Natasha, having increased responsibility and wanting to receive legitimately earned funds, decided to finalize it before the end of the shift and communicate with the store owner. Vanya left the girl and went to see the city.
He returned towards the end of the girl's shift in the evening and found an entertaining conversation. An arrogant Caucasian man, apparently the owner of the store, was shouting loudly at the poor girl.
- You won't get any money until you've worked for two weeks! You can get lost right now, but I won't pay you a dime.
Natasha was almost crying. Looking at the girl, Ivan couldn't help but turn to the man.:
- Dear, can I talk to you for a second?
A dark-haired, swarthy comrade waddled up to Ivan and gave him a contemptuous look.
"What do you want?"
"Hey, yogurt lover," Ivan squinted angrily, "the girl needs an urgent operation. If it is not done, she will go blind. You've completely lost your sense of proportion in your pursuit of profit. If you're such an incomprehensible person, then I'll explain to you in an accessible way how a real man should treat a girl.
"Are you threatening me?" The businessman scowled. "Do you know who I am?" "What is it?" he asked impudently.
"I don't care who you are or who stands behind you," Ivanov clenched his fists until they crunched. - Let at least a thousand of your brothers come. The most they can do is take you to the hospital. Only creatures without understanding, empathy, and compassion act the way you do. For the sake of profit, you are ready to cripple a person's life. I can't let that happen. That's not what men do.
"What did you say?" The businessman's jaw tightened. - Yes, I'll just call...
He pointedly took out his phone, but did not have time to do anything. Vanya deftly took the phone from the store owner's hand, grabbed the man by the collar with his left hand and pulled him to himself.
"I'm going to shove this phone up your ass," he said in an insinuating tone. - Try to call from there!
"Hey!" the businessman backed down. - Brother, I was joking. Don't I understand? Natasha, come on, tell your husband that everything is fine! I would have said right away that you need to be treated... I'm a human being too. I'll pay you. No need to work it out.
"That's nice," Ivan said without waiting for Natasha's answer, releasing the loud man's collar. - I'll give you the phone after the payment, so as not to create unnecessary problems.
Puffing and surreptitiously casting furious glances at Ivanov, the businessman gutted the cash register and counted out the salary of the saleswoman from it.
Vanya returned the phone to him, took the girl by the elbow and led her to his car.
- Where to go?
- In Sviblovo... - the girl looked like she'd been hit by a dust bag. - Vanya, you shouldn't do that... We could have agreed.
- I know what you could have agreed on. You're a young girl who's easy to put pressure on, and he's an arrogant businessman who only thinks about his profits. I have often met such characters in the car market. They will sell their own mother for money, and they certainly will not regret someone else's health. But such people value their health very much. He can shout as much as he wants, but the power of such people is in the crowd. One on one, he put bricks in his pants and did what a normal person should do. Actually, forget it. You don't have to baptize your children with him.
- Do you work in the car market?
- I used to sell cars there. Now there is an Internet connection for this. The car market is dying out as a species. Only some collective farmers go to the car market out of habit, but this is their choice. Anyone looking for car junk in a beautiful wrapper will find it everywhere.
"So you're a car dealer?"
- That's right. I buy broken cars, fix them, and sell them for more. It's not the most honest business, but it's also not a bad one. I think so: if you want to buy a quality product, don't skimp. You should not expect a miracle from the bottom of the market price. You shouldn't rely on your skills if you don't understand anything about cars. Whoever wants to be deceived will deceive himself.
"Really?"
- A simple example. At one time, I was repairing Japanese Subaru Impreza cars. The ordered spare parts included different headlights. Actually, out of ten headlights, only four were the same. Sometimes tinted, sometimes with lenses, sometimes tuned, with yellow and crystal optics. There was nowhere to go, I had to put the lights that were there. And you know what?
- Nobody bought cars? - the girl naively suggested.
"Ha ha ha! I didn't guess right. They took the wheelbarrows almost by sight. At least one customer would ask: 'Why are the headlights different?"That's because they've already convinced themselves that the cars are great and they need to be bought.
