Volume 1 Chapter 0013 Rice Fragrance
Nan Yi took inventory and found that he now had more than 70,000 Hong Kong dollars, more than 50,000 RMB, 3,700 US dollars, 14 large yellow croakers, 32 small yellow croakers, as well as miscellaneous jade and jade ornaments, and several small antiques.
If calculated according to the current market conditions, this is a fortune that a family cannot use up in several lifetimes; if it were placed in the future, one could only shake hands at a food stall and shout: "Mr. Nan will pay for everything today!"
By the way, it has to be an ordinary food stall, the kind located in an industrial area, not a seafood stall.
Otherwise, just wait to be beaten out by others.
Nan Yi and Lai Biao met on the bank of Shencun River.
"I heard you have business to discuss with me?"
Unlike what he imagined, Lai Biao was not a burly, ferocious-looking man, but rather looked a bit elegant. This made Nan Yi change his judgment of Lai Biao. He thought that he was not controlling the black market with his fists, but with his surname.
This made Nan Yi, who had originally planned to exchange jargon with Lai Biao, change his conversation style.
"Comrade Lai, what do you think of the country's resumption of the college entrance examination?"
"What would you think if I told you I was already reviewing?"
Lai Biao turned the tables.
"That only shows that Comrade Lai's family is well connected and his parents are also far-sighted people. If that's the case, then it's easier to talk about. The business I want to talk about is selling college entrance examination guides. Comrade Lai, take a look first."
Nan Yi took out a printed guide and handed it to Lai Biao.
"Very good, did you write it?" Lai Biao said after reading it.
"right."
"How much do you want to sell it for?"
"Ten dollars."
“Will it be a bit expensive?”
"We took advantage of the time difference. As soon as the newspapers announced the resumption of the college entrance examination, we started selling. We made money from the first three days. We only sold for three days, then we stopped immediately and sold the remaining goods to others at a low price.
Since Comrade Lai is doing black market business, he must have connections with people in other cities' black markets and his own channels for getting and selling goods. There should be no problem in selling the College Entrance Examination Guide, right?"
"Distributing the goods is fine, and ten yuan a copy is fine too. The key is how much should I give you?"
"I'm not used to haggling back and forth. Three dollars and a half is the price I want. I don't care how much you plan to make for others. If I do it, I can at least make four dollars."
"The price is quite reasonable, but you've already exposed yourself, aren't you afraid that I'll print it myself?"
Lai Biao had an evil smile on his face.
"Comrade Lai, if you keep going in that direction, you can reach Burma, where there is a constant war. The price for killing someone is not too high. If you go a little further in that direction, you can reach Africa, where the price is even cheaper.
If you keep going in this direction, you can reach South America. The guerrillas in the jungle there are very fierce and their asking price is not too high.
Even if you don't go so far, and look directly to the north, you will see that life there is also difficult for many people, and they are willing to risk everything .
The world is not peaceful...
On the African continent, there is an animal called the honey badger, which I like to call the flat-headed brother.
It has a very bad temper, and is either fighting or on its way to a fight. Moreover, it will never give up, and once you offend it, it will never give up, and will follow you and take revenge from morning till night.
I am a strong laborer. I can earn more than ten work points a day in the brigade, and at least thirty or forty yuan at the end of the year. During the New Year, I cut some meat and drink some wine, and I am very happy. "
Nan Yi suddenly patted his head and said apologetically: "Oh, Comrade Lai, I'm sorry, my brain is not working well. To use the words of that foreign doctor, it is 'attention deficit'.
Look at me, I've forgotten we're talking about business.
Let's continue... You said, I want three dollars and fifty cents, is this price not too high? I am not the only one here, there are many people waiting to share the money. "
Lai Biao smoked a cigarette, his eyes piercing deep into Nan Yi's body, as if he wanted to see through him. After a long while, he said quietly, "Deal, but the money can only be settled after I collect it."
"Okay, let's talk about the details."
