Volume 1 Chapter 0006 Learn to Cry Poor
"If you can't go back, then you can't go back, Brother Guangwei. Even though I brought so many things with me, my family is not well off. We are from the alleys of Beijing and live in a slum.
Brother Li should know what a hutong urchin is.
I have an older brother, and someone has found a matchmaker for him, and they are about to get married. After they start a family, they must have a new house, right?
But there is only a small space at home, and there is no room for me to live. Even if I go back, I have no place to stay overnight. It is better to stay here. There is a wide world and a lot to do. "
Nan Yi's words were full of desolation and helplessness. Except for Liu Zhen and Jiang Biyun, the others could not empathize with him.
When it comes to cramped housing, Shanghai residents who live in old villas have more say, but Ke Hongxing is not an ordinary citizen; the others either come from high-ranking officials or are not poor because of the size of their housing.
But just because they haven't experienced it doesn't mean they don't have imaginations.
Here, they have to squeeze several people into one nest. Even if the same sex lives together, there will be a lot of friction. If men and women live together, and one of the couples is a couple, how can everyone live?
Lin Guangwei patted Nan Yi's arm and gave him an encouraging look, and everything was said without words.
After leaving the yard, Nan Yi dug out the sheepskin bag, and carrying the things, he headed towards Xian Yaodong's house.
In the yard, Li Hai said, "We should stop thinking about Nan Yi's things. This may be all the belongings he took from home when he was separated to live alone."
"Brother Li, what is a Hutong dart?"
"That's not a nice thing to say. It refers to people who spend their days wandering around the alleys doing nothing. Nan Yi said that because his family conditions were not good. Let me tell you, there are large courtyards in the alleys of the capital, where there may be more than a dozen or even dozens of households living.
A family may only have 10 to 70 square meters. If there are many people in the family, it is really not enough to live in. If someone in the family gets married, there will be an extra adult, and there will be children in the future, it will be even more difficult to live in.
Liu Zhen, did you and Nan Yi take the initiative to come here to join the queue? I heard that now most of them are assigned to the suburbs, and rarely to other places. "
"I'm not, but my brother seems to be. I heard from the teacher that my brother signed up on his own initiative."
"That's it."
"Alas, every family has its own problems." Lin Guangwei sighed.
Lai Jihua's ears pricked up, but his eyes still swept over the net bag that Nan Yi placed on the edge of the patio from time to time.
At Xian Yaodong's home, Nan Yi repeated almost the same words to Xian Yaodong and expressed his desire to settle down.
"Uncle Xian, I don't want to embarrass you, so you don't have to agree to me right away. Let me stay here for a while and see how many work points I can earn a day. Once the members accept me, we can talk about settling down.
However, you have seen that Liu Zhen is so thin. She is not sick. It is just that there is not much delicious food at home, and she often does not have enough to eat and is malnourished.
She is definitely not capable of doing heavy work, so I would like to trouble you to give her a lighter job, such as mowing grass for pigs. How many work points are there per day?"
"Six."
"Then please help me arrange it. I will work for twelve work points a day, and you will still give me ten work points. At the end of the year, I will pay Liu Zhen the difference she is missing. Is that okay with you?"
"Yes, yes. One of the people cutting grass for the pigs is Yaohua's wife. She will soon be working as a temporary worker in the Five Star Canteen. Even though she is only a temporary worker, she will be part of the working class. I can decide to give her position to Liu Zhen."
"Okay, thank you Uncle Xian, just wait and see how I perform."
After leaving Xian Yaodong's house, Nan Yi returned to the courtyard of the ancestral hall, looked at the Shanghai brand watch on his left wrist, lit a cigarette, leaned against the wall, stared at the gate, and waited slowly.
…
"Coo, coo, coo!"
"What the hell, have you ever heard of a cuckoo calling at night?"
“Yes.”
“…”
"Put down the sanitary napkin, and take the rest back to the city and leave them in my room."
"What's wrong, change of plans?"
"I just pretended to be poor, and now I'm going to use Huazi to attack myself, which is just a slap in the face."
"Okay, I'll take it back."
Men Saner untied the ropes on the schoolbag rack, took out two boxes of sanitary napkins, and tied the rest back.
"Uncle Nan, I just bought this car today. I'll put it in your room so it's convenient for you to use it."
"Okay, hurry up with the black market stuff. Also, help me look around and see if anyone has houses for sale. If they're good, buy them. If you like any, buy a few for yourself."
"Okay, I'll be leaving first."
"Go ahead, and be careful on the road."
Nan Yi and Men San'er had actually been to Bao'an some time ago and each of them bought a house here. Due to the tight schedule, they didn't have much time to explore the place slowly.
Otherwise, Nan Yi would definitely buy a few more sets.
Don’t think that there are no houses with private property rights in this era. In fact, there are.
Generally, if you have a house deed that belonged to your family before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and you are not a landlord, you will not be subject to liquidation. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state still recognizes the house deed in your hand, and you can go to the housing management office to exchange it for a copy, and the house is still yours.
