Chapter 499: Comfortable life, enjoying in various ways

"You're back? Not leaving, right?" Gu Xiaoxia propped up the bicycle and asked the first sentence.

"Not leaving, the work in the mountains is finished, next I'm going to have a good rest and enjoy our happy life." Li Long said with a smile, "Even if you drive me away, I won't leave."

"Hee hee." Gu Xiaoxia was full of happiness, she put down her bag, went to the bedroom to change clothes, and said:

"I'll make dinner, what do you want to eat tonight?"

"I've already made the meal, just waiting for you to come back." Li Long pulled her into the kitchen with a smile, "Cold noodles, don't know if you like to eat them or not."

"Like, like." Gu Xiaoxia was full of happy smiles, happy smiles.

Li Long suddenly felt a bit guilty. He had always been negligent, Gu Xiaoxia was only twenty years old, in later generations, it was the age of not having graduated from university, it was the time to enjoy youth and love, and he married her, always letting her face work, and a life of gathering less and parting more.

Unfair.

The two sat down, Gu Xiaoxia first took the bowl to mix vegetables for Li Long, after mixing, pushed the bowl to Li Long:

"Eat. In the mountains, surely didn't have time to have a good meal, right?"

Li Long actually wanted to say that he ate quite well in the mountains, but looking at Gu Xiaoxia's eyes, he smiled and said:

"Indeed, in the mountains, sometimes just make do. But rest assured, didn't eat less meat, look, I've gained weight again."

"I don't see that you've gotten fat, but you have gotten a bit sturdier." Gu Xiaoxia smiled, her face blushing slightly. She lowered her head and began to mix her cold noodles. After mixing them, she took a bite and nodded, saying:

"Not bad, the taste is not bad. Hmm, later we can do it often."

"Good, as long as you like to eat, then I'll do it once every few days. I also brought back some good mushrooms from the mountains, tomorrow I'll stew soup for you to drink, this soup is very nourishing."

"I'm young, don't need nourishment, you take it back to father and mother." Gu Xiaoxia said, "We are already eating well enough now. Colleague sister asked me what we eat at home, at first I told the truth, later didn't dare to tell. I said we eat meat every day at home, people don't believe it. Said we have this salary, how can we eat meat every day? I didn't know how to say that you often hunt things in the mountains... later I mainly listened."

Li Long listened to Gu Xiaoxia talking about things in the unit, and he also talked about things in the mountains from time to time.

"Recently they have been chatting about TV, right?" Li Long asked, "Heard it's playing Legend of the Condor Heroes."

"Yeah, said it's quite good." Gu Xiaoxia didn't feel anything, families with TVs are not many now, there is one big TV in the office sister's family, chatting about TV usually, that expression, hey!

Another colleague is relatively close to this sister's family, occasionally goes to their house to watch TV, and the tone of speaking to this sister is that kind of flattering feeling.

Gu Xiaoxia is a small transparent in the eyes of these people, at least when chatting about these things, after all, she just came from the countryside, these people are still looking down on her in their bones.

Fortunately, Gu Xiaoxia doesn't care, she does her work well, she is not stupid, she knows her family's situation. According to the standard of living and quality, even including those leaders in the whole bureau, it's not necessarily stronger than her family.

But some things she knows herself, can't say, and it's not easy to say.

The two are actually very smart, compared to many people of this age in later generations who are still in the wind and moon and don't know the hardships of life, they have already stepped into work, facing relatively not-so-complex social relationships.

It's a good thing, and not a good thing.

After eating, Gu Xiaoxia didn't let Li Long clean up, drove him out of the kitchen, cleaned up herself, washed her hands, came out of the kitchen, and returned to the main room.

And then saw those two stacks of money, and those few passbooks.

"This is..." Gu Xiaoxia was a bit hesitant, couldn't guess what Li Long wanted to do.

"This is our money. You take it, how to spend it, you plan it yourself." Li Long patted the bench beside him and signaled her to come over and sit, "I earned some money from last year to now, this counts as a part of it. There are some more placed with me. You take this money, how to spend it, you look at it yourself, saving is also good, buying some things is also good, all follow you."

