Chapter 172: Rebirth in the 1990s: Overbearing Flower Chapter 172: Meeting Too Late

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Protagonist:

Chai Mi

Back to the main story, the tale splits into two.

After parting with Chai Mi that day, Zhou Fang filled up his Santana 2000 and drove off.

However, the car had sustained some damage, so Zhou Fang first drove to the Xiangli repair shop, intending to fix it up.

The market in Xiangli near Sanjiacun is called Jie Li by everyone. As for what kind of street it is, no one cares.

Jie Li used to be prosperous, having operated a canned food factory, a repair factory, a grain depot, a Gongxiaoshe, a building materials factory, and a pig farm.

However, without exception, they all went bankrupt.

Asked, it's poor management; not asked, it's mismanagement.

Take the Daxiu Factory for example, it stands out with the word "big." But now it has been contracted by Liu Zhijing, and its business scope, from originally being able to repair even atomic bombs, can now only repair bicycles...

At most, repair a motorcycle.

And the courtyard that originally had four or five mu of land now only has a little black house with its door open...

Zhou Fang came to this little black house.

Why call it a little black house...

Because the house is quite dark, and Liu Zhijing is also quite dark when asking for money, so it's called the little black house.

Jianghu rumors say Liu Zhijing once repaired a bicycle and charged five yuan...

And that bicycle's problem was very simple, just a broken chain, and he only added one link, charging five yuan.

More expensive than buying a chain.

But other places won't do it; only Liu Zhijing here has parts, earning a spatial difference.

So people say: with that kid Da Zhi, if he doesn't get rich, it's strange...

After a busy and tense morning, Zhou Fang's face had reduced swelling somewhat; before coming to the repair shop, he had also gone to the Health Center for simple bandaging.

Liu Zhijing has been busy lately; his mother is about to have surgery, he has no heart for business, and was just planning to close shop when Zhou Fang arrived.

Liu Zhijing saw Zhou Fang get out of the car door, and the whole person was stunned, even forgetting that the seventeen-nineteen wrench in his hand had fallen...

"Brother! I repair cars... not people! If you want to repair people, I suggest turning left when you go out; that side is the health room."

Zhou Fang was stunned: "I'm repairing a car."

"This look for repairing a car? Did you have a car accident? In our county, there are fewer than a few dozen tricycles combined, the roads are wide as can be, how did you end up like this?" Liu Zhijing was very puzzled.

After all, Zhou Fang's entire head was wrapped in gauze, his hands were also gauze, his legs were also...

Simply a zongzi.

This couldn't help but make Liu Zhijing feel strange.

Zhou Fang, however, looked at his own zongzi-like appearance somewhat belatedly... and was also stunned.

When he was just at the Health Center, he told the doctor to simply treat it, and he was busy pondering why Chai Mi hadn't come to eat with him.

Unexpectedly, the Health Center's simple treatment was indeed simple enough.

Anyway, no medicine was applied, just simply wrapping with gauze...

Zhou Fang sighed, but didn't tear off the gauze; after all, the places the doctor wrapped were indeed bruised and swollen.

Better to let people see him covered in gauze than to let people see his bruised and swollen face...

"Sigh... don't mention it. I went to Sanjiacun and accidentally fell into someone's field. Their village people caught me and beat me." Zhou Fang thought of last night's miserable experience and felt annoyed: "Especially that village chief of their village, simply a village bully, said nothing and just beat me hard."

"Oh..." Liu Zhijing frowned.

My father beat him? My father beat him too lightly... daring to cause trouble in our village, not beating him to death already counts as this kid's good luck.

"Actually, I'm also from Sanjiacun, returning to my old home to take a look. Unexpectedly, the village chief is such an idiot..." Zhou Fang said helplessly.

Liu Zhijing's complexion began to change, though he did not get angry.

After venting his grievances, Zhou Fang said: "Master, help me fix the car door, it's broken."

Liu Zhijing directly shook his head: "This car isn't easy to fix... let me see..."

Liu Zhijing casually took his tools and walked around the car twice.

The tires were all flat...

"Sigh, Master? Why does my car tire have no air?" Zhou Fang felt terrible; clearly when he came, only the car door had a problem, how did the tires suddenly have no air?

"Could it be Master you punctured it..."

Liu Zhijing sneakily threw away a nail in his palm, shook his head: "You, when speaking, need evidence... change the tire? One tire two thousand two hundred, I'll give you a discount, four tires I'll charge eight thousand..."

"Damn!" Zhou Fang was so angry he spat out national essence: "Why don't you just rob money?"

"Fix it or not, if not, leave; I'm busy." Liu Zhijing said and went into the little black house.

