Xu Nianhua specifically chose a ti to call Pei Yining, and upon learning that Pei Yicheng hadn’t returned yet, she said, "Yining, when your brother cos back, tell him I’ve already arrived ho safely, but I won’t be able to make phone calls from ho these next few days."
"Your village doesn’t have telephones?" Pei Yining inquired.
"No," Xu Nianhua sighed and said, "You don’t know, our village has just gotten electricity, we’re actually one of the early ones to have it. There are still many villages without electricity at all. I guess it will be a few more years before we can have telephones."
She said, unsure, missing the mobile phones from the future where she could find soone anyti, anywhere!
"Well, it’s good enough that you have electricity," Pei Yining said. The only inconvenience during her stay at Xu Nianhua’s house and her grandfather’s place was the problem with electric lights. Accustod to having lights and watching TV at night, suddenly being in the Xu family’s ho and groping in the dark was very unsettling. Not to ntion the kerosene lamp’s sll, it also wasn’t bright at all, flickering and dimming, which made her eyes uncomfortable.
Even though they couldn’t install a phone imdiately, having electricity was progress, she said, "I know you want to talk to my brother, and that you’re dismissing . Don’t worry, as soon as my brother gets back, I’ll make sure to tell him you miss him a lot."
"Yining, if you don’t speak properly, I’m going to hang up, the call is quite expensive!" Xu Nianhua secretly glanced outside the door to make sure no one was there before sighing in relief. Even though the voice on the phone was very soft and people outside wouldn’t be able to hear, she still felt like she was doing sothing clandestine.
"Don’t," Pei Yining imdiately said, "Nianhua, it’s so hard to get a call through, don’t worry about the cost of the call!"
Xu Nianhua remained silent, because long-distance calls were indeed very expensive at the ti.
"Nianhua, you’re being too stingy. Look at how much money you’ve made these days. Plus, at the bicycle factory, your translation fees are not small either. Why fret over such a small phone bill?" Pei Yining murmured, but despite her grumbling, she got to the point, "Nianhua, I’m going to the photo exhibit tomorrow. There will be an anonymous vote, and I believe the photo I took of you will be the most beautiful!"
"I wish you win the prize, then I can get a share of the model fee!" Xu Nianhua said cheerfully. She had seen the photo Pei Yining submitted, it was as profiled as it could get, she was so dazzled by it that she couldn’t be 100% sure it was herself.
It would be impossible for soone to recognize her from just the side of her face.
"Of course, we agreed to split it half and half," Pei Yining’s voice had just finished when she murmured, "Why do I feel like we’re splitting the loot?"
"You think you’re out robbing money? Besides, with your thin arms and legs, I’m afraid if there was a robbery, you’d be the one getting robbed," Xu Nianhua retorted unsparingly.
Pei Yining scread in frustration and after a back-and-forth banter with Xu Nianhua on the phone, she finally hung up reluctantly.
On the other end of the line, before Xu Nianhua hung up the phone, she glanced at the call duration, nearly twenty minutes.
She needed to secretly pay the phone bill; otherwise, her mother would nag her about wasting money again, and even though her mom would not scold her, she would feel embarrassed. She was all grown up; she shouldn’t still be using her parents’ money, right?
Although she hadn’t managed to speak with Pei Yicheng, Xu Nianhua didn’t have ti to feel upset; she got busy at the Chili Sauce Factory. A new section of the adjacent construction site was specially fenced off to build a new factory. She believed that co the next half of the year, there would be earth-shaking changes in the factory again.
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