"That... can't." Gu Xiaoxia walked to Li Long's side and sat down, feeling still a bit wooden.

This stack of large group of money, needless to say, is at least one thousand.

Two stacks, and a few passbooks.

This, no matter how you say it, must be several thousand yuan!

Knew the husband could earn money, but with so much money placed in front, Gu Xiaoxia first felt not surprise, but numbness and shock, am I not in a dream?

"You are the hostess, you should take it. I have more in my hand, quite a lot. Tomorrow I still have to sell the fritillaria we air-dried, these odds and ends added up to several thousand yuan." Li Long pushed the money and passbook in front of her, "These several thousand yuan, just enough to buy two color TVs. One put here for us to watch together, one put at your father's place. The one in our courtyard, I plan to put it at father and mother's place, let them watch, what do you think?"

"Good." Gu Xiaoxia didn't feel anything inappropriate, and then shook her head again:

"My father's place... don't buy it, right? You know my father's person, stubborn, and he is also afraid of others saying gossip."

"What gossip is there to say? You are his only daughter, isn't it right to honor him?" Li Long smiled, "How can people in the village laugh? Envy is too late."

"That..." Gu Xiaoxia looked at the money in front, then looked at Li Long, said:

"Then use this money to buy it. I take so much money—I'm afraid, a bit panicked."

She is really a bit panicked.

Her salary is now thirty-seven yuan and five cents a month, as a young person who has only been working for a year, this salary is already not low.

Working for a year, she also counts as frugal, saved over three hundred yuan in total. This is already considered rich among young people.

But Li Long took out a handful of money and said he wanted to give it to her to spend, this handful of money is her twenty years of salary!

How can she not panic?

The sister in the unit has been working for twenty years, her family bought a 14-inch color TV, one-third of the money was borrowed from others.

Li Long casually took out money that could buy three or four TVs, this is still a part, this is still only earned in a year.

Can she not panic?

Gu Xiaoxia believes Li Long won't do anything illegal, but precisely because of this, she panicked.

What happened to this society?

Is money really so easy to earn?

Impossible!

Think about Sister Yang, working hard from early to late, that is really much harder than herself. Selling food in the market, freezing in winter, suffering heat in summer. Just like this, she can earn fifty or sixty yuan a month.

More than herself, but much harder than herself.

Sister Yang often used herself as a model at the dinner table to educate Han Fang to study hard, take a normal school or technical secondary school, so that after coming out, she can become a national cadre like herself, have a formal job, can be in the office, don't need to be as hard as herself outside.

This is the expectation of nine out of ten fathers for their children in this era.

Gu Xiaoxia sometimes is also quite proud, among peers, after Wu Shufen married, she has already had no fate with a formal job. Other little sisters in the village, most have already married, those who haven't married are working at home.

Occasionally run into when going back to see father, or they come to the house to find her, when talking to her, the tone is mostly with envy and flattery, or praising Li Long for being able to earn money, or praising herself for becoming more and more beautiful.

Sometimes Gu Xiaoxia will also float, after all, she is different from them.

But most of the time, she is still very clear about how this job of hers came, and it is different from others.

She herself is not the kind of vain character, so she can basically be calm in the face of favor or humiliation.

With Deputy Bureau Chief Wang supporting, with Li Long helping to analyze from time to time, Gu Xiaoxia knows that as long as she does her work well, and often reports the situation to the leaders, there is definitely no problem with this work.

Under such circumstances, she feels that she is already considered relatively excellent among peers, but today her husband suddenly took out so much money, and also wanted to use other money to buy color TVs for the family and her father's side, she was a bit self-doubting in shock.

Is this still Li Long?

"Is it that you feel a bit unbelievable?" Li Long smiled, "Come, I'll tell you how this money came."

Gu Xiaoxia naturally wants to listen.

Buying and selling fritillaria is the best explanation. Gu Xiaoxia already knew some of this when eating at Sister Yang's place.

And the money earned from weaving lifting poles, Li Long didn't hide it either, including the full payment for big brother was said out, Gu Xiaoxia nodded, this is as it should be.