Nan Yi didn't like the way Lai Biao talked about business, he really didn't like it.
He thinks of himself as a clay pot and others as porcelain, and he threatens others by using his bare feet to show that they have shoes.
Just this once, he told himself.
What he wanted to make was Jun porcelain, not the broken pottery jars that cost three cents a stack.
"Intelligence network, bodyguard team, big data model..."
On the way back to Wenchangwei, Nan Yi was thinking about what he needed to do in the future.
After Men Saner bought four more houses in Bao'an City, Nan Yi sent him back to Beijing, asking him to go back and study hard and wait for the news of the resumption of the college entrance examination.
Liu Zhen became a lady from a wealthy family and never went out of the house.
Nan Yi set up a study room for her. Apart from three meals a day, she didn't have to do anything else but study hard at the desk.
The last time I weighed her with the old scale used by the brigade to weigh grain, Liu Zhen's weight had increased to 89 kilograms, and she was gaining weight quite quickly.
In July, after a few days of busy irrigation work, Nan Yi was free again.
With the permit for passing the border and cultivating the land, he opened up a vegetable garden, a total of eight mu (1 mu = 10 mu) of land, seven mu of which was used as a vegetable garden, two mu for growing sweet olive, and the remaining one mu for growing snakes to kill the whole family.
The whole piece of land is a rectangle with one corner missing, which is just enough to make four ridges, three long and one short.
I made the ridges, sowed the seeds, and watered the fields with some urine at dusk.
All that's left is to wait for germination.
Whenever he has free time, Nan Yi goes to dig ditches.
Without asking for help, he dug the ditch by himself, and buried and connected more than 60 iron pipes that Xian Yaodong had helped buy in the name of the brigade.
After repairing the water inlet and building a waterwheel, a week later, river water appeared in the yard of Nan's house.
Another week passed as we renovated the bathroom and repaired the sewer.
The bathroom was a squat toilet, so buying a flush toilet would be too eye-catching, so Nan Yi thought about it and decided not to buy one. He had originally wanted to get an electric water heater, but he didn't do it because it would be too eye-catching.
Although Wenchangwei was connected to electricity in 1972, the entire brigade does not use much electricity in a year.
If Nan Yi bought all the electrical appliances one by one, his family's electricity bill might be as much as the entire Wenchangwei.
When everyone is poor, you must follow the poor. At this time, being rich is a sin.
During the day, he went to the fields with everyone. After nightfall, Nan Yi would go to the river to set up nets and hooks for fishing eels, black fish, and turtles. He would also set up the traps he had woven himself.
You don't have to go every day, the harvest from one day is enough to eat for ten days or half a month.
At that time, every household was short of oil and other seasonings. If you want to make seafood delicious, you need oil and seasonings.
If you eat it as a meal, the taste is not as good as rice; if you eat it as a dish, you'd better give it up.
Since there are few people catching fish, there are naturally more and more stupid fish.
"Nan Yi, Nan Yi."
Nan Yi had just cast the hook when Xian Weimin called him from the other side of the river.
"For the people, what's the matter?"
"Before dinner tomorrow, come with me to catch crabs. The team will give each of you five work points."
"Okay." Nan Yi shouted to the other side, "I still have shrimps, do you want to order some?"
"No, they are just small shrimps. I don't like to eat this stuff. I will get some shrimps for you to try someday."
"Okay!"
Nan Yi dragged out the sound of "ah" until the evening of the next day.
Nan Yi, Xian Weimin, and Ang Ju walked along the river dam towards the reed marsh.
Angju, whose real name is Xian Weiqi, had a high fever when he was a child and his brain was damaged, so his intelligence remained at the level of a 7 or 8-year-old. He did not need to work in the fields, and the brigade would give him a share of the food rations.
But Angju likes to work very much. Although he can't do other things, he can do weeding, picking rice ears, and doing some other work.
Just like today, when Angju came over, the brigade would give his family two or three work points.
"Weiqi, do you want some candy?"
