about this matter. The more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt like grass growing in his heart.
He indicated the style and size of the silver bracelet to Man Bao, and whispered: "I asked, that silver bracelet costs three to two to seven hundred yuan. Man Bao, can you lend me a little?"
Manbao expressed doubts about his father's ability to repay debts, "Then where will you save money in the future?"
"Didn't your second brother earn nearly 200 yuan from selling mugwort on the fifth day of the lunar month? I plan not to let him sell it next year. I will go and save it for a few years, and I will definitely be able to pay it back when you get married.
"
Manbao:……
She stopped washing her face and combing her hair. She just put down the tub and started talking about business with her father, "Dad, you can't save money like this. Look at you, after all these years you only have one hundred dollars."
Duowen’s private money.”
Old Zhoutou:...What can he do?
All the money the family earns goes directly to the Qian family. The sons can only pay 60% of the money they earn to the public, but he turns over all of it. He is the one who saved this private money.
Old Zhou was extremely worried.
What can Manbao do?
I could only express my deepest sympathy to him and give him a suggestion, "Sell your cigarettes."
Keke said that smoking is not good for the body, and sitting next to people who smoke is not good either. Manbao has long wanted his father to quit smoking.
However, although Lao Zhoutou loves Manbao, he is not willing to give up this one of his few hobbies, so no matter how he responds, he turns around and smokes anyway.
Zhou Jin didn't smoke when he was young. He didn't even know that such a thing existed in the world.
He started smoking in the year when Zhou Yin sold himself. At that time, Zhou Yin sold himself in exchange for a bag of grain and brought back the people in the village to help them find a living job in the county.
.
At that time, he took Dalang Erlang and people from the village to the county town to carry bags for others. At that time, a heavy burden that he had never shouldered in his life was placed on him. He could not sleep, and he was doing heavy work. There were many people passing by at that time.
The deliveryman gave him a handful of tobacco, which he smoked and felt very good.
The salesman left some tobacco leaves for him and agreed to harvest them with him next year after planting them.
As a result, Lao Zhou's head was planted, but the salesman never came again. I don't know whether he forgot about it or died on the road.
Anyway, no one wanted the tobacco leaves he grew, so Lao Zhoutou dried them, cut them into shreds, and smoked them himself. Later, people in the county also smoked, and some people began to buy the tobacco leaves.
Under normal circumstances, Lao Zhoutou would sell his tobacco leaves only when his family had no money to buy medicine for Qian.
Because if the family couldn't even get money for Qian's medicine, it would be almost at the end of its rope.
Now that the family is not short of money, and the old wife no longer takes medicine, Lao Zhoutou is very reluctant to exchange his beloved things for money.
So when faced with Man Bao's suggestion, he wanted to turn around and leave, but his buttocks stayed glued to the stool as if it had a consciousness of its own.
After a while, Lao Zhoutou seemed to have found a reason, "That little tobacco leaf is worthless."
"Who said that, isn't one tael of tobacco worth ten cents?"
"Yes, but how much tobacco does your father have?"
"Then you can plant more. Anyway, you can plant them in the corner of the vegetable garden and they won't take up much space."
Lao Zhoutou said sternly: "The more you sell, the cheaper it will be. One pound is only seventy or eighty cents."
"That ten kilograms is equivalent to seven to eight hundred cash."
Old Zhoutou immediately shook his head and said: "How can there be so much? A handful of dried tobacco leaves only weighs one pound. It's not worth it, it's not worth it."
Man Bao simply said: "Dad, if you promise me to sell half of the tobacco leaves, I will lend you the money."