1979: My fiancée is a goddess

Chapter 3 Returning to the city starts with paying the retirement fee

"what?"

Cheng Kaiyan stared in amazement at the mother in front of him who had a gentle smile on her face and stretched out her slender hand to him. She was speechless for a moment.

"What? You don't have any revolutionary initiative at all! Can I take your retirement pay? I'm saving it for you to get married!"

Xu Yuxiu supported her chin with her hand and looked at Cheng Kaiyan with a smile. There was no tenderness in her eyes anymore, only a cunning look.

Cheng Kaiyan was speechless for a moment. The first pot of gold she made after her rebirth was actually handed over to the public. She never expected that she would be such a mother.

Wasn’t it said that mothers in the old days were all good wives and mothers?
Okay...

Although Xu Yuxiu is already a mother, she was once a lady from a wealthy family, and the quirky nature of her youth has not completely disappeared.

In fact, Xu Yuxiu married Cheng Kaiyan's father when she was 18 years old. She was only in her early 39 years old now. In addition, she did not have a hard life during those years of reform.

People dig wild vegetables in the fields, hoeing the land under the scorching sun, working so hard all day but only harvesting one centimeter.

Xu Yuxiu teaches children in the village primary school. She is not exposed to the sun every day and still earns several work points.

The villagers were grateful to her and sent her some egg noodles from time to time. She lived a very comfortable life. Later, she was among the first group to return to the city after being rehabilitated.

"Why are you not convinced?"

Xu Yuxiu was still smiling, but one of her fair jade hands twisted towards Cheng Kaiyan's ear.

"Hiss! It hurts, it hurts, Mom, please let go! The money is sewn in my coat pocket, stop pulling it!"

Cheng Kaiyan felt a pain in his ears and cried out in agony. This was a treatment he had never experienced as an orphan in his previous life. At this moment, quarreling and playing with his mother made him feel a warm sense of belonging to home.

"You little brat! You've grown so powerful now. Can't your mother handle you?"

Xu Yuxiu chuckled and immediately pulled over a military coat hanging on a stool nearby. She searched several pockets and took out a dozen yuan. Then she searched the inner pocket and found a stack of banknotes rolled into a cylindrical shape.

The fine and delicate stitches on the edge of the pocket made Xu Yuxiu raise an eyebrow. She then turned the military coat over and finally found a few traces of mending, which looked like small flowers.

Xu Yuxiu understood, and then said with a smile: "Oh~ How come the young master has learned to sew clothes after being away for a few years?"

"No, someone else sewed it for me."

Cheng Kaiyan was concentrating on eating, but a female comrade-in-arms with a big pigtail and wearing a military uniform appeared in his mind. She was delicate but with a hint of heroism.

"Others? Are they related to each other?"

Xu Yuxiu knew very well that this stitching technique was obviously that of a girl, so she turned around and warned: "Don't do anything reckless, boy. Do you still remember that you had a childhood sweetheart? It's been a year or two since you last received a letter."

"Okay, okay, I get it!"

Cheng Kaiyan said perfunctorily that he was not interested in child marriage. It was already 1979, so why were they still holding on to those old feudal ideas?

Now is an era of free love. I don’t know how many educated youth have married and had children in the countryside. Their children are already five or six years old, but their parents in the city don’t even know about it.

There are so many examples, and when we return to the city, there is another round of chaos.

But he should just hand over the severance pay. He has plenty of ways to make money.

I just said that I wanted her to live a good life. Handing over this 1,500 yuan can be considered as a way of honoring her.

"Wow... Fifteen thousand? No wonder you couldn't help but take the retirement pay and ran back."

Xu Yuxiu had already removed the stitches. She licked her fingers, counted them one by one, and said with a bit of surprise.

At that time, new teachers in public high schools earned 26 yuan a month.

Xu Yuxiu has a bachelor's degree and has been teaching for nearly 20 years. In addition to her professional title, her monthly salary is 58 yuan.

Although it is not as high as the one or two hundred yuan salary of experts and professors, a monthly salary of more than 50 yuan is already quite good.

According to official statistics, the average annual wage for all the people in the economy these days is around 803 yuan. In reality, this may be greatly reduced. The annual wage for ordinary workers is around 200 to 300 yuan, which is equivalent to 20 to 30 yuan a month.

One thousand five hundred yuan is equivalent to what an average person can earn if they don't eat or drink for four or five years. Of course, this is indeed the salary that Cheng Kaiyan saved up for four years.

However, there is no such thing as salary in the army, it is called allowance.

The longer you serve in the army, the higher the allowance.

Six dollars in the first year, seven dollars in the second year, eight dollars in the third year, and ten dollars in the fourth year.

Even though Cheng Kaiyan had been in the army for four years, he only earned twelve yuan a month. The extra two yuan was due to his time on the front line of the war in southern Xinjiang, where he received an extra two yuan in wartime allowance.

Food, clothing and other necessities don't cost much on a daily basis, and Cheng Kaiyan was awarded second-class merit, which means that his retirement pay may be a little higher. According to the regulations on the resettlement of retired soldiers, it will increase by 10%, which leaves him with only fifteen hundred yuan.

"Don't say any more, it's all to honor you."

Cheng Kaiyan's heart was bleeding, but she looked unconcerned, with a smile on her face showing respect for her mother.

