Chapter 1465: Contents

"What is this fatso dawdling about? I told him after 7, what urgent matter takes him over two hours?"

"It's only because it's Lin Ji's boat and he's on board too that it's easier to say. If it were another boat, once the cargo was loaded and they were short one last-minute addition, they'd just leave without a second thought."

"Dammit, don't you dare waste my boat ticket."

Ye Yaodong stood on the boat, craning his neck and cursing nonstop.

Lin Ji ran over and said they'd depart at the latest by 10 o'clock; the cargo on board was already pretty much ready.

Hearing this, the group cursed the fat man out all over again.

It wasn't until 9:50 that they spotted the fat man craning his neck and looking around on the shore. Ye Yaodong hurriedly borrowed a loudspeaker to shout, and only just managed to call him aboard in time.

"What the hell are you playing at? Showing up this late."

"The hell, isn't it your old man's fault? Dawdling along, took forever finding the place up ahead, how would I know which boat was yours."

"That's why I told you to hurry up and set off earlier. What does it have to do with my dad?"

The fat man loosened his waistband, and before Ye Yaodong's eyes could widen any further, he pulled two letters out of his crotch and shook them.

"Ta-da~ Come beg me!"

Ye Yaodong quickly reached out and snatched them.

"Holy shit, you're just snatching it… you bastard…"

After reading the name and address on the envelope, Ye Yaodong disgustedly flicked the letter against the fat man's mouth.

"Shut it! Disgusting or not, stuffing it in your crotch — smell it yourself."

The fat man cursed a few times before saying, "If I didn't stuff it in my crotch, putting it in my pocket I was afraid it'd get lost."

"You could've put it in your luggage bag."

"I only ran into the postman delivering the mail right as I was heading out. Wasn't I just thinking, whatever's most convenient, so I stuffed it in there on the spot."

The fat man jabbered on and on about how he got the letter, how he had such a hard time riding his bicycle with his dad to the dock, and how terribly crowded the dock was.

He could only let Father Ye ride the bicycle back, and how he himself had gone through all kinds of hardship searching for the boat one by one along the shore.

Ye Yaodong, impatient with his nonsense, simply tore open the envelope.

The others were also tired of his rambling; no one paid him any attention, all craning their necks toward Ye Yaodong to look at the letter in his hand.

"Dongzi, your letter arrived right on time, didn't it."

"Almost didn't make it…"

The fat man immediately chimed in, "Right? And lucky for you I left the house late and just happened to run into him, so I could bring it over. Otherwise you'd only get to see it half a month later."

"Mm, I didn't bring you along for nothing."

"What do you mean 'didn't bring me along for nothing'? You should be thankful you ran into me this morning, otherwise you'd have missed it. The letter would've been sent for nothing, and even after getting home you wouldn't have seen it."

Ye Yaodong, annoyed by his chatter, took the letter and walked off to the side. The others quickly followed beside him, craning their heads to look.

"Several copies of the newspaper…"

"So many pages, give me one to look at…"

"Let me see how handsome he is too…"

"It really did arrive just in time, otherwise we'd already be home…"

"You can still see it when you get home, isn't there a newspaper at home too…"

"Ugh…"

Ye Yaodong wailed in regret, "How come my dad didn't know to open the letter? He sent 5 copies of the newspaper and kept 4 for himself. He only needed to have the fat man bring me one. Damn, with this many, do I have to bring them all back? I've seen it, but what about the others — haven't they seen it?"

"Haha, your wife scoured high and low to send 5 copies, all wasted on you."

"Sending one would've been enough, haha…"

"With this many copies, we can each take one."

The fat man gloated, "Oh, so I brought them for nothing again."

"You're the one who brought them for nothing."

Ye Yaodong shot him an annoyed glance, then handed out the newspapers for them to read first. The fat man also snatched one with quick hands. Just right — 5 people, 5 newspapers, no need to huddle head-to-head to read.

He took his own copy of the newspaper along with three sheets of paper, found a small stool, and sat down.

The others held their newspapers and clucked their tongues, chattering away. He, however, set his newspaper aside first and took out the other three sheets, intending to read them first.

When he had just torn them out of the envelope, he had already glanced at them. Each of the three children's letters had its own distinctive style, making it impossible to look at them without the corners of one's mouth curving up.

Ye Yaodong pulled out the most distinctive one first — it had been torn from a primary school exercise book, still printed with neat grid lines, but that didn't stop Ye Ye Xiaoxi from using it as drawing paper.

On the paper was drawn a sun, a little house, and 6 stick figures. One stick figure was tall and big, with every strand of hair combed up — that was unmistakably him.

Beside him was a shorter one. Apart from having long hair drawn on, the facial features were no different, but one hand was on the hip, and the other seemed to hold something like a whip.

Next to them were drawn two little boys with their hair sticking up as well, pressed close together, arms and legs tangled.

One look and you could tell the two were fighting, and then Mommy got angry, one hand on her hip, the other holding a whip.

The remaining two stick figures were also easy to tell apart — one had no special features, just an extra long stick in his hand.

