Seeing their daughter's insistence, Fu Laoda and Ye Xiaocui had no choice but to give up.
"Then I'll go and prepare things for your journey."
There are only night trains from Longhai City to Beijing, and the journey takes a full day and night.
Ye Xiaocui had to prepare all the food for them along the way.
Fu Wan let her do her work, while she went to the backyard to pack all the ambergris into cloth bags.
Good things often come with difficulties. She was an impatient person, and since she was going to the capital, she wanted to set off as soon as possible.
It's already evening, and the earliest train I can catch is tomorrow night.
Seeing that Fu Wan had made up her mind, Fu Laoda ran out to find Fu Lao Village Chief to get a letter of introduction.
In the 1980s, it was nearly impossible to get around without a letter of introduction, especially if you wanted to go to Beijing. Without a letter of introduction, you would be arrested by the police as a vagrant.
After tidying up the ambergris and clothes, Fu Wan went into the kitchen.
Ye Xiaocui was instructing Fu Ming on how to make pancakes. Because she was worried that it would be inconvenient to buy things on the train, Ye Xiaocui was particularly generous this time. She asked Fu Ming to put two eggs in the cornmeal, sprinkle some chopped green onions and shredded potatoes, stir it into a paste, and finally fry it with a little oil to make a fragrant and crispy multigrain pancake.
Ye Xiaocui felt that bringing only pancakes wasn't enough, so she took out an enamel mug containing eggs from the kitchen cabinet, took out more than ten eggs, and prepared to boil them for Fu Wan to take with her.
"Mom, don't tell me I have to take all these eggs with me?"
Fu Wan felt a chill run down her spine when she looked at the bowl full of eggs. She had never liked the yolks of boiled eggs because they were too dry and hard to swallow.
With such a huge bowl of boiled eggs, wouldn't I end up questioning my existence after eating them all the way here?!
Ye Xiaocui got angry when she saw the way the girl looked like she didn't want to eat. "I went to so much trouble to save up these eggs, and you're not happy about cooking them for me to take with you?!"
Fu Wan quickly smiled apologetically, "How could that be? I was just worried that if I took everything, there wouldn't be anything to eat at home. Mom, we'll just take one or two. We still have pancakes, don't we?"
Ye Xiaocui disagreed, "How many meals can those pancakes last? Eggs are more convenient and keep longer."
As the mother and daughter chatted back and forth, Fu Wan noticed the prawns placed nearby, and an idea popped into her mind.
I'm tired of eating egg pancakes, but I'm definitely not tired of eating shrimp!
Dried prawns can be stored for a long time and are easy to carry. It would be incredibly delicious to eat one on a train.
"Mom, what are you planning to do with these shrimp?"
These past few days, we've been eating shrimp at every meal. Ye Xiaocui has almost figured out eighteen ways to cook shrimp.
"Let's just boil it in water to preserve its original flavor."
Since there were plenty of shrimp, Fu Wan simply filled a large bowl with them and said, "I'll take these and try out a new way to cook them!"
Ye Xiaocui had gotten used to Fu Wan's occasional new ideas and let her do whatever she wanted.
Fu Wan had eaten a lot of dried prawns in her previous life. In general, coastal areas would dry prawns and then sell them.
However, this only applies to later generations when aquaculture was developed. In the 1980s, villagers in Fujia Village would usually sell the shrimp they caught directly to purchasing stations, since it was fresh and convenient. Very few people dried shrimp.
Fu Wan took the shrimp to the well and used small bamboo skewers the size of toothpicks to remove the shrimp veins from all the prawns, and then trimmed off the unsightly shrimp whiskers.
After cleaning the shrimp, she went to the backyard vegetable garden and picked some scallions. She also took some of the ginger that Fu Ming had left over from cooking.
Before drying the prawns, she had to cook them first. She put the prawns, scallions, ginger, and garlic into the water, and added some salt to taste after the water boiled. Finally, she took the prawns out when the shells started to wrinkle slightly.
Every household in the village uses homemade winnowing baskets to dry their goods. Fu Wan drained the water from the shrimp and then placed them one by one on the winnowing basket to dry.
Unfortunately, it was already night. If they had been exposed to the intense sun all day, it would have been enough.
However, they don't leave until tomorrow night, so they still have time.
...
The next morning, Ye Xiaocui took the prawns that she had left to air dry in the backyard the night before and put them out to sunbathe.
Last night, Fu San ran into Fu Laoda while taking a walk with his wife. He heard that Fu Wan was going to the capital, so he specially took advantage of his delivery work early this morning to find someone to buy two sleeper tickets.
They delivered it immediately.
"Ah Wan, you must be careful on your long trip. There are many human traffickers these days, and Fu Ming is a bit dim-witted..."
Fu Ming was displeased by Fu San's words. "Third Uncle, who are you calling a fool!"
Fu San waved his hand, "I'm talking to A-Wan, young man, don't interrupt!"
"Me, a young man?!"
Fu Wan watched the two bickering with amusement, and was extremely grateful to Fu San for buying them sleeper tickets.
"Third Uncle, I know all of this. You're amazing, you even managed to get a sleeper ticket."
She had considered using connections to get two sleeper tickets, but these days sleeper tickets are hard to come by. If she were to use connections, she could only ask Zhao Gang or Bai Qianzhou, and she felt it wouldn't be appropriate to ask either of them.
Fu San was smug when he heard this. "Who is your third uncle? Not only in the county, but now even bosses in the city know me."
At this point, he sincerely praised, "That's all thanks to your moonfish. You don't know that on the day Boss Liu's brother opened his restaurant, there was also a seafood restaurant opening diagonally across the street."
Mr. Liu's brother thought it was bad luck to open the restaurant so early, but who knew that as soon as the name "Moonfish" spread, half the customers on the street flocked to the restaurant to see what was going on!
The boss, Mr. Liu, was a wealthy businessman. He immediately decided that all the seafood in the restaurant would be sourced from Fu San. This was a restaurant in the city, and Fu San was so happy that he was practically floating on air for days.
Fu Wan was also happy to hear this. Fu San had given her two thousand yuan for the moonfish, so she made a small fortune.
After putting away the sleeper tickets and packing their belongings, Ye Xiaocui sewed two sturdy cloth pockets inside each of Fu Ming and Fu Wan's clothes and pants.
They even thoughtfully added a button so that Fu Wan and the others could easily put their money inside their clothes, making it less likely to fall out or be stolen.
It was soon evening, and since their train was at 7 p.m., Fu Wan and Fu Ming decided to go to the station early.
Fu Ling and Qin Mingzhu knew that Fu Wan and Fu Ming were going on a long trip, and they were sitting by the door wiping away tears.
"Mom, please come back soon!"
"Godmother, you must come back safely!"
Ever since Qin Mingzhu could speak, Fu Wan had made her call her godmother. Qin Mingzhu had too many bad memories of the capital, and when she learned that Fu Wan was going to the capital, she repeatedly told her to be careful and safe.
Fu Wan was both amused and exasperated, holding one child in each arm. "I'm going out on business, not to fight a war. Be good at home, and I promise I'll be back soon."
After calming the two children down, Fu Liang and Jiang Chunlan also arrived. Fu Wan was horrified when she saw the eggs Jiang Chunlan was carrying.
After much arguing, Fu Wan and Fu Ming could only take the bag of eggs and ride on Uncle Niu's tractor to the county train station.
Even after the two boarded the train, Fu Ming still felt a bit unreal; he was really going to the capital!
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