Chapter 309

Yu Xiufen and Zou Mengcheng took a fancy to Li Ye's courtyard and started cleaning it on the spot.

Wiping windows, sweeping the courtyard, moving the few pieces of furniture back and forth to try out arrangements—they were busy non-stop in the freezing winter.

Li Ye only worked with them for half an hour before he quit.

It wasn't that he was lazy; it was just that these three people were too meticulous. After Li Ye finished cleaning, they would clean it again.

Especially Wang Zhiyuan, who wouldn't say a word for half a day; he wanted to polish the cement floor until it shone, making it even cleaner and tidier than Senior Sister Yu Xiufen.

Li Ye didn't consider himself a sloppy person, but compared to them...

【Why am I comparing tidiness with them? I'm the landlord; it's already good enough that I'm not wearing big boxers and flip-flops.】

"I'll leave the keys here. I'm going to contact some workers for you. In a few days, I'll have them come over to build a bathroom and fix up the toilet too."

Li Ye threw down the keys and turned to slip away; he would rather pull a rickshaw for two hours than do cleaning for one hour.

"Where are you going? It's almost time to eat."

"I won't eat. I ate too much at the banquet at noon, and I'm still full."

Yu Xiufen threw down her rag and chased after him, saying: "Li Ye, don't go to the trouble. Our workplace has bathhouses, and there's a public toilet at the entrance of the alley outside. You shouldn't spend money recklessly."

"What do you mean recklessly?" Li Ye said while heading out the door: "This is called wholeheartedly serving the tenants; it's the basic quality of a conscientious landlord. Alright, Senior Sister, don't see me off, I'm leaving."

After leaving the courtyard, Li Ye drove toward Zhongguancun.

The group of demobilized soldiers led by Jiang Hong basically all lived in the houses in Zhongguancun. There were quite a few talents among that group,

including carpenters, masons, and even a paper-mounter who knew how to paste paper figures. The bathroom at Zaojunmiao was something they had found time to fix up.

When Li Ye arrived at Zhongguancun, it was already getting dark, and the cold wind was biting, with few pedestrians on the road.

The car turned into the village, and the road became narrow. In front, there was a short little girl who was struggling to drag a very thick, dead tree branch forward.

That dead tree branch must have been blown down by the strong wind; it was covered in branches and twigs, and it blocked more than half the road.

The biting north wind was very cold, blowing the little girl until she shrank her neck. Moreover, she had no gloves, and she kept switching hands to blow hot air on them.

But no matter how difficult it was, she had no intention of throwing away that big tree branch.

Firewood in winter is much more precious than the chapped skin on a child's hands.

"Beep-beep~"

Li Ye honked the horn to signal the other party to move to the side; otherwise, if he drove over it and crushed the firewood, he would inevitably get a few greetings about his elders behind his back.

But when the little girl heard the car, she was like a frightened rabbit; she let go of the firewood and stuck herself to the side of the road.

Li Ye expressed his apologies. Car horns in '83 were too effective; as soon as you honked, pedestrians would give way. It wasn't like decades later, where the more you honked, the less they moved, and if you honked again, they'd just lie down on the ground, and you'd have to pay even if you went to court.

However, just as Li Ye turned the steering wheel, wanting to bypass it as close to the left as possible, he discovered that the little girl was excitedly waving her arms at him.

"It's just seeing a car, does she need to be this excited? This isn't a remote mountain area."

Li Ye drove around the big firewood with surprise, but after driving only ten meters, he suddenly stepped on the brake, shifted into reverse, and backed up.

Because the floral cotton-padded jacket the little girl was wearing looked very familiar to Li Ye.

A few days ago, Li Ye seemed to have seen his sister making a cotton-padded jacket in Zaojunmiao!

Li Ye backed the car up, opened the door, and got out.

The little girl hurriedly said in a stumbling manner: "Sor-sorry, I mis-mistook you for someone else."

As soon as Li Ye heard her thick Shanxi accent, he immediately guessed seven or eight out of ten.

Yang Yumin is from Shanxi; although he has been in the capital for three years, he still carries a bit of that old Shanxi flavor.

So Li Ye asked the little girl with a smile: "Your surname is Yang, right?"

The little girl nodded timidly, glancing at Li Ye with suspicion.

Li Ye pointed to his Volga and asked: "Do you recognize this car?"

The little girl nodded again.

Li Ye said again: "I'm your brother's classmate. My name is Li Ye."

The little girl's face immediately bloomed into a smile: "You're Sister Sister Xiao Yue's younger brother? Sister Sister Xiao Yue and my brother were just talking about you yesterday..."

Well, she's even calling her Sister Sister Xiao Yue now, what can you do?

Li Ye asked: "How much further is your home? I'll help you drag the firewood back!"

The little girl hurriedly shook her head to refuse: "It's not far, not far, I can do it myself. Don't get your clothes dirty."

"I don't have to drag it by hand."

Li Ye was wearing a custom-made wool coat, which was obviously not suitable for manual labor, but wasn't he driving a car?

He opened the trunk and, sure enough, saw a rope.

In this day and age, it's normal for cars to not start on the road, so they are basically all equipped with a tow rope.

Li Ye took out the rope, tied one end to the firewood, and hooked the other end to the tail hook of the Volga.

"Come on, get in the car and show me the way."

"Mm-hmm, okay."

The little girl opened the door and got in. When Li Ye saw her posture getting into the car, it was clear she hadn't ridden in it just once or twice.

"Turn left at the intersection ahead, turn right at the third alley, and it's the third house."

"Did my sister come to your house yesterday?"

"Mm-hmm, Sister Sister Xiao Yue brought us a lot of vegetables yesterday..."

"When did you come to the capital?"

