Beef is fine to eat occasionally, but it's not something we can afford to eat often. Regardless of whether Dong Qing's words will come true in the future, Li Yuzhu was very happy to hear them, and a happy smile lingered on her beautiful face.

Beef with garlic tastes really good. Beef was indeed delicious back then because no one was willing to slaughter cattle. They only slaughtered old cattle that could no longer plow the fields. The slaughtered cattle were all over ten years old, and the meat tasted very good. It was even more appealing to eat.

In times of scarcity, no matter how good the food was, it wasn't particularly expensive. Meat cost 70 or 80 cents a pound, and even the best beef couldn't be that expensive.

It wasn't just beef that was delicious; all kinds of meat tasted good back then. Farmers could only raise a pig to maturity in a year; many pigs needed to be raised for more than two years to reach maturity.

In those days, pigs were fed coarse grains. It was more like they were being boiled alive than fed to grow big. The pig feed was thin and watery, so the feeding period was very long, and the meat tasted very good.

And they were all completely natural. In those days, there were no additives or feed, so you couldn't buy them even if you wanted to. Even if you could, no one could afford them. A pound of pork cost 78 cents, and a live pig could only sell for a few cents. If you invested too much, you wouldn't even make back your investment.

No matter how cheap meat is, people can't afford it because no one has the money. Wages have increased in the last two years, but a state-owned enterprise employee only earns forty or fifty yuan a month. How can a family afford to spend a little over one yuan a day? No one can afford to eat big fish and meat every day.

A pig's trotter cost 25 cents. There was a saying back then that you would insult someone's feet by saying "25 cents," which meant that a big pig's trotter cost 25 cents.

The vegetables grown by farmers were even less valuable. Nowadays, vegetables cost several yuan per kilogram, but back then, vegetables were charged by the cent. It was rare to find vegetables that cost five cents per kilogram. A trip to the market would only cost three or four cents. If you had five yuan in your pocket, it would last you half a month.

Low income was common, so farmers could not earn much money from growing a vegetable garden in a year. In the early 1980s, there was no such thing as a family selling surplus grain.

In those days, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were not widely used, and the yield per mu was very low. After paying the grain tax, there was not much wheat left. People mainly relied on coarse grains to make a living. If they ate only white flour buns, the wheat of the whole year would be eaten up in three months. How would they survive the rest of the year?

The standard of living in the early 1980s was similar to that in the 1970s. If we were to say that life improved, it was only after 1986. Only those who lived through that era know how tough it was.

At dawn the next day, Dong Qing got up before daybreak, scooped the fish out of the pond, put them in bags, and loaded them onto a cart.

As dawn broke, Dongqing had his wife hold their son and sit on a cart, then pulled the cart toward the city.

By the early 1980s, farmers' markets were no longer managed; the era of cutting off the capitalist tail was over.

Dong Qing pulled the cart to the farmers' market, took the son from his wife's arms, and Li Yuzhu got up and got off the cart.

Dongqing handed his son to his wife, spread a plastic sheet on the ground, and then poured the big fish and small fish onto the ground separately.

The fish had just been pulled from the water and were still lively and jumping around, looking very fresh.

Just then, a middle-aged man pulling a cart full of vegetables stopped in front of his stall. He said, "Young man, how can you be so ignorant of the rules? I've been setting up my stall here for years. Could you please go somewhere else?"

Dong Qing said, "Did you pay here? Just show me the receipt, and I'll let you pass right away."

There are really no rules in this market. It was only recently after the reform and opening up, and there were no managers or anyone collecting management fees. The middle-aged man's claim that it was his stall is complete nonsense.

The vegetable vendors are all local bullies around this county town. Dongqing isn't far from the city, so who's afraid of whom?

Just as the middle-aged man was about to get angry, Li Yuzhu said, "Uncle, we've already dumped the fish on the ground. There are other places to set up your stall at this time. Could you please go somewhere else?"

The man said that the tonifying pills tasted good, but were hard to swallow after feeling bloated. In the end, the middle-aged man didn't say anything and pulled the vegetables away.

The market had already opened, and a woman carrying a vegetable basket walked towards them. She squatted down and asked, "Young man, how much are your fish?"

Dongqing said, "No bargaining. Big fish are four cents, small fish are two cents!"

Dongqing doesn't like to haggle or ask for inflated prices. His fish are all lively and look very fresh, and the price is the same as other people's dead fish. Compared to that, it's already a discount.

The woman didn't haggle; she weighed out three jin of fish, both large and small, while Li Yuzhu, holding the child, was in charge of collecting the money.

Dongqing's fish were very fresh, and soon people surrounded his stall, which made the scene quite chaotic, and fish might even get stolen.

Li Yuzhu stopped charging money. Dong Qing said that the fish were charged by the fishmonger. She held her child and kept an eye on the people buying fish. With her watching like this, no one dared to take advantage of the situation. Some fish were lost, but overall not many were lost.

If she didn't come here to keep an eye on things, it would be disastrous with so many people buying fish. Dongqing couldn't possibly keep an eye on the stall by himself, and he wouldn't even know how many fish he lost. There will always be people who lack self-awareness.

The fish sold out quickly, and the couple packed up and went home.

Back home, Dongqing poured the money from selling fish onto the table. The banknotes were a mixed bag, with very few ten-yuan notes. Most were two-yuan, one-yuan, fifty-cent, two-cent, and one-cent notes, and the rest were coins and small change. It was very slow to count them.

It took the couple a long time to count all the money. They earned a total of 42.6 yuan. Even so, it was enough to make them happy. This was the wage of an ordinary laborer working on a construction team for almost a month. They only earned a little over one yuan a day.

Li Yuzhu excitedly said, "I never thought fishing could be so profitable. One day's work like this is almost equivalent to a month's salary for a regular worker."

Dong Qing said, "Don't be too happy yet. In recent years, we've been cutting off the capitalist tail. To put it bluntly, people haven't woken up yet. There's no one fishing in the river now. Didn't you notice how many people were watching us yesterday? I believe that after a while, there will be more people fishing, and then we naturally won't have such a good income. There are only so many fish in the river. Everything has a beginning and an end."

Li Yuzhu smiled wryly and said, "Of course I know these principles, but what can we do? Can we stop others from fishing?"

The two ate a simple breakfast, and Dongqing pulled his wife out of the house in a cart to continue fishing in the river in the countryside.

They worked like this for half a month, earning an average of several tens of yuan a day, and their lives gradually improved.