Jiang Ci led her two restless children, who were always looking around, to the end of the corridor and knocked on the door.
"Please come in."
Inside the room, three people were sitting around a long table—two men and one woman—who seemed to have been chatting and were eating sunflower seeds.
Upon seeing the person who opened the door and entered, the three of them paused, looking her up and down. They seemed to be used to villagers from the production team bringing over some medicinal herbs. The woman asked, "What did you bring?"
Jiang Ci and the other two children came in, and then she opened the bag and said, "It's a poisonous snake."
"Venomous snake?!"
The three of them gathered around. Snakes were rare, and venomous snakes were rare too!
Jiang Ci took out both the snake's head and body.
Zhou Miao and Zhou Yang had no idea what was in the bag, and they were oblivious to it. But when they saw what their mother had taken out, their eyes widened in terror, and they burst into tears.
Oh dear, those little pearls are falling off so fast, they're just falling off like that!
Not to mention the children, even the three adults were startled by such a large snake, and the woman kept backing away.
"Oh dear, I can't stand to look at this! Quickly, pack it up, pack it up!"
Jiang Ci, feeling helpless, calmly stuffed the snake back in.
Then I started to soothe the two children.
"What?! Stop crying, the snake is gone!" "I'll take you to buy candy if you don't cry." "Whoever cries won't get any meat buns today."
Nowadays, kids are more interested in food than toys or going out to play. Sure enough, Jiang Ci coaxed the two children away and they stopped crying. They looked at Jiang Ci with pleading eyes while sobbing.
Zhou Miao's baby voice trembled with tears, "Really...really can I still eat candy?"
Zhou Yang wiped away his tears. "Mom, I want to eat a big meat bun."
Jiang Ci made up her mind, "Buy them all, I'll buy them all for you!"
The two children finally stopped crying and hid behind Jiang Ci, looking around with a mixture of fear and curiosity. They glanced at the bag and quickly shrank back inside.
My little hands and feet were so nervous I didn't know what to do with them!
Yangyang and Miaomiao: Oh my! Snakes are so scary!
The three purchasing agents watched with a smile as Jiang Ci calmed the two children before saying to her, "This is indeed a venomous snake. We'll give you the gallbladder at our local purchase price of forty-five. We can also buy the snake body. We can make snake soup for our doctors at noon. I'll buy the snake body at the price of first-grade meat, one yuan and twenty cents per pound. Is that acceptable?"
Forty-five, which is more expensive than Zhou Mingli had estimated. That's a month's salary for a level four or five skilled worker, which is quite good.
Jiang Ci thought for a moment, then smiled and said, "Okay, the price you offered is very fair. My kids are afraid of this thing, and they wouldn't dare let me take it if you didn't accept it."
The purchasing agent, who had just witnessed a child crying loudly, couldn't help but chuckle.
Jiang Ci smiled and said, "I still have a rabbit in my bag. Do you want to give the cafeteria an extra meal?"
"You've had quite a haul," the woman laughed. "How big? Enough for the boss to have a nice meal."
Jiang Ci: "It should weigh about five or six jin. I'm not sure how much I weigh it, so you guys weigh it."
The hospital accepted the snake and the rabbit together. The purchasing agent weighed the snake's body and head, and the snake was indeed quite heavy, weighing thirteen pounds!
The snake gallbladder was 45 yuan. The whole snake was sold for 1.2 yuan per jin (500 grams), and it sold for 15.6 yuan. In addition, the rabbit was sold for 0.8 yuan per jin, and the whole snake, weighing 4.2 jin, sold for 3.36 yuan.
It cost a total of sixty-three dollars and ninety-six cents.
There are both zeros and whole numbers.
Jiang Ci hadn't expected the snake to be so valuable. Holding the nearly seventy coins, she looked down at them, her eyes suddenly feeling hot.
Zhou Miao was particularly sensitive. She grabbed Jiang Ci's trouser leg, looked up at Jiang Ci, nervous and helpless, "Mom... don't cry."
Jiang Ci quickly wiped away her tears; her eyes were still red.
"I'm crying tears of joy."
Jiang Ci clutched the sixty-three yuan tightly. It was money she had earned with her own hands, and the fact that it was hard-won made her feel especially grateful.
Jiang Ci smiled at the three purchasing agents, saying generously and without any embarrassment, "Thank you."
Seeing her poised and polite demeanor, the purchasing agent felt a closer connection to her. "We mainly buy medicinal herbs here. If you can get some, you can send them over. However, venomous snakes are still quite dangerous, so don't go looking for them just for the money."
Jiang Ci nodded. "It was because this snake kept chasing me and my man that I was forced to kill it. In the past, I would never have dared to provoke such a venomous creature."
Three purchasing agents: "?"
What?
This snake...
Was it this woman who killed him?!
The three purchasing agents' gazes towards Jiang Ci changed, and they subconsciously backed away...back...back.
Jiang Ci had no idea how complicated the three of them were feeling. She had taken care of the rabbit without having to go to the black market, and felt very relieved. She carefully put the money away, picked up the empty bag, and gestured for Zhou Yang and Zhou Miao to say goodbye to the people.
There was a clock hanging in the hospital. Jiang Ci glanced at it and saw that it was only 9:20.
Having figured things out, Jiang Ci took Zhou Yang and Zhou Miao to the supply and marketing cooperative.
When the two children came here, it was like entering paradise. They immediately rushed to where the candy was and stared at it without blinking.
Jiang Ci first bought the needles and thread that Sister-in-law Yu wanted, and then bought three feet of cloth. Cloth is like food; you can never have too much of it.
People need clothes to wear and quilts to sew, so cotton and other materials need to be prepared, otherwise winter will be hard to endure.
Jiang Ci glanced around and asked, "Do you have wheat flour? Do you have milk?"
The sales clerk looked at her strangely. "We don't have flour. How could a small-town supply and marketing cooperative like ours possibly have milk?"
If they had any, they would have been taken by the leaders long ago. How could they possibly have gotten a chance to be ordinary people like us?
As expected, Jiang Ci wasn't too disappointed. There was no milk, but there was still malted milk powder. Jiang Ci bought two cans of malted milk powder and a pound of fruit candy.
Zhou Mingli also mentioned some cooking ingredients, such as oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. As soon as Jiang Ci asked, the salesperson brought them out to her one by one.
She also bought two boxes of clam oil and soapberry.
The cold cream is sold out at the supply and marketing cooperative, so I can only buy clam oil to stock up.
Jiang Ci handed over the ticket with one hand and packed all the items with the other.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at the counter and spotted a domestically made watch.
Jiang Ci's gaze lingered with reluctance.
Actually, their family is quite lacking in a watch, otherwise they wouldn't even be able to keep accurate time.
It's a pity; they can afford the cheap watches, but they don't have the tickets.
These tickets are extremely rare and are basically not available on the market.
Since there was no wheat flour, Jiang Ci didn't buy any other flour. Today, she spent a total of eight yuan and eighty cents at the supply and marketing cooperative.
I didn't even spend all the ten yuan I brought with me when I left.
When they came out of the supply and marketing cooperative, Zhou Yang and Zhou Miao were both beaming with joy.
Jiang Ci waved her hand, "Let's go to the state-run restaurant!"
Zhou Yang and Zhou Miao: "Yay!"
They can go eat big meat buns now!
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