Chapter 200: The Big Boss Is Coming

Just past 5:00 p.m., villagers began trickling in to sell their mushrooms!

Tang Xue was in charge of tallying the accounts, while Second Sister weighed the mushrooms for everyone.

Li Yi, meanwhile, helped inspect the quality and moved the mushrooms to the drying shed to air-dry.

They worked straight through until 7:00 p.m. After seeing off the last villager, Li Yi and the others finally returned to the old house.

As soon as they entered the courtyard, Li Yi saw his third sister feeding hay to the big red mule and the black horse, while his mother was busy preparing dinner by the stove.

His father was sitting under the eaves, teasing Zhang Ning with a few wild berries.

Seeing this, Tang Xue immediately said to Li Yi, “I’ll push the cart. You go help Sister Na!”

“Got it!”

After handing the bicycle to Tang Xue, Li Yi went into the yard, picked up a bundle of fresh grass, and walked over to the big poplar tree.

The big black horse let out a joyful whinny as soon as it saw Li Yi approaching, then rubbed its long, large head against him.

Li Yi placed the bundle of fresh grass in front of it, then couldn’t resist patting the big black horse on the head before returning to the eaves.

Second Sister had already drawn water and called out to Tang Xue and Li Yi to wash their hands.

After washing his hands, Li Yi immediately asked his father, “Dad, why is the village holding a meeting this afternoon?”

Li Shankui replied without looking up, “Your Uncle Feng said the commune sent a notice this afternoon saying some high-ranking official is coming to our village tomorrow, and the villagers need to get ready to welcome him!”

“What kind of big official? Such a big deal?” Li Yi asked curiously.

“I don’t know. Who cares what kind of official it is? We just need to cooperate—think of it as supporting Uncle Feng’s work!”

“Mm-hmm!”

Li Yi didn’t think much of it. Nianzi Mountain Village wasn’t the seat of the township commune, nor was it a large administrative village; its permanent population was only three or four hundred people.

No matter who the official was, it would likely be nothing more than a token visit—they wouldn’t be staying long.

Besides, he had to head into town early tomorrow morning to deliver goods, and by the time he got back, the visitors would be long gone—so this whole affair had nothing to do with him.

What he didn’t know, however, was that tomorrow’s main guest was actually coming specifically for him.

After dinner, it was already past eight o’clock.

The family gathered around the kang to chat about what had happened over the past few days, focusing mainly on Li Yi’s loan. They chatted until ten o’clock, then each went to their own room to rest.

The west wing!

Li Yi held Tang Xue close as they whispered to each other.

He’d missed her quite a bit these past few days.

Although Tang Xue was pregnant and they couldn’t be intimate right now, simply holding his wife close was a joy in itself.

“When are we heading to Qin Province?” Tang Xue asked, clutching Li Yi’s arm.

Hearing this, Li Yi felt a surge of joy, for he had noticed the words Tang Xue had just used.

She referred to returning to her parents’ home as “going to Qin Province”—what a huge difference between “going” and “returning”!

In other words, she now considered this place her true home, while Qin Province was merely her hometown.

Li Yi’s hand roamed over Tang Xue’s body as he said, “Let’s wait until the loan comes through!”

Tang Xue gently patted Li Yi’s arm and said in a coy voice, “Don’t move around—you’re tickling me!”

As she spoke, Tang Xue grabbed Li Yi’s other hand as well.

She had no choice but to grab it—this rascal’s hands were all over the place, groping here and there, making her whole body tingle.

“So, should we buy the tickets in advance?”

“No need. I’ll give Captain Wang a call in a couple of days and have him pull some sleeper tickets for us!”

Li Yi knew full well that sleeper train tickets were hard to come by these days—even money wouldn’t guarantee them.

In recent years, to prevent surplus rural labor from flowing into cities, the government had introduced a series of policies restricting farmers’ migration to urban areas, limiting rural population mobility by tightening the household registration system and halting recruitment.

Even for travel between cities, people needed a letter of introduction from their employer or a work ID; otherwise, they couldn’t go on trips, buy train tickets, or book accommodations.

So, in this day and age, traveling by train was no easy feat.

