Qin Huai decided to take Maggie Cheung to the cafeteria to take a look. The sooner they faced the dark side of society, the less they would suffer in the future.
Zhang Houchang didn't allow them to be with him and kept them at a distance. His attitude was always clear: he kept a certain distance from Maggie Cheung so as not to influence his daughter.
As the people who came and went came to the cafeteria, they looked different from the people in the cafeteria. It was probably because there were very few outsiders here, so everyone looked at them with strange eyes.
Walking to the cafeteria window, he saw several large wooden barrels filled with black stuff. Qin Huai didn't dislike it. When he first arrived in Qinjiazhuang, he couldn't afford to eat such things.
As long as it is operated by humans, there will definitely be differences. Too much, too little, too thin, too thick. These may seem like small problems to outsiders, but they are big problems here. There is only a certain amount of food per day, and if you give less for one day, you will definitely be hungry.
In order to avoid this conflict, the farm manager came to get meals in person these days, and the atmosphere seemed to be much better.
This scene was so depressing that Maggie Cheung's tears never dried. She couldn't bear to watch any longer and ran out of the cafeteria and squatted on the ground.
Qin Huai came out to comfort him, saying, "Don't worry, I will find a way to find Uncle Zhang a new place." He knew very well that this promise was actually not very important, and Zhang Houchang's fate was still in the hands of others. For Maggie Cheung, he decided to give it a try no matter what.
Zhang Houchang came back with his meal. Qin Huai asked for his teacup and took a sip. It was cooked with wild vegetables and cornmeal, with a little salt.
The rough texture of cornmeal made his throat sore when it passed through. The wild vegetables were probably not cooked and had a grassy scent. Qin Xiaoyun made this almost every day when he was in Qinjiazhuang.
No, it's even worse. Qin Xiaoyun is reluctant to add salt.
Maggie Cheung said: "When school was the hardest, we only had two vegetable buns every day. I felt that life was very hard. It turns out that my father ate these things every day."
"Don't you understand? It's this kind of thing. Uncle Zhang can survive if he can eat enough every day. He only eats something dry at noon and drinks a bowl of water at night."
Zhang Houchang said, "Keke, I have something else to eat, don't be sad."
His reaction made Maggie Cheung even more sad.
She ate her meal in the cafeteria while crying. Zhang Houchang said, "Keke, you don't have to be like this."
Maggie Cheung said, "Dad, give me your food. I want to remember the suffering you endured."
Because someone came to visit in the afternoon, the farm gave Zhang Houchang a day off. He finished a pack and a half of Daqianmen cigarettes in the whole afternoon. The way he smoked scared Qin Huai.
Zhang Houchang said, "This thing was better when you were here, but I can't keep it now that you're gone, so I might as well just smoke it all first."
Qin Huai said, "I might need someone to do something tonight. You two can chat here while I go out and buy something."
Zhang Houchang said, "Don't go to Qinhuai. You spent so much money there, and I can't repay you."
Qin Huai said, "Uncle Zhang, I'm not helping you for any reward. If I can help you in a different place, you'll suffer less and Maggie Cheung will have less worries."
Asking people along the way, Qin Huai came to a small town. There were not many shops in the town. It was a big market held on certain days in the countryside. There were not many people in the afternoon. Qin Huai went straight to the most luxurious house. That should be the supply and marketing cooperative. When he went in, he saw that it was indeed the one.
He bought four packs of Huazi, which cost 68 yuan in the city but 78 yuan here. He even had Maotai, which was a dollar more expensive than at the department store in the city, at nine yuan a bottle. He bought six.
I bought more than a dozen bags of pastries, spending a total of one hundred and two yuan.
Money is too easy to spend at any time.
On the way back to the farm, he saw several people walking on the road and waved to them, but he didn't dare stop. He thought it was better to be careful because people's hearts were unpredictable.
After returning to the farm and parking the car, I took four bags of pastries and walked into Zhang Houchang's dormitory.
Maggie Cheung hasn't eaten anything today and must be starving now.
Zhang Houchang opened the pastry and said, "There should be pastries in here, right?"
Qin Huai said curiously: "I think so. I bought it at the supply and marketing cooperative."
"Seeing the cakes reminded me of a joke. Everyone was very poor, and the most common gift given during festivals was a packet of pastries. The recipients were reluctant to eat them, so when it was time to give gifts, they would send the packet of pastries, unopened, to another family. Often, after several rounds of "travel," a pastry would finally return to the recipient's home."
"One year, my family received a package of dim sum. Coco's mom saw the outer wrapper was torn and felt embarrassed to keep it as a gift, so she said she was giving it to Coco. But when she opened it, it turned out to be a bag of mud. Coco's mom knew who the gift was, and when she came back, she gave the family two packages of dim sum in return. Coco's mom kept saying she felt she had been wronged."
He was a provincial cadre, yet he encountered such a situation. You can imagine how poor people were at that time.
Maggie Cheung said: "I still remember that incident. I was about eight or nine years old at that time. My mother gave me another pack and that's when I stopped crying."
Zhang Houchang ate a few pieces and stopped, saying that he would leave a few pieces for the people in the dormitory. One of his roommates was a section chief, and the other was from the provincial water conservancy system, who was imprisoned because of a mistake.
It was getting darker and colder. Zhang Houchang saw that Maggie Cheung was still shivering in the cave, so he put a blanket on her. Qin Huai said, "I should have brought you a wool blanket earlier."
As they were talking, someone coughed outside. Zhang Houchang whispered, "Maybe that person is here."
Qin Huai walked out and saw a man wearing a military coat and a thick hat standing outside. He said, "Brother, is that you?"
The purchaser said, "It's me, come with me."
Qin Huai said, "Do you want to drive?"
He deliberately pulled the purchases into the car, indicating that there were the same things in the car.
The purchasing manager immediately understood and said, "Okay, the director doesn't live here, so go ahead and drive your car."
Qin Huai felt that there was a way. Following the buyer's instructions, they drove for more than 20 minutes and arrived at a row of houses. Qin Huai took a look and found that this was the town he had visited in the afternoon.
When they arrived at a house, the buyer knocked on the door. After a while, someone came to open the door. Qin Huai drove the car into the yard and found that it was a self-built house, a two-story building.
Qin Huai took two packs of cigarettes and four bottles of wine from the car and walked into the house. Sure enough, he saw the farm leader who had served lunch at noon sitting in the house reading a newspaper.
He immediately said, "Boss, I'm sorry to disturb your rest."
The leader looked up at what he was holding, and then said, as if he hadn't seen it, "Serve the people."
"You've worked so hard." He calmly put the things under the table behind him, then walked up to the leader without saying a word.
The buyer pulled him to sit down and said, "Director, Comrade Qin Huai is worried about his uncle, Comrade Zhang Houchang. He's old and can't do the heavy work on the farm. He wants to move to a farm closer to the provincial capital. What do you think is a good idea?"
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