Natasha rented an apartment with three girls. She had surprisingly few things-they all fit into one large gym bag.
The night drive to Chelyabinsk along the snowy highway turned out to be difficult for the driver. They traveled to Badgers most of the night and the next day, spending the night at a roadside hotel, where Vanya took private rooms, which surprised his companion.
They entered the village late at night. The dog greeted the owner with a loud bark.
- Ugh, the Crazy Guy! Ivan opened the gate. "Your own! Natasha, come in, don't be afraid... Chokopai, the place! Your own!
The girl cautiously slipped past a healthy white dog with black spots of an unknown breed. She tried to stay as close to Ivan as possible, grabbing his elbow. It wasn't until she got home that she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Don't be afraid of the Choctaw. He's a kind dog. Tomorrow you will feed him under my supervision, he will get used to you and will consider you his man.
- Meow!
"There's someone meowing outside," the girl said.
Ivanov opened the door a crack. A white cat flew through the gap like a bullet. The girl immediately bent over her and began to stroke her with a sweet smile.
- Oh, what a fluffy charm! Who's that here?
- It's a Marshmallow.
"Marshmallows?" Natasha burst out laughing. - Do you give sweets names to animals?
"That's how I'm used to it. Come on, I'll show you the house...
Both travelers were so tired from the journey that they could barely move their legs. They could barely find the strength to have dinner and take a shower.
Ivan allocated his bedroom to the guest, and he laid out a sofa in the study. And not because he's so noble, since he decided to provide the guest with the best bed. He was more worried about computers that mined bitcoins. What if the guest demolishes the system blocks?
When Natasha was shown a sleeping place, she became convinced that you have to pay for all the good things. It became all the more unexpected for her that no one thought to look into the room. Then she got tired of waiting and fell asleep.
Ivanov has long been no longer a spermotoxic kid who does not know how to restrain his impulses. He didn't even think about pestering the girl he was really helping. If such thoughts appeared, he crushed them like annoying fleas. If she wants to, he won't refuse. But he wasn't going to pester, taking advantage of his position.
When they woke up around lunchtime, both men looked like zombies. But after a late breakfast and coffee, we somehow came to our senses and went to Chelyabinsk.
There were several private eye clinics in the city of Van. He turned to one of them in a previous life, trying to correct his eyesight. But it didn't work out. An expensive study revealed that his poor eyesight was caused by genetics and could not be treated by surgery. He wasn't going to spend money and time on himself a second time, because everything was already known.
He immediately took the girl to the same clinic. She was welcomed there with open arms. Vanya went to arrange the payment.
In fact, after his trip to Moscow, he had almost no savings left. It was only enough to make an advance payment.
Since the treatment will last for a week, the clinic has agreed to meet the client with a deferred payment until the patient is discharged. Ivanov concluded the service agreement on his own behalf.
After handing Natasha Zolotova over to the doctors, he went home. The guy found out her last name during a long trip from the capital, during which conversations were the only way to brighten up the time.
At home, he dialed his friend's number.
- Vanek, hello! I heard you came back yesterday. Do I no longer need to feed your animals?
"Thanks for your help, Mish. No need, I can handle these bandits on my own. Are you busy tomorrow?
- Well, that's it... Tell me straight out, what is required of me?
- I needed the money urgently. I'm going to the city to sell a Toyota. Can you pick me up from Chelyabinsk?
"Do you think I can say no to my best friend?" - Mikhail replied mockingly. - Of course, I'll follow you! What kind of questions?
"I can hang out there all day."
"That's fine. I'm going shopping. My wife wrote me a list of groceries for a full trunk. I'm afraid of this scroll. I'll roll it out in the store and kill someone. You'd better tell me, why do you need the money? Is there anything I can do to help?
- Thanks, I can handle it myself. A friend of mine needs to pay for an operation. Rubbish. I'll pay off the rent in a couple of months.
