Chapter 1136 - 878: A World for Two (Leisure)

Yesterday they’d prepared a lot of dishes, plus some lamb, beef, chicken wings and such. The grill was newly bought too. They were really fully equipped.

The original plan was to grill a fish once Han Yi caught one, which would make everything perfect. Only this was Han Yi’s first time fishing, and his skill really didn’t match his looks. He fished the whole morning and didn’t catch a single one.

In the end, it was the fishing buddy next to us who couldn’t stand watching anymore and gave us a fish.

Taking advantage of the fish pond owner’s water hose, Lin Wan killed the fish. By noon, she was grilling while watching Han Yi fish.

"Eat first, I figure there’s a good chance we’re going home empty-handed today." This fish pond charged a fee, five yuan a day.

"That’s not necessarily true. I’ve been thinking about it all morning and found that this float is really important. If you don’t handle it right, it’s hard to catch anything. Let me study it a bit more." Han Yi had only fished once and was already hooked.

Lin Wan handed him a grilled chicken wing. Seeing him so interested, she stayed by his side to keep him company.

As it turned out, right when they were about to pack up, he really did catch one, which thrilled Han Yi to no end. But they didn’t take the fish with them; they gave it back to the buddy next to them. He’d caught quite a lot today—he was a regular, an old hand at this.

Spending a whole day out isn’t exactly relaxing either. Han Yi spent the whole day dealing with rods and lines, and Lin Wan grilled. When they got back, there was still washing and scrubbing to do, and the weather was so hot, it wasn’t easy.

After they came home, they just had a simple dinner and then fell asleep right on the bed.

The next day, the two of them decided not to go outdoors, and went straight to the water park to swim. Lin Wan was a landlubber and couldn’t swim, but under Han Yi’s guidance, she more or less picked it up.

"This is a great activity. Next time we’ll bring the two kids and let them learn to swim too." On the way back, Lin Wan said with a smile in the car.

"Yeah, it’ll be good for them to learn. Xingxing is under a lot of study pressure and hardly does any sports, her physical condition is too weak, that’s not okay." Saying her dad was in the army, yet she herself couldn’t even run far—obviously she was embarrassing her father. When Dingding is a bit older, he’ll have to get up every morning and do exercises with him. A boy has to be able to stand up to training.

After wandering around for two days, on the third day Han Yi went to training, and Lin Wan stayed home to rest for a day. After this rest, she felt much more refreshed and suddenly had some inspiration.

So she holed up at home for another week and came up with a series of works she was quite satisfied with.

On Dad and Second Uncle’s side, there’d been quite a bit of movement recently. First they’d found faults with his son, and now they were making some small moves against the capable assistant at his side. Things over there were in a state of panic.

Lately, the people above had been jittery too, running operations down below all day long, terrified that his dirty secrets would be exposed.

As for their Lin Family, Second Uncle had been working all these years, always conscientious and upright. Even if the Wang Family wanted to investigate, they couldn’t find anything; otherwise they wouldn’t have to play these little tricks behind the scenes.

They could have just come forward with evidence.

And as for that Wang Rui, he took their money but didn’t splurge. Later, when they investigated the Wang Family’s son, Wang Rui was implicated. Those hundred thousand yuan went around in circles and ended up coming back untouched.

Now Saozi finally felt relieved. Besides being busy with the hotel, the young couple had also thrown themselves into the hot spring project. In two or three months, you really can’t see much.

This was a big project. It would take at least a year or two.

Over these past few months, my brother had also discovered a problem: nowadays, if you want to buy something from another city and have it sent home, some goods are convenient to ship by large freight trucks, but there are very few such logistics routes. They’re in short supply and the coverage isn’t very wide.

My brother felt this could be a project. But the hot spring project hadn’t been settled yet, and if they started another one over there, things might get tight. Setting up a logistics line would require a large investment too—at least a few receiving points and several trucks. To set up locations, you need capital. And as for vehicles, buying a few trucks would also need a lot of money.

He did have that money; the dividends from the distillery over the years weren’t small. But this time Qingqing had put part of the family’s money into the hot spring project. If he used more himself, all the money the family had saved these years would be emptied out.

He wanted to move quickly, because logistics is the kind of project where the earlier you start, the better. But he was also afraid of investing too much and not running it well, ending up with everything down the drain.

He talked it over with Qingqing, and she felt it was feasible too. The only worry was that if they didn’t manage it well, they’d have tossed around for nothing, wasting both money and energy.

.....

With the kids about to start school, Lin Wan drove back to S City alone to pick them up, and by the way told the design director and Pei Bai that if they had any good series, they could bring them out to enter the competition together.

Let them pick from among the designers.

Pei Bai still occasionally designs one or two sets now, and the market really likes them, but she doesn’t do it often. The few designers in the factory are actually pretty good; they can give the girls a decent platform so they can also show off their talent.

"Xiao Wan, Ye Zi and Lu Lu both got married this summer. You live so far away, so we didn’t tell you, but Su Ling and I already gave the cash gifts for you."

