A pleasant life in a courtyard

Chapter 17 Helping Needy Households

At seven or eight o'clock in the evening, there were not many pedestrians on the road.

Li Xiang refused Sun Guoqing's offer to send him off, and strolled home with the packed fire in his hand.

Compared with the hurried passers-by, it seems particularly leisurely and comfortable.

Thinking of the way Sun Guoqing was so amused that he was dumbfounded in the hotel just now, Li Xiang couldn't help but grinning with joy.

Sun Guoqing felt really guilty. He slapped his chest loudly and then put down his words. He Yuzhu's life-long affairs were all about him. His mother was the director of women's affairs. He had a lot of information about good girls, and he was guaranteed to make He Yuzhu happy. Eye.

There is no need to be so generous.

Li Xiang's original intention was just to let him play a role in Yuzhu's search for someone in the future. He could no longer just watch as before. After all, the girl he was going to introduce to others was stopped by him first.

He said that it was too much and that one girl with the right conditions would be enough.

Human nature is inherently greedy. If you just look around and think about the next scenery that will be better, you will end up with nothing.

He hurried to the door of the compound and stuffed the almost-cool fire into his schoolbag, lest he be seen and interrogated by his neighbors later.

That's the disadvantage of living in a compound. You can't hide anything. Your neighbors know better than you how your family is doing.

You have to eat something delicious in secret, even if it comes from a legitimate source.

Once you exceed everyone's default material level, you will feel inexplicably guilty, and you always feel like others are watching you.

Although it was just a few fires, no one could afford it, but Li Xiang still insisted that doing less was better than doing more.

When he came to the middle courtyard, he found that everyone was gathered here. He instantly understood that this was a meeting, but he didn't know what it was for. It had been two or three years since the last full hospital meeting. It's been months.

Many people also saw Li Xiang coming in from the outside, so it was hard for him to just walk away. Li Xiang used his height to search for his family members in the crowd, and soon he found Li's mother and the others.

The timing of Li Xiang's return was also coincidental, and he just missed the long speech of the three previous uncles.

He took a few steps to the Li family's bench, occupied Little Brother Li's original position, and let him lean against his legs.

Seeing that something was wrong with the atmosphere at the scene, he asked his eldest sister softly: "What did you say?"

The eldest sister frowned and told him: "We have to prepare for the winter in the courtyard, as we did in previous years, with Chinese cabbage and briquettes, and everyone will raise funds together."

Li Xiang wondered: "Well, shouldn't everyone go to the third uncle's place to queue up and report their numbers? Why is there no movement?"

Mother Li leaned over and interjected: "This year the hospital's assistance list has been changed. Our family's quota has been replaced by the Jia family's."

"If you change it, just change it. Our family has indeed recovered this year. There is no need to still occupy a quota."

Li Xiang said that he didn't care about this. He had no choice before, but now that he has the ability, he should stand on his own feet. He can't take the kindness of everyone for granted, as this will only make people disgusted.The eldest sister, who was getting bolder, rolled her eyes at him and said, "Who said we have to occupy the quota? Is our mother like that?"

After saying that, without waiting for Li Xiang to ask any more questions, she leaned into Li Xiang's ear and explained the whole story clearly.

"I don't know what the uncles are thinking. This year, not only do the neighbors in the courtyard have to share the cabbage and briquettes for several needy households, but they also have to make additional donations. Some households are really in difficulty, and they don't have any objections. But the Yan family and the Jia family are caught between them, and everyone feels it’s not appropriate.”

When Li Xiang heard what his eldest sister said, he immediately understood what the big guy was worried about.

The Jia family is rich, and Brother Dongxu has a lot of pensions and various subsidies. Everyone knows this and can't hide it.

The reason why I was chosen to be on the list this year is because it takes time for my sister-in-law and children to apply for urban household registration. There is a transition period in the middle. They can still go to the countryside to think of ways to provide food, but other things are difficult.

Moreover, the main problem of his family is that there is currently no labor force, and the elderly, pregnant women, and children account for all of them. The uncles must have considered this before deciding to put his family on the list. Naturally, these neighbors understand and can help. There is nothing wrong with that.

But the inappropriate thing here is that the Jia family is not short of money now, and most of the neighbors in the courtyard don't even have as much cash as his family. What's the point of accepting donations when there is no shortage of money? Of course everyone can't accept it.

There was another thing he didn't understand, so he asked his mother: "What's going on with the Yan family? They have been on the list in previous years, and no one else said anything."

Mother Li curled her lips and said: "This old Yan is naughty enough. He claims that his salary is 29 yuan every day to support a family of six. But guess what, his salary has been secretly raised a long time ago. If it weren't for the children, We heard the news at school, and the neighbors really believed his lies."

It turned out that this was the case. No wonder the third uncle was sitting there in embarrassment and no one came forward to sign up.

After the uncles finished speaking, no one in the courtyard made any move. They looked at each other, and the second uncle got angry.

He has always been addicted to officialdom, and he would not let go of the opportunity to criticize and reprimand him.

He put one hand on his waist, pointed at the people around him, and scolded them: "What's going on? I don't have any ideological consciousness at all. I just turn a deaf ear to the words of our uncles! Helping needy households is the responsibility of the streets." You still want to disobey the organizational orders."

After the second uncle finished speaking, the third uncle followed behind and added, but he acted very diplomatically.

He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and said kindly: "The second uncle is not harsh in his words. Every year, our courtyard relies on this indicator to help needy households. It has been continuously rated as an advanced courtyard courtyard, and the street rewards pork, We have to take a lot of white flour, this is related to the improvement of food during the New Year, so don’t let your guard down at this critical moment."

No one paid much attention to what the second uncle said. On the contrary, it was the third uncle's words that made everyone a little moved. They thought about donating a hairy eight cent if that didn't work.

Seeing that everyone was a little shaken, the old man finally stood up and continued to encourage:

"Everyone, listen to me. There is a small group of us who have opinions on the proposal just now. I can understand all of this, but living in the same courtyard is fate. Neighbors should be friendly to each other, and even more so. Help, we don’t know which family will encounter difficulties in the future. Today you give me a hand, and I will give you a hand tomorrow. Let’s face the difficulties together and solve them. Our courtyard must be united. Now these winter items It’s not easy to buy, let’s decide on the number early and start working on it this Sunday, so as not to delay everyone’s winter, okay?”

A voice from the crowd retorted:

"not good."

(End of this chapter)