Chapter 161 Moving into a New House

"Hey! Why are you here?"

When Li Guoqiang saw Shang Xiuzhen, Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan walking in, he couldn't help but ask in surprise.

Since he had been busy building wooden houses and collecting supplies recently, and he lived in the northwest of the village while the other educated youth lived in the southeast, they had hardly met each other.

He suddenly comes to my house now, could something big have happened?
"Okay!"

Shang Xiuzhen looked at the almost finished quilt on the kang, with a look of surprise on her face, "Li Guoqiang, I didn't expect you to have this ability!"

"With your skills, you are almost as good as the master chef in the cotton-fluffing workshop!"

"Where there!"

Upon hearing this, Li Guoqiang waved his hands and said modestly without waiting for Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan to start praising him, "I was forced to do this because I couldn't get a job at the cotton-flossing shop. I was forced to do this myself."

"I didn't expect that I would actually learn it by chance!"

"okay!"

Shang Xiuzhen rolled her eyes, and then said in a somewhat unpleasant tone: "Don't be so modest with us here. Everyone in our Jinshanbao Production Brigade knows that you are a genius!"

"Forehead"

Li Guoqiang looked at Shang Xiuzhen, who looked like she had eaten ten kilograms of lemons, and quickly changed the subject and asked, "Um, what do you want to talk to me about?"

"Ok!"

When Shang Xiuzhen heard Li Guoqiang asking about business, her expression slightly straightened, and then she said softly: "The thing is, you know that the six of us female comrades are squeezed into one room, and the most we can do is get some hot water to wipe our bodies."

"It's only four or five days until the Chinese New Year! So we were thinking about whether we could come to your bathhouse and take a good bath!"

"Don't worry, we will bring firewood for boiling water when the time comes!"

After saying that, her gaze towards Li Guoqiang seemed a little unnatural, and Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan also turned their heads away somewhat embarrassedly.

"Okay!"

Seeing this, Li Guoqiang nodded seriously and agreed, "I'll let Sister Yuping tell you how to use the bathhouse later. Then you can just bring your clothes and wash them."

After saying that, he put down the tools in his hands, went to the next room and called Xu Yuping over.

Soon, Xu Yuping took Shang Xiuzhen, Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan to the bathhouse and told them how to take a bath in a large water tank.

When they heard that Li Guoqiang could use this big water tank to take a bath every day, Shang Xiuzhen, Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan couldn't help feeling envious.

Then, without wasting any time, they hurried back to the educated youth site to inform others, then brought some spare clothes and soap, and pulled a sled full of firewood.

In a short while, they boiled a large pot of hot water, and then took turns to take a bath.

During this period, Li Guoqiang had already made a new quilt for Xu Dani, and then was busy taking apart Qu Yinfeng and Xu Yuping's old quilts and softening the cotton again. He had no intention of admiring the beautiful figures of Shang Xiuzhen and others after washing off the dirt.

It's just that he didn't want to see it, but someone insisted on showing it to him.

As the fragrance of soap wafted over, he turned his head and saw two older girls, Shen Fengxia and Pan Qiaoyan, who had walked in without him noticing.

Moreover, their faces, after being soaked in hot water and washed with soap, seemed particularly bright and beautiful unconsciously, causing him to look at them a few more times unconsciously.

Pan Qiaoyan noticed that Li Guoqiang was acting strangely, and felt inexplicably happy, and then she hurriedly said, "Li Guoqiang, can you help me to re-flush the quilt?

"My quilt is an old one. The cotton inside is very stiff and it is not comfortable at all."

Hearing this, Shen Fengxia also hurriedly said: "Mine too, Li Guoqiang, if you are free, please help us re-furl the quilt! We can pay you according to the cotton-fluffing workshop's wages."

"This"

Li Guoqiang frowned upon hearing this, and then said with some embarrassment: "It's not that I don't want to help you, but I have run out of mesh, so I really can't help you."

In fact, when he was planning to learn the skill of fluffing quilts, he thought that some villagers would come and ask him to fluff the quilts. However, he did not expect that the first people to speak to him would be the two female educated youth, Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia.

