dmims Chapter 133 Wanting a grandson?
Chapter 133 Wanting a grandson?
"Wei Min looks so thin, I didn't expect him to be so strong?"
Fan Lihong lowered her voice and urged, "If it works out, you'd better make sure this belly is strong. While you're still fresh from the wedding night, hurry up and get pregnant. Men, no matter how obedient they are, without a child to keep them in check, their hearts will always wander. Once you have a child, it's like a weight has been placed on your heart, and you won't be able to run away."
Li Xiaotao laughed heartily and pulled her mother's hand off her stomach.
"Mom, you're thinking too far ahead. We've only been married a few days. Are you already thinking about having a grandchild?"
Li Xiaotao casually grabbed a melon seed from the kang table and cracked it open. "Besides, I don't have the energy to take care of the baby right now. Weimin is still like a child who hasn't been weaned. If I have another one, that would mean taking care of two kids. Wouldn't that kill me?"
"What nonsense are you spouting!"
Fan Lihong slapped her hand. "What woman doesn't have children? Whether you have them early or late, you have to. The sooner you have a son, the more confident you'll be in the Li family! Men work hard to support their families after they have children, don't you understand?"
"Am I no longer assertive?"
Li Xiaotao spat the sunflower seed shells into her palm and said in a nonchalant tone, "Whether you have a strong back or not doesn't depend on how big your belly is, but on whether you have money in your pocket. If I don't have money in my pocket, even if I have a whole litter, I'll just be a pushover. The important thing now is to make more money while I'm young. I don't want to be tied to the bed by diapers."
Fan Lihong was taken aback, opened her mouth, and after a long pause, managed to stammer out, "You child, are you blinded by money? Can money be more important than your child?"
"Money is inanimate, but it can save lives. From the moment a child is born, everything from food and drink to toileting costs money."
Both of her sisters-in-law got pregnant, gave birth, and raised their children right after they married into the family. She didn't want to end up like that after getting married.
Li Xiaotao clapped her hands, stood up, and dumped the sunflower seed shells into the winnowing basket. "Alright, Mom, don't worry about this. I know what I'm doing. As long as I have money, even if I don't lay eggs, the Li family will still treat me like royalty. Come on, let's go out for dinner. Dad's probably giving Weimin a lecture right now, I have to go and save the day."
The atmosphere in the main room was indeed somewhat tense.
Li Youtian sat at the head of the octagonal table, twirling the two bottles of Xifeng liquor in his hands, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.
Li Weimin sat at the lower end, his bottom barely touching half of the stool, his hands neatly placed on his knees, like a primary school student who had made a mistake.
Sister-in-law Chen Xiuer brought out slices of fatty pork to the table, and the aroma wafted into our noses, but Li Youtian didn't touch his chopsticks, and no one dared to touch them either.
"Dad, how's the wine?"
Li Xiaotao lifted the curtain and walked in, plopped down next to Li Weimin, and casually picked up a piece of fatty meat for him with her chopsticks. "Eat, don't just stand there like an idiot."
Li Youtian slammed the wine bottle down on the table with a loud "bang," startling Li Weimin so much that his chopsticks trembled and the meat slices fell onto the table.
"This wine costs a little over two yuan a bottle, and so does this meat and these cigarettes."
Li Youtian tapped his pipe, his face darkening as he looked over. "Li Weimin, tell me the truth, where did this money come from? I know the Li family's situation. If you used your parents' funeral savings to scrape together this wedding gift, just to make yourself look rich, I don't care!"
Li Jianshe emptied his family's savings to pay for his wife's dowry, and Li Weimin's trip today will cost at least twenty yuan.
Although this makes his daughter Taozi look good, if her in-laws run out of money, isn't it the newlywed daughter who suffers the most?
Li Weimin was so frightened that he was about to stand up and apologize, but Li Xiaotao grabbed his shoulder.
"Dad, your awareness is lacking."
Li Xiaotao wasn't intimidated. She took the bottle, unscrewed it, and filled Li Youtian's cup. "This money wasn't stolen, robbed, or taken from my parents. It's what we got from selling a cartload of melons in town yesterday."
"Selling melons?" Li Youtian paused, his triangular eyes widening. "Going to town to sell them? You've gone to speculate and profiteer?!"
"Nonsense!"
Li Youtian slammed his hand on the table, making the teacup lid bounce around.
He jumped to his feet. This daughter of his had always been different from other girls, causing him a lot of worry.
He pointed at Li Xiaotao's nose and cursed, "Li Xiaotao, you're getting bolder and bolder! That's a market! Is that a place for us poor and lower-middle peasants? That's speculation and profiteering! You're undermining socialism! If you get caught by the corrupt officials, I'll be paraded through the streets with you!"
The shout was so loud it shook the heavens. Fan Lihong, who had just brought in the tea, was so startled that her hand trembled and the water spilled all over the floor.
Li Weimin was so frightened that his face turned pale and he almost slipped off the bench.
Li Xiaotao, however, didn't even budge an inch.
She slowly picked up a piece of meat and ate it, then looked up to meet Li Youtian's fiery gaze: "Dad, what era are we living in? Your old almanac should have been torn up and used to wipe your ass long ago. These days, the radio is constantly shouting about reform and opening up, about revitalizing the economy, but how come you call it speculation and profiteering?"
"Radio is radio, that's for big cities! In our Li Family Village, you have to follow the rules of Li Family Village!"
Li Youtian, his face flushed and neck red, shouted, "You're taking the melons to town to sell privately, that's unacceptable! If everyone follows your example, how will the production team finish its quota? How will the supply and marketing cooperative collect its goods? You're setting a bad example!"
"Rules? Can rules feed you?"
Li Xiaotao also stood up. Although she was not as tall as her father, she was in no way inferior in terms of imposing presence.
"The supply and marketing cooperative only pays three cents a pound for those melons, and you have to be picky about which ones you don't want, and you have to watch the mood of the purchasing agent. Yesterday in town, I sold them for ten cents a pound! That's more than three times the price! For hundreds of pounds of melons, that's a difference of tens of dollars!"
Li Xiaotao took a step forward, not intimidated by her father.
She knew her father was just a paper tiger at home: "Dad, you're the Party Secretary, and you're very conscious. But look, our family is the only one in the whole village with brick houses and red tiles. Don't you want to lead the villagers of Lijia Village to prosperity? Is it glorious to stick to rigid rules and be poor? Is it shameful to earn money through your own abilities and feed people? What kind of logic is that!"
"You...you..."
Li Youtian was speechless, choked by this barrage of rebuke. He pointed his pipe in the air, trembling for a long time, and shouted, "You little brat, you're obsessed with money! This is a matter of principle!"
"The principle of farting."
Li Xiaotao interrupted him bluntly, "Yesterday in town, even Captain Wu from the police station bought my melons! If they were arresting people, they would have arrested me long ago. They said it was a public service, to revitalize the market. Dad, if you keep living like this, the bolder ones will steal all the good days!"
Yu Min, the second sister-in-law who had been silent all along, stared wide-eyed at her sister-in-law's words, forgetting even to wipe the sunflower seed shells stuck to the corners of her mouth.
"Xiao Tao, you're not kidding me, are you? You can make so much money from just that one truckload of melons?"