"We've been here for over a month. My brother said this house was bought with Sister Sister Xiao Yue's help. My mother has asked my brother to invite you over many times to thank you, but Sister Sister Xiao Yue said you were very busy..."

The little girl had no guard against Li Ye; she said whatever Li Ye asked, and in a short while, she had laid out the whole situation.

She is Yang Yumin's younger sister, named Yang Yujiao, and this time she came from their hometown in Shanxi with their mother, Yang Huaihua.

Sister Li Yue comes over about once a week, so she is already very familiar with Yang Yujiao.

"Sigh~"

Li Ye looked at the chattering Yang Yujiao, feeling a bit regretful in his heart.

If only Yang Yumin's looks were similar to Yang Yujiao's.

If the little girl Yang Yujiao's attractiveness score was 8.5, Yang Yumin could score at most 7.

And Li Ye's sister, Li Yue, looks similar to Li Ye—a solid 9.9-point beauty. Otherwise, why would she have failed to find a partner after consecutive blind dates in Qingshui County, leading Grandma Wu Ju to scold her for being "picky"?

Plus, as Li Ye's sister, Li Yue is definitely the ultimate "white, rich, and beautiful."

However, Li Ye also knew that if one were to judge rationally, Yang Yumin, this '80 class Jingda student, is actually a "golden turtle son-in-law" who could be called a potential stock.

Yang Yujiao's home is not far from Li Ye's house in Zhongguancun, just over two hundred meters away.

Arriving at the door, Yang Yujiao didn't wait for Li Ye to move; she untied the rope and dragged the big tree branch into the courtyard, shouting as she dragged it.

"Mom, my brother's classmate is here; he's Sister Sister Xiao Yue's younger brother."

Li Ye helped Yang Yujiao get the branches into the courtyard and saw a middle-aged woman wearing a gray cloth cotton-padded jacket coming out of the main room; she must be Yang Yumin's mother, Yang Huaihua.

Seeing Li Ye, Yang Huaihua hurriedly greeted him with a smile: "Child, don't bother, don't bother. Hurry inside and have a bowl of knife-cut noodles to warm up; it's so cold outside!"

Li Ye smiled and said: "No thanks, Auntie. I was actually just passing by to recognize the door; I'll come over with Yang Yumin another day!"

"How can that be? You can't leave without eating after entering the door; our family doesn't have that rule."

Yang Huaihua walked over in two or three steps, grabbed Li Ye's arm, and led him toward the main room.

Li Ye couldn't refuse Yang Huaihua, so he had to follow her into the main room.

The furnishings in the room were very simple, far less decent than Li Ye's Zaojunmiao courtyard house, but it was cleaned very thoroughly.

The noodle soup on the stove was already boiling, and the kneaded dough was placed to the side. Mushrooms, chili peppers, and green garlic were already prepared; Li Ye had come at just the right time.

Yang Huaihua picked up the dough and started shaving noodles into the pot, while the sound of "crackling" echoed in the courtyard—it was clearly Yang Yujiao organizing that thick tree branch.

Li Ye wanted to go out to help, but Yang Huaihua wouldn't let him at all.

"It's just a little firewood; Yujiao will be done in a moment. She's very quick!"

Li Ye had seen it when he entered the door: a stack of firewood was neatly piled in the corner of the courtyard, which was probably saved up day by day by this little squirrel, Yang Yujiao.

The mother and daughter worked very quickly; in less than ten minutes, the knife-cut noodles were out of the pot, and Yang Yujiao also came in to wash her hands and sat upright at the small dining table.

Three large bowls of knife-cut noodles were served, and Yang Huaihua prepared all kinds of condiments for Li Ye.

"Child, try it and see how it is. They all say people in the capital eat delicately; where we are from, we emphasize being substantial. Give us your opinion."

Li Ye couldn't be coy anymore; he slurped down a large bowl, and it felt really good.

Especially the taste of that old Shanxi vinegar—it was truly authentic.

"Auntie, this bowl of noodles is really not bad. If you open a noodle shop in the capital, business is guaranteed to be booming."

"What booming or not booming? As long as it can earn enough for my daughter and me to eat, that's enough. If we can't earn it, we'll just go back to our hometown; I guarantee we won't take a penny of Yang Yumin's salary."

Li Ye listened to Yang Huaihua's words and always felt something was wrong, so he smiled and said: "Auntie, you say that, but as the saying goes, raising a child is for old age. You raised this son, Yang Yumin; isn't it only right to spend a few of his pennies?"

"No, no," Yang Huaihua waved her hands repeatedly: "It's Yumin's good fortune to be admitted to the capital. We women shouldn't be greedy; we can't drag the child down."

"."

Looking at Yang Huaihua's somewhat nervous eyes, Li Ye pondered the meaning.

Yang Huaihua is showing her attitude to him!

This is just like the marriage conditions in some regions decades later—wanting cars and houses, but not parents; once the son gets married, the mother is kicked out.

But in the eighties, this kind of thinking was very rare. There were no shortage of mothers-in-law who rode on the heads of their sons and daughters-in-law to act domineering.

If this were ignored, the son and daughter-in-law would be pointed at by the spine.

Li Ye smiled and didn't say anything, then asked Yang Yujiao to serve him another bowl of noodles. After eating it heartily, the nervousness on Yang Huaihua's face finally faded away completely.

After the meal, Li Ye got up to say goodbye, and the little girl Yang Yujiao saw Li Ye out.

When getting into the car at the door, Li Ye suddenly asked her: "Yujiao, why haven't I seen your father?"

"."

Yang Yujiao was stunned for a moment and whispered: "He's farming in our hometown!"

The night was a bit dark, and Li Ye couldn't see what was in Yang Yujiao's eyes, but he could feel her strangeness.

"Oh, that's good too."

Li Ye hurriedly got in the car, started it, and drove away.