Therefore, he could only tell the actual situation to avoid people misunderstanding that he was unwilling to help.

"That's it!"

When Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia heard what Li Guoqiang said, they were immediately disappointed and asked hurriedly, "Where can we buy this mesh?"

"Oh!"

Li Guoqiang smiled slightly, and then said softly: "This mesh can be purchased at the cotton-spinning workshop in the commune with the purchase certificate."

Moreover, if you are willing to spend money, even if you don't buy the book, you can still buy the mesh yarn from the master in the cotton-spinning workshop.

After all, mesh is a consumable material and has a certain amount of loss every month. Even cotton is often deducted.

Otherwise, how could those masters in the cotton-fluffing workshop live a good life?

However, there is no need to tell Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia about this.

"That's it!"

When Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia heard that they had to go to the commune to buy it, they immediately gave up the idea of ​​asking Li Guoqiang to help them fluff the quilt.

After all, they were not like Li Guoqiang who had a big dog to pull a sled, so there was no need for them to walk dozens of miles back and forth along the mountain roads to the commune for such a small matter.

Moreover, they were too embarrassed to ask Li Guoqiang to make a special trip for them.

Seeing that Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia backed out, Li Guoqiang did not offer to help buy it, so that he would not have to refuse when other people asked him for help in the future.

Not long after, when Shang Xiuzhen was the last one to finish her bath, Pan Qiaoyan and Shen Fengxia hurriedly followed her back.

After sending the people away, Xu Yuping tried to hold back, but in the end she couldn't help but approach Li Guoqiang and asked in a low voice, "Qiangzi, I see that the girls who came here today are all pretty, and two of them are from the same place as you. Have you ever thought about finding one of them to be your wife?"

"What?"

Li Guoqiang was delighted when he heard this, and then he jokingly said, "Do you really want me to get married?"

"No!" Xu Yuping shook her head, and then said with some concern: "I'm just a little worried that if we do this, will it affect your chances of getting married in the future?"

"After all, not every girl can accept a relationship like ours."

"If it doesn't work, just tell me in advance and I won't bother you."

"okay!"

Seeing Xu Yuping like this, Li Guoqiang couldn't help but waved his hand with a smile and said, "Don't worry about these things. I know everything."

"Ok!"

Upon hearing this, Xu Yuping's lips moved slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she nodded silently and agreed.

At this point, she realized that she had no choice but to trust Li Guoqiang.

Soon it was time for the next morning.

Even though Xu Dani had a new quilt, she was still woken up by Qu Yinfeng early in the morning, and then she and Zhu Caixia went to feed the sika deer.

After a few days of feeding, the elk's mood has become much more stable. It no longer jumps up and runs away at the slightest provocation like it did at the beginning.

At the same time, this also brought Li Guoqiang dozens of experience points in animal taming, which directly allowed his animal taming skills to break through to the L4 level.

However, this is of no use.

The knowledge and experience gained from the animal taming skills only made him understand that animal taming requires a lot of time to train and influence the wild beasts, just like falling in love.

If he had the free time, he might as well just get some puppies to raise!

Therefore, he gradually lost interest in taming sika deer and would only try to train them occasionally when he had time. Most of the time, he left the care of the two sisters Xu Dani and Zhu Caixia.

While Xu Dani and Zhu Caixia were teasing the sika deer with reed leaves, Li Guoqiang was moving with the help of Xu Yuping and Qu Yinfeng.

The most important thing was to take his things to the wooden house and place them one by one, and sprinkle some salt and rice on them to get rid of the bad luck.

After they finished their work, Qu Yinfeng and Xu Yuping, mother and daughter, put the bear paws that had been processed in advance into the big iron pot outside the wooden house and stewed them slowly, while also heating up the fire pit in the wooden house.

Then, they went to get three flying dragons, three pheasants, five pounds of pork belly, ten eggs, one pound of peanuts, three pounds of wheat flour and other ingredients, and returned to the outer room next door, where they were busy stewing soup, stewing meat, cooking, frying peanuts, making noodles and dumplings.

