Li Jin and his son Li Xiangdong didn't even bother to eat. They sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) and whispered to each other, their heads close together.

“Dad, if I make this announcement today, it will definitely spread throughout Panjiazhuang Brigade immediately. Anyone who disagrees with Pan Dachun will definitely investigate the cause and effect. Four hundred yuan is not a small amount.”

“Let their own people investigate their own people; that will definitely be more effective than us investigating.” Li Jin nodded in agreement.

"That's right. If we want to find evidence, we can either catch them red-handed transporting peaches in the middle of the night, or we can get the people who sell high-priced fruit on the black market to testify, but neither of these is easy to achieve."

“We’re from another village. Even if we catch the person transporting the peaches, Pan Dachun can easily say that the city urgently needed them and he delivered them in the middle of the night. As for selling the fruit at high prices on the black market, that’s even more impossible. He betrayed his suppliers. Who would dare to do business with him in the future?”

"Therefore, it is safest to have this matter handled by our own people from Panjiazhuang Brigade."

"If Pan Dachun still can't slip up this time, then the people of Panjiazhuang Brigade are truly incompetent and deserve to be bullied by Pan Dachun!"

"Do you think all the people there are so easy to mess with? Are there any who are even remotely manageable? Hehe!"

"So, you can hold it then!"

Li Jin looked at Li Xiangdong's mischievous grin and felt satisfied. This son of his age could think of these things, and he might really be able to do him a big favor!

Suddenly remembering the malted milk powder and orange juice in the cupboard under the kang (heated brick bed), her face immediately hardened. "Tell me! Where did all those delicious foods and drinks come from?"

Li Xiangdong was impressed by his father's quick change of expression, and subtly moved his body back a little.

"My mother didn't tell you? I don't believe it."

Li Xiangdong said he didn't believe his father didn't know where the food and drink came from.

“Your mother said what she said, I want to hear your version.”

Li Jin took out his pipe, lit a match, and took a puff of tobacco.

"Isn't it all the same?"

Li Xiangdong retorted, but seeing that his father was staring at him without saying a word, he had no choice but to explain the whole story again.

“Xiang Jie and I discovered that cicada shells could be sold for money. Oh, cicada shells are cicada nymph shells, so we went everywhere looking for cicada nymph shells. The three of them were arrested today because of this.”

How much did you sell it for?

Li Jin exhaled a smoke ring.

"I made over twenty yuan, and I used it all to buy meat and sugar, and yes, malted milk powder and orange juice."

"What about Rehmannia?"

"I sold it for forty yuan and eight mao. I spent eight mao, so I have forty yuan left."

Li Xiangdong answered with a reluctant expression.

His mother really betrayed him completely; look, she even knew he was selling wild rehmannia!

"You really know how to spend money! I was only gone for a few days and you've already spent over twenty yuan! Give me the rest of the money! Who knows when it will be gone if you keep it."

Li Jin looked at him with a mixture of disappointment and frustration, his heart pounding with pain. The meat and candy were delicious, but this was no way to eat them!

“Dad, we eat coarse sorghum pancakes with pickled vegetables and shrimp paste every day. Look at my mother, she gets up before dawn and works until midnight every day. She’s exhausted. She’s only forty, but she looks like she’s sixty. And Jiabao and Xiaoping, they’re not growing anymore. They’re as skinny as monkeys.” Li Xiangdong said indignantly.

“Your mother doesn’t look sixty at all! Aren’t all the aunties and grandmas in the village like that? And Jiabao and Xiaoping, they’re taller and stronger than all the kids in the village!”

Li Jin felt that Li Xiangdong was exaggerating.

It's not surprising that Li Jin disagreed with him; in those days, which family didn't eat sorghum pancakes?

Some people even eat vegetable dumplings made with bran and wild vegetables!

Besides, being able to eat shrimp paste is already considered a good thing.

Only Li Xiangdong, who lived through the era of great material abundance in later generations, felt something was amiss. People in later generations were mostly fair-skinned and plump, and dieting had even become fashionable. Fatty meat, which is now considered a delicacy, was now disliked.

The elderly men and women in their seventies and eighties all dressed in bright and colorful clothes, using all kinds of fabrics such as silk, combed cotton, and Western-style dresses, Tang suits, Hanfu, and cheongsams. The older they got, the more flamboyant their clothes became, which was called "looking good in old age." Unlike this era, when only coarse blue and black cloth was available and the styles were limited.

Just like Li Xiangdong looked at Zhao Sufang, who always wore a loose-fitting blue coarse cloth jacket and black trousers, she looked older than people in their seventies or eighties in that era, even though she was middle-aged.

“Then why does my grandma look younger than other old ladies her age? It’s because she eats well, dresses well, and doesn’t do any work!” Li Xiangdong retorted.

Li Jin was speechless for a moment. His mother looked fairer and more prosperous than the old ladies in the village.

When Li Jin was in the army, he sent all his wages and allowances home to support his younger siblings' schooling. Later, he transferred to Yongxing Winery. Although most of his wages were taken by his mother, he was still able to keep some for himself, and he lived a decent life.

When he returned to the village, he no longer received a salary, and his family had to rely on work points to survive, making life difficult. They had more and more children, but they didn't have much savings.

In the past two years, his fourth daughter has been working at a brick kiln, and she hands over her wages to him every month. At least he can see a dozen yuan in cash every month, but his mother is always asking for this or that, so he has to give her a portion of his wages every month.

Although there was no need for excessive formalities between comrades on this trip to the county town, I still had to buy something decent to visit the old stationmaster, and Zhao Sufang took away the last bit of savings she had.

Forty yuan was like a long-awaited rain for Li Xiangdong.

Thinking of this, Li Jin took another deep drag on his cigarette. "Give the money to your father first. When he has money, he'll pay you back. It's just twenty yuan, it's gone now."

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!