Nan Yi took out a White Rabbit milk candy and handed it to Ang Ju.
"Food."
"Will you eat?"
"meeting."
Seeing Angju peel off the candy wrapper and put the candy into his mouth, Nan Yi was sure that he would eat it.
It seems that his family treats him well.
"Weimin, do you want it?"
"No, give me a cigarette, I've finished mine."
"Well, here you go. I brought two packages. This unopened package is for you."
"atmosphere."
Xian Weimin gave a thumbs up, then immediately opened the cigarette and handed one to Nan Yi.
Nan Yi pushed the cigarette back and said, "You can have the first one yourself."
“Exquisite.”
Xian Weimin put the cigarette into his mouth and shook out another one.
Nan Yi took this one.
"We have to catch two sacks to get full work points. I don't know if there will be many crabs this year."
"There should be quite a few, right? Crabs eat reed leaves in the summer. They smell like grass, so no one would try to catch them. When I was casting my hook yesterday, I stepped on several of them."
"It's hard to say. I caught a lot of it last winter. It doesn't taste good in the summer, but it hibernates in the winter and doesn't eat. Its stomach is empty and there's no peculiar smell. It tastes okay."
"Why eat this? There's plenty of other food in the river. Let's save it for fertilizing the fields."
Weed crabs are actually small crabs. For farmers, their greatest use is to fertilize the fields. Weed crabs are dead when they are put into a sack. When they are taken to the paddy field, one is placed between four rice seedlings. When it rots, the rice seedlings will grow rapidly. This is more effective than any other fertilizer.
The three of them came to the reed marsh, and one of them held a reed in his hand and slapped it on the mud, and the crabs would be frightened and run to the middle. This was just right, and after the three of them surrounded the crabs, they could put them into the sack one handful at a time.
"Fuck, bite me."
"Don't be so hypocritical, man. What's wrong with a bite?"
When catching crabs, you will inevitably be pinched by their two large pincers, but as long as you grab them fast enough, you can throw them into the sack before they clamp down too deeply.
"That's easy to say, I bit it until it bled."
Xian Weimin stopped and grabbed a handful of mud from the ground and smeared it on the bleeding area.
"Why use mud? Break off a piece of reed, peel it and apply the juice inside to the affected area. It can clear away heat and detoxify."
"Forget it, it's not that particular."
Seeing that the bleeding had stopped on his hands, Xian Weimin continued to grab the crabs and put them into the sack.
It took three consecutive attempts to collect enough sacks.
At this time, the sky had turned red, and Xian Weimin and Nan Yi were each carrying a sack and walking towards the paddy field.
They couldn't rest yet, they had to quickly deliver the crabs to the fields. The members had to get the crabs to the fields overnight while they were still fresh.
Otherwise, if the crabs start to stink tomorrow, you'll be in big trouble.
We went to the fields and helped catch crabs. By the time we finished, it was already a little after eight o'clock in the evening.
At this time, it was just getting dark.
I took a bath in the river and rinsed my outer trousers and shirt.
After wrung out the wet clothes, I walked towards home.
"Brother, it's so late."
"Yeah, I just finished."
"I saw that you didn't come back, so I just cooked the rice and the dishes are not ready yet."
"It's okay, take your time, I'm not too hungry yet."
"Um."
Holding a ladle in his hand, standing in front of the water tank in the yard, Nan Yi rinsed his body, applying soap from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. After rinsing clean, he went back to the room and changed into dry clothes.
When we returned to the yard, Liu Zhen had already prepared the meal and there was a bottle of Wuyang beer on the low table.
Sit down, open the beer and pour it into a large bowl. One bottle of beer is just enough for one bowl.
Gulp, gulp, he drank half a bowl in one breath.
"Phew, so comfortable! Summer really goes best with beer!"
In order to echo Nan Yi's sentiment, crickets chirped in the wilderness outside the yard.
Waves of chirping slowly merge into a song of "Rice Fragrance".
