Elder Chu's letter gave everyone in the Xu family hope.
After dinner, Zhou Guilan immediately took Xu Shiqin home and packed her things to go out.
"I don't know how long you will have to stay in the provincial capital when you go out this time, so bring some extra clothes."
Zhou Guilan muttered while helping her daughter pack her clothes.
"Wear that purple-red woolen coat when you leave. When we go out, we can't wear something too shabby that will make people look down on us."
The coat Zhou Guilan was talking about was a piece of material Xu Shiyan bought for Zhou Guilan when he went to Tonghua for the first time.
Zhou Guilan felt that the color was too bright and not suitable for an old lady like her, so she never used it.
Isn’t this the plan to get Xu Shiqin and Han Liwei engaged this winter?
A while ago, Zhou Guilan dug out the purple-red woolen fabric and asked her daughter to make a coat, so that she would not have anything decent to wear when she got engaged.
Unexpectedly, before Han Liwei came back to get engaged, news came from the provincial capital, so he went to the provincial capital to see a doctor in his clothes.
As a big girl, she shouldn't look too ugly when she goes out.
"By the way, hurry up and send a telegram to Liwei tomorrow. It's best to ask your third brother to go to the Han family and have a chat.
You don’t know how many months it will take for you to go for treatment. If it doesn’t work, why don’t you postpone your engagement for a while?”
Zhou Guilan suddenly remembered this and reminded Xu Shiqin.
Xu Shiqin stopped packing his clothes and said, "Well, I'll send a telegram to Li Wei first, and then write a letter to discuss it with him.
I hope he can agree to postpone the engagement as medical treatment is urgent.
As long as there is some hope that I can return to normal, I still want to marry him healthily.
Lest others laugh at him for not finding a healthy wife for such a good young man."
This was Xu Shiqin's heart. She had refused to agree to Han Liwei before, mainly because she was afraid that people would laugh at him.
Now, there is finally hope. No matter how painful it is, Xu Shiqin is willing to try if there is a possibility of recovery.
She only hoped that on her wedding day, she could straighten her back, stand next to Han Liwei, and accept everyone's blessings.
Instead of being laughed at and criticized by others.
After hearing her daughter's words, Zhou Guilan's eye sockets felt hot, her nose was sore, and her tears were about to fall.
"Oh, if I had been more careful back then, how could I have let you suffer like this?"
Because of her daughter's hunchback, Zhou Guilan regretted her life.
"Mom, what did you say? What were our family's conditions at that time?
We have six children. My father goes out to work all day long and has no time to take care of the family. You wash clothes, cook, and chop firewood by yourself, and you have to watch over the six of us.
It would be great to be able to feed all six of us, who would have thought that something unexpected would happen?"
When I was a child, I did complain about my parents, hate my brother, and hate God for being unfair.
As Xu Shiqin grew older and became sensible, he no longer resented it and was able to accept reality.
Zhou Guilan raised her hand to wipe away her tears, got up and went to the back room of the east room, moving a cabinet off the floor to reveal the wall behind it.
At the base of the wall, there is a brick whose color is different from the surrounding ones.
Zhou Guilan started to remove the brick, reached out and took out a cloth bag. Naturally, the cloth bag contained the money she had saved over the past few years.
The sons receive monthly pension payments, which increased from five yuan in the first year to eight yuan per month.
Xu Chenghou was looking at ginseng in the mountains, and his team was in charge of food and drink, and he earned high work points.
How much can Zhou Guilan eat at home alone? The family has saved some money in the past two years.
My daughter is going to see a doctor. This is a major surgery. Who knows how much it will cost?
Zhou Guilan counted and found that the family still had a total of about 1,200 yuan.
Zhou Guilan gritted her teeth and left two hundred dollars, leaving all the one thousand dollars for her daughter.
A poor family has a rich life, and besides, this is for medical treatment, so bring as much as you can.
The third son actually said that he would give the big head, but how could Zhou Guilan be willing to do so?
Is it so easy for my son to make some money? How tired has he become in the past two years? He is dark and thin, and looks pitiful.
As long as the family can contribute, the son cannot be allowed to contribute more money.
Zhou Guilan pocketed a thousand yuan, wrapped the rest in cloth and stuffed it into the hole in the wall, then blocked it with bricks and moved the cabinet back.
"Well, this is one thousand yuan, you put it away properly.
When I go out and see a doctor, I spend a lot of money, and I don’t know if this little money is enough.
Try to spend the money first. It’s not easy for your third brother to make money. If you can’t afford it, don’t spend it on him.”
Zhou Guilan came out of the back room and put the money into her daughter's hand.
“Mom, you gave me so much money, do you still have any use for the family?
I have saved some money in the past few years, so don’t give me so much, just five hundred."
Xu Shiqin started working in the autumn of 1978. It has been four years now and he has long since transitioned from apprenticeship to full-time employment.
The salary in the Forestry Bureau is the same as elsewhere, but the subsidy is high. Xu Shiqin now earns about fifty yuan a month.
As a girl, she spends only a small amount of money. She eats at home in the morning and evening and takes care of the food in the shop at noon.
Usually I just buy some daily necessities, and then go back to buy some refined grains, meat and the like.
Xu Shiqin has always been looking forward to getting medical treatment, so he doesn't spend much money on weekdays and just wants to save more money.
She already has almost a thousand yuan in her hand, and she doesn't want to have as much money as her family.
"No, just take it all. You don't know how much it will cost you. Bring more money and feel more at ease."
Zhou Guilan shook her head and gave the money to her daughter in a daze.
Xu Shiqin had no choice but to accept it, and then the couple began to wonder where to put the money.
It's impossible to carry such a large amount of money in your pocket, and even if you sew a pocket into your underwear, it won't fit.
Finally, Zhou Guilan decided to take apart Xu Shiqin's thin cotton-padded jacket.
Divide the money into three parts and sew the largest part into the sandwich layer of the cotton-padded jacket. When you are waiting to use the money, unsew the cotton-padded jacket and take it out.
Put the other part into the pocket of the underpants and sew it up with thread.
The rest should be stuffed separately into socks and under the insoles.
Zhou Guilan and her daughter were thinking about hiding the money, and Xu Shiyan was doing the same thing on the other side.
Xu Shiyan was not willing to dig a hole in the wall of the new house. He made a fuss under the new house.
He dug up the floor of the storage room and dug a basement.
It's not too big, only six or seven square meters. It's built with bricks and cement all around, so it's quite dry.
The wild ginseng, money, and several sets of stamps he asked someone to collect the year before were all locked in a box in the basement by Xu Shiyan.
In the past two years, there have been many places to use money at home, and doesn’t it have a basement? I simply stopped saving money in the bank.
I still have about 5,000 yuan in cash at home, so I just bring it all with me. Who knows how much it will cost? Just be prepared.
After thinking about it, Xu Shiyan picked another ginseng and took it with the money and the ginseng.
After taking the money out, Xu Shiyan was in trouble again. How could he get so much money?
There were no hundred-yuan bills in these days, they were all in ten-dollar bills, and five thousand meant five whole bundles.
These five bundles are a lot of money, how can you carry them out without being conspicuous?
The waist bag can hold almost three thousand, and the remaining two thousand is stuffed in the middle of the backpack for five hundred, and the five hundred is sewn into the pocket of the pants.
Finally, Xu Shiyan put the knife he used for hunting into his backpack.
You don’t know what you might encounter when you go out. Bringing a knife gives you peace of mind.