Chapter 548: Gossip Survival System (47)

"It's a good thing there's family planning now; Miao Miao won't have to suffer through this again in the future."

Miao Lan looked at the granddaughter in her arms, filled with infinite emotion:

"Whether it's a girl or a boy, having a descendant is enough, right, Grandma's little darling?"

Xie Yang also lowered her head to look at the little pink bundle in the swaddling clothes, her expression soft.

When her own Xi Xi was born, she seemed to be just this small; at the time, she was even disliked by her father for being ugly, but now she is already a cute, doll-like kindergartner.

Plants sprout, children grow up—is this the meaning of life's existence?

A few minutes later, Zheng Miaomiao was pushed out by the nurse.

Seeing her pale and haggard face, yet with a smile of happiness from being a new mother in her eyes, Xie Yang also smiled and comforted her: "Rest well, you'll recover soon."

"Mm-hmm, thank you, Sister."

Over these past few years, she has always called Xie Yang "Sister," no longer using her name.

Anyway, she didn't have any biological sisters, and to her, Sister Yang Yang was no different from a real sister.

In fact, that was indeed the case—

Xie Yang placed the goat milk powder on the bedside table:

"Since you don't have milk for the first few days, just feed the baby some goat milk powder for a few meals. I entrusted a friend to buy it from the grasslands; Lei Lei ate it until he was a year and a half old, and Xi Xi also had a tin when she was born. As for you, you can't eat anything too greasy right after giving birth. In a while, I'll go back to my unit to ask for leave, then come home and cook you some noodle soup. I'll stew chicken soup and pig trotters for you in a few days."

How could Miao Lan let Xie Yang take leave to look after her daughter: "Xiao Xie, you've already been delayed from work. Now that Miao Miao has given birth, I'll watch over her. You go back to work, and remember to have Director Gu help tell Tang. Once he arrives, I'll go home to make confinement meals for Miao Miao."

Seeing her insist, Xie Yang didn't say anything more.

Upon arriving at her unit, she dialed a call to Gu Yu'an's office.

She told him that Miao Miao had given birth and asked Tang to go to the hospital as soon as possible.

"I thought you were missing me."

On the other end of the line, Gu Yu'an's deep voice carried a hint of a smile.

Xie Yang gave a light scoff: "Focus on your work. You don't need to work overtime today, right?"

"If I work overtime, won't you save me any chicken soup or chicken meat?"

He still remembered what Xie Yang had said to his little cousin that morning.

"Are you the type of person who craves a bite of that?"

"Don't you know what I crave?"

"..."

Scoundrel!

Amidst the low laughter of the man's throat rolling, Xie Yang hurriedly hung up the phone.

"Xiao Xie." Seeing Xie Yang arrive at work, the Factory Director brought over a box of newly released Mingqian tea, "It was sent by the Southern Province Mechanical Factory; this box is specifically for you."

Hmph! These so-called brother units were always sending local specialties to Xiao Xie to show their presence, never giving up on poaching her!

Fortunately, Comrade Xiao Xie's elders and her lover were all in Beijing, which was why these sugar-coated bullets from those units hadn't succeeded in poaching her.

Now that Xiao Xie had a child, even for the sake of the child, she wouldn't agree to work in a place as far away as the Southern Province, right?

Xie Yang hadn't considered changing locations at all.

When the Sub-system was reclaimed in the future, perhaps she would consider whether to change locations, but she didn't have that thought currently.

The Mechanical Factory was quite good—the atmosphere was good, the benefits were good, and it was close to home.

Having obtained her assurance, the Factory Director returned to his office, satisfied.

After getting off work at noon, Xie Yang went to Grandma Xie's place.

Ever since both children started school, Grandma Xie had moved back to the Dazayuan.

Even though using water and going to the restroom were more troublesome than in a Unit Building, opening the door meant being in the courtyard, walking a few steps led to a small vegetable garden, and both inside and outside the courtyard were old neighbors she knew.

