The train driver in the courtyard

A day without seeing you feels like a day, a month without seeing you feels like a month.

After seeing off Aunt Liu and He Yushui and closing the door, Li Aiguo finally sat down and took a breath.

Snapped!Snapped!
Miss Chen placed the wine pot and wine glass on the table and pointed inside the house: "I calculated today as a good day, I guarantee I can get pregnant."

Only then did Li Aiguo realize that Miss Chen had already made preparations.

Her long hair, which had been washed and combed several times, was scattered on her shoulders. Her oval face, which was coated with body cream, exuded a faint fragrance. She also changed into a bright red cheongsam with a slit to the waist. Her smooth and white long legs were particularly eye-catching, and the most terrible thing was that the slit was faintly visible.

This is a rebellion!
Li Aiguo is also a man who pees while standing, so how could he let a woman do that?

Dry!
Night, quiet.

Two hours later.

"This daughter-in-law is getting more and more capable..." Li Aiguo looked at the mess on the ground. Instead of being lazy, he looked back with a doting look at Miss Chen who was lying on her back in a strange posture. He stretched and went down to clean up the mess on the ground.

"Brother Aiguo, my sister-in-law said that this method will guarantee pregnancy." After completing a set of difficult movements, Miss Chen snuggled up to the rough man's chest.

Li Aiguo rubbed her hair and said with a smile: "Don't worry, you can get pregnant eventually."

Having said that, Miss Chen was still under tremendous pressure. Li Aiguo was the only son in three generations. They had been married for more than a year, but there was still no sign of pregnancy.

Li Aiguo saw that Miss Chen was biting her lips, and knew that she didn't listen, so he changed the subject: "How is the work on the street recently?"

"It's almost the end of the year, and the subdistrict office has to promote safe use of fire and deliver coal to lonely elderly people. It's very busy all day. These tasks are nothing."

As she spoke, the smile on Miss Chen's face disappeared, and she lowered her voice and said, "Some vagrants appear in the neighborhood from time to time, and the street authorities are also in a mess now."

Because they have no destination and move blindly, these people are also called blind migrants.

Li Aiguo then remembered that it was already the end of 1958 and there was a food shortage in the commune.

Although Li Aiguo is now working in the locomotive depot and Chen Xueru is working in the street office, their situations may be better than those of ordinary people, but Li Aiguo's style of doing things is to be cautious and prudent.

As the saying goes: If you have food in your hands, you will not be worried.

It seems that we should dig a cellar in advance and store some food in it.

"Brother Aiguo, I went to the tailor shop a few days ago. My father felt that something was not right in the world and wanted to talk to you. He also advised me to buy some food at the pigeon market and store it first."

Li Aiguo was a little shocked when he heard what Chen Xueru said.

Don't underestimate anyone, especially those who survived the war.

Should we call our father-in-law to help us dig the cellar? No, that's not possible. Chen Fangxuan is reliable, and so are Chen Xingjia and Chen Xingyi, but my sister-in-law has a slip of the tongue.

You can't tell this kind of thing even to your own father!
Li Aiguo was just thinking about it when he heard a quarrel next door again. He didn't need to listen carefully to know that Xu Damao and Liu Lan were fighting again.

Just now, Li Aiguo and Chen Xueru were fighting here, and the couple next door were also fighting fiercely, making it impossible for Li Aiguo to concentrate.

"Brother Aiguo, Xu Damao and Liu Lan have been quarreling for four or five days this time. Two thermoses were smashed. Will they get divorced?" Chen Xueru's smooth brows were wrinkled into pimples.

Li Aiguo smoothed it out with his hand, took a bite and said, "It shouldn't be. If they really wanted to get divorced, they would have gone to get a divorce certificate long ago."

"That's right." Chen Xueru breathed a sigh of relief.

Although Liu Lan is hot-tempered, she is not a bad person at heart. Since she came to the compound, she has always had a good relationship with Chen Xueru. Chen Xueru does not want to see Liu Lan alone again.

These days, it is almost impossible for a woman to survive with two children.

The night is getting darker.

Early the next morning.

When Miss Chen, whose jaw was almost dislocated, got up from the bed, rubbing her sore cheek, Li Aiguo had already prepared dinner.

The meals were simple, cornmeal porridge, and the staple food was white flour buns.

Plain food brings a different flavor to life.

After eating and drinking, Li Aiguo rode his bicycle back to Qianmen Locomotive Depot.

Captain Bai of the 131 crew was relieved to see that Li Aiguo had finally returned.

"Aiguo, it's almost the end of the year. I left you on the train and I always felt uneasy when I was driving."

The substitute train driver, Lao Zhao, is also an experienced train driver. His driving skills are impeccable, but he is only good at driving trains. When encountering unexpected situations, he is often at a loss.