Li Guoqiang went to the village and invited cadres from the brigade and production team, as well as Xu Guangshou and other members of the Xu family, to come to his home to have the first meal in the new house.

Since he had informed people about this matter in advance, it didn't take long before the guests came to his house one after another carrying some food and gifts.

Even as a representative, Xu Guangfu gave him a gift of 30 yuan, obviously treating him as one of his own.

He didn't say anything polite about it, but simply declined, took the money, and then led the guests to sit around the fire pit in the wooden house.

Fortunately, the fire pit is big enough and can accommodate two tables of people.

Then, he directly asked Xu Yuping, Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani to serve the guests cigarettes, loose liquor, fried peanuts, candies, melon seeds and other good things, which made the guests exclaim that he was very generous.

The reason why he did this was, on the one hand, because he had made a lot of money in the eyes of outsiders some time ago, and he needed to offer some sweet benefits to win over people's hearts and make everyone have a good time.

On the other hand, he also wanted to save face for Qu Yinfeng, Xu Yuping, Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani, and let the villagers know that although he had moved out to live on his own, his relationship with Qu Yinfeng's family had not been severed, so that no one would be so blind as to suddenly bully Qu Yinfeng and her family of orphans and widows.

After seeing that Li Guoqiang actually took out so many good things to entertain the guests, some of the more calculating people immediately offered to go back and call their wives to help.

Since they came to help, according to custom, the host not only has to give a red envelope, but also has to ask the helpers to pack up some leftovers to take back.

However, before Li Guoqiang could speak, Xu Guangfu said that Li Guoqiang had already invited his wife Tian Guixiang, Xu Guanglu's wife Wang Lizhen, and Xu Guangshou's wife Sun Ermei to come and help.

After hearing this, those who wanted to ask their wives to come over to help could only shut their mouths in disappointment. Especially the people from the Sun family and the Ma family, they couldn't help but feel a little sour, thinking that the Xu family was just lucky to accidentally make a capable young man like Li Guoqiang their own family member.

Just when the two family leaders, Sun Maocai and Ma Changshun, were thinking about whether there was any way to win over Li Guoqiang, Tian Guixiang, Wang Lizhen and Sun Ermei also came to the house to help cook and entertain guests, and they also brought an unexpected person.

"Comrade Li Guoqiang, congratulations on moving into your new home. This is a small gift from me, please accept it."

Xu Yuying looked at Li Guoqiang's increasingly handsome face, a complex look flashed across her eyes, and then she spoke softly with a smile.

As she spoke, she handed over a box in her hand.

"no, I'm fine!"

Seeing this, Li Guoqiang waved his hands and said, "I'm already very happy that you can come to congratulate me. Why do you need to send me anything?"

In fact, he was afraid that the gift Xu Yuying gave him might have some special meaning, and it would be difficult to say anything then.

"What?"

Xu Yuying frowned, and then said with some dissatisfaction: "Do you look down on the gift I gave you? Or do you not regard me as your friend at all?"

"Forehead"

After hearing what Xu Yuping had said, Li Guoqiang could only nod helplessly and said, "Okay then! Thank you for the gift."

After saying that, he reached out and took the box.

"now it's right!"

Xu Yuying smiled with satisfaction, and then urged with some anticipation: "Open it and see if you like it?"

"Ok!"

Li Guoqiang nodded, then opened the box in his hand.

The next moment, I saw a Hero brand fountain pen quietly placed in the box. The silver-white pen cap and the dark green pen barrel gave people a feeling of low-key luxury.

If he remembered correctly, this should be the very classic Hero 201 high-end gold pen, and the price should be around 6 yuan.

Although this amount of money is nothing to him, but for Xu Yuying, it is almost a week's salary!
Thinking of this, he hurriedly closed the box and handed it back to Xu Yuying.

"This gift is too valuable. You should take it back!"

(End of this chapter)