Chapter 3: Grandma's House

　　The door of the room was locked. Jiang Youtao found a piece of wire and poked it into the keyhole. Then she turned it left and right a few times and the lock opened.

　　There are always a few naughty, ignorant, or even malicious children in the orphanage. Jiang Youtao developed this lock-picking skill after being teased and locked in toilets and empty huts time and time again, and missing meals and going hungry countless times.

　　An old-fashioned lock like this one didn't even take her ten seconds to open.

　　Jiang Youtao pushed open the door and entered the house, looking at the room carefully. The bedroom of Jiang Anguo and his wife had the best orientation in the house, covering an area of 15 square meters and also coming with a small balcony.

　　The room is filled with all the fashionable furniture and ornaments.

　　A faux leather sofa, a large mahogany carved wardrobe with a dressing mirror, a desk with a floral tablecloth and glass, and a dark brown chest of drawers.

　　In this era, these furniture were very valuable. Jiang Youtao walked straight to the closet and found an old cotton jacket based on the original owner's memory.

　　After marrying Jiang Anguo, Li Xiuqin upgraded her clothes. All her patched clothes were replaced with new ones without patches. This cotton-padded jacket is the worst one in her wardrobe.

　　The original owner found this dress while cleaning the house one time. Before she even touched it, Li Xiuqin saw it and scolded the original owner harshly.

　　There must be something wrong when something is out of the ordinary. The original owner was naive and would not think too much about it, but Jiang Youtao was not like that. She intuitively felt that there was something else going on in this old cotton-padded jacket.

　　After patting and pinching the old cotton-padded jacket, Jiang Youtao took out a bulging peony-flower handkerchief from the interlayer of the jacket.

　　When she opened the handkerchief, she saw a stack of big unity bills inside. Judging from the thickness, there must be at least one thousand dollars in it.

　　Jiang Youtao counted out the 800 yuan pension belonging to the original owner's mother and put it into the system backpack that came with the system. As for the remaining money, she didn't even look at it and put it all back to its original place.

　　From a legal and ethical perspective, the pension should be inherited by parents, spouse and children. However, after Jiang Anguo received the money, he did not give a penny to the original owner's grandparents.

　　The original owner's grandparents never asked Jiang Anguo for money. This was the money for their daughter's life. How could they bear to spend it? Besides, there was still a granddaughter, and the money should be spent on her.

　　The original owner did not use the money. Over the years, she relied on the state to provide food and school rations and a monthly scholarship of seven yuan, and her pocket money was made by making paper shells on weekdays.

　　Even so, she was still robbed by Jiang Jiabao from time to time.

　　The original owner was naturally not stupid, and she hid it so well that no one could find it. Later, Jiang Jiabao got a trick from somewhere and violently snatched the scholarship money away from her as soon as she got it.

　　The original owner couldn't save money and didn't eat well. Although her family had no shortage of money or food, she was often hungry. A girl in her 16th or 17th year, her breasts were still flat...

　　She is 1.65 meters tall and probably weighs less than 80 kilograms.

　　This pension, which was stained with the blood of the original owner's mother, made Jiang Youtao feel particularly heavy.

　　After standing for a while, she closed the wardrobe door and took out an iron box from the chest of drawers. The Jiang family's grain and oil books and various tickets were placed in it by Li Xiuqin.

　　In addition to the colorful tickets, there was also a stack of money that Li Xiuqin had not had time to put into the old cotton-padded jacket, about one hundred yuan, which was the subsidy given by the Educated Youth Office to the original owner to go to the countryside to work in the production team. Next to it was a subsidy payment receipt stamped by the Educated Youth Office and a certificate of honor for educated youth going to the countryside.

　　Looking at the date on the receipt, it has been four days since the receipt was received, and the original owner was notified to go to the countryside three days ago. Li Xiuqin never revealed the existence of this subsidy.

　　During the two days that Jiang Youtao had been here, she hadn't seen anything at all.

