Zheng Yongjun, a 39-year-old clerk in his forties, worked as a purchasing clerk for the Red Star Machinery Factory's first cafeteria. He was short, and his complexion, likely due to his work in the cafeteria, was rosy and radiant. He was the first "normal"-looking person the trio had encountered since their time in the spaceship.
After entering the house, I shook hands warmly with Guan's father and started chatting with him.
These days, being a purchasing agent, working with a stethoscope and a big spoon, is a highly sought-after job. Zheng Yongjun also complained to Guan's father about how tough it is to be a purchasing agent. It's the third year of natural disasters, food allocations are rationed, and there's no fresh food in winter. Every trip to the meat processing plant to buy goods is like being a grandson.
Guan's father listened to his complaints and tried to persuade him: "Right now, the whole country has been hit by disasters, and the country is in great difficulty. The machinery factory has provided relatively good logistics support to many factories. The daily consumption of such a large factory is indeed a big problem. You have to take on this responsibility when doing this job. Sigh, it's hard for you."
"The state is allocating grain, and the supply station is even more worried than I am! How can I solve the problem of having no vegetables and no meat? I can't even produce it myself! I heard from my father just now that your team has opened up some land in the mountains for farming, but even if they did, how much can they grow? Besides, what we lack most now is meat, and you have even less." Zheng Yongjun said with a wry smile.
"Who said there isn't? I'm here to help you solve the problem!"
"What? You have it?" Zheng Yongjun stood up in shock.
"Our brigade is far from the county seat, nestled deep in the mountains. The disasters in the mountains haven't been as severe in the past two years. The brigade leader led us to open up some fields in the mountains. This year we're going to cultivate the land so we can plant crops next year. So we planted potatoes, sweet potatoes, radishes, pumpkins, and so on, and we're storing them in the cellar now."
We also raise pigs on the mountain. The sweet potato leaves and pumpkin vines in the fields used to be enough for the pigs, but now they've eaten up all the pig feed they had. I was thinking of bringing it to the county purchasing station, but now I'll just give it all to you."
Guan Yongjun slammed the table and said, "That's great! It solves my big problem!"
"But I have a condition. You have to agree to it before we can do it."
"What conditions?"
"Brother, you don't know. Our production team secretly opened up the land on the mountain and didn't report it to the commune. You don't know how fierce the competition among the production teams is. Some team leaders, just to get the big red flower and be praised, simply falsified the production volume. Not to mention a thousand catties per mu, they even dared to report tens of thousands of catties! They didn't care about the consequences at all. When all the grain is handed over, the whole village will have nothing to eat. You have no idea how miserable the people are. If this gets out, not only will the leaders of the team be implicated and sent to labor camps, but our village will be robbed. Seriously. This matter cannot be spread outside!"
"Haha, brother, you are absolutely right. If you help me, I can't cheat you. Don't worry, it's no problem!
I'll just say you're a relative from my father's hometown, and I got it for me from somewhere else. I'll handle any subsequent issues myself, and I promise it has nothing to do with you, okay?"
"Okay! Then we'll go back to the village soon, hurry up the mountain, and try to come back tomorrow.
By the way, leave these for Uncle Zheng. You’ve worked so hard running around.”
As he said that, he took out four big apples from his backpack and put them on the table. Uncle Zheng even said no, saying that it was not easy for the farmer to farm, so how could he accept them? But Father Guan did not allow him to refuse and let him accept them.
The trio left Zheng Yongjun's house and the family compound and headed straight for the agricultural machinery station. There, they discovered a major problem: they had no sacks! With what would they use to pack their gear tomorrow? They could only hope the station was still open.
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