Double-Cut During the War of Resistance: My Wife Came from 1937

"Hongwei!"

Xia Weiwei gently tapped Ma Hongwei with her delicate finger and asked, "How much is 90 euros?"

"Let me check it for you!"

Ma Hongwei did a quick search and said, "One euro is less than 7.84 RMB. A second-class ticket on the high-speed train from Jianghan City to Xiangjiang costs 768 RMB!"

"Only 768 yuan?"

Xia Weiwei was somewhat incredulous; she felt the price was too cheap.

She remembered that Ma Hongwei had mentioned a cousin who was a teacher at a junior high school in town and earned 2800 yuan a month.

The other party's monthly salary is almost enough for four trips.

Is 768 still cheap?

Ma Hongwei couldn't help but say, "This money is enough for a family's living expenses for a month."

Xia Weiwei countered, "Do you know how much it would cost for me and my family to travel from Shanghai to Beijing?"

Ma Hongwei asked, "How much?"

"The first-class tickets for the express train we took cost 49 yuan per person!"

Xia Weiwei couldn't help but sigh, "This is just the price of one train ride, but this amount is more than an average worker earns in a year. For workers in Beijing and Shanghai, it would take half a year's salary to take one ride."

In Beijing and Shanghai, workers could earn eight or nine silver dollars a month, while in other places they only earned three or four.

"First-class seats are expensive!"

Ma Hongwei said, "A business class ticket from Jianghan to Hong Kong costs about 2400 yuan!"

"Your salary is only half a month to a month's wages, it's not as outrageous as what we get over there!"

Xia Weiwei sighed, "I didn't understand these things before, so I didn't think it was a big deal, but now it seems the difference is huge."

Ma Hongwei asked, "Do your trains have this system?"

Perhaps he used to ride many old-fashioned green trains and only knew about hard seats and sleeper berths.

It wasn't until he took a high-speed train that he discovered there were different classes: business class, first class, and second class.

"Of course they were divided. In our time, trains were divided into first-class, second-class, and third-class carriages, and the ticket prices were different for each type of carriage."

"Take the journey from Hankou to Beiping as an example. The ticket price for a third-class seat on the express train was 20 silver dollars, for a second-class seat it was 30 silver dollars, and for a first-class seat it was 40 silver dollars. The ticket price for a hard seat on the slow train was 15 silver dollars, and for a sleeper berth it was 30 silver dollars."

Xia Weiwei explained, "The first-class carriage on the express train is the most comfortable. The seats are spacious, one seat per person, and the floor is carpeted. It also has a dressing room and a toilet. This is for short-distance trains. For long-distance trains, the first-class carriage is a sleeper carriage."

"The second-class carriage also has padded seats, but several people are squeezed onto one bench. My classmate and I sat in it once."

"As for the third-class carriage, I have never ridden in it. I heard it is very simple, with hard wooden seats and a cramped and narrow space. It is also next to the locomotive, so the vibration is very strong. The coal smoke from the locomotive will also make people covered in dust."

"I heard from some classmates that the first thing they do when they arrive at the station in third class is to brush off the coal dust from their clothes and hair."

Ma Hongwei had never ridden a coal-fired steam train, but from Xia Weiwei's few words, he could sense how backward that kind of train was.

……

In the video, the Irish man enters the carriage, which is clean, tidy, bright, and spacious.

"Second-class seats are this luxurious? You can even charge your phone upstairs? This toilet feels cleaner than the one at the Six Nations Hotel!"

This was the first time Xia Weiwei had ever seen an electric locomotive.

She saw a foreign guy stand a coin upright by the window, and the coin remained upright throughout the train's journey without falling over.

The Irish guy then pointed his camera at the front of the carriage, where the current speed was displayed as 348 km/h.

Along the way, every station was extremely modern, and every city was filled with high-rise buildings.

On the roof of the vehicle, a small screen was playing an ice skating program for passengers to watch, but everyone was looking down at their phones.

The carriage was completely quiet, with only occasional sounds, almost like being in a library.

After watching the video, Xia Weiwei rested her chin on her right hand and said, "That's so nice, I really envy you!"

Ma Hongwei reassured her, "Once we can speak with the higher-ups, we'll be able to get you a Hyundai ID card. I believe that day won't be too far off!"

Actually, there is another way: to obtain foreign citizenship for the other party.

But there are two problems here. One is whether Xia Weiwei is willing to become a foreigner.

Another problem is that Ma Hongwei doesn't know anyone from abroad.

It sounds quite dangerous in Southeast Asia right now; many people are being detained there.

For example, at the beginning of the year, a woman from Guangdong Province was invited to Thailand to participate in the Songkran Festival, and then she never returned.

Her father even sold everything he owned to pay a ransom of over 200,000 yuan, but still couldn't get his daughter back.

If the two of them ran away abroad and got arrested, they'd be in big trouble.

Just think about it, and you can imagine what kind of things a beautiful girl might encounter.

"Let me figure out which phone to buy first!"

Ma Hongwei opened JD.com and searched for camera phones.

The first one to come out was vivo.

Below the two vivo phones are OPPO phones.

"As for OPPO, forget it!"

Ma Hongwei thought of Mother's Day and the song "My Mother Has Two Husbands".

OPPO released a poster with the following text: "My mom has two husbands, one is my dad, and the other she only sees twice a year. She basically doesn't dress up for dates with my dad, but when she sees the other one, she practically wants to wear a wedding dress."

Most importantly, one of the pictures accompanying the poster is of a "mother" holding a "Brother" light sign at the entrance of a concert.

This reminded Ma Hongwei of a young male celebrity's concert, where a group of female fans brought their own wedding dresses to the venue, saying they wanted to marry him there.

Some of these women even have boyfriends; when they wear wedding dresses to concerts, their boyfriends wait outside.

Then, it reminded Ma Hongwei of his "real husband".

On her wedding day, a woman didn't post wedding photos of herself and her husband on her social media. Instead, she posted a photo of herself with a male celebrity and declared to everyone that this was her "real husband."

So who is her husband in real life? A fake husband?

"Let's buy a Vivo!"

Ma Hongwei is neither an Apple fan nor a Huawei fan, so naturally he wouldn't buy these two expensive phones.

Save the money, spend it.

We shouldn't spend thousands of dollars more just for a little bit of performance improvement.

Besides, he only uses this phone as a video player and for taking photos and recording audio; he doesn't play games or anything like that, so he doesn't need a high-end chip or system.

"We also need to buy some video cameras or camcorders!"

Ma Hongwei did some research and found that professional cameras and video cameras were all too big and bulky.

The most crucial point is that it is also very complicated to operate.

Those commanders were going to scout out enemy positions; if they used tools that were too big or too cumbersome, they would likely be exposed.

"Let's just buy some DJI action cameras and a carbon fiber telescopic selfie stick!"