Although Meng Fuyan was from the South, she had the experience of her previous life and naturally knew the importance of Chinese cabbage to the Northeast winter. So she took a burlap sack and a rope and went over. Since she didn't have a carrying pole, she pushed her bicycle there.
Xu Jing and Fu Chaosheng were from Kyoto, where they mostly ate Chinese cabbage in the winter, so they didn't need any instructions and just came out with their tools.
Everyone acted quickly, except for the three Wu siblings and Yuan Yi, who seemed somewhat unconcerned.
“What’s so good about cabbage? It costs money to buy, and I don’t like it,” Wu Meixiang was the first to complain.
Wu Chengye shared the same thought: "I don't want to eat that either. We don't have much money left, so it's better to save it for meat. Cabbage doesn't taste good at all."
Yuan Yi frowned. "I see they are all very enthusiastic, so it must be very important. It's very cold here in winter, and there really aren't many vegetables. Cabbage keeps relatively well."
His uncle's family lived in the north, and he remembered that his uncle's family often ate cabbage in winter. However, he did not grow up in his uncle's family, so he did not have a deep understanding of this.
Wu Siyu pondered for a moment before saying, "We really don't have much money left, but since everyone is buying, we might as well buy some too, and see how much everyone else is buying."
The group nodded, took their baskets, and followed the crowd.
The square was already packed with people. Cabbage is the most common vegetable in winter, and people need to stock up on enough for the whole winter. Families are usually large at this time, so many people came with sacks, carrying poles, and even pushing carts and wheelbarrows.
The educated youth lined up together. Meng Fuyan stood behind Zhu Hong, and in front of them were Xu Jing and Fu Chaosheng.
Meng Fuyan was calculating in her mind how much she needed. She didn't grow Chinese cabbage in her space, but she had some stockpiled, just not much. Even in this era, this thing was not scarce and not valuable, so she didn't need to stockpile too much.
Zhu Hong ordered a lot, 1200 jin for one person. Both large baskets were filled to the brim and piled high, barely enough to hold everything. In the end, Meng Fuyan decided to order 600 jin.
She didn't have work points, so she could only buy things with money.
Two cents a pound, six hundred pounds cost twelve yuan, and there were also some radishes, potatoes and sweet potatoes, which were divided together.
These can be stored in the cellar for a winter. Meng Fuyan bought some of them, especially sweet potatoes, which are considered grain, so she bought more of them.
Sweet potatoes are a staple food, and you need ration coupons to buy them outside. However, the brigade leader didn't specifically ask for ration coupons; any kind of coupon would do. In the end, Meng Fuyan gave him two three-foot cloth coupons, two jin of sugar coupons, and one industrial coupon, and he bought five hundred jin of sweet potatoes at three cents a jin.
You can make sweet potato chips or sweet potato strips, or even sweet potato noodles from this.
There were definitely too many things to carry in one trip, so Meng Fuyan didn't even need to worry. The brigade leader called his youngest son over with a cart. He knew that their brigade would soon be getting telephones installed, and Gu Tingzhi had specifically instructed him to take care of her, so of course he would take good care of her!
This is a small matter, nothing troublesome, just a little effort, and he was particularly happy to make his presence known to Meng Fuyan.
If we can say some good things to Gu Tingzhi, we might be able to get more benefits from the team.
With someone's help, the items were brought back in one trip. Meng Fuyan moved all the items to the backyard, organized them, left some outside for future use, put the rest in the cellar, and put the other part into her spatial storage.
It was almost noon by then. She cooked some rice, stir-fried two dishes, grabbed a burlap sack, and went out.
I went to the supply and marketing cooperative and bought several jars for pickling sauerkraut. After that, I went to the school to pick up my younger brother.
When the siblings returned home, they found that the three Wu siblings had only just returned. They hadn't bought much cabbage, but they had asked for quite a few sweet potatoes.
He was fairly sharp and knew that there wouldn't be much support from his family and that there wouldn't be enough food, so he stockpiled some.
Meng Fuyan looked around and saw that there were only a dozen or so cabbages at the door, weighing less than 100 jin (50 kg), and even fewer radishes, weighing only about 50 jin (25 kg). There were more potatoes, but they looked to weigh only about 100 jin (50 kg), and a little over a sack of sweet potatoes.
This amount of food seems quite substantial, especially considering the food shortages of the 1970s. But the key point is that there were four of them, all of whom were young people who could still afford to eat.
Moreover, winter is very long, lasting about five months, and this amount of food is simply not enough to eat without rice, flour, and cooking oil.
Meng Fuyan glanced at the supplies, then at the houses under construction, a slight smile playing on her lips as she waited for things to unfold.
Wu Meixiang looked at the sweet potatoes with a bitter and resentful expression. "I don't like eating sweet potatoes. They're something only poor people eat. I don't like them at all."
Wu Chengye stared at the things in front of him with a gloomy face and said angrily, "Sister, you can clearly buy fine grains over there, why didn't you buy any of them and instead bought this stuff? Who likes to eat this?"
Wu Siyu retorted angrily, "Do you think I don't want to buy fine grains? But do we have that much money? These alone have cost more than ten yuan. We also need winter clothes, and the new house is finished and we need money for that too. We only have a hundred yuan in total right now. What can that do?"
They also spent some money on the way here. This is all the money they have left. The remaining ten or so yuan was used to buy these supplies.
Actually, for an ordinary person, having 100 yuan is not a small amount. Even if it is divided equally among four people, each person would have 25 yuan, which would be enough to get by in an emergency.
The difficulty lies in the fact that they have no supplies at all. If they had enough basic necessities, they could have gotten through the winter with this money.
Yuan Yi tugged at Wu Chengye's sleeve and comforted him, "Say less. Your sister has it tough too. We came in a hurry and don't have much money on us, so we have to be careful with our spending. The weather hasn't gotten completely cold yet, and we can still find some food on the mountain. If we work hard, we can get some more food."
“Meng Fuyan always brings back a lot of fruit from her trips up the mountain. We should be able to do it too. We can’t be worse off than a girl like her.”
Mentioning Meng Fuyan reignited Wu Chengye's anger. He knew that Meng Fuyan had everything, even more grain than they did.
With a dark look in his eyes, Wu Chengye didn't want to say anything more. He turned and went out, saying, "You guys hurry up and cook. I'm going out for a walk."
Meng Fuyan quickly ate lunch and then told her younger brother to find his friends so he could go to school with some other children from the brigade; she wouldn't be taking him today.
Wu Siyu, Wu Meixiang, and Yuan Yi were at home, preparing lunch. It would take some time before Wu Chengye went out, heading towards the back mountain.
Meng Fuyan decided to leave as soon as possible. She knew that Wu Chengye hated her to death and was bound to do something wicked, so she wanted to add fuel to the fire.
She thoroughly enjoys tormenting her enemies!
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