"Haha~ Look at what you're saying. What's mine is yours. Here... I'll give you ten dollars for snacks. It'll last you two months!"

Xu Yuxiu was very satisfied with her son's filial piety. She smiled with her hand covering her mouth, took out ten yuan, slapped it on the table, then got up and left.

You can actually say that ten yuan of pocket money can last for two months.

Cheng Kaiyan looked at his mother's back and his mouth twitched. He could already foresee how he would live in the future!
But this was in 1979, when reform and opening up had just begun, and 10 yuan was equivalent to half a month's salary. If you save a little, it should be enough.

No!

It is imperative to have your own small treasury!
Cheng Kaiyan was a little worried. A man cannot live without money!

He didn't want to ask for money from his mother. Although his mother lived frugally here alone, her health was not very good and medicine was also an expense.

This 1500 yuan retirement allowance was nothing. She just gave it to him. At worst, she could earn more. Besides, it was hers in the first place...

……

"Take a shower quickly, you stink!"

After dinner, Xu Yuxiu packed up her things and gave instructions with a look of disgust.

These words actually made Cheng Kaiyan feel like a college student in later generations going home for vacation. On the first day you are my darling, but on the second day I despise you in every way.

However, Cheng Kaiyan hadn't taken a shower for several days on the train, and the train was very stuffy, so she did smell.

Taking a bath is really difficult for people these days.

Boil water to wash it, use waste firewood and coal.

Go to the bathhouse and take a shower. It costs money.

Just like now, Cheng Kaiyan was standing in a corner of the kitchen with a sewer pipe, carrying two buckets of water scooped out of the pot and pouring them into a big red bathtub. For a moment, the kitchen was filled with fog.

This is called a sitz bath. Cheng Kaiyan remembered that when she was young, she was pressed into the bathtub and hot water was poured on her body. It was as hot as slaughtering a pig and removing its hair. The key point was that Xu Yuxiu insisted that it was not hot.

Recalling some good memories.

He had just taken off his clothes when the cold air from the window gave him goose bumps and he was shivering with cold. He couldn't help but shout at the top of his voice, "Mom! How about I go to the bathhouse to take a shower?"

"You want to go to the bathhouse to take a bath? You are a spendthrift! If you don't manage a household, you don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are. A bath ticket costs ten cents. How can you take a bath without two or three cents? You have too much money to burn, right?"

In the yard, Xu Yuxiu moved a stool and was washing clothes by the well. When she heard the noise in the house, she laughed and cursed.

Here, Cheng Kaiyan took a shower and changed into clean clothes, feeling extremely comfortable.

Back to my room, the space is neither big nor small, about 20 square meters.

It is no wonder that his peers in the yard have envied him since he was a child. There are very few only children these days. Every family has two or three children, and it is nothing to have four or five people living in one room.

There is a single bed made of jujube wood, a desk by the window, and a bookshelf next to the desk.

On it were placed the books that Cheng Kaiyan had read since childhood, as well as the lesson plans and notes made by Xu Yuxiu, and even the students' homework books. It was obvious that when Cheng Kaiyan was not at home, Xu Yuxiu used this place as a study.

The most eye-catching thing was the piano in the corner. Cheng Kaiyan walked closer and saw golden letters engraved in the middle of the piano cover: STEINWAY.

Wow! Another Steinway.

According to my mother, this piano was purchased when my grandmother was practicing piano as a child. At that time, the Xu family was still a scholarly family in Beijing, and they hired a French woman as a music teacher to teach piano. This Steinway was also purchased at her suggestion, for five thousand dollars!

Later, the family fell into poverty, and only this Steinway was kept as a family heirloom.

It carries the memories of her grandmother and mother, as well as Cheng Kaiyan's childhood piano practice time.

"crunch~"

Cheng Kaiyan slowly opened the piano cover. The wooden cover had been used for decades and the surface was already mottled and had many traces of collisions, but other parts were still as smooth as if they were painted with oil. Her mother had maintained it very well.

"Ding dong ding dong~"

As if triggering muscle memory, my fingers subconsciously played a chord on the keys.

Although the timbre was a little off, a name quickly popped up in my mind as I listened to the familiar yet slightly sad melody: Windy Street.

"Hmm? My memory..."

He looked surprised and confused, because at this moment he suddenly realized that the songs he had listened to and the novels he had read in his previous life... were all clearly visible in his mind and he could use them at will.

Goldfinger? Super memory?
Thinking of this, Cheng Kaiyan smiled and relaxed on the soft bed. She tilted her head to the side and sniffed the smell of laundry detergent and sunlight on the printed sheets.

Never had such a wonderful start!

Maybe writing some texts and becoming a plagiarist would be a good idea?
Thinking of this, waves of fatigue swept over him, and Cheng Kaiyan, lying on the bed, gradually sank into the deep sea.

"crunch~"

Xu Yuxiu, who had finished washing clothes in the yard, hung them up and pushed the door open and walked in.

Seeing Cheng Kaiyan lying on the bed with his arms and legs spread out, Xu Yuxiu smiled helplessly, "You little brat! You don't even cover yourself with a blanket when you sleep in the middle of winter!"

Cover yourself with the quilt and tuck in the corners.

"Now that I'm back, it seems like it's time to get married."

Xu Yuxiu thought to herself, turned around, sat at the table, and started writing a letter.

(End of this chapter)