　　After restoring everything to its original state, Jiang Youtao went straight to the kitchen. When passing by Jiang Jiabao's room, she suddenly remembered that the original owner had a peace locket that her mother had asked for her when she was a child to bless her with safety. The original owner had worn it for more than ten years, and it was her only thought of her mother.

　　Jiang Jiabao fell in love with a girl in their class whose father was the deputy director of a department store. The girl's birthday was next Monday and he wanted to please her. However, he couldn't stand out among all the suitors because he didn't have a special gift. So he set his sights on the original owner and used threats and bribes to snatch her peace locket.

　　The day after tomorrow is Monday, and the peace locket has not been given out yet. Jiang Youtao turned around and went into Jiang Jiabao's room.

　　After the peace locket was snatched away, the original owner went to Jiang Anguo to cry and complain, but was dismissed lightly. Jiang Anguo told her to be more generous, saying that the peace locket was just a worthless thing and could not even be exchanged for one or two yuan if she took it out.

　　Jiang Jiabao took it, so there was no need to cry about it. This was undoubtedly the last straw that broke the camel's back for the original owner. She was so grief-stricken and angry that she jumped into the Huangpu River.

　　The room that Jiang Anguo lived in was much better than the one that the original owner lived in. The room that the original owner lived in was narrow and small, with almost no windows, and the sun could not shine in all year round. Because there was no ventilation, the room was always filled with a musty smell.

　　This room is much better. Not only does it face the sun, but the eight-square-meter room is also very bright. Standing by the open windowsill, you can feel the breeze blowing in from outside.

　　This was originally the original owner's room. The wardrobe and desk in this room were made for the original owner by her grandfather and her uncle.

　　That carved wooden bed was a dowry from the original owner's mother. Li Xiuqin thought it was unlucky but was reluctant to throw it away, so she gave it to her son to sleep on, and even gave it a beautiful name: "Yang energy can correct evil energy."

　　If Li Xiuqin wasn't around, Jiang Youtao would have given her a big slap. She was so shameless.

　　The peace locket that the original owner valued so much was placed carelessly on the desk by Jiang Jiabao, and Jiang Youtao took it and left.

　　When she reached the door of the room, she turned back and put the wardrobe, desk and the carved bed into the system backpack that came with the melon-eating system.

　　Jiang Youtao felt that Jiang Anguo's family was not worthy of the original owner's mother's dowry.

　　All the things in the closet were thrown on the floor. No one knew who had used them. Jiang Youtao was too disdainful to use them.

　　Coming out of Jiang Jiabao's room, there were two satin quilts placed on a stool in the corner of the living room. These were the tickets that Li Xiuqin had saved for a long time, and she bought them at the department store after negotiating with her colleagues and neighbors.

　　This quilt was prepared for Jiang Jiabao's wedding. In her heart, her son was always the best and most outstanding. With such an outstanding son, wouldn't it be easy for him to pursue the daughter of the deputy director?

　　Jiang Youtao unceremoniously put the two quilts into the system backpack. She was now penniless, and the cotton in the quilt in the original owner's room was tangled, and it was really not warm enough when she go to the north. In the past few years, she had not used the original owner's quota of cloth coupons and cotton coupons, and now it was just the right time to make up for it all at once.

　　After putting away the quilt, Jiang Youtao remembered the new cotton-padded jackets hanging in Jiang Anguo's room. She walked in leisurely and put a cotton-padded jacket and two new clothes into the system backpack.

　　Li Xiuqin's niece was going to get married at the end of the month. The family she was marrying into was well-off, so Li Xiuqin decided to flatter them. She not only made two new sets of clothes for the niece, but also made a cotton-padded jacket. Jiang Jiabao even had a quarrel with her over this.

　　Now it's all cheap.

　　After putting away the clothes, she thought about it again and again, went to the table to get a pen, wrote on a piece of paper the fact that she had taken the pension of the original owner's mother, and put it back into the handkerchief of her torn cotton jacket.

　　She was humming a song while playing it. She could foresee how Jiang Anguo and Li Xiuqin would look when they saw the note. They would probably have a stroke out of anger!

