Chapter 1185: 1058: Really Dumb?

Mr. Zhang is indeed very busy. He still goes out for a stroll during these freezing days.

Mother Zhang not only noticed this, but also saw him coming back every time in a very good mood, holding his belly.

If she hadn’t been living with this crazy old man for most of her life, she would really have to wonder if he had some widow outside.

Unfortunately, for several days in a row, there was a constant stream of people visiting...

But she wasn’t afraid, she just didn’t believe she couldn’t catch the fox’s tail!

"Mom, how about I knit you a pair of shoes?"

"No need, you should go back early to see your grandson."

"Today the child’s grandma is here, I came to chat with you two specially."

Mother Zhang never found her eldest daughter so annoying!

—How can she not read people’s expressions?

"Are you a good mother-in-law? Oh, your in-laws are here and you don’t entertain them, you come back to your mom’s place, do you know what people will think? Go back soon!"

Zhang Meili smiled indifferently, "What are you talking about? My in-laws are great, they live not far away, they can’t possibly not know what kind of person I am."

"The better the relationship, the more you have to be considerate. Alright, you go back, I want to take a nap."

"Can I take the shoe pattern?"

"Take it, take it..."

Not just the shoe pattern, even if you took the shoes, it wouldn’t make Mother Zhang blink. In a couple of hours, the old man would be back, and she was waiting to catch the tail!

Zhang Meili suspiciously looked at her, "Mom, are you sure you’re not sick or anything?"

"Your health isn’t as good as mine! I’m just a bit tired from getting up too early today. Don’t bother me, Mai Sui just checked my pulse and your dad’s yesterday, we’re fine."

Zhang Meili had confidence in her niece, and after hearing this, she nodded with a smile, not forgetting to check her mom’s complexion while tucking her in and giving some more reminders.

Mother Zhang watched her leave, and only when she heard the gate open and close outside did she let out a deep breath.

Her eldest daughter was getting more and more nagging with age!

So on this day, as Mr. Zhang happily returned from the west side of the city, he unexpectedly found his wife bundled up like a bear, sitting on a small bench staring hard at him.

He was so startled that he quickly pulled off his mask and scarf to show his face, "Honey, what’s wrong? Who upset you and made you angry?"

Actually, Mother Zhang hadn’t been sitting there for long, and she wasn’t really planning to turn into an ice cube. But when she heard the familiar footsteps outside, she played along specially for him.

But how could she say that out loud?

She couldn’t give the old man any excuse to make fun of her for being immature!

Mr. Zhang saw she was so frozen she couldn’t speak and was just nodding dumbly, looking like a bear in the mountains. He didn’t care about anything else and pulled her into the house.

(Are you sure she wasn’t wrapped up too tight to speak?)

"Honey, do you know who I am?"

Mr. Zhang kept asking incoherently, "Are you cold? Let me take off your coat, don’t be afraid, do you know who I am?"

Mother Zhang was stunned by this, thinking the silly old man thought she was daft. Who’s daft? Your whole family’s daft... no, just you!

Mother Zhang muttered to herself while reaching into Mr. Zhang’s arms.

Mr. Zhang, who was helping take off her hat and coat, was almost in tears. Was she really dumb now? When he left at noon, his wife was fine; what happened?

"Danou, don’t be afraid, I’ll take you to find our boys. When you see our Xiao Wu, everything will be fine. Don’t be afraid..."

Mother Zhang had already felt the hard object in her husband’s coat and understood it. She glared, "You’re Danou! I’m Huang Xiuzhi."

"Right, right, not Danou, not..." Mr. Zhang hadn’t even finished speaking in surprise before he went dumb with realization. His wife indeed had a proper name like Xiuzhi, given by a female comrade during literacy classes. But for years, when out doing errands, she was always called Huang Danou, he might have forgotten otherwise.

Oops, now wasn’t the issue about her name, but she wasn’t dumb at all... and upon realizing the truth, Mr. Zhang was so furious he almost wanted to beat his rascally wife.

Haven’t you heard that scaring people can kill them?

"Honey, is it silver dollars in there?" Mother Zhang, unaware, poked his belly with her finger, "That’ll teach you to hide things from me, teach you..."

Mr. Zhang found it both amusing and infuriating, pressed her onto the kang and covered her with a quilt, then poured her a cup of hot water to warm her hands.

"What kind of game are you playing? Sitting in the courtyard in this cold, if I came back at night, wouldn’t you be frozen solid?"

But as soon as he said this, Mr. Zhang somewhat understood what his wife wanted to do. First, he took off his coat, untied the bag wrapped inside and handed it to her.

"I wasn’t trying to hide from you, anyway, things are in the warehouse, where can they run off to? You’re really regressing with age, if our daughter-in-law saw this, how embarrassing!"

Mother Zhang rolled her eyes at him, patted the kang surface, and signaled him to come up quickly, "Why didn’t you just say you were going to exchange things? It’s no big deal."

"Sometimes you get good stuff, sometimes you don’t, can’t be explained right away. I was planning to tell you later, but you’re always so fixated that I knew you wouldn’t sleep."

Mr. Zhang got onto the kang, emptied the contents of the bag.

Upon seeing the silver dollars and jade bracelets roll out, Mother Zhang remarked, "You don’t go to the black market at this hour every day."

"So smart of you!" Mr. Zhang glanced at her, "These were collected by Old Guai in the North City, people who collect scraps are more connected. Originally, I hadn’t planned on taking them, but then I ran into him, and he remembered an old favor, advised me to collect some secretly too. Someone has already placed orders with them, taking as much as they can get."

"Oh, it’s him, he’s trustworthy."

Mr. Zhang rolled his eyes speechlessly. If he wasn’t trustworthy, would he have been going out all these days? Did she really think these things were easy to collect now?

He figured the good stuff had all been scooped up by those jerks.

What a pity!

Meanwhile, in a compound in Beijing, the Ping’an Brothers who were busy sorting and organizing, sneezed violently, exchanged glances and mumbled to each other: "It’s really dirty!"

One of them grumbled, "We need to buy masks!"

Wu rolled his eyes, and gritted his teeth saying: "Someone must be cursing us, damn it!"

—Yes, you guessed right!

But alas, there’s no prize!

Mother Zhang remained silent for a while, and cautioning her husband, said, "Still, be careful, you never know when a new directive might suddenly come out."

"This time it shouldn’t matter. A few days ago I asked Brother Dashan, he said things have changed, as long as it’s low-key, there shouldn’t be problems. Even Yuanyuan mentioned last week that people in the provincial city are already wearing gold and silver in the streets. It’s really different now!"

"By the way, I forgot to tell you something, Brother Dashan might move to the provincial city after the New Year. Don’t mention it to anyone yet, it seems even Zuo Lin is being transferred."

"Ah? Are they really leaving this time? Well, they should have been promoted by now. I heard from the second one years ago that they didn’t want to leave."

Mr. Zhang smiled and said no more.

Official matters are complicated, he neither understood nor cared to.