Chapter 51
Yan Lei never expected Regimental Commander Zhao to chase him down and ask if he was short on money or if something had happened at home.
Yan Lei: “?”
“It’s not that… why is your wife wearing coarse cloth?” Regimental Commander Zhao said, “When I walked into your courtyard last night, I thought some old lady had come to visit.”
Yan Lei: “…”
Although Yan Lei knew that Qiao Wei had truly turned over a new leaf after that incident and wanted to live a solid life with him, he didn’t really understand the direction of her change in aesthetics.
It was very puzzling.
But, husband and wife are one.
“No, there are no financial difficulties.” He straightened his hat and said, “It’s just that lately, she and I… have been communicating and learning very well. We two… have made progress together.”
Negative distance communication.
Making rapid progress in certain aspects, exploring a new world together.
It was true that Comrade Qiao had a rather heavy petty-bourgeois mindset in the past; since Regimental Commander Zhao was on such good terms with Yan Lei, how could he not know?
Upon hearing this, he was very happy for him.
“It should have been this way long ago. She is also a child of the working class with deep roots and red seedlings, so why was she raised so delicately?”
“But it doesn’t matter, as long as she can change. You scared me; I thought something had happened in your family for you to be so frugal. Tell your wife there’s no need to treat herself so harshly; just being decent is enough. After all, we are a cadre family, and this good life was earned with our blood. Eat well, dress well.”
“Her progress is… what is that word, visible to all? No, visible to the eyes?”
Yan Lei: “… Visible to all.”
He was certain it was “visible to all.” He had read it more than once in the books he had been reading lately. In fact, you only need to read it once to remember it. Read it two or three times, and you remember it firmly.
Come to think of it, his vocabulary had indeed improved recently.
“Yes, yes, yes, tell Little Qiao, her progress is visible to all!” Regimental Commander Zhao said earnestly, “If she could stop making you wash the dishes, she would have no flaws.”
When he got home, he first told Sister Yang about the salary raise.
Sister Yang was extremely happy.
Then he told Sister Yang about Regimental Commander Fan not getting a raise.
When Sister Yang heard that Xia Hehua’s husband hadn’t received a raise, she was even happier than when she heard her own husband had.
“Serves him right!” she laughed and scolded.
Regimental Commander Zhao also mentioned that Division Commander Pan was going to launch a rectification campaign, requiring cadres to keep their family members in check: “No names were named, but everyone knows it’s a scolding directed at Fan Shigui.”
“I heard that as soon as we left last night, he was called over and scolded. Fan Shigui went home and looked like he had beaten his wife.”
“Although Xia Hehua deserves a beating, it’s not as good as me beating her myself.” Sister Yang spat, “A man beating his wife is pathetic.”
Finally, Regimental Commander Zhao said: “Little Yan is fine, he’s not short of money.”
As a man, although Yan Lei washing dishes was particularly unmanly, Regimental Commander Zhao had to save face for him. He put his hands on his hips: “Yan has finally become a real man and has tamed Little Qiao. Now Qiao has turned over a new leaf, like a true daughter of the proletariat, becoming particular about hard work and plain living.”
“So that’s how it is. Sigh, I was worried.” Sister Yang breathed a sigh of relief.
The couple both felt it was quite good.
Qiao Wei used to feel cold and distant, but now she was wearing coarse cloth clothes and shuffling in cloth shoes with layered soles, making people feel particularly close to her.
“You have to say, who in the village can dress as well as she does?” Sister Yang praised, “It’s clearly similar clothing, but when she wears it, it’s different.”
Moreover, although she was dressed like this, no one would think she was a villager.
It was strange; no matter how she dressed, she was still a city person. Others couldn’t learn it.
“Oh, about this, how should we thank Little Qiao?” Sister Yang pondered.
Come to think of it, if it were just her, she probably could only have had a big argument with Xia Hehua and scratched each other’s faces. How could there be such a satisfying result that makes one happy from the bottom of their heart?
“Saturday! Call the Yan couple, let’s go out to eat!” Regimental Commander Zhao had just received a raise and was in high spirits.
“Deal!”
