Chapter 022 Chapter 22

As the hostess who has managed the family for many years, Aunt Lai obviously has a lot to say in this regard.

"Comrade Xiaolin, we have never thought about living like a landlord at home. I just hope you can clean up the hut. The old man of our family almost broke his hands when he went out to relieve himself at night in winter. My old arms and legs are so old. But

there is also the cooking area. The stove in our house is too low. Sometimes my back hurts so much that it is not convenient to cook...

"

Although Aunt Lai said whatever she thought of. Lin Yilan still summarized it all and recorded it in her notebook.

And Lin Yilan also felt from Aunt Lai's words that she had put in so many years of effort at home. If she was not a person who often uses the stove, she would never have thought that the height of the stove would cause her back pain.

It was probably these bits and pieces that allowed Lin Yilan to outline Aunt Lai's life, and also allowed her, a stranger, to gently uncover a corner of this family life.

After chatting with Aunt Lai, Lin Yilan went to the yard and found Uncle Lai who was smoking.

Uncle Lai was the same as the middle-aged men she had seen in the countryside before. His face showed fatigue far beyond the years, his eyebrows were often wrinkled, the deep Sichuan lines were difficult to remove, and there was a heavy mark on the middle finger of his hand. Brown, holding low-quality tobacco rolled by himself in his hand.

Seeing Lin Yilan coming over, he took a few deep puffs of his cigarette and quickly threw it on the ground to put it out.

Uncle Lai rubbed his palms and looked at Lin Yilan cautiously with a smile, "Um, Comrade Lin, I'm tired of you today."

Lin Yilan held the notebook in her hand and shook her head politely, "You're welcome. By the way. "Uncle Lai, what do you think about your family?"

Uncle Lai took out a piece of crumpled paper from his pocket. She glanced at it inadvertently and saw some crooked words written on it.

"Comrade Lin, I just want to ask if you can build more rooms for my family? One for my eldest son, one for each of my two daughters, one for my younger son, one for me and my mother-in-law, and another house for me." Come and put away the sundries, do you think it's okay?"

Lin Yilan paused, and after he finished speaking, he wrote down Uncle Lai's request in his notebook, "Uncle Lai, this is the house I designed for your family. It is done based on the budget given by Mr. Lai, so as long as there is no objection from Mr. Lai's side, it will be fine. "

These words must be made clear to Lai's family in advance, otherwise they will not think that she is causing trouble. alright.

Uncle Lai was stunned for a moment, nodded, carefully folded the paper in his hand, and put it in his pocket.

After understanding Uncle Lai's needs, Lin Yilan raised her hand and glanced at her watch, and then immediately went to find Sister Lai. Looking around, I found that Mrs. Lai had gone back to her home to clean up the dishes from before.

It seems that the situation in the village where Lai's family lives is pretty good. In the place where her family lived before, everyone basically went to the river to wash dishes and clothes.

For this reason, Lin Yilan had no choice but to run to Uncle Lai's kitchen to understand the situation with Sister Lai.

Looking at Mrs. Lai who was squatting on the ground, carrying a basin and washing dishes, Lin Yilan also squatted next to her.

"Sister-in-law, this is Xiao Lin. Do you have any ideas for the future of your family?"

Sister-in-law Lai raised her head and saw Lin Yilan. She twitched her lips and said, "Comrade Lin, you are here."

"I don't have any ideas. You should have done it before. You

should have talked to my man." She lowered her head and continued to wash the dishes in the basin. "He has the final say in our house, and the requests he makes are my requests." It was almost six o'clock in the morning, and the whole kitchen was pitch dark. Lin Yilan couldn't see Sister Lai's expression clearly, she could only see her forehead.

"That's right, but I think we lesbians and gay men sometimes want different things. The problems Uncle Lai sees at home are different from the problems you find at home. You can talk about what you think are the problems at home. What needs to be improved?"

Sister-in-law Lai shook her head and drained the water in the bowl. "I think it's good now."

Lin Yilan poked her head with a pencil. She knew what this sister-in-law was probably saying. Nothing happens. Seeing this, she could only sigh softly in her heart, then stood up and stood aside. She decided to observe with her own eyes.

For the next time, she kept as quiet as possible, so quiet that Sister-in-law Lai almost thought she had gone somewhere else.

She has been following Mrs. Lai, observing her doing housework, from wiping the stove, washing rags, tidying up the kitchen, and then leaving the kitchen to collect and fold clothes on the clothes-drying rod outside. I wrote it down.

Finally, it wasn't until the sun set that Lin Yilan put away her pen and left Sister-in-law Lai.

It was getting dark, and according to the agreement, it was time for Lai Chengrong to see Lin Yilan and Lin Li off.

On the way back, Lai Jialin drove very slowly because of the darkness. Fortunately, the Lai family was also in Beijing, and they were only traveling from the countryside to the city, so Lin Yilan dared to take the car back after dark.

When getting out of the car, Lin Li frowned and reminded Lin Yilan, "Xiao Wu, if you still go next time, remember to call me. And next time, don't do it so late."