A few days ago, Train No. 131 hit an old ox when passing the military grain station.

This matter was originally easy to handle.

The locomotive depot paid the members a sum of money and bought the old ox.

The members got money and the maintenance section got meat, so everyone was happy.

but.

Lao Zhao is a guy with a bad temper.

He immediately rushed off the train, pointed at the member whose face turned blue with fear and cursed him, accusing him of destroying railway facilities and threatening to send him to the railway police station.

He was just angry because of the train accident and wanted to scare the old member.

As a result, the scare was not enough, as it scared the old member away.

A moment later, seventeen or eighteen young members of the commune came running over carrying shoulder poles and hoes and surrounded the train.

If Captain Bai had not stepped in in time to defuse the other party's anger, a serious accident might have occurred.

"Don't worry, I will definitely work hard."

Our Li Tiechui is a clear-headed man. Train driver is his real profession, and other jobs can only be considered hobbies.

In the following period of time, Li Aiguo drove a big train between Beijing and Tianjin as he did in the past, and he lived a happy life.

The situation in Xu Damao's family was just as Li Aiguo expected.

After Liu Lan and Xu Damao had been arguing for seven or eight days, the residents in the compound could no longer bear it and sent someone to notify Xu's father.

When Xu's father learned about the situation, he rushed to the courtyard and gave Xu Damao a good scolding by holding up his shoe sole.

"Don't you know what's going on with you, kid?"

After hearing this, Xu Damao was speechless.

Xu Damao was infertile, and Liu Lan marrying him not only solved his marriage problem, but also the problem of continuing the family line.

In this marriage, Xu Damao achieved a win-win situation.

In the end, Xu Damao bought some floral cloth and cotton, and asked Chen Xueru to help make a new floral cotton jacket for Liu Lan as an apology.

Liu Lan also knew that if she divorced Xu Damao, it would not be easy for her to marry a man who had a formal job but was infertile, so she forgave Xu Damao.

This is exactly in line with the old saying, "Open your eyes wide before marriage and close one eye after marriage."

After the Xu family’s affairs came to an end, the compound became lively again.

This time it is the Jia family's joy.

Qin Huairu was pregnant again. Jia Zhang was very happy and boasted to everyone in the yard that she was going to have another grandson.

Qin Huairu, however, didn't want this child.

"Mom, Dongxu only brings home ten yuan a month now, and you still have to buy painkillers. We can barely make ends meet, so how can we afford to have a baby?"

Hearing this, Jia Zhang was furious and pointed at Qin Huairu's nose and said, "I knew you had a problem with me taking painkillers. Do you think I want to take that stuff?

If I don't eat for a day, my whole body aches. I have to take painkillers for the sake of this family and to help with housework. "When Jia Zhang said "for the sake of this family", Qin Huairu was speechless for a moment.

If she dared to say anything more, Jia Zhang would scold her for being unfilial.

But the problem of no money and no food has not been solved.

"Don't worry. Once the baby is born, won't the neighbors in the compound have to watch us suffer?"

Qin Huairu said quietly: "Mom, you wanted to eat dumplings yesterday, but you walked around most of the yard and couldn't borrow any flour or meat."

"It's all Li Aiguo's fault. If he hadn't caused discord between us and the residents, would the residents have given us things when we asked them to lend us money?"

No matter how much you curse, you still have to find a way to borrow money and food.

Jia Zhang came up with an idea: "Ask Yi Zhonghai for help. Our family is going to have a baby now. Yi Zhonghai is Dongxu's master, so shouldn't he show some appreciation?"

"But our family has fallen out with the uncle's family," Qin Huairu said.

"What if we have a falling out? With my Jia Zhang's ability, can't we repair the relationship?"

People have to bow their heads under the eaves.

After Jia Zhang made up her mind, she would chat with the aunt every day and build relationships with her, crying from time to time about her past mistakes.

Auntie was a weak-hearted woman who couldn't bear to see others crying in front of her, so she advised Yi Zhonghai: "Old Yi, now the Jia Zhang family seems to have realized their mistakes. Dongxu is actually a good person. There is no need for us to really sever ties with them."

"How about this, let's pick up Jia Dongxu, the elderly man, for now."

Yi Zhonghai felt that in order to deal with Li Aiguo, he should unite more people who could be united.

The Jia family is considered a wealthy family in the Siheyuan, and will be able to help him a lot in the future.

Yi Zhonghai treated Jia Dongxu far worse than before and only gave him a few kilograms of corn flour.

Jia Zhang felt that all her efforts were in vain, but she could only secretly curse Yi Zhonghai for being stingy at home.

