The older brothers were all tall.
Although Jiang Qian was a young woman, she was still 1.65 meters tall, or nearly 1.67 meters in shoes. Among women of this era, that was considered quite tall.
It was just that, standing beside Han Shiguo, the difference was rather substantial.
That man was 1.85 meters tall even barefoot. That was only her estimate, but now that she looked at him, he seemed even taller.
“How tall are you?” Jiang Qian asked directly, voicing the answer she wanted to know.
“One hundred eighty-seven centimeters,” Han Shiguo replied.
Sure enough, he was taller than 1.85 meters.
Jiang Qian sighed inwardly, then praised him aloud, “You’re really tall. Is the air fresher up there?”
Hearing the young woman’s adorable remark, Han Shiguo laughed. “I wasn’t this tall originally. Before I went to the military unit, I was under 1.8 meters. I grew more after I went there.”
“How old were you when you joined the military unit?”
“Seventeen.” Han Shiguo answered every question.
Jiang Qian was genuinely surprised. “You joined the military unit when you were that young?”
Han Shiguo smiled. “Seventeen isn’t that young.”
Jiang Qian understood what he meant. In the countryside, boys of seventeen could already get married.
“When I was seventeen, I happened to get the opportunity, so I seized it. After I went to the military unit, I realized I was like a frog at the bottom of a well,” Han Shiguo said with emotion.
He also told her about what it had been like when he had first joined the military unit.
Jiang Qian could not help admiring him after listening. “You’re truly impressive. Your willpower and self-discipline are both extremely rare.”
From being a rural son with no foundation to being noticed by the commander and taken in under his wing, she had not witnessed his efforts firsthand, but she could still feel how much he had sacrificed.
There were no free pies falling from the sky.
Without the ability to handle one, even a hot, freshly baked pie in one’s hands would feel too hot, causing one to instinctively throw it away.
To put it plainly, without sufficient effort and ability, one could not catch an opportunity falling from above!
Listening to the young woman, Han Shiguo’s lips curved upward. “You’re impressive too. I heard that many people took part in the school’s recruitment examination, but they only wanted two candidates, and you were one of them.”
After talking about quite a few things concerning himself, he wanted to hear about her as well.
Jiang Qian was quite modest. “I was just lucky.”
“Without ability, there is no luck. Ability is the prerequisite for luck.” As someone who had been through it himself, Han Shiguo understood this very well.
Jiang Qian smiled. “It was all right. At least I didn’t disgrace my parents.”
“How could you have disgraced them? You brought honor to Uncle and Aunt.” Han Shiguo could tell that the Jiang family had excellent family values, even better than those of his own family.
His Eldest Sister-in-law was not a good person. She had already shown her displeasure yesterday, implying that when she got married, she had received only twenty yuan and a thirty-six-legs set of furniture.
But Han Shiguo did not feel ashamed about this at all.
More than ninety percent of the Han family’s savings had been earned by him. Now that he was getting married, what was wrong with giving his wife three rotating items and one sounding item?
What did she have to be displeased about? Han Shiguo had no intention of indulging her!
At this point, he also brought up the matter with Jiang Qian. “My parents’ intention is that after I get married, they’ll arrange family separation between the two of us brothers. However, since I’m away from home all year round, I’ll have to give the family one hundred yuan a year as an elderly allowance.”
One hundred yuan a year amounted to less than ten yuan a month. For Han Shiguo, whose monthly salary was seventy yuan, it was not much.
Of course, it was certainly not little, either.
“Supporting one’s parents is also a duty that children should fulfill. It’s only right.” Jiang Qian knew he was informing her in advance, so she naturally made her position clear.
Han Shiguo smiled. “When it comes to our family’s affairs in the future, shall we discuss and decide everything together?”
It was all a ploy, nothing but a ploy.
Jiang Qian was not so easy to fool. Although she was satisfied with him, they could not be calling it “our family” so soon.
She was not stringing him along. It was simply that a young woman could not be so easy to deceive.
She did not answer the question and changed the subject. “I wonder if Fourth Brother is at his workplace today. Let’s go over there and take a look later.”
“How did Fourth Brother manage to stay and work in the city?” His carefully laid trap had failed, but Han Shiguo was not anxious. He leisurely pedaled the bicycle while chatting with her.
“Fourth Brother was lucky.” Jiang Qian smiled when she mentioned her twin Fourth Brother.
She felt that the most cunning person in the family was her Fourth Brother, Jiang Shouchuan.
The two siblings had attended high school together. As it turned out, Jiang Shouchuan was extremely crafty. While she had graduated by following the rules, he had managed to obtain his graduation certificate ahead of time, graduated before her, and even secured a temporary worker position.
In just one year, he had become a permanent employee, transferring from temporary worker to a formal purchasing clerk, a position with abundant opportunities for profit. He was now thriving in it, looking incredibly impressive.
Han Shiguo laughed as he listened to her. “You were lucky, and Fourth Brother was lucky too. You attribute everything to luck.” The young woman was genuinely modest.
Jiang Qian smiled. “I’m telling the truth. Although we did put in effort, it was because we were lucky that everything worked out.”
Having ability was the foundation of good luck, but many people with talent also went unrecognized. Luck really was important.
The two of them chatted as they entered the county town.
The journey was already quite long, and Han Shiguo was not cycling very quickly either.
It took them a little over two hours to reach the county town. However, because they had chatted the whole way, the time seemed to pass before they even noticed.
“Are you tired? Should we find somewhere to rest first?” Jiang Qian suddenly realized and asked him.
“This is nothing. It won’t tire me out.” Han Shiguo looked at her.
She was so considerate and concerned about him. If he married this good woman and brought her home, he would certainly be blessed in the future.
Although he was carrying Jiang Qian, for Han Shiguo it was equivalent to carrying nothing at all and did not create any burden whatsoever.
She still had no idea how good his stamina was.
He would let her find out in the future.
Jiang Qian knew that people who served in the military had good stamina, but she had truly not expected it to be this good. After carrying her on the bicycle for so long, he had not even started panting.
With stamina like that of an iron man, she was afraid she would suffer terribly in the future...
She thought of the adjectives she had seen in her previous life, such as perpetual-motion machine and pile driver...
No, she could not keep thinking about this!
Jiang Qian quickly cast away the shameless Little Yellow Person lurking deep within her mind and temporarily sealed that Little Yellow Person away.
“Shall we go to Fourth Brother’s workplace and see if he’s there? If he is, should we ask Fourth Brother to come out and eat with us?” Han Shiguo asked.
“All right.” Jiang Qian had no objections. She definitely had to introduce her prospective husband to Fourth Brother.
Han Shiguo asked her to give him directions, so Jiang Qian told him which way to go. The two of them made their way to Jiang Shouchuan’s workplace.
It did not take long for them to reach her Fourth Brother’s workplace.
Jiang Qian had come to visit her Fourth Brother before, and the security guard uncle recognized her immediately. Jiang Shouchuan had already greeted him, and he was especially good at maintaining relationships, occasionally bringing the security guard uncle a napa cabbage, a few radishes, or something similar.
Thus, when the security guard uncle saw Jiang Qian, he smiled and said, “Have you come to see your Fourth Brother?”