Chapter 123

“I’m out at the stalls now, and I come back late at night, so I can’t get up in the morning”

“Huh? Why?”

“Everyone has to work during the day, so fewer people come out to hang out Besides, it’s hot as hell in this shithole during the day, but it’s cooler at night People over here seem to prefer to hang out at night, they’re all about nighttime fun It’s very different from our side”

“That’s true” Xu Man nodded

In Wei Zhuang Commune’s winter, six or seven o’clock was basically the end of the day Even in the city, buses stopped running, and most stores would close

In the summer, it’s a little later, when everyone goes to bed around eight, and in the city it’s a little later than the commune, around nine, when the stores close

There is only one bus that ends at 9:05, but other than that, there is no bus at 7:30

In Pengcheng or Haicheng, on the other hand, at six or seven o’clock in the evening, people seem to start their day with a bustle of activity that lasts until midnight

“Second uncle, what’s this?” Dongsheng asked, pointing to a blackened container in the corner of the room with a rounded, almost oval-shaped lid

“A pot for popcorn” Xu Wen explained, “If you want to eat it later, I’ll pop a pot for you”

Xu Wen looked at it, also somewhat novel This kind of thing was already rare after a few decades, the hand-cranked charcoal-roasted popcorn popper

Xu Man’s deepest impression of this pot is the bang when it comes out of the pot

Dongsheng is young and has been living in the compound, has not seen this strange and weird things, nodded vigorously, “I eat! Thank you, Second Uncle! Second uncle, let’s pop the popcorn now? I’ll help you”

“Let’s eat it later!” Xu Wen beckoned for Dongsheng to come over, “Let’s go eat breakfast first, aren’t you hungry?”

“Hungry! Ma Ma, let’s go eat milky buns!”

“Okay!”

Xu Man and his siblings took Dongsheng to the cafeteria, ordered a few breakfast items, as for the most soulful tea, they put it aside

Neither of the siblings liked tea

Seeing that Xu Wen’s appetite didn’t seem too good, Xu Wen asked him, “Just woke up, aren’t you hungry?”

Xu Wen yawned and nodded

Xu Man took a closer look at Xu Wen and frowned, “Second brother, are you always not eating properly, you’ve lost a lot of weight! Making money is important, but the body is the capital of the revolution! You can’t skip meals just to save money or desperately try to make money”

Xu Wen put the bun he had bitten into back on the plate in front of him and said with a bitter face, “It’s really not related to money! Everything here is too sweet for me to eat! I kind of miss my mother’s steamed dry food”

Dry food in Wei Zhuang Commune refers to steamed bread

Properly hand-kneaded and steamed in an iron pot, they are very chewy

Not to mention Xu Wen, Xu Wen also wanted to eat it

Dongsheng blinked, “Second uncle! How deliciously sweet it is! How could you not like it?”

Xu Wen reached out and rubbed Dongsheng’s hair across the table, “Even the most delicious desserts can’t be eaten every day, if you eat them every day, you’ll get tired of them!” He licked his lips, “I miss our mother’s oil dregs and leek dumplings I’m drooling just thinking about it!”

Oily but not greasy lard residue mixed in the green and tender leek filling, a bite of how beautiful!

“Then let’s find a restaurant to eat dumplings at noon” Dongsheng proposed

Xu Wen nodded

Xu Wen waved his hand, “Don’t think about it! I’ve already circled around here, and there are dumplings for sale, but you know what? The dumplings here all have a sweet flavor Not to mention the dumplings, the tofu brains are sweet And seaweed! I’ve been alive for 30 years and this is the first time I’ve learned that tofu brain is sweet! Kelp can also be used to make sweetened water! The stuff is still stuff we know, but the taste is just unbearable” Xu Wen gritted his teeth and frowned, his body dripping with disgust

Although Xu Wen sympathized with him, he still couldn’t help but lose his smile, “This is the difference in food culture between the north and the south Our savory tofu brain is equally incredible in the eyes of southerners It’s about as hard to accept as you disliking sweet tofu brain

