1979: Reopening Wenhao Road from the Village

Looking at Chen Weidong, Yang Shulin thought for a moment and then nodded: "Then let's all go together. Old Wang, have someone put more wheat straw on the truck and bring an old cotton quilt."

After all, with Su Man being pregnant and Chen Weidong being a patient, it's best to prepare more supplies.

……

"Is Sui Sui settled in?"

Chen Weidong and Su Man squeezed into the carriage, Yang Shulin drove the carriage with a whip, and He Yan sat on the other side of the carriage shaft.

He Yan was originally supposed to drive, but Yang Shulin was a little worried about his driving skills, so he took over the driving himself.

"I'm all settled in. I'll have Fu Xiao look after things for a while."

Chen Weidong thought for a moment before remembering that Fu Xiao was also an educated youth at the educated youth settlement. She had a particularly good relationship with Su Man back then, but since Su Man passed away, he had never seen her again after returning to his hometown with Chen Xiaosui and Chen Xiaoan.

The educated youth sent to the countryside came from all over the country. Not to mention anything else, just the eight educated youth from Yangjiatun alone came from all over the country.

Chen Weidong nodded, his body involuntarily curling up slightly. He felt the cold wind seeping into his bones through the seams of his clothes, so he tightened the quilt around Su Man's neck.

He looked up at the azure sky; he hadn't seen such a blue sky in a long time.

After the millennium, the city was shrouded in gray all day long. Forget about blue skies and white clouds, it was even harder to see stars at night. In spring and autumn, the sky was filled with yellow sand and smog, making it impossible to open one's eyes.

"Cover yourself up too, don't catch a cold!"

Su Man moved the blanket a little closer to Chen Weidong.

Looking at the thoughtful Su Man, Chen Weidong felt a warmth in his heart and secretly vowed that in this life he would definitely keep her by his side.

Su Man was a well-known good girl in the surrounding area. At that time, many men in the educated youth settlement and Yangjiatun were interested in her, but Chen Weidong acted quickly and seized the opportunity.

The reason he was able to marry Su Man was not only because he acted quickly, but also because he had a handsome face. He was 1.78 meters tall, with a face like jade, a nose like a hanging gall, thick eyebrows and big eyes with natural eye bags, and a set of white teeth when he smiled. He was a standard "pretty boy" but still had a dashing air. Without boasting, he was a handsome young man in the surrounding area, no less than Tang Guoqiang or Zhu Shimao.

In addition, he was good with words and they were both at the educated youth settlement. Before long, he and Su Man got together. Otherwise, it would have been really hard to find her after they returned to the city.

This is related to his playboy nature. Even though he has been married for several years, he still has the temperament of a young man and likes to have fun.

In his youth, he was a notorious hooligan in the alleys and alleys, spending his days idly, hanging out with friends and doing nothing productive.

He dropped out of junior high school. If it weren't for the Down to the Countryside Movement, which brought him to Yangjiatun, he probably wouldn't even be able to find a wife now.

After all, the neighbors all know him well and would definitely not marry their daughters to him. That would be like pushing their daughters into a fire pit... no, they just don't like him.

Although he toned down his personality a bit after marriage, he was still not very responsible towards his family. Apart from going to work and tending horses, Su Man basically took care of everything at home.

Su Man has been taking care of her eldest daughter, Chen Xiaosui, since birth; he has basically never interfered with her.

Not long after Su Man passed away in his previous life, he was caught up in the mass return of educated youth to the city. Because of his status as a married widow, and because the brigade secretaries understood that it was too difficult for him to raise two children on his own, he was given priority to return to the city.

After returning to the city, Chen Xiaosui and Chen Xiaoan were taken care of by their parents, and he didn't have to worry about them much. As a result, the two children weren't very close to him when they grew up.

In their past life, ever since they grew up, they could only go home twice a year, and even when they did, they didn't communicate much with each other.