　　Jiang Youtao went to the kitchen happily. The kitchen door was open. She walked in and opened the locked cupboard containing rice and flour. With a flick of her wrist, she put all the locked things in the cupboard into her backpack. Seeing that it was getting late, she walked out of the factory.

　　They met many people along the way, and Jiang Youtao said that she was going to find Li Xiuqin, but in fact she was going to the original owner's grandparents' house.

　　Her grandmother's home is in Pudong. In those days, there was a saying that "I'd rather have a bed in Puxi than a room in Pudong." Nowadays, compared to the prosperous Puxi, Pudong is considered a rural area.

　　Jiang Youtao took the tram at the factory gate and then went to the ferry station to take a boat to Pudong.

　　There were a lot of people on the ferry, everyone was sitting, standing or holding the carts, and they didn't know each other, but as long as someone took the initiative, they could start a lively conversation in a dialect that sounded strange yet familiar to Jiang Youtao.

　　Jiang Youtao leaned on the railing and looked into the distance. Puxi had densely packed houses and tall buildings, while Pudong was filled with stretches of farmland and low houses.

　　Before the reform and opening up, it was very difficult to change from an agricultural to a non-agricultural worker. The original owner's mother, Ying Yuexia, had a hard-won opportunity to work at the Puxi Cannery. So, after entering the factory, she worked very hard, won the title of model worker every year, and became a team leader within two years.

　　At that time, Jiang Anguo was just an ordinary worker who had just joined the factory.

　　After marrying Ying Yuexia, Jiang Anguo gradually became a team leader with the help of his wife. However, he was mediocre and had no hope of promotion in the position of team leader for six years. On the contrary, Ying Yuexia was promoted step by step and became the boss of him.

　　After Ying Yuexia died, his position, which had never been moved, was promoted twice to workshop director. That was the compensation given by the factory to her family, and Jiang Anguo became the biggest beneficiary.

　　The three greatest joys for a middle-aged man are promotion, wealth and death of wife. All of them happened to Jiang Anguo.

　　He relied on his wife to reach his current social status, but he did not treat her only child well, even though the original owner had half of his blood.

　　But it doesn't matter. After a trip to the Revolutionary Committee, he will be skinned alive. Director Peng is right to be reasonable, but when beating his subordinates he is unreasonable.

　　It would be good if Jiang Anguo really had no problems at all. However, if he had really done anything illegal in recent years, he would probably have difficulty even keeping his position as workshop director.

　　Thinking of this, Jiang Youtao felt a little relieved, as it was also one of the original owner's wishes that had been fulfilled.

　　The ship stopped, Jiang Youtao withdrew her thoughts, and followed the crowd out of the ferry terminal.

　　There were some tricycles delivering goods and people at the entrance of the ferry terminal. Jiang Youtao took a look and found an empty and hidden alley nearby. She took out the dowry of the original owner's mother from the system backpack, then quickly walked to one of the tricycles to explain the situation.

　　After the tricycle driver followed Jiang Youtao to check out the goods, he found two more tricycles and negotiated a price. Jiang Youtao sat on one of the tricycles and followed them to the village where the original owner's grandmother lived.

　　The original owner's grandmother's house was not close to the ferry station. It took 40 minutes to walk there, and it took half an hour to take a tricycle loaded with goods. The dirt road was not easy to walk on, and it was full of potholes. After unloading the goods at the door and paying the freight, the tricycle driver walked away with his companions, and Jiang Youtao walked into the yard of the original owner's grandmother's house.

　　Compared with Puxi, where housing space is tight, the self-built houses in Pudong are much larger, with independent doors and large yards. A small vegetable garden is opened in the yard to grow some fashionable vegetables.

　　Hao Juxiang was washing clothes by the well in the yard. She noticed someone coming and looked up. Then she stood up from the stool in a flash and moved her three-inch golden lotus feet very quickly to Jiang Youtao, with love and happiness but also a hint of uncertainty: "Youtao? Is it Youtao who is here?"

　　The remaining emotions of the original owner made Jiang Youtao's eyes sore. She strode forward and held the old lady's skinny hand: "It's me, it's me. Grandma, I came to see you. How are you doing recently?"