Gangzi ran to Yan Lei’s house: “Uncle Yan, Uncle Yan.”
Yan Lei came out and saw: “Gangzi, come in, come eat some fruit.”
“I won’t eat.” Gangzi waved his hand, “My mom and dad asked me to come tell you, don’t cook tomorrow night. My dad said he wants to treat you and Auntie to dinner out.”
“What for?” Yan Lei laughed, “Celebrating his raise?”
“I don’t know, as long as we can eat out, that’s fine.” Gangzi was also very happy, holding up the one-yuan note in his hand, “I’m going to the restaurant now to say hello and pay the deposit.”
Eating out was a luxury. Although there were many military families in the small town, the Residential Compound had a Cafeteria, so the frequency of eating out wasn’t high.
Especially when there were many people, one had to pay a deposit in advance so the restaurant could prepare the ingredients. Otherwise, there might be a situation where they were out of things.
Gangzi greeted Yan Lei and happily went to pay the deposit, clutching that one-yuan note.
Yan Lei turned to tell Qiao Wei: “Old Zhao is treating us to dinner tomorrow.”
“I heard it, I’m not deaf.” Qiao Wei laughed and said, “A salary raise, it’s worth celebrating.”
Regimental Commander Zhao had said a lot of things to Sister Yang, and Yan Lei had told Qiao Wei most of it when he got home.
He even used the topic of Regimental Commander Zhao’s raise to teach Qiao Wei about some internal Military Unit matters.
For example, even though they were both Regimental Commanders, there were actually “official” Regimental Commanders and “irregular” ones.
“It hasn’t been that obvious since the military ranks were abolished.” He said, “When there were still military ranks, the irregular ones had lower ranks than the official ones, and you could tell at a glance.”
Of course, there were many complex historical reasons for this.
In short, both Yan Lei and Regimental Commander Zhao were official Regimental Commanders. Regimental Commander Fan was an irregular Regimental Commander. He had originally wanted to use this salary grading to narrow the gap; he had even pulled strings, but he didn’t expect it to fail at the very end.
“Division Commander Pan is right. If a cadre doesn’t even have the ability to restrain their family members, they might as well not be one.” Qiao Wei said.
In the news of later generations, she had seen too many cadre family members taking bribes, with the cadre crying and wailing as if it were all the wife’s fault. Hilarious, was he dead when his wife took the money? Was he blind when there was so much extra money at home?
Yan Lei said: “I trust you.”
He had always trusted her.
Although she had a bad reputation in the past, she had never bullied anyone or taken advantage of people. She was just cold, aloof, and didn’t like dealing with people.
Now, since bringing her back, in just half a month, Yan Lei had developed a strong sense of trust in the person before him, feeling that she was a reliable person.
He thought, perhaps it was because she had always been unable to get over marrying a rural man, so she had lived passively.
Now that she had thought it through and started to face marriage positively and live a good life, her quality and ability as an educated person began to manifest.
Yesterday at Division Commander Pan’s house, she was clearly dressed very simply, even simpler than Sister Yang, who was still wearing a floral shirt. She wore a plain-colored coarse cloth outfit, but when she stated the sequence of events to Division Commander Pan, her manner of speech was generous, unhurried, and calm.
At that moment, Yan Lei felt amazed.
The educated woman he had imagined was embodied in her at that moment.
It wasn’t the so-called “Western style” packaged by shaking cloth and leather shoes, but a temperament that attracted people from the inside out.
At that time, Yan Lei quickly glanced around at the crowd.
He saw appreciative gazes in Division Commander Pan’s eyes. The guards went without saying.
Old Zhao and his wife also showed expressions of “as expected of an educated person.”
At this moment, a certain part of Yan Lei’s heart was greatly satisfied.
Old Zhao was still nagging him about washing dishes or not.
Ridiculous, if anyone’s wife was like this, anyone would rush to wash the dishes.
Just as he was feeling proud, Qiao Wei said: “Let’s talk about something.”
Yan Lei: “?”
When he went over, Qiao Wei pointed to the cool bed and asked: “Is it you who insists on putting that blue cushion in the middle every day?”