Xie Yang understood her feelings; if it weren't for the school district, she would also prefer living in a courtyard rather than a building.

Therefore, as soon as the old lady proposed moving back to the Dazayuan, she agreed.

There were fewer and fewer old neighbors in the Dazayuan.

The Wang Family moved to a Tube Building newly built by the Mechanical Factory two years ago, just a single connected room; the area wasn't even as spacious as one Side Room here. Why move? Firstly, because the neighborhood office started collecting rent from the Dazayuan residents. It was said that the owner of the property deed had returned from overseas, but since they didn't lack a place to live, they didn't demand to take it back. However, one couldn't live there for free; one had to either pay rent according to market rates or buy it.

Once Niu Cuifen saw that the two Side Rooms would cost them thirty yuan in rent, she figured it would be better to apply for a staff apartment from her unit, so she moved to the Mechanical Factory's staff housing to live in a single-room Tube Building.

As for the other reason, it was that she had scrimped and saved to support her daughter through high school, only for her to score barely over two hundred points on the College Entrance Examination, failing to even get into a regular junior college. In the end, she spent money and pulled strings to find a Formal Worker position at the Mechanical Factory. If she had known that after all that trouble she would still end up in the Mechanical Factory, she might as well have joined the factory after graduating from junior high. Look at Xie Yang, who had not only earned three years of salary but had also become the director of the technical department, while her daughter had to start as an intern.

Niu Cuifen felt ashamed and wasn't very willing to talk to her old neighbors, so she took advantage of the fact that her husband hadn't retired yet and could still apply for staff housing, and moved away in a hurry.

The next to move away were the Widow Guo mother and daughter.

Guo Lihua married a deputy editor at a Newspaper Office; the other party was a bit older, but he doted on her very much. After they married, they were allocated a two-bedroom apartment. Once Guo Lihua became pregnant, she brought Widow Guo over to live with them, taking care of her from the daughter's pregnancy to the grandson's birth, and then to the grandson starting school. That spanned many years, so they simply returned the Ear Room in the Dazayuan.

The Zheng family returned theirs at almost the same time.

The couple moved to a Family Building built by the department store itself. That Family Building was closer and more convenient to their daughter's own little home, so the house in the Dazayuan was of no use, and they returned it.

Xie Yang bought both the Zheng family's two Main Rooms and the Guo family's two Ear Rooms.

Of course, her own three Main Rooms had been bought without a second thought as soon as the neighborhood office proposed the plan for the property deed owner to either rent or sell.

With the property rights certificate, she could renovate it according to her own wishes.

She converted the Ear Rooms into a kitchen and a bathroom, and the five connected Main Rooms also underwent a major renovation: the central room remained the living room, the four rooms to the west were converted into bright, sun-facing bedrooms, and the north-facing side became a storage and utility room.

All four bedrooms were built with Fire Kangs; one for the old lady, one for her and Gu Yu'an, and one for each of the two children.

However, since the children were still young and liked to sleep together, Xie Yang let them be.

The Dazayuan was not very far from the house she lived in now; during the week, she would bring the children over to have dinner with the old lady, on weekends she would send the children over to stay for two nights, and during winter and summer vacations, she would leave the children there for long stays.

The old lady was very satisfied with this arrangement.

And so, today was a weekday again, and Grandma Xie had bought two small hens at a private stall at the entrance of the alley a few days ago.

In recent years, all kinds of street vendors had sprung up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and one could see individual vegetable stalls set up everywhere in the alleys.

One thing Grandma Xie did every morning without fail was to carry her vegetable basket and stroll from one end of the alley to the other.

She had bought these two little hens from a farmer carrying a shoulder pole into the city, originally intending to save the eggs for the two children to eat.

As it turned out, only one hen would lay eggs, while the other just clucked and clucked but wouldn't lay a single one. It even left chicken droppings everywhere, causing the neighbors to complain.

And so, the old lady had agreed with her granddaughter to slaughter that little hen that wouldn't lay eggs today to nourish the whole family.