In addition to the cumbersome procedures, tickets could only be purchased at the train station, and they were usually for hard-seat tickets on green-painted trains.

To purchase a hard sleeper, one had to be of a certain age or have one’s employer pull strings to secure a ticket.

As for soft-sleeper berths, only those of a certain rank were permitted to purchase them—and, of course, foreigners visiting China were also eligible.

If Li Yi were traveling alone, a hard-seat ticket wouldn’t be out of the question.

But since he was traveling with Tang Xue, who was pregnant, hard-seat tickets were definitely out of the question.

For one thing, hard seats offer no place to rest. The trip to Qin Province takes a day and a night—spending dozens of hours crammed into a tiny seat is unbearable for most people, let alone a pregnant woman.

Second, standard-class carriages are not only crowded but also have poor conditions—the smell of sweat and feet mixed with various food odors is enough to make one’s stomach turn just thinking about it!

So from the very beginning, Li Yi had made up his mind: on the way there, he absolutely had to ask Wang Anguo to get him two sleeper tickets—soft or hard, either would do.

When Tang Xue heard that Li Yi actually intended to buy them sleeper tickets, she immediately said with a hint of concern, “Sleeper tickets cost quite a bit of money!”

Li Yi smiled and said, “It’s not that much. I’ve already checked—it’s only 12 yuan per ticket. We can definitely afford it!”

“But hard-seat tickets are only three yuan each. We could save 18 yuan for the two of us on this trip!”

“Haha, we can’t skimp on that. Don’t forget you’re pregnant now!” Li Yi said.

“So what if I’m pregnant? Look at Sister Yunxiang—she was still working the day before her baby was born. And look at Erdan’s mom—she even gave birth to Erdan right in the fields. I can do it too…”

Before she could finish, she felt Li Yi give her a hard pinch in a certain sensitive spot, as he said, “You can do whatever you want, but they had no other choice. Don’t you dare follow their example!”

“Our family isn’t short on a few pennies. You just read a book or two every day, do some accounting—you don’t have to work in the fields!”

“Also, we’ll go to the county hospital once a month for a checkup. We can’t let pregnancy cause you any health problems!”

Hearing Li Yi so concerned for her, a flicker of sweetness touched Tang Xue’s heart.

They say men fear choosing the wrong career, and women fear marrying the wrong man.

By some twist of fate, she had found the best man in the world. Tang Xue felt as though she had used up all her luck from the past twenty years just to find him.

“That’s unnecessary. Going to the county hospital every month—people who don’t know us might think I have some serious health issue!”

“People will talk no matter what. Just ignore them—we’ll live our own lives!” Li Yi said.

“It really isn’t necessary…”

“Listen to me. I’ll go along with you on everything else, but on this one thing, you have to listen to me!”

It wasn’t that Li Yi was being overly sensitive; he simply knew that this era was far from friendly to women, especially pregnant women.

Not only did they have no special right to time off for pregnancy, but women in that era also lacked the means to get prenatal checkups, and very few even went to a hospital to give birth.

Partly because the conditions weren’t right, but most importantly, it was because they were poor.

Whether it was getting checkups or giving birth in a hospital, everything cost money.

With such dire financial circumstances, these were all burdens.

Poverty in those days was ingrained in people’s very bones. Never mind expenses like hospital checkups or childbirth, which could easily run into tens or even hundreds of yuan—some families couldn’t even afford the few yuan in tuition fees for a single semester.

So, whether in the countryside or the city, most women gave birth at home.

The quality of those assisting with the delivery varies widely; if you happen to have a careful one, things go a bit better.

If you happened to get a careless one, they’d just grab a pair of rusty scissors and snip the umbilical cord with a quick “snip.”

This has led to many women developing health issues after childbirth, and in even more severe cases, it is not uncommon for both the mother and the baby—or even just the mother—to lose their lives due to difficult labor.

That is precisely why Li Yi was so concerned about Tang Xue’s pregnancy; he certainly didn’t want any mishaps to occur due to his own carelessness.

Seeing that she couldn’t change Li Yi’s mind, Tang Xue could only nod in agreement!

Satisfied that he had persuaded his wife, Li Yi felt quite content. He then wrapped his arms around Tang Xue and closed his eyes in contentment…