Yan Lei reacted immediately, surprised: “Did you move it to the side?”
He had thought it was Yan Xiang.
He thought it was the child not knowing how to arrange things neatly. There were three cushions, two of the same color, and one of a different color. Of course, you have to put the one with the different color right in the middle.
The old-fashioned style in Yan Lei sometimes really made Qiao Wei unable to help but smile.
Yan Lei was confused: “Isn’t it right to put it in the middle? Why put it to one side? That’s so untidy.”
Qiao Wei thought for a moment and felt she had to explain from the beginning: “Actually, in our China, we have always valued the Dao following nature. For example, the landscape in gardens is made to look as natural as possible…”
Qiao Wei gave Yan Lei a lecture, talking for nearly ten minutes, explaining to him that aesthetics is not just a single kind.
Yan Lei was thoughtful. He held his chin and looked Qiao Wei up and down.
Qiao Wei: “… What are you looking at?”
“This outfit of yours,” Yan Lei said, “When I first saw it yesterday, I thought, isn’t this what the village aunts wear? But actually, later when I looked, I felt it was different from what the village aunts wear. Where it’s different, I can’t say.”
Qiao Wei listened with great interest.
Yan Lei was encouraged and expressed his feelings: “After listening to you talk about these things, looking at it now, I feel that this outfit and this cushion look comfortable together.”
Even the straw sandals hanging on the wall, which he had always found unpleasant, now caught his eye. In this scene, there was Qiao Wei, sitting on the cool bed, leaning diagonally against the cushion, and above her head on the wall were the straw hat and straw sandals.
The straw hat was even wrapped with a strip of indigo coarse cloth, tied into a bow.
Things that were inexplicable and incomprehensible when placed separately before were now combined in one field of vision, and Yan Lei suddenly felt it looked like a painting.
The theme of this painting was comfort and relaxation.
It made people feel…
He said: “The eyes are comfortable.”
Yan Lei didn’t yet know that, under Qiao Wei’s guidance, his tolerance of thought had taken a step forward, faster than society.
Before, he only knew that steamed buns were edible; now he knew that rice was also delicious.
Qiao Wei naturally understood.
How important this matter was. Because the world was about to become either black or white, either beneficial or harmful; single-pole thinking and ideology would fill every corner, leaving people nowhere to hide.
Even if she hid and assimilated carefully, it was impossible to completely erase the things on her that were incompatible with this era.
If she lived with such a person, it would be too suffocating.
Qiao Wei’s eyes shone. She stood up happily, grabbed Yan Lei’s shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him.
The old-fashioned man panicked and hurriedly turned his head to look.
Fortunately, the son was squatting there wrestling with the sandbox, and he didn’t look up.
Yan Lei lowered his voice and scolded: “Don’t be crazy, let the child see!”
Qiao Wei glanced at Yan Xiang.
Yan Xiang, this very unusual child, had no conditions to learn knowledge, but instead showed interest in the simplest, most boring, and repetitive things.
For example, digging a pit. Other children would be interested for a while, dig a few shovelfuls, get their fill of fun, and leave it there.
Yan Xiang, however, even strictly planned his daily workload. When he was “working,” he would be very focused and devoted.
Unless there was something big, nothing could affect him.
Yesterday, his workload was delayed because of Sister Yang’s business, so he had been making up for yesterday’s amount all day today.
He still had a while to dig.
Qiao Wei retracted her gaze, raised her eyebrows at Yan Lei, and gave him a provocative look.
Dare you?
Yan Lei felt it wasn’t appropriate.
It wasn’t dark yet.
The old-fashioned man looked at the sky, looked at the eaves, and looked at the walls.
He looked at his wife, who was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, smiling but not quite. That arm was set off as snow-white by the indigo cloth.
The old-fashioned man stared at that arm, turned back to look at his son.
He pursed his lower lip, and his eyes became fierce.
Turning back, he scooped her up by the waist and carried her into the room with one arm.
With a bang, he closed the door behind him…
It wasn’t dark yet.
The little friend looked up, but didn’t pay attention.
Dig, dig, dig!