As for seaweed On our side, they are dried in the sun after being drowned in heavy salt, and there are salt particles floating on them If you want to eat it, you have to soak it in water a few times before it doesn’t get snoozy

People this sugar water seaweed ,” Xu Wen laughed to the point of no return, “Second brother, I really have never eaten, and can not imagine that flavor”

However, Xu Wen knew that objectively speaking, it wasn’t as bad as what Xu Wen disliked, and in fact it was quite tasty if eaten once in a while

In the south of all kinds of sweets, about only sweet tofu brain Xu Man some acceptance incompetence, other quite like

Xu Wen: “”

Dongsheng scratched his head, “Second uncle, if you can’t buy it, why don’t you make it yourself? My mom often packs dumplings on the island!”

His tiny brain really couldn’t understand Second Uncle’s big problem

“But I don’t have time!” Xu Wen explained, “I usually sleep in the morning, and then I go out in the afternoon, and it’s midnight when I close the stall, so I really don’t have the energy to make dumplings”

“That’s fine, I’ll do it at noon today” Xu Wen raised his hand and promised

So after breakfast, the brother and sister duo took Dongsheng to buy plate oil and leeks

Slab oil can be found everywhere in the north, even on the only street in the commune, it’s easy to buy

In the eyes of the people of Weizhuang Commune, the cost-effectiveness of plate oil far exceeds that of soybean oil or rapeseed oil

Cheap, pig oil fried vegetables fragrant, just after refining lard residue crispy, slightly put a little salt seasoning, can be eaten directly, can also be used to stir-fry vegetables or wrapped dumplings, in short, how to eat are delicious

But Pengcheng, the Special Administrative Region, which is now gradually getting rid of all kinds of food stamps and meat stamps and can be traded freely, is not really a good place to find lard

It may also be that Xu asked them to find the wrong place, against the increasingly poisonous sun, enough to run several streets to buy a catty of plate oil

All the way down, Xu Man was very emotional

This modest city was changing at a speed visible to the naked eye, the last time she came here was only half a year ago, and there had been quite a few more changes

A concrete building rose into the air

The edges of the small town were barricaded with high barbed wire fences, and access was strictly controlled, requiring a pass

Thanks to Xu Wen’s early arrival for a temporary residence permit, Xu Wen and the others were able to come in as family visitors

A lot of the future of the business world of the big brother, this moment is probably looking for the barbed wire on the dog hole to drill in

Even at the end of their lives, bigwigs have a much sharper sense of business sense than the average person

There were obviously more people coming and going on the streets, many foreigners, but also many first batch of Pengcheng gold diggers like Xu Wen

Xu Wen looked at the increasing number of legitimate small stores along the roadside, and with a flash of insight, asked Xu Wen, “Second brother, do you want to try opening a store?”

“What kind of store?”

“A dumpling store? A steamed bun house? Or even worse, get a hand-rolled noodle store Many of the workers here are from the north, and they must be like you, craving the local flavor of their hometowns after a long time We don’t want to open a big restaurant, just a small restaurant Like the workers on the construction site, may be willing to come after work to eat a bowl of noodles or dumplings that are not expensive”

Xu Wen shook his head, “Noodles are fine I don’t make good dumplings Your sister-in-law is quite good at it”

“Missing my sister-in-law?”

Xu Wen hemmed and hawed and rubbed the back of his head as a tacit admission

Xu Wen and Sang Xiaoqing are just ordinary rural youths who don’t hang on to love and affection, and even getting married initially doesn’t have much to do with love or not love, and it’s possible that they won’t say I love you to each other even once in their lives They may not say “I love you” to each other even once in their life The silent love is born in the day-to-day relationship, and it is just kept in the bottom of the heart

“Then it’s okay for you to open a husband and wife store with my sister-in-law Anyway, now that you’ve been here for almost half a year, you’ve been able to establish yourself here and earn money to support your family With the money you earn, our parents won’t have to work so hard to earn work credits, and even if my sister-in-law comes along, the pressure on the family won’t be so great” Xu Man persuaded, would have liked to say that he could first pay out a portion of the money, but estimated that Xu Wen’s character certainly will not want