***
Ivanov traveled from Badgers to Chelyabinsk every day to visit his ward. She had to wear a blindfold for some time after the operation. Knowing this, he bought her an audio player, to which he downloaded a lot of music and audiobooks.
Each time he brought her gifts and talked for a long time to support her. It was uncomfortable for the girl to be deprived of sight. She looked forward to these visits with impatience and was happy to listen to the calm measured voice of her benefactor, to whom she felt great gratitude. Gradually, this feeling grew stronger and began to grow into something more. She felt such care only from her parents. And here's a barely familiar person. Soon she began to feel as if they had known each other all their lives. She did not want to leave Ivan and return to Kremenskaya, where no one but her parents was waiting for her.
The girl was looking forward to her discharge. When the blindfold was removed from her eyes, she was ready to rejoice. And even the fact that she would have to take care of eye strain for a while and wear dark glasses didn't bother her at all.
Squinting against the light, which seemed too bright even through her dark glasses, Natasha looked at Ivan, who was meeting her, re-evaluating him. Before that, she had seen him in a blurry form.
"You're younger than you looked."..
"Younger, you mean?"
- It seemed to me from conversations that you were over forty. And you don't look much older than me. How old are you?"
"Twenty-eight." I'll be twenty-nine on June third. But I'm sixty-three at heart...
"So you're five years older than me," the girl stated.
The world seemed fabulously beautiful to Natasha, and Ivan appeared as a magical prince on a white horse... VAZ 2102 models.
Even through dark glasses, it was impossible not to notice that the car had changed a little.
- Vanya, I think you had another car...
"I don't like her anymore. With your permission, I'll take you for a ride on this beautiful machine today," Ivan opened the front passenger door in front of his companion. "Please, madam."
Natasha silently climbed into the passenger seat. As the car pulled away, she snapped out of her reverie.
- Vanya, did you sell a foreign car to pay for my treatment?
"What kind of nonsense is this?" - He replied jokingly. - I'm just tired of it. Then I'll buy another car.
"Don't lie," Zolotova shook her head reproachfully. "I understand." It's impossible to find such a large sum just like that.
- Big deal, a car... Never mind. It's just a pile of metal. Don't get attached to her. There will be many more cars in our lives, as well as other equipment, and health is one thing for life.
Natasha felt a pang in her chest. No one had ever treated her like this before. Sacrifice an expensive car for her... Tears of joy ran down her cheeks.
"Are you crying?" Ivanov remarked with concern, stopping the Lada at the curb. "Are you feeling ill?" Go back to the clinic?
"No, no," she said, wiping away the tears. - It's my joy. Thank you. Thank you so much! I don't know what I would do without you.
- Phew! Ivan exhaled with relief. "I was scared.".. You are welcome. I'm glad I was able to help you. There will be at least one more happy person in the world. Give good, and it will come back to you.
- yes... Natasha drawled with a hidden, unreadable feeling. "You're right...
If Ivan hadn't been paying full attention to the road, he would have noticed what an eloquent look, full of warmth and desire, his passenger gave him. He also didn't notice how her lips silently whispered:
- You have to pay for good with good...
***
When Ivan woke up in the morning, he felt a warm weight on his chest. Opening his eyes slightly, he admired the partially naked body of Natasha, who threw her arm over him. The rest of the body was hidden under a blanket, which the girl pulled over herself.
It was nice to feel a living person next to me again. Of course, it's more convenient to sleep alone. But it's more pleasant to be with a girl, despite the constant pulling of blankets, periodic kicking and attempts to burn down at night by touching hot bodies.
At the memory of yesterday, a silly, wide smile, like a Cheshire cat, came out on the guy's face.
As soon as they arrived in Badgers and crossed the threshold of the house, Natasha pressed Vanya against the wall with her hands and resolutely bit into his lips with a passionate kiss.
Then Ivanov, like an animal with a long neck, that is, a giraffe, realized that the girl was not at all against his company. As they say: if you're not a fool, you got the hint, if you were a fool, you didn't.
As a result, they moved into the bedroom. And there... A modest village girl turned into a passionate lioness.
