Reborn in Changbai Mountain, I rely on my divine eyes to dig ginseng and hunt

The next few days were quite free. Liu Xialian, Daya and Erya went fishing, catching pheasants and wild boars every day. Pheasants and wild boars are the biggest pests in the eyes of farmers. Pheasants like to eat tender sprouts. After working hard to plant a few acres of corn, pheasants come as soon as the sprouts emerge, and they can destroy an acre of corn in the morning. Not to mention wild boars. A group of three or five wild boars can destroy several acres of corn in one night. Farmers hate them to the core.

The three of them didn't do much. Every day they caught dozens of kilograms of fish, a few pheasants, and occasionally caught a small wild boar. They went to a few familiar restaurants and easily made a hundred yuan a day. The days passed quickly, and three days went by in the blink of an eye.

Early that morning, Liu Xia Lian came to the forest farm to deliver fish. She brought a three-pound bighead carp to the Meili Clothing Store, as well as some cabbages and tofu ground in the village.

"Sister, you are so thoughtful. I just wanted to eat bighead carp stewed with tofu, and you brought me bighead carp and tofu."

"It's almost frozen, and it will be hard to get fish in a few days. The restaurant is about to open, so I have to stock up some fish for the restaurant."

"Well, sister, I need to take two days off. Today I'm going to my mother-in-law's house in Yangcun."

"You are the manager of the clothing store, and you approved the leave yourself. I will ask Daya to drive you there in a carriage later."

"Don't bother. There's a carriage going back. It only costs 20 cents."

"Okay, then you can bring them some more gifts, including some underwear and shoes from the clothing store, so they won't find fault with you."

Li Damei spent more than 20 yuan of her own money and bought seven pairs of cotton shoes, one pair for each member of Yang Xiaowei's family.

Liu Xia Lian, Daya and Erya were resting in the clothing store, while Li Damei took someone else's horse-drawn carriage to Yangjiatun.

Li Damei's marriage is with her eldest aunt's beauty. The engagement was arranged last year. At that time, Damei's family was in urgent need of money. Li Damei's younger brother who was in elementary school was sick, and the family could not afford the money for treatment. Damei was already quite old, so her eldest aunt took her to a blind date. Yang Xiaowei was not bad. He was of medium build, 1.7 meters tall, weighed more than 130 kilograms, and looked average. His family had a cow and a donkey, and was considered a middle-class family in the village. At that time, he gave 60 yuan as an engagement fee, and when she got married, she also received 300 yuan as a gift, which was quite in line with the conditions at that time.

Li Damei got off the carriage and was walking towards Yang Xiaowei's house carrying gifts, when she saw Yang Xiaowei coming towards her smoking a cigarette.

"Damei, I'm here, can I help you get your things?"

Li Damei sniffed and said, "Where did you go when you smell like cigarettes?"

"Nothing, I'm playing cards with some buddies."

"No, Xiaowei, what kind of family conditions do we have? Don't we have to go to work in the broad daylight? Why are we playing cards?"

"It's not that we're killing pigs today, so I'm happy and I'm playing less."

Li Damei didn't know what to say, so she followed Yang Xiaowei back.

There were quite a few relatives from the Yang family, more than a dozen of them, and all the brothers were present.

Li Damei's aunt also came. After all, as a matchmaker, she had to follow. The aunt was an old smoker, in her fifties, and she never put down her cigarette, her fingers were yellow from smoke.

The eldest aunt criticized Damei: "Girls should get married and have children early. Why open a store? You can only make a few dollars a month."

"Aunt, why did you let my cousin go to college? Why didn't you let her get married earlier?"

"That's different. Your cousin is a good student. She has a promising future in college and can be assigned a job. You run a small shop, which is a self-employed business. Once the national policy changes, you will not be able to run the business and will have to close down."

Li Damei was speechless for a moment. This was the thinking of most people in this era. When looking for a job, the first choice is government agencies, and the second is large state-owned enterprises. Even for a declining forest farm, there are still people trying their best to get in. Some would rather get a month's salary in a state-owned enterprise than selling things on the street for a day, but they still want to work in a state-owned enterprise. In short, they cannot lose face.

The men were busy slaughtering pigs, and the women were busy picking vegetables. The group of people were happy, and they were cooking pig-slaughtering dishes for lunch.

It may be less familiar in other places, but this practice is almost universal in the three northeastern provinces and Shandong.

The pig-killing dishes were very good, with blood sausage, pig intestines, pork belly, big bones, pickled cabbage, and vermicelli stewed in a big pot. These days, pigs eat grass and grain scraps, and grow slowly, so the meat tastes particularly fragrant.

Li Damei helped to get the plates and bowls. The whole family finished their meal happily, leaving a pile of things to be cleaned up. The eldest aunt also went back, and everyone else left. No one knew where Yang Xiaowei had gone.

Li Damei and her future mother-in-law were left there to wash.

Li Damei asked, "Auntie, did you know that Xiaowei was playing with money?"

Xiaowei's mother's expression paused, and Li Damei felt that something was wrong.

"Hey, it's normal for men to play with money and cards. Once they get married and have kids, they'll naturally take care of the family."

"Oh."

Since the matter has been settled, there is no need to argue about it. Li Damei has made up her mind. After packing up her things, she left without saying goodbye while going to the toilet. When she reached the main road, she hailed a carriage, drove straight to the forest farm, and returned home.

My mother is making dinner for my younger brother, and my father is helping him with his homework.

"Dad, Mom, I've made up my mind. I'm breaking off the engagement."

Damei's mother jumped up as if her buttocks were sitting on a prickly ash branch: "What, are you crazy? Everything is fine, why do you want to cancel the engagement just like that?"

"Yang Xiaowei is a gambler, his mother has known about it for a long time, but she just doesn't care. I don't want to go into the fire pit."

Dad stopped helping with homework and came over to say, "Marriage is not a joke. I'm going to go find your aunt tomorrow and ask about the situation together."

"You go and ask your own question. I'm determined to cancel the engagement." Li Damei said and turned away.

Da Mei Niang was furious: "This girl is getting wilder and more outrageous. She is too outrageous. She just left without saying anything."

Early in the morning, Yang Xiaowei and his mother came to the forest farm and went straight to Li Damei's house.

Da Mei Niang was just getting ready, and when she saw someone coming, she hurried out: "Mother-in-law, you're here quite early. Her father and I were just about to go look for you."

Xiao Wei's mother began to complain: "Your Da Mei is so ignorant. She was fine when we had the pig-killing dinner yesterday, talking and laughing. But she just left in the afternoon. She is so old, but she doesn't understand anything and didn't even say hello."

Da Mei's mother just tried to smooth things over: "Da Mei is a child who doesn't know her own business. I'll tell her about it when she comes over."

Damei's father came out and asked, "Mother-in-law, gambling is no small matter. What's going on with your Xiaowei?"

"The young man loved to play. After playing a few times, his father beat him and he changed his ways."

When Damei's father heard this, his heart skipped a beat. He was in trouble now. Gambling was an addiction that was so strong that he could not control himself. He was so addicted that he was willing to sell his wife to gamble.

"This matter should be decided by Damei. You didn't tell Dawei that he had this problem when we got engaged." After all, Damei's father worked in a large state-owned factory, so he had some basic knowledge.