Xu Wen was a bit moved, but after some thought, he still shook his head, “No way! Chunsheng is still so young Although the money here is much more than at home, but also a little more hard work, get up early in the morning and work late at night I don’t care, I just can’t bear to let Chunsheng follow me and suffer”

“Then leave Chunsheng at home first, and let mom and dad help you bring him up That way sister-in-law can come over to help you first You two will work here for a year or two, and if you feel comfortable here and want to live here for a long time, you can bring our parents and Chunsheng here If you still don’t like it here, work hard with your sister-in-law for two years to save up some money and then go back to Weizhuang Commune In a year or two, maybe the production team will be gone and the commune will become Weizhuang Town It wouldn’t be bad for you and your sister-in-law to do a small business in the town”

“I want grandma and grandpa to come along!” Dongsheng raised his hand, “I miss grandma and grandpa! When they come, Ma Ma we’ll make a small boat and row over from Rainbow Island! Didn’t you say that it would be especially fast if we rowed over directly? It’ll be a meal’s worth of work”

Xu Wen didn’t object, “If your grandparents come by then, you can really consider it!”

In fact, she also had the idea of getting a boat now, but she had to go back and discuss it with Lu Yuanzheng again

Getting a boat that can pass through the sea is not as simple as making a self-indulgent houseboat

It requires a lot of formalities

Xu Wen pondered for half a day and also felt that this was a good idea, clapping his hands, “Then I’ll go back later and write a letter to my family, ask my parents and Xiaoqing, if they agree, then we’ll do it according to what you said!”

Xu Man nodded his head

The three of them searched for plate oil and then bought some leeks, returning to the house that Xu Wen and his second uncle had rented

Xu Wen took Dongsheng to buy toys, while Xu Man was responsible for refining the lard

Want to get crispy oil residue must first cut the oil into small pieces, and then cold pot slightly add a little bit of water into the cut oil, fire heating

Slowly the pot begins to bubble, and when the water slowly evaporates, only the bright orange lard remains

The lard will solidify before it turns into a white, sticky solid

Leeks like oil, so Xu Wen refined lard when not the oil residue into a burnt yellow, slightly yellowish with a slotted spoon out on a plate to cool

Because Pengcheng also particularly hot, this oil cooling process is particularly long

Xu Wen sat next to the ice bucket, choose leeks

South about the soil and water is different, not only to raise people also raise vegetables

In the north, most leeks are relatively thin, long leaves and short roots

Pengcheng this leek thick live like the northern leek into the essence, from a distance with a small onion general

In the north only special old leeks will be so thick, but Pengcheng leeks don’t look strong, very tender, the root of a pinch on the break

Xu asked carefully to dry leaves and leeks on the root of the rotting leaves are selected off, with clean water are washed, put into the basket to dry moisture

She had just finished her work when Xu Wen came back with Dongsheng, bought a sugar man, and brought back two stir-fried vegetables

“Didn’t you say we were having dumplings? Why did you buy fried vegetables again?” Xu Wen wondered

“It’s too hot to work in the middle of the day, and besides, Second Uncle will be back in the evening He’s sure to crave dumplings as well, so why don’t we wait for Second Uncle to eat with us?” Xu Wen said, “Otherwise it feels like we’re stealing food behind second uncle’s back”

“It’s not as if it’s just one meal of dumplings!” Xu Wen shook his head, “And I haven’t forgotten about Second Uncle I still want to take you and Second Uncle out for a big dinner tonight”

“You girl got rich? It’s not easy for people to earn pennies from Lu Yuanzheng, so don’t be such a big spender on food and drink!” Xu Wen disliked her

“Which is not! We usually don’t spend much money on the island We thought we’d get a little bit of luck with you and have a good time! I’m not living here, am I? Dongsheng”

Dongsheng nodded, “Ma Ma is right! Second uncle, I want to eat meat”

Xu Wen: “”

“Besides, during the school year, our school gives fifteen subsidies every month, the army gives ten subsidies every month, I have twenty-five dollars a month for doing nothing, what’s wrong with having a big meal?”