Whatever you say, it was nice to think about yesterday. Vanya regretted that he had not decided to get a girlfriend earlier. He kept dreaming of returning to his ex-wife, keeping in mind her bright image, which in the current realities turned out to be stained with soot from heels to ears.
Natasha woke up from the gaze directed at her, opened her eyes slightly, and then quickly squinted, escaping from the bright light for her. Her lips curved into an equally wide and happy smile.
"Good morning," she said sleepily.
"Morning, sweetheart." After that, as an honest girl, you should marry me," Ivan began in a joking intonation.
"I don't mind," she replied seriously. - Go to the registry office right now!
- No, it won't work now. We need three or four days, as the doctor said, to protect you from dust, wind, bright sun and other troubles. Then you should go shopping and update your wardrobe, otherwise, living with a girl with almost no clothes and a few pairs of shoes, I begin to suspect myself of being the owner of an android doll from AliExpress.
"You're so sweet and attentive," she leaned over the guy and bit into his soft and pliant lips with juicy peaches. Looking away, she continued with an impenetrable smile, "And so caring."..
- Wait, woman, I have not yet listed all the shampoos, creams, scrubs and other rubbish that every self-respecting lady is obliged to make the entire bathroom of a young man, leaving him a dozen square centimeters for shampoo...
- That's what I'm talking about, - the girl gently ran her palm over the man's chest. "You're very caring.".. It's amazing that you still don't have a girlfriend.
- I held on until the last. Now I dare to hope that the girl is there and will not go anywhere.
- You won't wait!
Satisfied, Ivanov went to a friend's house after having breakfast together to share his positive attitude. Entering his garage, he found Mikhail with a grinder near a yellow bat mounted on a slipway in the face of a Kia Picante. Instead of greeting, he began:
- There are rumors that all Toyota owners are sectarians...
At his speech, Misha turned around. When he found his friend, he smiled at him and nodded affably. Vanya continued:
- As a person who owned a Toyota, I want to say that this, of course, is not true... They say that on Saturdays we gather at the altar and hammer a small Kia Piquante on it with grinders... But I'll say this: everyone has their own weaknesses.
After that, the entire workflow stopped. It's hard to work when the main and only employee of a personal car repair shop, putting aside a grinder and bending over, slaps his knees with his palms and laughs until tears come, like a madman.
When he stopped laughing and wiped the moisture from his cheeks, he asked:
"You look too pleased, like you've found a million and you're not sharing it with anyone."
- It's not enough happiness to share myself.
- Did you bring your car from the city for which you sold it? Mikhail asked sagaciously.
- The village... There's nothing to hide here.
- And I told you, Vanek, it was time for you to have a woman a long time ago. He immediately became a different person. I just want to give you a lemon so that your face won't be so happy!
***
Only part of the money from the sale of the second Stamp went to pay for Zolotova's treatment. A decent portion of the amount remained in Ivanov's hands. It came in handy.
Natasha didn't actually have any clothes, except for a few casual sets. She needed to completely update her wardrobe, stock up on hygiene products, all kinds of manicure sets, combs, hair dryer and everything that allows a girl to look beautiful.
Vanya did not want his girlfriend to wear rags, although she insisted that Chinese clothes from the market would be fine for her, they say, she had been wearing them all her life.
Being a practical man, Ivan rejected expensive boutiques and was not even against things from the market. He bought things in boutiques only once, hoping to make a pleasant impression when he met Saule. Since then, he has grown cold towards them. But he insisted on buying only high-quality clothes, regardless of the place of purchase. With experience, he came to understand and accept the proverb: a miser pays twice, and a fool pays for life. A high-quality item will last longer than a few cheaper ones of lower quality, and it will end up being cheaper. At the same time, a product of poor quality can be not only cheap, but also expensive. Therefore, the choice of everything should be approached wisely.
Anyone who has ever gone shopping and seen the price tags on women's clothes will immediately understand that this is an expensive pleasure. And when you need to buy everything from socks and underwear to a winter down jacket and an autumn jacket, then at least hang yourself.
