Traveling between the 70s and the modern world

Chapter 206 On the way home

Lin Qingyan watched Gu Yizhou get off the train and waved to him from the window. Ye Yi also looked at Fang Yunxing outside with some disappointment. The two returned to their seats only after the train started to move slowly.

As it turned out, an old lady was already sitting in their seat.

"Auntie, you are sitting in the wrong seat, right? You are sitting in my seat." Lin Qingyan said to her with a smile.

"You're sitting right, this is my seat." The old lady said in an unknown dialect.

"Auntie, my luggage is still under the seat." Lin Qingyan pointed to the package that Gu Yizhou had just stuffed in.

"This is my seat, and this is your luggage, take it!" The old lady threw Lin Qingyan's luggage directly over.

Lin Qingyan quickly reached out to catch it and the smile on her face disappeared.

Ye Yi had now come back to her senses from her previous sadness, and was unhappy when she saw the old lady's behavior.

"Auntie, you took our seats and threw our luggage. Aren't you going too far?"

"How did I go too far? Come and judge for yourself, two little girls are taking my seat as an old lady."

The old lady howled at the top of her lungs.

"Auntie, there are corresponding seat numbers on the train ticket. Each ticket corresponds to a seat. Please take out your ticket and check if it is this seat."

Lin Qingyan took a deep breath and asked loudly.

"There are so many seats in this car, why do you have to come to my side, little girl, and think that I, an old woman, am easy to bully?" the old lady yelled.

Several people around looked at Lin Qingyan and Ye Yi with strange eyes, and Lin Qingyan's good mood was ruined.

He said to the old lady, "This is my ticket. You can also take out your ticket so that everyone can see it."

"This is the seat on the ticket. You're sitting in the wrong seat, old lady." Someone next to you leaned over to take a look at the ticket and offered to help.

"Little girl, you are so young, standing for a while is just exercise. Unlike us, who are old and weak, we can't stand. Just stand for a while, and I will return your seat to you when I get to my station."

The old lady looked at the fully occupied carriage and refused to leave.

"I paid for this seat ticket. If you can't stand, you can also buy a seat ticket. Or I can call the conductor to buy you a seat ticket. Is that okay with you?"

Lin Qingyan's face had turned cold at this time. Some people were really disrespectful to the elderly.

When the old lady heard the conductor calling, she thought about the no-seat ticket in her pocket, stood up muttering, picked up her luggage and walked away cursing.

At this time, Lin Qingyan said to the person who had just spoken up to help her, "Thank you for helping me speak just now."

"You're welcome. This is a new society. Bullying is not allowed." A crisp voice sounded.

Lin Qingyan then took a closer look at the other person. She hadn't paid attention to her just now, but now she looked carefully and found that it was a young girl who might be an educated youth returning home for the New Year.

"Thank you anyway."

Lin Qingyan smiled and pulled Ye Yi to sit beside her. Coincidentally, the girl sat opposite her.

After the train slowly started moving, the three chatted for a while and found out that the girl's name was Li Lingling and that she was also from Liaocheng. When she knew that she was from the same hometown as Lin Qingyan, the expressions on her faces became more enthusiastic.

Li Lingling's home is not far from Lin Qingyan's. Both her parents work in a garment factory. She is the third of four siblings, two older sisters and a younger brother.

The eldest sister also went to work in a garment factory. Only the second sister was about the same age as her. In order not to go to the countryside, the second sister made a scene at home, so her mother had no choice but to give the job to the second sister.

Her younger brother was still young at the time, and when he grew up he could inherit their father's job, so it fell on her to go to the countryside.

"Are you also going home for the New Year?" Li Lingling looked at the girl in front of her with a gentle smile, and then glanced at Ye Yi.

Lin Qingyan smiled and nodded, "We haven't been home for the New Year since we went to the countryside, so we'll go back this year to take a look."

"Me too. It's my first time going back too." Li Lingling's dimples became deeper when she smiled, which made her look very adorable.

Lin Qingyan had a good impression of her. She took out a bag of melon seeds from her bag and shared some with Ye Yi and her. Li Lingling was very outgoing and took the melon seeds and started eating them without any hesitation.

"You are so beautiful, and your skin is really good. You look even prettier when you smile." He couldn't help but praise her while eating melon seeds.

Lin Qingyan smiled slightly and said to her: "Don't you think it's strange that all the good-looking people praise me so much."

Ye Yi covered her mouth and laughed. She had never seen Lin Qingyan like this before.

Li Lingling opened her mouth wide immediately, and it took her a long time to react. She was also praised, and the praise was for her level.

The train had just started, it was early, and they couldn't sleep, so the three of them were chatting aimlessly. Suddenly, they saw a few people standing by their seats who seemed to have seen someone and hurried to the toilet.

"What's wrong with them?" Lin Qingyan looked a little confused and asked Ye Yi.

At this time, Li Lingling had already exchanged seats with the person next to Lin Qingyan and leaned over to her ear.

He said softly, "Maybe they didn't buy tickets."

Lin Qingyan understood. She knew that the lives of the educated youth were not easy. Many of them were used to life in the city, and suddenly they were asked to work in the countryside. Many of them could not bear it. They could not eat or sleep well. In addition, some of them were more worried and might be depressed like she was in her previous life.

"Some of the educated youth in our brigade never received money from their families, and they were asked to send food rations back home. Moreover, the train tickets back home cost a lot of money, and many people could not afford them." Li Lingling explained to Lin Qingyan.

In the era when people lived on work points, if you were not good at work, you would not earn much money after a year of hard work, not even enough for a trip home. If you wanted to go home for the New Year, you could only get on the train secretly.

If you see a flight attendant coming, you must hide.

After the attendant left, several girls who had hidden in the toilet came out and dispersed in the carriage. The two girls who had been sitting next to them stood up again and smiled at them.

She said embarrassedly: "We were forced to do this. We really had no choice. I'm sorry to make you laugh."

Lin Qingyan and the others nodded, saying nothing, and showing no sympathy. They talked about the village where they were going to work.

Some of the girls standing have been working in the countryside for several years and have never been back. The work points they earn every year are not enough to make any money except for their food rations. They are forced to have no choice but to find ways to evade the tickets.

Lin Qingyan and Ye Yi listened to them quietly for two days and learned from them that the educated youth who went to the countryside had a very difficult life. Some of them earned work points but still owed money to the production team.

The two looked at each other. It seemed that Xishui Village was still good overall. At least no one owed money to the brigade.

The closer she got to home, the happier Lin Qingyan became, but she didn't know that what was going to greet her was chaos at home.