Zhou Fang was so angry his whole body trembled; this was obviously done by Liu Zhijing, but he still had no evidence.

"You're deliberately finding fault, aren't you?" Zhou Fang asked angrily: "You people are too bullying."

Zhou Fang was now a person under the eaves, having to lower his head, and then left a sentence: "I'm not fixing it."

He drove the car away.

By the time he dragged the car to the county city, the tires were basically ruined inside and out.

Then he found a proper repair shop, threw the car into the repair shop, and had it overhauled.

He thought it over left and right, and finally first found a hotel to stay in.

Starving and exhausted, he soon fell into a deep sleep.

After waking up, Zhou Fang summed up his experiences over the past few days and drew some conclusions: he was too young...

Whether it was being cheated in the melon field or having his car tires punctured, he was powerless.

Being bullied for no reason was very likely due to severe incompatibility with the local environment. Although Zhou Fang had stayed here as a child and this was his hometown, he had not returned for many years, making him no different from an outsider.

Besides, Zhou Fang looked so disheveled that he was hardly a strong dragon capable of suppressing those local tyrants!

Now, whether to invest or not didn't matter much; the key was to survive first...

Besides, Zhou Fang was a smart man. Although his father wanted to invest and build a factory in their hometown, after all, it was their own money, and it wasn't particularly abundant. There was only this one opportunity. The local customs were so "enthusiastic," so Zhou Fang had indeed changed his mind from when he first arrived, deciding to take a look first.

Having figured this out, Zhou Fang first wandered around the county town for half a day, ate and bought clothes, and also bought a motorcycle...

Mm, follow local customs. A car indeed isn't as convenient as a motorcycle here.

At least, if it were a motorcycle driving into the melon field, he could just turn around and run, without being hung on a tree for a beating.

Afterwards, Zhou Fang went to meet with people from the county's investment promotion department, said a few things simply, and declined, saying he still needed to investigate.

This nearly drove Deputy County Magistrate Liu Xuejun, who was in charge of investment promotion, crazy. He had finally invited this god of wealth back from outside with great difficulty, and now he said he wouldn't invest?

How could that be?

Liu Xuejun was also a local, and from Sanjiacun as well. It was just that his hometown was in Nanwa of Sanjiacun, and he and Zhou Fang's father had been in the same small group before, living quite close. Otherwise, Zhou Fang's father wouldn't have so easily agreed to send his son home.

Zhou Fang chatted with Liu Xuejun, saying he still needed to observe. Afterwards, he got up and left, running to a restaurant for a meal.

Although Liu Xuejun was urgent, he had no good ideas, only hoping Zhou Fang would finish observing soon and invest soon. Hometown prosperity was imminent; letting ordinary people live good days couldn't happen without investment.

He sent people to secretly follow Zhou Fang while inquiring whether anything had happened recently, and why the investment and factory building agreed upon with Zhou's father had fallen through.

Under the scorching midday sun, Chai Mi looked back at the ridges of fertilized crop fields, and at her father Chai Youqing driving the old green ox to plow in the field. She put her hands on her waist and rubbed...

Bending over for too long made her waist ache terribly.

A sudden rub made her bones creak and crack.

Of course, Chai Mi didn't have a herniated disc; she just had a waist that was too slender...

In ancient times, the King of Chu loved slender waists, but in this era, rural life wasn't kind to slender waists.

When marrying a wife in the countryside, people still valued things like: a sturdy body capable of work, big hips for bearing sons, strength not inferior to those bear-like men, being big and rough so one doesn't suffer in anything, and looking... steady for daily life.

So sometimes Chai Mi felt she didn't fit in with them.

Although her body was far from as frail as the energetic little sister Song Qiushui, it wasn't much better.

Working was tiring.

"Xiu'er, you say Doubao's physique—if she worked, she'd surely be driven like a lead ox..."

Chai Xiu was catching grasshoppers in the grass by the field.

Grasshoppers are locusts.

How to put it...

When there are few, they're called grasshoppers; when there are many, they're called locusts.

Chai Xiu wasn't catching grasshoppers to eliminate pests; she just caught them for fun. After catching them, she'd put the grasshoppers in a soda bottle to raise...

Raising them until the grasshoppers starved to death, then drying them.

That could be considered indirectly eliminating pests.

Chai Xiu heard her sister talking to her, glanced up, and then silently pinched the grasshopper in her hand to death.

After all, Chai Mi had always taught Chai Xiu: catch a pest and execute it by five horses, otherwise if pests eat the crops, people will have nothing to eat.

