Chapter 928: Chapter 906: Top Student of the 1980s 34
The Xiao Family returned to Fenggou Village, and Xiao Heizi started strolling around the village.
He was wearing newly made clothes and a cotton coat bought from the department store with Xiangling, carrying a large enamel tea mug to visit peopleâs homes.
Once he arrived, Xiao Heizi began to show off.
"When you talk about us moving, itâs because our family is lucky. We went to the county to see his brother, just happened to meet a factory leader. Baohu helped them out, and they saw him as honest and sincere. So, they found work for the couple in the county. Baohu is now a worker at the meat factory, and his wife also got into the cotton mill. Well, the kids are really ambitious. Unlike me, Iâm useless; I really canât help the kids at all..."
Xiao Heizi, with a smile on his face, spoke words that made others envious: "Me, Iâm not going to do anything from now on, just wait to enjoy the blessings brought by the kids. Our eldest canât cut it; heâs too honest. The second son is quite promising, topped the exams again this time. Recently, he wrote an article and sent it to some literary weekly. People liked it and published it, even sent him a fee. The fee wasnât much, just over two hundred yuan total. I didnât take a penny; it all went into his schooling."
Xiao Heizi was so proud that the listeners nearly wanted to knock him out.
"Our Xiangling, oh, Xiangling isnât bad either. Nowadays, sheâs doing well outside. Sheâs the one who bought me this cotton coat. Luckily, she decisively left the Zhang Family, or she would have been disgusted to death. Look, once Xiangling left Zhang Family, didnât her luck improve?"
Xiao Heizi bragged about his son and daughter, saying how his kids were outstanding and his familyâs life was good now.
This talk quickly reached the ears of the eldest and third branches of the family.
Xiao Heiziâs elder brother was named Xiao Baobao. Yes, a grown man was called such a name, showing how he was pampered earlier at home. Xiao Heiziâs younger brother was named Xiao Sanbao.
Both Baobao and Sanbao were favored by their parents. Yet Xiao Heizi was given the name of Heizi, showing how he was not favored at home earlier.
Upon hearing that the entire family of Xiao Heizi had moved to the county, that Xiao Baohu and his wife had become formal workers, that Xiao Yuan was doing great with his studies and even published articles in magazines, Xiao Baobao and Xiao Sanbao were truly outraged.
On New Yearâs Eve, Xiao Baobao specially visited Xiao Heiziâs home.
His visitâs purpose was to see if Xiao Heizi had any connections to arrange work for his son in the county.
Xiao Heizi was amused.
He thought, "Why should I arrange work for your family? Not to mention I have no connections, but even if I had, considering how the relationship between the families has been, I still wouldnât help you out."
Feeling the annoyance, Xiao Heizi verbally said he had no connections, while Xiao Baobao shamelessly suggested Xiao Baohu give up his job.
Sister Xu couldnât take it anymore and directly chased Xiao Baobao away with a broom.
Because of this incident, on the first day of the new year, Xiao Heizi, after paying respects to the ancestors, took the whole family to the county.
When returning home, Sister Xu blamed him: "Why do you have to show off? Look at the trouble it caused, making the eldest come over here to stir things up."
Xiao Heizi kept silent, lowering his head.
Xiao Yuan then spoke: "Mom, itâs not Dadâs fault. Even if he doesnât say anything, folks in our village would eventually know, and itâll be impossible to hide from Uncle and Third Uncle. Better to reveal it early. Anyway, we wonât return to the village much, they wonât know where we live. Even if they want to stir up trouble, they wonât be able to do anything."
Once in the county, Xiao Yuan spent two years at home, then expressed his desire to visit the Provincial City.
Xiao Heizi didnât stop him, thinking that at fourteen or fifteen, Xiao Yuan was basically a grown man; in the past, such a man could run his household. Why stop him?
But Xiao Yuan didnât actually go to the Provincial City. He took the money from selling small yellow croaker for Anning and headed south to several big cities. He used money to make more money, sold some goods, gave some advice to big merchants there, and earned quick money.
When it was close to school starting, Xiao Yuan returned home.
Upon returning, he discussed with Xiao Heizi about setting up a food processing factory at home.
If Xiao Yuan had proposed setting up a factory in the past, Xiao Heizi would have disagreed.
But after seeing profits in the cake business last winter, Xiao Heizi naturally agreed.
Xiao Yuan wouldnât open a big factory. At this time, there were requirements for the number of employees. A small family workshop was okay, but a big factory wouldnât work.
Moreover, with a large factory, Xiao Heizi wouldnât be able to manage it.
Xiao Yuan asked Xiao Heizi to take out the money earned from last winterâs cake sales and bought a fairly large estate not far from their home. The estate was quite rundown, so the price wasnât high.
After purchasing the estate, Xiao Yuan had Xiao Heizi hire people to reinforce the estate, renovated it, and turned it into a clean factory building.
Since there werenât many houses, Xiao Heizi specially hired a construction team to add more rooms.
While the family was busy buying and building houses, Anning wasnât idle either.
Anning bought tools, an old motor, and some components, gathered some old materials, and assembled a cake machine and a dough machine by herself.
She spent several days at home before getting the two machines installed.
Zhang Heping and Secretary An didnât know what she was doing.
When both returned home, they were startled seeing two unknown machines in the yard.
Zhang Heping called Anning out and asked, "Whatâs this? Who put this in our home?"
Anning smiled: "These are a cake machine and a dough machine, made by myself. Just finished; Iâm planning to test them."
She said as she brought out a basin of eggs that were cleaned from the kitchen.
Anning poured the eggs into a small box on the cake machine and pressed the button on the machine.
Zhang Heping watched from the side.
He saw that this machine had a plug, and the plug was connected to the power. As soon as Anning pressed the switch, the machine buzzed and began to operate.
The eggs in the top box were instantly cracked, the shells were sorted to one side, sent to a cardboard box below the machine, while the egg liquid was divided into two, one egg white and one egg yolk. These two were whipped separately on both sides of the machine.
In no time, both the egg whites and yolks were whipped.
Anning smilingly scooped out the egg whites, then casually placed whipped eggs, oil, flour, and sugar into the dough machine without following any ratio.
However, when she turned on the dough machine, it smartly handled the ratios and began kneading.
The machine neatly and quickly produced a large lump of dough.
Zhang Heping and Secretary An were astounded.
Zhang Heping pointed at the two machines: "Is this really your doing?"