On the one hand, Vanya spent a huge amount on his girlfriend, which can be used to buy a new domestic car. On the other hand, some Moscow fashionista from elite professional networks, in the sense of the mistress of a wealthy man, can spend a similar amount on one handbag at a time. But he was calm and confident that his girlfriend did not need anything and did not feel deprived. This thought gave him peace of mind, which he valued highly.
One singer from the nineties even sang a song on the subject.: "The most important thing is the weather in the house. And everything else is vanity." Ivan fully agreed with her, except that health is still more important, and without sufficient finances, normal weather in the house is difficult to achieve.
The couple was rubbing up against each other.
Natasha immediately took over the entire household. The house was transformed before our eyes. It's hard to explain this without seeing it with your own eyes. A bachelor's den is usually functional. When a woman starts up in the house, dust disappears from the corners and cupboards, the windows become crystal clear and get beautiful curtains. All kinds of tablecloths and souvenirs appear on the shelves, rugs on the floors, pots with plants on the windowsills. In general, girls bring with them an elusive at first glance, but generally noticeable comfort. It becomes more pleasant to be in the house.
Ivan threw all his strength into comprehending the basics of mining cryptocurrencies. Adding to the difficulties was the fact that all the relevant articles on this topic were in English, which Ivan mastered through a stump deck. Online translators in the year 2000 have not yet been developed enough to translate the text normally. The guy had to start learning English urgently.
Since there had never been a language school in Badgers, and you couldn't get to Chelyabinsk, the only solution was to hire a tutor.
Fyodor Yerofeyev, a bald, short, elderly man with an enormous belly, worked as an English teacher at the Barsukovskaya school until its closure. He was still far from retirement, there was no work in the village, and there was no reason for an elderly man to go to the city. After struggling for a couple of years, living off bread and water, he did not despair and found a way out.
In the early 2000s, Fedor took computer repair courses. After studying there for two months, he began to think a little about this business and soon assembled an inexpensive computer from old components. Having bought a video camera with his own hands, he began to film weddings and mount them on a computer. It seemed to be the first hundred megahertz pentium, which he accelerated to four hundred megahertz.
Fyodor's business slowly took off. He's filming weddings for the whole neighborhood now. He has a good modern computer, several video cameras and extensive experience in video shooting and editing. But weddings don't happen every day. Every week, for sure, but Yerofeyev doesn't always become the operator there. In addition, weddings are much more often played in summer, and rarely in winter. So he has a lot of free time, as well as the desire to earn extra money.
For a long time, Fyodor became a frequent guest at Ivanov's house, giving his former student private English lessons.
It is worth noting that Yerofeyev is one of those men who are used to doing everything thoroughly. This is evidenced at least by the way he got into the wedding video business. He had an excellent command of academic British English, was able and loved to teach. Another thing is that the children at school were not interested in his knowledge, and without the desire to teach someone, you can only use rods, which were abolished back in tsarist Russia.
Ivanov was shaking over bitcoins like a new father over his first baby. To store them, he organized an ultra-reliable raid array of hard drives. He thoroughly delved into the topic of mining, as if his life depended on it. Slowly wading through the jungle of specialized computer slang, he began to understand the topic at a decent level.
In the beginning, mining was quite simple. There were few miners: only dedicated geek enthusiasts were doing this. In the first month, he managed to mine more than ten thousand bitcoins. But the more enthusiasts there were, the slower the mining process went. So far, this has not been very noticeable and thousands of bitcoins have been mined.
With the first rent received at the end of February, Vanya assembled a computer with a quad-core core 2 quad 9550 processor, which joined its brethren in mining cryptocurrency. After selling an old penny, he bought another computer of the same type and also forced himself to work.
For the first time in a long time, Vanya was left with a relatively small amount on his hands and only one car, a two-seater Lada. All the funds were invested.
After scratching his head, he ignored the reduced real estate prices and put both one-bedroom apartments up for sale.