After all, Li Jianguo and Gu Bo Yuan are considered close friends, in Gu Xiaoxia's eyes, Li Jianguo is actually considered an elder, taking care of Li Long for so many years, taking more is as it should be. There are also various animal skins, deer antlers in the mountains.

Li Long went to the guest bedroom again, and took out the dog-head gold he picked up, big and small.

"See, this was picked up in the mountains."

"This is... gold?"

"Hmm, natural gold." Li Long put the dog-head gold on the table and said, "Not as pure as the bank's gold, but this kind of natural gold is very rare, if you want to sell it, it's also very expensive, but for now we don't sell it, put this aside, the longer it's put, the more valuable it is!"

"Then put it away!" Gu Xiaoxia has the gold jewelry Li Long bought, just she doesn't like to wear these things, so she put them away. She still knows the gold price, just that little bit in her hand is several hundred yuan, this one in front is a big lump! How much money is this worth!

"So you take this money, our family doesn't lack money, usually you see if there is anything you like, or feel what our family lacks, just go buy it yourself, don't be afraid of spending money. We earn money just to spend it, otherwise what is the significance of that money?"

Li Long said this, Gu Xiaoxia let go of her heart slightly. She stood up, then went to the bedroom, took out two notebooks and brought them to the living room, sat down in front of Li Long.

"This is the money I saved." Gu Xiaoxia was still a bit embarrassed, "I saved less than you. Look, this one, this one..."

She took out the money, all clipped in different pages of the notebook, after taking them out, there were odd and whole.

"A total of 325 yuan and 50 cents." Gu Xiaoxia said with a red face: "I still felt I was quite able to save money, now compared with you, nothing is."

!.

"How can it be nothing?" Li Long hurriedly said, "How much is your salary a month? Being able to save so much money is already very amazing, okay? My income is relatively flexible, just happened to borrow good policies, and the convenience of my identity."

Although knowing Li Long is praising herself, and this praise is a bit exaggerated, Gu Xiaoxia still felt very happy listening.

"Alright, put these money away, put these money away too." Li Long said with a smile, "Our family property will get thicker and thicker, believe me. Our life will get better and better..."

"Already very good!" Gu Xiaoxia is a girl who is quite content, now life has already exceeded her psychological expectation a bit. In fact, when going home on weekends, Gu Bo Yuan would also ask about life matters. She told the matter, Gu Bo Yuan was also very surprised.

Think about it, usually living in a courtyard far exceeding the average level, eating meat every meal

This is even better than the life of the landlords and wealthy families in the past, isn't it?

Fortunately, Gu Bo Yuan knew of Li Long's ability to earn money, so he simply urged Gu Xiaoxia to go to their own courtyard and pay her respects to her parents-in-law every time she returned to the team. When she came back, she should also buy some things for the Li family.

With Li Long often away, Gu Xiaoxia carefully played the role of the Li family's daughter-in-law. Fortunately, she was a junior to begin with, and since Li Jianguo and Gu Bo Yuan had a good relationship, and Li Qing Xia and Du Chunfang favored Li Long, plus the bonus of Gu Xiaoxia's job, there were no conflicts with her in-laws.

Gu Xiaoxia used to be at school and was now in an office, where she heard plenty about domestic trifles and mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts.

In this era, most conflicts were actually caused by poverty. Because of poverty, people didn't have the energy to be overly dramatic. It was quite different from the many mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts in later generations.

She managed her own work and income, her husband could earn money and didn't restrict her, and her relationship with her in-laws was good. Their quality of life was among the best, to the point where she didn't even dare to talk about it outside. What else could she ask for?

The two of them settled things, and Gu Xiaoxia put the money away. Li Long saw that it was already dark outside and checked the time; it was still early. He thought that if they had a television, they could be watching it now, enjoying a peaceful evening life.

But it didn't matter; since there was no television, they would enjoy a different kind of pleasure.

Gu Xiaoxia went to the bedroom to put the money away, and Li Long followed her in. She put the money in the drawer and said while doing so:

"I think we should save these two thousand yuan. We don't need to buy anything for the house for now. If we save it, there's interest, and it adds up; there's quite a bit in a month. We have nothing to do tomorrow afternoon, so I'll go and deposit the money then."