"Ah..." Chai Xiu then looked up nonchalantly: "Doubao... her physique is great. She goes to class during the day, and in the morning and evening she goes to Nanwa Mountain to steal wild mountain apricots. Yesterday I saw her early in the morning carrying a big sack of mountain apricots, sneaking back. At that time, it was only past five o'clock... Sister, that was a whole sack, at least two hundred catties... even if not two hundred, there were one hundred fifty or sixty. Her physique is better than our dad's; she carried it and ran whoosh whoosh..."

"Are you sure she wasn't running whoosh whoosh because she saw you?" Chai Mi laughed.

This Doubao steals things; naturally she runs when she sees people.

One can't steal things openly and boldly, right?

However...

Chai Mi frowned, muttering in her heart: Is this Doubao so short of money? She earns five or six hundred a month, yet steals wild mountain apricots from people's forests? Is she lacking that little money? Really not worth it.

However, this was consistent with Chai Mi's usual understanding that Doubao was not a good person.

Having money and not being lacking in virtue sometimes couldn't be equated. Che Lianyun was such a person: rich and lacking in virtue.

Doubao earned quite a bit, but household expenses were also not small.

Che Lianyun's appearance wasn't elegant; that bloated figure aside, she especially wore out high heels... Buying high heels and skirts cost money. Besides, adding Chai Youde who loved eating and was lazy and drank heavily all day, Chai Dajun the unemployed youth who did nothing all day and still wanted good food and drink, and another younger brother Chai Erwei—this Che Lianyun actually earned that little money, leaving almost nothing.

Besides, Che Lianyun was also a Voldemort.

Her mother's family of eight all waited for her to subsidize household expenses.

So when Chai Mi heard Che Lianyun stole people's mountain apricots, she didn't find it too surprising.

"Then... I don't know." Chai Xiu smiled shyly: "At that time I was out dumping ash, and I greeted her. I said, Old Auntie, you're really diligent, out working so early..."

Chai Xiu got up relatively early because Chai Mi liked to rise early and sleep early. Chai Mi generally slept at eight or nine at night and got up at four or five in the morning to prepare cooking.

In the Northeast stove, after burning firewood all day, there would be grass and wood ash, straw ash, or cow dung ash. Anyway, the stove was blocked, and in the morning they'd clear out the ash.

After clearing the ash, generally Chai Xiu would take a small shovel and throw it into a ditch east of the village.

In this era there were no garbage disposal plants; everyone just found an idle place and threw their household garbage there.

East of Sanjiacun, after there were no more houses, it was close to the mountain's foot, with a ditch nearby. The village called it Qianwa Ditch; anyway, garbage was piled there.

You throw garbage, I throw garbage, and that place became a garbage dump.

Chai Xiu saw Che Lianyun while dumping ash.

Chai Mi laughed and patted Chai Xiu's head: "Doubao didn't slap you, that's already good. She went to steal things, and you praised her for getting up early."

"Mm, she ran away at that time. Her short legs moved so fast... shaking the earth and mountains." Chai Xiu said.

Afterwards Chai Xiu thought for a moment: "Sister, why don't we two also steal some mountain apricots? I heard people in the countryside buy apricot kernels; selling them can exchange for money."

"Who did you learn that from? How come you've even learned to steal things?" Chai Mi frowned, displeased. "Stealing from other people's homes, you'll get cursed at and have fingers pointed at your spine..."

"But you and Sister Qiu Shui went to steal watermelons that day..."

Chai Mi gasped, rolling her eyes at Chai Xiu. "We were helping Song Qiushui's Second Uncle solve the problem of having too many melons — how can that be called stealing? Besides, the Da Lao Song family has money... the two of us were robbing the rich to help the poor."

"But I'm poor, and I didn't get any watermelon..." Chai Xiu said with some grievance. "I waited half the night, didn't get any melon..."

Only then did Chai Mi remember that she'd been busy that day and seemed to have forgotten Chai Xiu. Later, the Da Lao Song family arranged a meal, and Chai Mi didn't have Chai Xiu go either.

After all, going herself was already quite a trap for the Da Lao Song family; bringing a girl along too would be rather too much, however you looked at it.

Chai Mi sighed. This Chai Xiu was ultimately still a child, still couldn't get past food — she'd talked for half a day just to wait here for her.

"You wait until the work's done. Sister will go to the river and catch you a few fish."

Chai Xiu nodded, then shook her head.

Near Sanjiacun there was only the Xiaohe Tao — not much water, and not many fish.

If you wanted to eat fish, catch fish, you'd have to run far out, go to the big south side, to reach the riverbank.

So, Chai Xiu determined that Chai Mi was... bragging.