　　"Good, good, I'm in good health, and can eat and sleep well." Hao Juxiang was very happy. She took Jiang Youtao's hand and went into the house, and was busy making sugar water for Jiang Youtao.

　　In this age of sugar and oil shortage, the old lady's way of expressing her love for her granddaughter is a cup of very sweet sugar water.

　　Jiang Youtao was an orphan who had never experienced the deep love from her elders. She drank all the sugar water while enduring the sweet taste.

　　Hao Juxiang sat at the side, took Jiang Youtao's hand and asked lovingly, "Didn't you eat? Come and eat later, and grandma will make you something delicious."

　　Under Jiang Anguo's day-to-day PUA, the original owner seldomly visited her grandmother's house, sometimes not once a year.

　　Hao Juxiang missed her granddaughter so much that she took a ferry to visit her. But the round trip was too expensive and laborious, so Hao Juxiang could only go a few times a year.

　　"Grandma, I'm not hungry. Please sit down and let's talk." Jiang Youtao stopped Hao Juxiang who was about to go out to cook for her.

　　"Grandma, I'm going to take a train to the Northeast tonight. I don't have much time. I want to talk to you more."

　　The relaxed smile on Hao Juxiang's face froze instantly, and she asked anxiously, "What's going on? Why are you asked to go to the countryside? What does your father do for a living? Is your stepmother playing tricks again? You are an only child so how could it be your turn?"

　　Jiang Youtao answered a series of questions one by one, "Originally, Jiang Jiabao was supposed to go to the countryside, but my dad said that Jiang Jiabao was the only child of his biological father, Zhang's family, and he couldn't let others say that he, as a stepfather was not a good person, so he signed me up and asked me to go to the countryside instead of him."

　　"It was only found out the night before yesterday. The list has been submitted, and the subsidy and honor certificate have been issued. I have to leave tonight, so I came to see you and my grandfather and uncle."

　　Hao Juxiang was furious and was about to rush out, but Jiang Youtao stopped her quickly: "Grandma, calm down. I didn't suffer any loss. I also signed up Jiang Jiabao to go to the countryside yesterday. The director of the Youth Office accepted my gift and promised to send him to the Northwest. The list has also been released, and Jiang Jiabao can't regret it."

　　Jiang Youtao gave Director Zhang a pack of Red Peony cigarettes and a bottle of Maotai liquor that she had obtained from the system. Director Zhang immediately patted his chest and said that he would definitely arrange for Jiang Jiabao to go to the most desolate Northwest.

　　Not only that, he also promised to give Jiang Jiabao a banner, which he would send to the Jiang family with great fanfare tomorrow, completely cutting off Jiang Anguo and Li Xiuqin's ability to use their connections to help Jiang Jiabao.

　　"I don't know why my father was taken away by the Revolutionary Committee for investigation. I don't know when he will be released. You can't find him even if you look for him."

　　Jiang Youtao did not intend to reveal the role she played in Jiang Anguo's entry into the Revolutionary Committee. She was afraid that a simple girl who was bullied by her stepmother and stepbrother all day long would scare the old lady by suddenly doing such things.

　　However, this matter was no longer a secret in the cannery. By the time Hao Juxiang and the others found out about it, she would have already left. She could not control what they thought after they knew the truth.

　　Thinking of this, Jiang Youtao's tone changed and she became relaxed. She pulled Hao Juxiang out of the yard and said, "Grandma, I have asked someone to send back my mother's dowry. You can ask someone to help move it into the house later."

　　"This..." Hao Juxiang hadn't reacted to what her granddaughter said yet, and was shocked by the furniture in front of her. After a while, her eyebrows were slightly wet. How much would it cost to transport these furniture from the factory in Puxi to here? Just thinking about it made Hao Juxiang feel distressed, but thinking of her unlucky daughter, she touched her eyes and said, "That's good, so that others won't get it cheap. When your uncle comes back, ask him to chop it up for firewood. When you get married in two years, let your grandfather and uncle make a set for you."