Chapter 52: My Husband Has Been Having Great Financial Luck Lately!

In Ping County, inside the Jiang family village, a newly built 180-square-meter house stood in quiet elegance.

Outside, the midwinter air was biting and chilly; inside, it was as warm as spring. The ambient temperature was hardly any different from the centralized heating systems in the city. From the layout design to the choice of interior decoration styles and effects, every single detail—the custom-made full-house wardrobes, the curtains, and the household appliances—had been personally seen to by Xu Li, who had poured a tremendous amount of effort and care into building this new home from scratch.

For a house designed entirely by her own hands, Xu Li was extremely satisfied and deeply fond of it. Living in the village, matters concerning clothing, food, housing, and transportation were actually quite fine. In all aspects, it was much the same as living in the city, and the cost of living was even cheaper.

Meituan Preferred, Dudu Grocery, and various delivery services all delivered directly to the supermarket at the entrance of the village. Throughout spring, summer, autumn, and winter, there were always fresh, seasonal vegetables grown right in their own backyard garden.

The only slight regret was in the realm of education, which fell far, far behind the standards of the city.

When Jiang Tao was a little boy, the Jiang family village primary school was still a fully accredited elementary school with an ample student population. From the first grade to the sixth, there were twenty to thirty students in every single class. Over the past twenty years or so, however, the student enrollment at the Jiang family village primary school had dwindled more and more. By last year, the total number of teachers and students combined across the entire school was fewer than twenty.

Consequently, the Jiang family village primary school was directly consolidated into the school of a neighboring village by the local education bureau. Even after the merger, each grade only had seven or eight, or perhaps a dozen students at most—completely falling short of forming a standard class.

Jiang Xue was in preschool this year and was scheduled to enter the first grade next September. Xu Li and Jiang Tao planned to have Jiang Xue attend East Street No. 2 Primary School, which fell within the school district of her maternal grandmother's neighborhood. Although this matter was not entirely easy to arrange, it was certainly doable. Xu Li’s paternal cousin, Xu Kai, worked at the county education bureau, and her cousin’s wife, Gao Yunting, was the vice principal of East Street No. 2 Primary School.

The Jiang family village was just a little over two kilometers away from East Street No. 2 Primary School. Therefore, they did not need to rent an apartment in the county seat specifically for schooling, let alone purchase a house there. Because of this, the couple had originally chosen to build their house in the village.

After waking up, Xu Li put on a pale pink pajama set adorned with cute little bears and headed to the kitchen to make Jiang Xue’s favorite hand-grabbed pancake. She also used a milk pot to warm up half a kilogram of fresh milk. Once the breakfast was prepared, she lifted Jiang Xue out of her warm, cozy bed.

While Jiang Xue was eating breakfast, Xu Li picked up her phone and dialed Sun Na’s number. She recounted everything Jiang Tao had told her that morning to Sun Na, word for word.

"Your old Jiang dreamed that I won the third prize? How much money is the third prize?" On the other end of the line, Sun Na found Xu Li’s words quite amusing after hearing them.

As Xu Li nibbled on a slice of toast, she replied, "The third prize is a fixed amount of 3,000 yuan."

"Hahahaha... Do I even have that kind of financial luck?"

"If that's the case, should I play this lottery ticket tens of thousands of times and instantly become a billionaire?"

Clearly, Sun Na on the other end of the phone did not take Xu Li’s words seriously at all.

Xu Li said, "My husband told me not to be too greedy, and to play it at most ten times. You should do the same; if the two of us bet too heavily, his dream won't work anymore."

"Look at you, talking as if it were all real—it's just a dream~ How could it possibly be that prophetic!"

"I've already taken a photo of the lottery ticket and sent it to you. If you want to play, go buy it yourself. I'm certainly not going to spend money on such foolishness."

"My dear, I need to head out for work now. I'll hang up first, let's chat tonight."

"Nana, are you really not going to play? My husband's financial luck has been quite strong lately."

"Nope, nope, I simply don't believe in this sort of nonsense~ Bye-bye, I hope you and Xiaoxue have a wonderful day today, oh~"

On the other end, Sun Na hung up the video call immediately after speaking.

When it came to buying lottery tickets, Xu Li could not press the matter much further. If they actually won, anything could be said, but in the unlikely event that they didn't win, wouldn't that money have been spent in vain?

In truth, she also knew that lottery tickets relied entirely on metaphysics. When it is meant to be yours, you will eventually have it; when it is not meant to be yours, do not force it. Many lottery players had dreamed about winning the lottery, but how could an individual's dream ever influence reality?

Once Jiang Xue finished her hand-grabbed pancake, the mother and daughter each drank a quarter-kilo of milk. After a simple wash-up, Xu Li rode her little electric scooter, carrying Jiang Xue along with her, and headed into the Ping County seat. She went straight to the lottery shop where she frequently made purchases, and bought ten times the random 5-entry lottery ticket worth 10 yuan that Sun Na had been sent, spending a total of 100 yuan.

