Li Qingxia enjoyed a comfortable three days in his sleeper berth.
The people in the middle and upper berths were all more smartly dressed than he was, carried travel bags, spoke Mandarin, and were careful about their manners when eating and sleeping.
Then there was Li Qingxia. Although none of them asked him anything, their eyes held curiosity and puzzlement when they looked at him.
After all, few farmers could afford sleeper tickets in those days-and Li Qingxia's unmistakable farmer's clothes made him look somewhat out of place.
But Li Qingxia seemed entirely oblivious, eating and sleeping as usual. When an attendant from the dining car came around delivering meals, he even bought one to try, though afterward he said it tasted bad.
That money could have bought two servings of mixed noodles in the county town, but Li Qingxia knew everything cost more on a train, so he said nothing else.
He had money, and quite a bit of it was visible, but fortunately, access to the sleeper carriage was still tightly controlled. Tickets were checked strictly, and no outsiders wandered around there, which put Li Qingxia at ease.
After all, he was traveling back and forth alone with a fair amount of money and some belongings. Had he been in a hard seat, he really might have had something stolen.
Now he felt that his youngest son had done well to buy him a hard sleeper ticket. It was comfortable.
He had actually thought of using the money he had saved from catching fish over the past two years to help his children.
But as things stood, his eldest son's household was among the best-off in the team. His second son was a worker, and although money might be a little tighter for him than for his elder