Li You knew that his father's thinking was a bit old-fashioned and it was understandable that it was difficult for him to accept his seemingly risky behavior for a while, so Li You didn't say much. He believed that as time passed, his ideas and attitudes would change. Then, after saying a word to his father, Li You went straight to the back mountain! When Li You came over, more than a dozen baskets had already been placed on the embankment of the reservoir, and many children were carrying out preliminary processing of the mountain goods picked back. When the children saw Li You coming, they all gathered around. Li You took a rough look and found that there were more and more children picking mountain goods these days, and there were actually as many as thirty. "East son, what's going on with them?" Li You pointed to several children who were seven or eight years old and asked. East son immediately said, "Brother You, it's not that everyone in the village knows that we made money by picking mushrooms with you, and their parents came to me and wanted them to pick mushrooms with us too!" "They're too young!" Li You frowned and said. At this time, a dirty little boy loudly said, "We're not small either, and we can pick mushrooms too!" Li You recognized this little guy. He was the third child of Dong the Lame in the west of the village. His father had polio and had difficulty moving, and his mother was a mute. There were five children in the family, and life was quite hard. East son also echoed and said, "Brother You, they are all mountain kids. Picking a mushroom is still no problem!" Li You sighed and said, "After all, it's not safe in the mountains. Not to mention wild beasts such as jackals, tigers, leopards, and wild boars. Just the work of picking mountain goods is not simple either, climbing up and down. I'm worried about something happening to them!" As soon as the words fell, the children immediately opened their mouths and said, "We're not afraid!" "Yes, we're not afraid!" "We run in the mountains every day, we're really not afraid..." Li You motioned them to be quiet first, and then said, "If you want to follow me to make money, you can go back and ask your parents to come to my house to find me. We have to make things clear before I dare to take you, otherwise it won't work!" It wasn't that Li You was overly suspicious, but there were some things he had to think about ahead. The business of picking mountain goods was really dangerous. Although in recent years, the government had organized militiamen to wipe out all the large wild beasts such as wolves, insects, tigers, and leopards in the mountains. Even if there were any, they had all run to the depths of the mountains, but there were still some such as wild boars, Mongolian gazelles, and roe deer. Especially wild boars, there were quite a few in the mountains. Once the children encountered that thing, it was really quite dangerous. If a child was injured or died because of picking mountain goods for him, then his family's adults wouldn't set fire to Li You's house. He couldn't take this risk! Hearing that Li You wasn't really not wanting them, but asking their adults to come, the children didn't say anything else. Then, under Li You's direction, a large group of children carried more than a dozen baskets of various cleaned mushrooms and fungus back to the village! And after returning home, Li You also distributed yesterday's wages to them. In the evening, after the production team got off work, villagers came to Li You's house one after another. Everyone's purpose was the same, that is, they wanted their children to follow Li You to work and earn some pocket money to subsidize the family by the way. Li You's attitude was very clear. It was okay to follow along, but an agreement had to be signed. The content of the agreement was also very simple, that is, the children were using their spare time to work-study, and he did not belong to employing child labor. Secondly, the children must obey the older children's instructions when going up the mountain and cannot act on their own initiative. Secondly, he was not responsible for any safety issues. Everyone also understood Li You's difficulties, so they all signed this agreement. Even someone asked if Li You wanted the mountain goods picked by adults, but Li You refused. It wasn't that Li You didn't have a market, but now that the agricultural cooperative hadn't disintegrated yet. If he encouraged these adults to go up the mountain to pick mountain goods, it would necessarily affect the production progress of the production team, which was absolutely impossible. In addition, the reason why he wanted to do the mountain goods business with East son and them was that on the one hand, he needed money, and on the other hand, he wanted these little brothers to follow him to make money too. But if all the adults in the village went into the mountains to pick mushrooms and fungus, what would it matter to the children! So although Li You was very tempted by the adults' proposal, he finally held back! ..... When everyone left Li You's house, it was already after ten o'clock in the evening! The family tidied up a bit and was about to rest! At this time, Li You suddenly said to his parents, "Father, mother, I have something to discuss with you!" Li Shankui knocked the dry tobacco pipe in his hand on the edge of the kang and then said, "What's the matter?" "Father, I want to build a house!" Li You said seriously. Li You had been thinking about building a house for several days. He knew that his parents' idea was that when he got married to Tang Ying, he would tidy up the room he was living in now and use it as their wedding room. But Li You felt that it was still a bit shabby. For one thing, that room was originally used to store sundries at home. Not only was it small in area, but it also didn't keep warm. It was okay in summer, but in winter, the wind leaked everywhere, which was really not suitable for being a wedding room. Not to mention, if there were no accidents, Tang Ying already had their child in her belly. Even for the sake of the child, he had to consider the issue of the house. Li Shankui was silent for a long time and then said, "Why did you think of building a house?" Mother Zhang Yuehong also asked, "Although the west room is a little small, it can still be lived in! If it really doesn't work, after Xiaoying passes the door, I and your father will live in the west room, and you two will live in the east room!" Li You immediately said, "The idea of building a house actually came to me a long time ago. On the one hand, I want a small family of my own after I get married to Xiaoying, and on the other hand, our family is really too small." "Because the family is too small to accommodate too many people, the eldest sister and the second sister don't come back to their mother's house very much these years, and even if they come back once, they don't stay at home overnight." Hearing Li You's words, both Li Shankui and Zhang Yuehong were silent. They all knew that what their son said was the truth, but building a house was not so simple. It required both labor and materials, and it wasn't cheap! After a long time, Li Shankui finally said, "Building a house requires money, and you are about to get married soon and also need money. How about postponing it?" "I have almost 500 yuan in my hand now. I don't know if it's enough!" Li You replied. Li Shankui and Zhang Yuehong looked at each other. They really didn't expect that after their son took out the betrothal money and bought a bicycle, he still had 500 yuan in his hand, and they were both surprised. "If it's a brick-tiled house, it's still a little short, but if it's an adobe house, it's enough!" Li You thought for a while and said, "Father, I want to build a brick-tiled house. Build three rooms this year, and next year, renovate the old house again and also build it into a brick-tiled house!" Li Shankui took a puff of cigarette and said, "Let's talk about the old house later. Take care of yourselves first!" "If you agree, then I'll go find Uncle Feng tomorrow and ask him to approve the homestead for me!" Li You said. "Well, remember to bring two bottles of wine to Lao Feng when you go!" Li Shankui instructed. Since his son had money in his hand, he naturally wouldn't stop him. And he was also worried about the unreliable problem that occurred before recurring and squandering the money, rather than using it to build a house now. "Okay!"