Having finished purchasing the lottery ticket, Xu Li rode her electric scooter with Jiang Xue along for the ride, heading toward her maternal grandparents' home on the way.

"Mommy, when is Daddy coming back? I haven't seen him in person for a long, long time, and I miss him so much." Seated in the back of the little electric scooter and wearing a small pink helmet, Jiang Xue hugged her mother's slender waist and asked in a sweet, childish voice.

"Soon, darling. Daddy said he'll be back in another five or six days. By then, he'll take Xiaoxue to the amusement park and the zoo, okay?"

"I miss him so much."

"Mommy misses him too~"

...

Beijing.

After selling the scratch-off ticket that won 20,000 yuan, Jiang Tao had originally planned to continue wandering outside, expanding his radius of activity and visiting more places. The probability of obtaining high-value intelligence should be a bit higher that way. However, while he was waiting for the bus, he received a call from his landlord, Lü Qian.

Lü Qian asked him to help move and haul things for Ma Dongmei.

"Sure thing, Brother Lü. Are you planning to start a wonderful cohabitating life with Big Sister Ma?" Jiang Tao spotted Lü Qian, who had been waiting for him near the truck parking spot at the village entrance, and greeted him with a cheerful tease.

Today, Lü Qian was once again cosplaying Xu Wenqiang, making him the most flamboyant person on the entire street.

"Hahahaha, not yet, not yet quite that far~"

"Xiaomei has been renting a place all by herself over in Baigezhuang, and the conditions there are much worse than ours."

"Didn't one of my tenants just check out of their lease? It happens to be vacant for her to move right into."

"Let's go, Little Jiang. Xiaomei is already waiting over there, let's head over now."

As Lü Qian spoke, his face beamed with a joyful smile, looking precisely like a young man head over heels in love.

"A convenient water pavilion gets the moonlight first; Brother Lü's move is brilliant!" Jiang Tao smiled cheerfully and gave Lü Qian a thumbs-up in praise.

"You're the only one who talks so much! Here, take this pack of cigarettes to plug that mouth of yours."

Lü Qian smiled and fished out an unopened pack of Chunghwa cigarettes. After unsealing it, he pulled out one cigarette to light for himself first, and then handed the entire remaining pack to Jiang Tao.

"Got it! Baigezhuang, right? I know the place, Brother Lü, get in the truck!"

Jiang Tao didn't stand on ceremony with Lü Qian. With a grin, he accepted the Chunghwa pack, pulled out a cigarette to light it up, and tucked the rest directly into his pocket.

The two of them climbed into the truck together, and Jiang Tao drove in the direction of Baigezhuang.

After driving for about ten minutes, the truck arrived at the former site of Baigezhuang Village. This place was actually already a demolition zone, having started relocation as early as three or four years ago. Everywhere in the village were broken walls and ruins battered by excavators. Only the buildings of seven or eight holdout households still stood stubbornly, rising in lonely isolation amidst a sea of rubble.

The location of Ma Dongmei's rented room was right inside the building of one of those holdout households. The conditions here were indeed far inferior to those in Xiaoshahe.

Under Lü Qian's guidance, Jiang Tao drove the truck downstairs and met Ma Dongmei, who was already waiting there.

Today, Ma Dongmei wore a brown long-length down jacket, and her slightly graying hair was combed meticulously without a single strand out of place. Though she remained silent, her face always carried a smile that felt incomparably warm.

When Ma Dongmei saw Jiang Tao, she smiled and waved to greet him. She held a very favorable impression of Jiang Tao and was all the more grateful to him for introducing her and Lü Qian to one another.

When Lü Qian looked at Ma Dongmei, the smile on his face never once paused. After exchanging a few gestures and words with Ma Dongmei, he motioned for Jiang Tao to follow him together into the building.

Although the building was dilapidated, gloomy, and damp, Ma Dongmei's room—just like herself—was kept in immaculate order and thoroughly clean. Ma Dongmei had lived here for a dozen years, yet the belongings in her room were not particularly numerous. The three of them made a single trip down and completely emptied out all of Ma Dongmei's possessions from the room.

Once the moving was done, Lü Qian called Ma Dongmei's landlord to inform him that Ma Dongmei had checked out and moved away. In such old, dilapidated tube-style apartment buildings, when tenants moved out, landlords were usually too lazy to return for an inspection, completely devoid of any petty extortion plots involving flashlight inspections.

After Lü Qian finished the call, Jiang Tao drove him and Ma Dongmei back to the exterior of Lü Qian's small building in Xiaoshahe. Jiang Tao then helped move the items into a room on the sunny side of the first floor.

Busy and bustling, the entire morning passed in the blink of an eye.

At noon, Lü Qian treated Jiang Tao and Ma Dongmei to a meal at a small restaurant in the urban-rural fringe village. On one hand, it was to thank Jiang Tao for his help that morning; on the other hand, it was to celebrate Ma Dongmei's housewarming joy.

During the meal, Lü Qian forcefully shoved 1,000 yuan into Jiang Tao's hand as a labor fee, declaring that refusing to take it would mean looking down on his Brother Lü!