“Look at you fooling around! Is the fifteen dollars of your college subsidy enough for you to spend? You’re still taking advantage of Lu Yuanzheng for the ten dollars you get from the army”

Xu Man was so angry that he raised his hand and slapped Xu Wen, “Whose brother are you? Why are you always talking to Lu Yuanzheng?”

“Speaking of Lu Yuanzheng ,” Xu Wen dodged while suspiciously sizing up Xu Man, “I’ve been holding back all morning, and I’ve been meaning to ask, did you two have a fight?”

“No ah? Why do you ask?” Xu Man looked puzzled

“Without a fight, you left Lu Yuanzheng behind and came to find me by yourself?” Xu Wen still didn’t believe it It couldn’t be said that Xu Man was heartless, but Xu Wen’s self-perception wasn’t as heavy as Lu Yuanzheng’s weight in Xu Man’s heart

“You’re my brother, I haven’t seen you for almost half a year, what’s wrong with coming to see you? Do I still have to fight with Lu Yuanzheng to come look for you?” Xu Man rolled his eyes

“That’s not what I meant” Seeing that Xu Wen really didn’t look like he was quarreling, Xu Wen rubbed his nose, “It feels like you two have been inseparable I was quite puzzled when you suddenly came over on your own”

Xu Man sighed, “Since you’re so unsure, I’ll be honest with you”

Xu Wen immediately sat upright, her heart drumming, looking at Xu Man so serious, it couldn’t be that she and Lu Yuanzheng really had any problems, right?

“The last time I saw Lu Yuanzheng was more than a week ago”

“What’s the situation? He’s hiring you?” Xu Wen’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked as if he would immediately rush over to settle the score with Lu Yuanzheng as soon as Xu Wen nodded his head

All the favorable treatment Lu Yuanzheng received in front of the Xu family was predicated on Lu Yuanzheng treating Xu Man

If Lu Yuanzheng treated Xu Man badly, then Xu Wen would still unconditionally favor Xu Man

“You’re the one who’s been rested! They’re doing closed training, so I couldn’t see him and was bored alone on the island before I came over to look for you”

Xu Wen breathed a sigh of relief and rolled his eyes towards Xu Man, “Training you just say training, look at that closed door you’re selling! I thought the two of you were at loggerheads! I told you how this girl was so kind to come see me! 呵 “Xu Wen ten thousand times disgusted, “Bored before you thought of looking for your brother”

Xu Wen had a candid look on his face, “I also didn’t expect you to be so self-aware”

The siblings teased for a while, and incidentally ate the lunch Xu Wen had bought

Then Xu Man took Dongsheng back to the guesthouse to rest, letting Xu Wen also sleep for a while longer, saying that he would come over later to look for him and wanted to follow him to the night market

Regardless of the era, regardless of whether the overall environment was poor or not, the services for the rich to enjoy in a city were still outstanding

For example, the guesthouse where Xu Wen and the others were staying

Said guest house, in fact, is the hotel, just local people called the habit of a time hard to change

This hotel condition is not too good, at least not famous enough, if on the star if about three stars up a little bit, in the hotel is considered to be in the upper middle

About in order to entertain foreign guests, the entire guest house are renovated, and strive to keep up with international standards, so the decoration is a little biased European and American style

It is very clean and has a bathroom with twenty-four hour hot water

Xu asked for a standard room, she and Dongsheng one person a bed

Even if Dongsheng can now sleep on his own, she can’t be so big-hearted as to really let Dongsheng live alone in a room

The hotel’s management is quite strict, the security seems to be good, Xu Man is still a little uneasy, inside the door plugged

The child has just changed the place fresh, Dongsheng stood in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window jumping around and refused to sleep: “Ma Ma, this place can see the sea!”

Xu Man is a little sleepy, yawning and asked him: “You live on the sea all day long will be rare so far to see the sea?”