Lin Yilan was a little annoyed, "I Got it, Third Brother. I was really in a hurry today and wanted to finish it as soon as possible, so I put it off until so late."

"We can just go to Lai's house again next time. Unfortunately, Mr. Lai won't drive us next time. Now, we can only ride bicycles.

But don’t worry, Third Brother, I’ll pay you when I get this order.”

Lin Li gave her a slap in the face, “Hey, your hands are really loose. Even before she got the money, she started to think about all this."

Lin Yilan slapped away Lin Li's hand that hit her head, and said angrily: "If you bully me again, your salary will be deducted."

Then, she said. After covering his lower eyelids and making a face, he quickly ran to the school gate, "I'm leaving. You hurry back to school and tell me when you get there."

Lin Li rolled his eyes, not knowing whether he had learned this stinginess . Who, after seeing her pretending to be the boss in front of him, stomped her feet angrily, "She started talking nonsense with just a few dollars in her hand! And she made a phone call, I think you should be beaten on the head."

Watching Xiao Wu running further and further . He sighed helplessly. If he didn't fight, he would squat next to the phone all night.

I am very stingy in some places, and my hands are very loose at other times. There is no such person in their family, so who did they learn from?

Lin Li raised his eyebrows.

In the days that followed, in addition to attending classes on time and studying hard, Lin Yilan was busy designing the house of Lai Chengrong's parents' house when it was time to rest. She even went to Lai's house again when she and her third brother were resting together. visit.

But this time, they rode bicycles to Lai's house as they had expected.

When arriving at Lai's house, Lin Yilan said hello to Lai's family and then started her work.

Lin Li carefully protected his little Wu who was standing on the stool and holding a tape measure.

He didn't know why she wanted to record the places where the Lai family hung up their dustpans. Was it necessary? When the house is rebuilt, won't the Lai family order another nail themselves?

In his opinion, Lin Yilan was simply "superfluous".

Lin Li cursed while burying his head in giving Xiao Wu a hand. By the way, he glanced at Uncle Lai who was wandering beside them.

After clearly measuring the locations of the hanging objects in the houses on both sides, Lin Li watched her run to measure the heights of Uncle Lai, Aunt Lai, and Sister Lai.

I was busy here and there, until the sun was setting, and finally I was done.

Lin Yilan squatted on the ground and wrote down the last measured data in a notebook. After checking all the data today, she got up and stuffed the notebook back into her bag.

"Let's go, Third Brother, let's say hello to the Lai family and go back."

Lin Li wiped the sweat from his forehead, "Okay, it happens to be getting late, it's time to go back."

The two of them walked in tandem. Entering Lai's parents' house.

As soon as she entered the door, she saw Aunt Lai cooking on the stove.

"Auntie, we've finished our work today and it's getting late, so we'll leave first."

Aunt Lai nodded, "Okay, okay, thank you for your hard work today, Comrade Xiaolin."

Lin Yilan said politely: "Auntie, you're welcome. It should be done."

After all, Mr. Lai has already given her the money.

After entering the house again and saying hello to Uncle Lai, Lin Yilan was ready to leave Lai's house.

The two of them left the main room of Lai's house and when they were unlocking their bicycles, they suddenly heard Aunt Lai's voice from behind.

"Comrade Xiao Lin, wait a minute -"

Lin Yilan put the car lock in her bag and turned to look at Aunt Lai who was approaching.

"Auntie, what's wrong? Is there anything else?"

Aunt Lai looked around seriously, then took Lin Yilan's arm, "Comrade Xiaolin, I have something to ask you for help."

Lin Yilan was there. He quickly reviewed the two visits to Lai's house in his mind, and still had a polite smile on his face, "Tell me."

"That's right, I want to ask how much our family will give you?"

Lai listened. Aunt Lai inquired directly, and Lin Yilan said helplessly: "Aunt Lai, you have to ask Mr. Lai how much he plans to spend on building a house. I don't know."

Aunt Lai looked disbelieving, and she looked at Lin Yilan. Yilan glanced at her and said, "The money has been put into your pocket, and you still don't know how much it is? Just lie to me that rural people are uneducated."

Lin Yilan looked at Aunt Lai with an innocent face, "Auntie, I really don't know. , if you want to ask, you can also help me find out how much design fee Mr. Lai plans to give me, okay?"

Aunt Lai's eyes are not big to begin with, and as she gets older, her eyelids are a little droopy, making her look even smaller. . But at this moment, her little eyes were full of inquisitive light. She knew very well that it was this look that made her invincible in the village, and she didn't know how many "truths" she had discovered.

She thought that Lin Yilan, a young girl, could not stand her gaze just like the other young girls in the village before.

After watching it for a while, the girl still looked like this, showing no signs of panic or loss at all, and Aunt Lai couldn't help but murmur in her heart.

Is it true that I haven’t given this girl any money yet?

As for whether Lin Yilan was lying to herself, she had no such worries. After all, she had lived for so many years, and she could still tell whether the young man had lied to her.

"Okay, okay, Mu won't talk to you anymore. Mu came here to see you, to tell you something."

"When it's time to build the house, Mu's second son will also come, so you can take care of it for him then. More wages.”