"Ah, the two of them are both married? What kind of guys did they find?"

"Back when we’d just started doing wholesale, when that cousin of yours was making trouble here, there was that young guy from the countryside, the one who came to do wholesale with fifty yuan, it’s him." Pei Bai said with a smile.

Lin Wan smiled. "I remember now, isn’t he the one who kept his money in the inside pocket of his underpants?"

"Yeah, that’s the one. The kid’s got a head for business. All these years, starting from that original fifty yuan, rolling it over and over, he managed to earn himself an apartment in S City, and he opened a clothing wholesale shop over by the clothing market on ZY Street. It’s not in the same area as us. Besides taking some of our clothes from the factory, he’s also working with a few other good clothing manufacturers. His wholesale business has been doing pretty well these past few years. He dealt with Ye Zi a lot, and after going back and forth, the two of them just started to like each other."

"That’s great, the two of them can run their own business as a couple now."

"Our Ye Zi doesn’t want to leave our shop. She said her man will run his own thing, and she’ll keep working here."

"Mm, that’s a good way to think. She’s got confidence and guts, that really is our Ye Zi. Oh right... what about Lu Lu? What kind of guy did she find?"

"Aunt Gui introduced him, a young guy who runs a night-market stall. The two of them dated for two years and then got married."

"That’s good too, as long as he’s a decent person. It hasn’t been easy for those girls. As long as they find a proper husband who loves them, that’s enough."

"Yeah, if it’s someone Aunt Gui introduced, he can’t be bad. This young man is capable. Every year, once summer comes, he only does night-market business. He doesn’t make a small amount in that one summer either. Working the night market for one season, he can earn over a hundred thousand. Once that season is over, they don’t have to worry about food and daily expenses for the rest of the year. He’s an only child, his family has an apartment and a van. After the season’s over, he does some delivery work, and that’s enough to cover the family’s everyday spending."

"Ay, time spares no one. That younger bunch of theirs are getting married one after another now, and in the blink of an eye, our kids are already that big." Lin Wan still felt like it was just when she’d first met Han Yi.

"Yeah. Thinking back to when we’d just started going to night school, that was pretty nice too. Now that we have kids, we never run out of things to worry about. Ay, I even regret having kids so early."

"Come on, you’ve got it good. Your Mimi dances so well. I heard from Su Ling that she even got a citywide award. She’s about to start middle school, right?"

"Exactly, and I’ve got two kids to worry about. I’m not worried about Little Xin, that kid’s smart, he picks up anything after looking at it once. I’m even thinking about having him skip a grade. Mili will definitely be heading down the dance path in the future, but I’m thinking she should at least finish high school and then take the entrance exam for a dance academy."

"As long as her academic subjects aren’t too bad, it won’t be a problem for her to get into a dance academy. She’s still so young, what are you worrying so much for?"

"I just feel like everything happens in a blink, I have to hurry and pave the way for the kids. The dance teaching is really good over in the Capital City, but the key thing is we don’t know anyone. I’m afraid we’ll be stumbling around blind when the time comes."

"I actually know someone. One of Han Yi’s old comrades-in-arms, his wife teaches dance. She opened a dance studio outside several campuses in the Capital City. It’s been developing pretty well these past few years. Her place is now a designated exam center for the Chinese Dancers Association. It’s doing well now, and one of her classmates works at the education bureau. I’ll ask around for you when the time comes."

"Really? That’s wonderful."

Once kids are older, there’s just more to worry about. Take Tiger, for example. Su Ling’s family counts as a scholarly family, and their son has a real gift for Chinese chess. He’s already participated in several city-level Chinese chess competitions and won quite a few awards.

Ay, all these kids are such good seedlings, they really have to be properly nurtured.

Lin Wan didn’t stay in S City for many days before she took the kids and went back.

Little Star and Dingding had put on quite a bit of weight that summer under Uncle Hu and Grandma’s care. Uncle Hu and Grandma totally indulged them, they’d cook whatever the kids said they wanted to eat, and if they couldn’t make it, they’d immediately go out and buy it. That made Dingding over the moon.

Little Star went to stay at Shilan’s house for a few days. All day long, she took Bao Bao and Beibei with her and followed Da Ming around nearby catching cicadas, then came back and set up a little fire rack to roast and eat them. Among them, Dingding was the youngest, and he ran wild following them around.

When it was time to go back, they all were upset and didn’t want to leave. But Dingding is the kind of kid who’s easy to coax. As soon as he heard that the chubby boy in the compound had gotten a cricket for him and was waiting for him to come back and play together, he immediately hopped onto the car, bouncing with excitement.

The kids started school again. Once a daughter moves into second grade, things get more intense; there’s more to learn. But at least it’s not like third grade, when they’re in tutoring all the time and barely get a few days off in a month.

And then there’s Hanhan, who was taking the college entrance exam this year. When things got really intense later, Gu Lin accompanied her to tutoring every day and picked her up from school. When the kids are tired, the adults are tired too. Lin Wanli wasn’t far off from that situation either; in about a year it would be her turn.