The other little stick figure had two little tufts drawn on her head, and both hands on her hips.

At a glance, he knew the long stick was a walking stick — drawn as the old lady — and the other one was herself.

Proudly standing with both hands on her hips, watching her two brothers get a beating!

She couldn't write, but these abstract drawings somehow let you understand at a glance what they depicted.

And she even knew to sign her name at the bottom.

Probably because her own name was too hard to write, she only scrawled two crooked characters: Xiao Jiu. The date read 5.23.

Ye Yaodong looked at it with an understanding smile, then set this drawing at the bottom and casually pulled out another one — Ye Chenghu's.

This kid had been practicing calligraphy for three years; results aside, each stroke of his writing was actually quite neat — clearly he had done it on purpose to show off in front of him.

Looking at the writing, he actually felt quite pleased, the corners of his mouth curving up again as he read it from start to finish.

He wrote it very carefully, opening with: Dad, how are you? I'm doing well, everyone's fine at home…

Then the rest asked when he'd be back, saying he'd been helping sweep the floor, help light the fire, help dry fish, going on about all his various good deeds.

He didn't know if it was true or not, but Ye Yaodong was genuinely pleased reading it. His eldest son seemed to have grown up and become sensible.

If you didn't think about how mischievous he usually was, and only looked at the words, you might even think he was an honest, well-behaved child.

The last letter was from Ye Ye Chengyang. It opened by asking when he'd be back, then said he'd scored two 100s on his midterms—only three students in the whole class had gotten two 100s—and the teacher had called him out by name in class to praise him, and rewarded him with a diary.

The words on the letter practically leapt off the page with excitement.

But at the end, he didn't forget to put down his brother—saying one brother only got 88 and the other only got 90.

Ye Yaodong couldn't help but laugh. Those scores weren't bad for Ye Chenghu either, after all he was already in fourth grade.

Three children, three letters, each with its own character—reading them put one in a good mood.

"I've been talking to you and you don't even respond, told us not to make noise, what are you reading? Reading it so happily?" Aguang asked.

Ye Yaodong waved the three sheets of paper in his hand. "Letters from my son and daughter. This old father feels deeply comforted reading them—being out on a trip and looking at these letters puts me in a good mood."

Aguang was instantly envious. "I thought it was a letter from Third Sister-in-law, that's why you went off to the corner to read it. When will my three ever grow up and write me a letter?"

Ye Yaodong felt even more pleased with himself.

Xiao Yi snatched the three sheets of paper from his hand. "Let me see what your three wrote. My wife doesn't know anything, doesn't even know how to mail a letter."

"Be careful, don't damage them for me, and don't let them blow away."

With crew and cargo all in order, the ship had already set sail.

But the rocking and swaying didn't affect their nimble movements on board in the slightest.

Ye Yaodong only told them not to lose his letters, then lowered his head and flipped through the newspaper again—he hadn't yet had time to see what was written in it.

"Holy crap, Dongzi, your son's grades are really good…"

"Of course—whose son do you think he is?"

"What about your eldest son?"

"That one takes after his grandpa a bit."

"Haha, what is your daughter drawing here?"

"It's not your own kid, you can't appreciate it. Give it back to me, don't let it blow away—if it blows away I'll throw you overboard to fetch it."

"Here, here, what's so precious about it? When I get back I'll have my daughter draw me one too."

Ye Yaodong took the paper back, puffed up with pride. "A drawing done willingly is different from one done because you asked for it."

"Look at you showing off—it's just three letters from kids."

"It proves my three children think of me. Yours are different."

"Damn…"

Ye Yaodong ignored their envy and jealousy, folded all three letters neatly and put them into the envelope, then continued reading his newspaper.

The newspaper wasn't just reporting on him—mainly it reported on the aquaculture achievements of their village, and how much wealth it had brought to the villagers.

Only a small section, a short paragraph of introduction, plus a black-and-white illustration of the village drying kelp.

And he himself only got a passing mention of about a hundred characters, saying the village he led was positive and progressive, and that individual prosperity had driven collective prosperity.

Most information nowadays still came from newspapers. To occupy even a small section in a newspaper was already an immense honor—generally, to place even a small advertisement in one cost a hefty sum.

And he had already appeared in the newspaper once a few years ago, and the life story that should be reported had already been reported.

This time it was mainly to showcase the achievements of their village, to showcase the political achievements of the local leadership.

However, he also had two additional small plaques specially issued by the county, which could be hung on the wall—one for Advanced Individual Representative, and one for Outstanding Representative of Individual Prosperity Driving Collective Prosperity.

This was what Ah Qing had called about a couple days ago, saying the village committee had delivered them to the house with gongs and drums, and helped hang them on the wall while they were at it.

The whole family was so delighted they couldn't stop smiling. The old lady immediately burned incense to tell the old grandpa, and said once they got back they'd have to go to the graves to make an offering—all thanks to the ancestors underground for their protection.

Ye Yaodong was a bit indignant—it was clearly his own hard work.

Yet whenever someone made something of themselves, they said it was the ancestors' blessing…

(End of chapter)