Apartments have low liquidity, that is, they are sold for a long time. The first one-bedroom was handed over to the buyer only at the end of March. All the funds received from its sale were used to purchase twenty computers with quad-core processors.
As a result, the computer fleet became so large that it took up the entire office. At the same time, they consumed about four kilowatts of electricity, like three powerful electric heaters. But this is nonsense against the background of future profits. This has created several problems. Firstly, a bunch of fans created a loud noise, which made it uncomfortable to live in the house. Secondly, the power grid is not designed for higher consumption, and Ivan wanted to increase the number of computers, besides, he was not going to abandon the use of other electrical appliances. This problem could have been fixed by agreeing with the power grid, but it turned out to be more difficult and more expensive than the solution he found.
Under the USSR, there were almost twice as many residents in Badgers as there are now. People are gradually leaving the village. Young people tend to escape to the cities as soon as possible. Old people are passing away. And if at the beginning of the two thousandth it was still possible to sell a house here with a creak, since the decisive factor was the presence of gas in the village, now such a trick will not work. Many houses are empty and crumbling from dilapidation. No one simply wants to buy them, even at the prices of the two thousandth year. A normal house can be bought for forty or fifty thousand. And some shack with a collapsed hut is even sold for ten or fifteen thousand. Practically Prostokvashino: buy who you want, live as much as your heart desires.
Back in November last year, Ivanov's neighbor, Aunt Masha, moved from the village to the city to live with her daughter, to whom he had once turned for help with a fractured head. When the second studio apartment was sold in early April, Ivan contacted her and bought her house with electricity, gas and thirty-five hundred acres of land for forty thousand. He spent some money to enclose the yard with a trapezoidal sheet fence, and to replace the wires running from the pole to the house. I also had to replace the ancient Soviet wiring in the house with a powerful modern one. He set up his mining farm in a neighbor's house, to which fifteen more computers were added.
For such a large fleet of computers, a backup uninterruptible power supply is no longer sufficient. In case of a power outage, which is not uncommon in the village, a powerful generator was purchased, which turns on automatically when the power supply is turned off. Its exhaust was discharged into the street through the corrugation in the window.
Vanya welded and installed grilles on the windows of the house. He also made the metal entrance door himself, installing good locks there. And for complete reliability, I also installed an alarm system - it will report intrusion via SMS message.
Natasha did not understand her boyfriend's actions, but she did not interfere in his infatuation, even though she considered it abnormal. And he was in no hurry to share information with her. What two people know, the pig also knows. That's why he contacted programmer Artyom from a phone number he bought for a homeless man, and took the computers to the guy's house, rather than inviting him to his place. After that, the SIM card was broken.
With forty computers, mining became more fun. The Barsukovsky cryptoshachter began to mine more than ten thousand bitcoins per day. In the future, miners would strangle themselves from such efficiency, or, more likely, they would strangle an overly lucky cryptographer if his identity became known.
Instead of income from rental housing falling, they, on the contrary, increased slightly by the end of May. The fact is that in April, a new house was put into operation, in which Ivanov owned three two-room apartments. At first, he had to invest in the purchase of household appliances and furniture, which, of course, were in use, since he did not have enough funds to purchase new ones. And even managed to snatch old furniture for nothing.
By the summer, Ivan and Natasha had matured to the decision to officially tie the knot. They planned to celebrate the wedding in the village of Kremenskaya, since the main guests should be relatives of Zolotova. And since most of the residents in the village are related to each other, a large influx of guests was expected. On Ivanov's side, there was only his friend Mikhail's family.
After returning from Kremenskaya, Ivan did not know how to treat his new family. They seem to be good people, but still those bastards. How to eat and drink at a wedding - there are more than a hundred people gathered. And how to help a relative not to become blind - so there was no one to scream. But all they had to do was chip in a thousand each. Yes, not even to give, but to lend this amount. And they are...
As a result, Vanya decided on his attitude towards his new family. For the sake of his peace of mind, he decided that he was putting a huge M32 bolt on all this stuff, except for his father-in-law and mother-in-law.