"Fine, you handle it as you see fit." Li Long stepped forward, hugged her from behind, and whispered in her ear:

"It's dark now, shouldn't we rest?"

Gu Xiaoxia's face turned red instantly. Li Long held her, and the two of them, like conjoined twins, came to the bedside and sat down.

They had plenty of time to get to know each other, so Li Long wasn't in a rush to strip off clothes and get to the point. He whispered his longing into Gu Xiaoxia's ear and slowly kissed her. Gu Xiaoxia was a bit passive at first, but soon began to respond actively.

That night, the experience for both of them was unprecedentedly wonderful.

Early in the morning, Li Long was woken up by Gu Xiaoxia.

"Breakfast is ready. If you don't want to get up, sleep a little longer; there's nothing to do anyway. I'm going to work after I eat."

"Alright, you go ahead." Li Long really didn't want to get out of bed.

After Gu Xiaoxia went to work, Li Long lazed in bed for a while longer before getting up.

Lazily, he went to the courtyard, let the roe deer out to frolic, and shooed them away so they wouldn't eat the vegetables. Li Long cleaned the glass room, then poured water and scattered feed for them before driving them back.

After finishing all this, Li Long went to wash up and eat.

Although he had the idea of not working and just enjoying himself, he realized he really couldn't just stay at home; it was boring, after all.

So after eating, Li Long first took out the dried fritillaria bulbs he had laid out to dry in the side room a few days ago, then rode his bicycle to the purchasing station.

Chen Hongjun was standing in the courtyard chatting with a colleague. Seeing Li Long, he said with a smile:

"Comrade Li, I heard you hunted another bear this time? Where are the bear skin and bear gallbladder?"

"They aren't dry yet," Li Long said with a smile. "I was thinking of coming to sell them after they're dry."

"You should just bring them over. This stuff is too rare. I'm afraid that guy Li Xiangqian will leak the news to someone else, and then someone else will come to collect it. Since we've finally encountered it, and you have no use for it right now anyway, just sell it to me."

Li Long hadn't expected Chen Hongjun to be so eager for the bear skin and bear paw, but since he had asked, he agreed.

After Chen Hongjun weighed the fritillaria bulbs Li Long had brought and issued a receipt, Li Long went to get the bear gallbladder and bear skin, which weren't completely dry yet.

"Hey, this bear gallbladder isn't big," Chen Hongjun said after looking at it. "Wasn't it an adult bear?"

"Yeah, it should be less than two years old; it wasn't even as tall as me," Li Long said. "If it were really a big one, I might not have been able to kill it."

"That's fine, better than nothing," Chen Hongjun said after looking it over. "The quality is okay, just a bit small. For this gallbladder, I'll give you eight hundred yuan, how about that?"

"That works."

"The bear skin is damaged, so I'll give you twelve hundred total including the skin. Bear skin is actually quite valuable; it's mainly just rare," Chen Hongjun explained. "If there weren't bullet holes, the price would be even higher."

That was another twelve hundred in the bag. Added to the fifteen hundred and forty yuan from the fritillaria bulbs just now, Li Long had nearly five thousand yuan in his hands again.

To buy two television sets, at the current price, he could get them for a little over three thousand, and the remaining change would be enough to spend.

Because he could earn money, Li Long was a big spender. After selling the skin and the bear gallbladder, he rode his bicycle back to the courtyard.

To buy two television sets, a bicycle definitely wouldn't do; he had to take the tractor.

It was still early. Li Long calculated that he had enough industrial coupons, so he went straight to the department store.

"Buying two color TVs? Eighteen-inch ones?" The sales clerk at the counter was a bit shocked after hearing Li Long's request.

"What, are you out of stock?"

"We only have one left at the moment," the clerk shook her head and said. "The next batch arrives in June. Do you want to buy one for now?"

Li Long thought, why buy just one? If you're going to buy, you buy two.

Might as well go to Shicheng; while he was at it, he could visit his brother-in-law Chen Xingbang and see how things were going for him. (End of chapter)