In his later years, Chen Weidong, lying in his hospital bed, also realized his mistakes. He couldn't blame his children entirely, since he himself hadn't fulfilled his responsibilities as a father, and it was normal for his children not to be close to him.

He never expected that God would give him another chance. This time, he was determined to make up for the regrets of his previous life and ensure that Suman and the children could live a good life.

……

It's about 50 li from Yangjiatun to Lin'an County. The roads are all dirt roads now, and there's snow on them. It took them more than four hours to get to the county hospital.

This is still a horse-drawn carriage; if it were an oxcart or a donkey cart, it would probably take even longer.

Lin'an County Hospital is located in the center of the county. It consists of rows of single-story brick buildings built in the 1950s, with gray tiled roofs and rusty rain gutters.

The outpatient department is in the front, the wards are in the back, and there is a drafty passageway in the middle.

A cast-iron stove burned in the outpatient room, the soot mingling with the smell of Lysol. Peeling plaster revealed adobe bricks, and old newspapers pasted on the ceiling were soaked into a map-like pattern by the leaking rain.

Yang Shulin and He Yan first used the brigade's letter of introduction to register Chen Weidong. Then the doctor carefully examined Chen Weidong's head and asked him to have his blood drawn and an X-ray taken.

Fortunately, Yang Shulin came along this time; otherwise, he would have had a problem getting medical treatment. At this time, without a letter of introduction from the brigade, it would be impossible to get an appointment.

This is also why Chen Weidong chose to feign illness; otherwise, it wouldn't have been easy for Su Man to come to the county town while pregnant and giving birth. At the very least, she would have had a hard time getting past Yang Shulin and Wang Jianshe.

The X-ray room and laboratory are crammed into a corner, with a 200 mA X-ray machine and a few microscopes constituting "large equipment".

The IV stand was welded from iron rods, and the hospital beds were painted military green. A small ramp was built in the corridor to facilitate pushing medicine carts. The morgue was tucked away in a corner of the courtyard, with the word "Silence" painted in red on the whitewashed wall. When the wind blew, the whole building looked like a hollow drum.

"It's nothing serious, you might have a concussion, you just need to rest for a few days."

Upon hearing the doctor's diagnosis, Su Man breathed a sigh of relief and quickly thanked the doctor, saying, "Thank you, doctor, for your help."

Yang Shulin and He Yan, who were standing behind, were also much more relaxed, but their expressions changed slightly when they saw the payment slip.

The registration fee was 10 cents, the blood test was 40 cents, and the X-ray was 3 yuan. In just a short while, 3.5 yuan was gone.

You should know that in Yangjiatun, a commune member could only earn ten work points a day. Ten work points were one day's value. At the end of the year, the highest daily value was only six cents, and the lowest was only three or four cents. Usually, it was less than five cents.

Chen Weidong and his colleagues could only earn 50 cents a day, and their monthly income was at most 15 yuan. Even if they worked every single day of the year, they would only earn 180 yuan.

In the north, the winters are too cold, there isn't much work, and the work points are low, so on average, one earns less than 100 yuan a year.

Each person's monthly expenses are about six or seven yuan. For a family like Chen Weidong's, which consists of three people and only two able-bodied individuals, it's a miracle if they can even break even on their annual expenses for oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and lighting. Sometimes, in bad years, they even have to go into debt and use up the next year's grain quota.

Three yuan and fifty cents could buy more than twenty jin of salt. You should know that now each jin of salt is only 14 cents, vinegar is 7 cents a jin, and soy sauce is 14 cents. One yuan can buy fourteen bottles of vinegar and seven jin of soy sauce.

Even a pair of canvas shoes only cost 1.8 yuan, 1.5 yuan could buy a pair of casual shoes or an enamel washbasin, 2 yuan could buy a thermos, and an enamel teacup was only 0.6 yuan. 1 yuan could buy a large sheepskin towel, and 13 yuan could even buy a Dacron shirt...

For three yuan and fifty cents, you can basically buy rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea, and even some household items.

Thinking of this, Su Man felt a pang of heartache, no, it seemed like...