This kind of house is privately owned, and individuals have the right to buy and sell it. This is fundamentally different from the houses allocated by the state.
For example, the slums in Beijing were allocated by the state. Before the housing reform, the property rights belonged to the state. Individuals only had the right to live in them and had no right to buy or sell them.
Nan Yi took the sanitary napkin back, and there was another commotion among the female educated youth.
Sanitary belts are padded with straw paper, and some are even made of wood ash. Women who have more or less gynecological diseases have never experienced such softness and care.
Well, whether there are relatives or not, everyone will sleep on a mattress tonight.
Liu Zhen slept soundly and sweetly.
It’s great to have this brother around. He thinks of everything for me.
The next day, it was just dawn.
Nan Yi climbed up from the bed carefully, folded the thin blanket into a tofu block, took his washbasin, teacup, lunch box, towel, and took out two eggs, a bag of sugar wrapped in oil paper, and a bag of noodles from the net bag, and walked quietly to the yard.
Brush your teeth, wash your face, and rinse the teacup after that.
At that time, it was unlikely to have a dedicated tooth cup. Basically, one cup was enough to conquer the world, and one cup would last a lifetime.
Like the cup in Nan Yi's hand, there are red words written on it: Reward for Chemical Plant's production exceeding half.
He lit a fire, filled the lead pot [although it was called a lead pot, it was actually made of aluminum] with water, and looked around for a while, but couldn't find a steamer. So Nan Yi got a piece of the broken corner of a blue brick from the side and put it in the pot.
Crack both eggs into the teacup, open the oil paper bag and pour some sugar in, stir it with chopsticks, then add some warm water from the thermos.
Arrange the chopsticks horizontally and vertically on the green brick, put the teacup on it and cover it with the lid.
After burning eight bundles of straw, Nan Yi opened the lid of the pot, put the noodles into the pot, stirred them, and when the noodles became soft, he took them out and covered the pot again.
Add some warm water to the lunch box, blanch the noodles, add seasoning, pour more warm water, and cover the lunch box.
After adding a piece of straw to the fire pit, Nan Yi went to knock on the door of the female educated youth's room.
Knock knock knock!
"Liu Zhen, get up."
The knock on the door was very light, and the shouting was also very light.
If nothing unexpected happens, only Liu Zhen will be awakened.
When you first arrive in a strange place, the possibility of entering a deep sleep is very small.
Even if there is such a person, Liu Zhen is definitely not one of them.
Crunch, "Brother!"
"Hurry up and wash up. I've made you some noodles . After you eat, I'll teach you how to cut grass for the pigs."
"Um."
After getting ready, Liu Zhen walked over to Nan Yi and opened the lunch box. "Brother, is this all you have?"
"You're on your own. I'll have breakfast with the others later."
He opened the lid of the pot , quickly took out the teacup, put it on the stove, and rubbed his earlobe with his fingers that were scalded...
Rinse the lead pot clean, wash the rice, add water, and cook thick porridge.
He lit a fire and waited for Liu Zhen to finish eating the noodles. In less than twenty minutes, Nan Yi reached the fire tongs into the fire pit, stirred it, and turned the flame into sparks. He then scraped some ashes onto the sparks, leaving only a small piece exposed.
The porridge in the pot is already 60% cooked, and the remaining sparks and heat in the fire are just enough to cook the porridge thoroughly.
"Fill a glass of water and take two teacups with you. You have never done farm work before, so you will get tired soon. If you get tired, take a few sips of the sugar-water eggs in the teacups."
"Um."
Nan Yi brought Liu Zhen to the riverside of Wenchangwei, walked along the river bank, missed a section of pier with green embankment, and soon came to the mud dam area.
"Look carefully, those densely packed grasses in the river are revolutionary grass, and those are water hyacinths. I'll help you fish them out today, but tomorrow you'll have to pull them to shore yourself with a rake."
As he said that, Nan Yi took off his coat, jumped into the water, and swam along the grass.
Grab a handful of revolutionary grass and pull it hard. At one pull, a large lump will come out. When it is almost done, drag it towards the shore.
After repeating this process three or five times, he estimated that it was about right.
He went into the water again and dragged about thirty water hyacinths back to the shore.
"One pig only needs to be fed one trough of food per meal, and one or two water hyacinths should be placed in each trough. The number depends on whether the pig likes to eat it or not. If it likes it, put more; if it doesn't, put less.
There must be rice bran and wheat bran in the brigade. Chop the revolutionary grass into pieces and mix it with rice bran and water hyacinth. Pigs will like to eat it more.
If you see that the pigs have no appetite and eat less, you have to cut that kind of grass..."
Nan Yi pointed to a kind of grass on the river dam and said, "This is called Chinese astragalus, and pigs like to eat it. There is also sweet potato vine, which pigs like too; but you have to listen to what Uncle Xian says. If he tells you to cut it, then you go. If he doesn't tell you, then don't go."
"Um."
"Okay, put these here first. When the team rings the bell to start work, I will take you to the third team. We are assigned there. The team leader is Xian Yaowei, the team's cashier."
