On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, the lanterns on Qingshui County's streets began to come down.
This also meant that the Spring Festival of '82 was truly over. Workers at factories and mines had to put away their holiday laziness, brace themselves, and throw themselves into the grand cause of building the Four Modernizations.
Li Ye turned left and right, avoiding workers dismantling the pipe racks as he walked forward with a furrowed brow.
Nothing but vexing matters had happened these past two days, leaving him thoroughly annoyed.
First, the matter of his stepmother Han Chunmei selling off her old-age support money had spread even faster than Li Ye had expected.
In just a few days, it had traveled through relatives and friends alike. Plenty of people were laughing at Han Chunmei and the Li family.
A married daughter was like water thrown out of the house. Back then, a sixty-RMB bride price had already been high enough, and now she had gone and sold herself all over again? Was she made of gold?
The miserable woman had herself a good cry. She did not even dare go to work, always feeling that people were poking her in the spine behind her back, while her ears buzzed as though they were full of flying flies.
Li Ye had thought himself clever, but the old man at home wore a face as droopy as a rain-laden sky, while Li Kaijian looked at him as if his nose were not a nose and his eyes were not eyes.
"This is all the fine work you caused, you brat."
For fuck's sake.
A bunch of people who realized things only after the fact had no idea that Li Ye was solving a huge future problem for the family.
Li Kaijian