The relationship between the two families went from being tense to being seemingly acceptable.

All this has nothing to do with our Li Aiguo.

He had already brought Chen Xueru to the next room.

Those were the two rooms that Fan Jin had previously owned, which were later assigned to Chen Xueru by the Daqianmen Street Office.

One was converted into a bedroom and the other was a storage room.

Chen Xueru was very curious when she saw Li Aiguo holding the hoe and chisel.

"Brother Aiguo, what are you going to do?"

"Digging a cellar."

Li Aiguo closed the doors and windows and told Chen Xueru his thoughts.

Chen Xueru had suffered from hunger as a child, and she had dealt with migrant workers in the street office before, so she knew that the situation might have changed.

I fully support Li Aiguo's decision.

"I'll help you too."

The houses in the courtyards are all old houses, and the ground is not compacted. After removing the bricks, the soil underneath can be easily removed with a shovel.

Li Aiguo also borrowed a manganese steel pickaxe from the locomotive section's construction team. This thing can scrape off a large piece of stone, let alone the ground.

There is also a manual drill, which is equivalent to a human-powered electric shovel. When encountering a solid place, you can drill through the soil by just shaking the handle vigorously.

With the help of these professional tools, digging a cellar becomes easy, but how to deal with the excavated soil becomes a big issue.

Chen Xueru came up with an idea: "Aunt Liu has a vegetable garden in the backyard. It's a low-lying area. When it rains, it's easy for water to accumulate. We can transport the soil there."

"That's a good idea. If anyone asks, our soil is transported in from outside the city."

Residents in the compound often go outside the city to dig soil and plant flowers and vegetables, and no one can find fault with it.

Li Aiguo looked at Chen Xueru with admiration. This girl is becoming more and more cautious now.

After determining the place to dump the soil, Li Aiguo and Chen Xueru started the project of digging the cellar.

The project was quite large and needed to be kept secret, but Li Aiguo was not in a hurry. He would go into the next room every now and then to work for a while.

In the middle of the night, Li Aiguo had just poured soil into Aunt Liu's vegetable plot and returned to the backyard with his hands behind his back, when he saw two figures walking stealthily from the middle yard.

"Yan Jiecheng, please use some strength."

"Dad, keep your voice down. It will be troublesome if others hear you."

I saw the third uncle and Yan Jiecheng coming over carrying a large sack.

The third uncle also saw Li Aiguo and was stunned where he was, with the expression on his face extremely interesting.

He opened his mouth and said, "It's patriotism. Didn't your third aunt grow vegetables in the backyard? Look, we found some soil."

It would have been fine if he had stopped, but Yan Jiecheng was carrying a bag and walking forward, and suddenly the bag couldn't be pulled anymore, and almost knocked Yan Jiecheng down.

Yan Jiecheng ignored him and said angrily: "Dad, what are you doing? Hurry up, if people find out that we are digging a cellar..."

The two of them spoke almost at the same time, and when they realized that what the other person said seemed wrong, they shut up almost at the same time.

Time stopped at this moment, and a strange atmosphere filled the air.

The third uncle's family also dug a cellar. Li Aiguo felt that he had underestimated this stingy old man.

The third uncle managed to survive with his family during the years of war, but he could not have done it simply by being stingy.

Later, they bought a bicycle and a TV, and their life became even more comfortable than Yi Zhonghai's family.

There must be other abilities.

For example, like Chen Fangxuan, he has a keen insight into suffering.

After four or five minutes of silence, Li Aiguo spoke first.

"Uncle, when the vegetable garden is ready, ask Aunt to plant some more Chinese cabbage. I like that."

"Hey, hey, hey, don't worry. Your third aunt told me before that she would send some to your house after she grows the vegetables."

"Go to bed early after you're done, so as not to wake everyone up."

Li Aiguo yawned, then staggered into the house with his hands behind his back.

When he saw the door was closed, the uncle loosened his grip and sat down on the ground, his back covered with cold sweat.

Yan Jiecheng pointed at Li Aiguo's back and said, "Dad, Brother Aiguo believes it. Look, he believes it. Hehehehe."

Snapped!
Before he could finish his words, Yan Jiecheng was slapped on the forehead.

"Do you believe what we said just now? If you don't believe it, how can you believe in patriotism? Are you smarter than patriotism?" The third uncle glared at Yan Jiecheng with disappointment.

Yan Jiecheng shrank his neck and said, "Brother Aiguo won't tell anyone, right?"

"No, even though Aiguo is a bit stingy and doesn't give the waste paper to our family, he is a good person."

The third uncle got up, dusted himself off, and picked up the sack: "Let's go, hurry up."

The two men carried the sacks and walked towards the vegetable field humming.

(End of this chapter)