Chapter 12 Observing the Street Scene in 1959
Jin Caifeng saw that everyone in the family had gotten up, so she instructed her eldest daughter-in-law:
"Muxiang, Mom has to go to the market to queue up to buy meat. It might be sold out by the time she gets there, so you can cook breakfast today."
"Okay, Mom. Are we still going to make cornmeal? My little brother is back. Do you want me to make some rice porridge?"
"No need, your dad said that tonight we should cook all the rice in the house into steamed rice and serve it with braised pork. Then we can have a good farewell dinner and we will separate completely after that~~~"
After saying that, Jin Caifeng glared at her second son fiercely.
Lin Duzhong felt a little embarrassed when he saw this, and quickly ran to the faucet in the yard with the basin and toothbrush.
Lin Sanqi also became interested when he heard about going to the vegetable market. This interest was similar to a tourist's curiosity about everything in a strange place:
"Mom, can I go to the market with you?"
Jin Caifeng blinked in confusion. "What's so good about a vegetable market? It's so dirty inside."
Lin Kucan walked out of the room:
"If Qizi wants to go, then go ahead. You two can eat outside and have a good meal. But don't lose him again."
Jin Caifeng also listened to the advice, counted the various bills, and then put them in her small pocket. She said to Lin Sanqi:
"Okay, Zai Zai, let's go now."
Lin Jiageng and Lin Zhenzhen were fed up and started arguing, "Grandma, we want to go out to eat too. I want to eat fried dough sticks."
The two little guys were born in Beijing, so their tastes are a bit northern.
Jin Caifeng was a little embarrassed:
"Gengzi, you're so good. Grandma is going to grab some meat today. There are too many people grabbing the meat and I'm afraid you'll get lost, just like my uncle. So you stay home and I'll buy you some delicious food, okay?"
"Okay, Grandma, I want some candy..."
Lin Sanqi followed his mother, and the two of them walked out of the yard together.
The people in the yard had actually been observing for a long time, and when they saw the two people coming, they greeted them:
"Oh, so this is Doctor Lin's youngest son? This is the first time I've seen him."
"Mrs. Lin, where are you going so early in the morning?"
"How tactless! They finally have a family reunion, so of course we have to celebrate and have a good meal."
Jin Caifeng couldn't stop laughing and just dealt with it all the way with a smile.
Lin Sanqi was a little embarrassed because the people chatting were all holding shit basins or chamber pots, and there was a faint smell of stench.
Wang, the matchmaker in the courtyard, was the first to have her professional sensitivity flare up:
"Mrs. Lin, congratulations! Your son, who had been missing for so many years, has finally been found. Look at this handsome young man! How about I introduce you to a nice girl?"
Jin Caifeng's eyes lit up when she heard this. Her youngest son was 23 years old and still had no boyfriend, which was considered an older age in this era.
"Okay, okay, Matchmaker Wang, if you find a suitable girl, you must tell me."
Matchmaker Wang became excited:
"Of course we are. We are from the same courtyard, so when there are good girls, of course we should prioritize our own people. Young man, what do you like? Slim or plump? Beauty or strong lady?"
Lin Sanqi was a little embarrassed. He now thought of himself as just a passing traveler in the era of 1959, but he had never thought about starting a family in this era.
What if his golden finger fails one day and becomes unusable, wouldn’t that leave his wife and children of this era lonely and helpless?
"Mom, I, I'm still young..."
Jin Caifeng thought that her youngest son was just embarrassed, so she waved her hand:
"Okay, let's talk about this later. There's no rush. Let's go buy some groceries first. If we're late, all the good meat will be gone."
Just outside the courtyard is a small alley called "Daqudeng Hutong".
Lin Sanqi has been observing that the buildings in this alley are no different from those decades later, mainly low-rise bungalows. Courtyard No. 38 is considered grand because it was converted from a princess's mansion.
The people in the alley all had pale faces, yellow and skinny, and there was not a single fat person to be seen.
The main road is right outside the alley, and it's much busier here. Maybe it's the morning rush hour, there are many pedestrians on the road, but surprisingly few bicycles.
Lin Sanqi thought: In the documentary, the streets and alleys of the capital were full of bicycles, it was simply a bicycle kingdom, why don’t I see many of them now?
In fact, Lin Sanqi got the era wrong. Bicycles didn't become widespread until the early 1980s. When you looked at the traffic lights, you would see a sea of bicycles.
Bicycles in the 1950s were no different from buying a Ferrari in later generations. Only a few people could afford them, so they were definitely not a popular means of transportation.
There are almost no cars on the streets. Most of them are buses and trams with two big braids on them, which are packed with people going to work.
While walking on the road, Lin Sanqi also saw some buses carrying huge black balloons with bulging inside, so he couldn't help but ask:
"Mom, why is there a big package on top of that car?"
Jin Caifeng smiled as soon as she saw it:
"That's a modified car. I heard gasoline is scarce now, so cars are all running on gas. That black thing is gas. It burns very slowly, so you have to refill it after driving it for a while. It's very troublesome."
After a while, another bus drove by. The front of this bus was not flat, but like the front of a truck.
Lin Sanqi became interested again and asked:
"Mom, look at this bus. Is it a converted truck?"
Jin Caifeng was a very gentle woman. Seeing her son had questions, she patiently explained:
"These buses are incredible. They were imported from abroad before the Liberation Movement. They're high quality. Look how they're still on the road after all these years. And look at those trams. You always worry they'll fall apart when you sit on them."
Jin Caifeng laughed to herself for a while, then said with emotion:
"When we lived in Huadu, we also had an imported car, but your father later gave it to the state. We also don't know if our old house on Renji Road was confiscated. We haven't heard anything about it in all these years."
Renji Road?
Lin Sanqi immediately recalled that Renji Road was in the old city of Huadu, by the Pearl River, and this old house was very valuable in 2013.
"Mom, my father didn't take the initiative to hand over this old house, did he?"
"The house hasn't been handed over, but the title deed and land deeds are in our hands. That's our Lin family's ancestral home. Your father said, if anyone ruins the ancestral home, they will be ashamed to see their ancestors in the future."
Lin Sanqi breathed a sigh of relief and comforted him:
"It doesn't matter if the house deeds and land deeds are still there. We are working people who have devoted our entire family to building our motherland. We are not reactionaries who have fled to a small island. The government will definitely return them to us in the future."
In fact, what Lin Sanqi was thinking about was whether he could give me the five large yellow croakers that were agreed upon when they split up last night.
One large yellow croaker weighs ten taels, which is equivalent to 312g, and 5 of them weigh 1560g.
Based on the market price of 535 yuan per gram, these five large yellow croakers can be sold for 800,000 yuan, which is definitely a huge sum of money. It means they have earned their first pot of gold after traveling through time.
Unfortunately, the old couple was afraid that their youngest son would lose it, so they kept it for him...
(End of this chapter)
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