What’s popular recently?
——It must be something you ate.
This wind blew across the country, inside and outside the pass.
Father Zhang finally wrote a complete letter. It was the first time in his life that he sent a letter to the capital. The letter contained a simple sentence: "Xiaowu, don't send food coupons!"
Zhang Guoqing was bewildered by the sudden words. Fortunately, he received letters from Zhang Laoer and his brothers and sisters shortly after.
Several brigades near Zhangjia Village attracted a peak in crowds of people - in the past, farmers envied city dwellers, but now city dwellers have lowered their status, searched for relatives everywhere, and stepped into farmers' courtyards and open fields.
It has to be said that it is ironic - how do you feel about following the so-called country people when you used to look down on the poor relatives who came to visit you?
The Zhang family has been farmers for generations, relying on hunting and farming for a living. Except for Zhang Guoqing, the whole family moved to the county town.
At this moment, Zhang Dad looked at the noisy households in the village and secretly felt lucky that his three brothers didn't have any shameless relatives. He subconsciously ignored his troublesome nephew and niece.
Uncle Zhang frowned and scolded, and after settling the quarrel, he followed his second brother to the old captain's house.
"Why did you come back? Look at your rosy complexion. You look younger than me. Don't wander around aimlessly. You're so old, and you still don't have any sense. What if something happens on the way?"
"Brother, you're wrong. I can beat ten of them by myself."
Uncle Zhang glanced at his second brother with a headache. How confident is this guy? Ten more?
"Go back. The courtyards of Lao Er and Xiao Wu have been arranged for people to live in, so there will be no problem. If you have nothing to do, go to the capital and stay away from me."
Zhang's father was not angry after hearing this. This time, it was thanks to his eldest brother that the lonely elderly people in the village moved in with his two sons. Otherwise, if they really wanted to let people with families move in, it would be difficult to drive them away later.
Seeing the fork in the road, Father Zhang watched him leave with a hunched back and shook his head helplessly.
When he returned to the old house and found his two sons coming again, he glared at them angrily.
"Dad, let's go. It's so cold and icy."
Zhang Laoer quickly pulled his eldest brother. Oh, he really doesn't know how to talk. Maybe his father thought he came here because he was worried that they were wasting food.
"Dad, it's not a big deal that Xiaowu's yard is empty. You have to go back and see if anything is missing."
Sure enough, after Zhang Laoer said this, Zhang's mother quickly took her husband and left back to the city.
Others may not know, but Zhang Laoer knows that his younger brother has been preparing a lot of private goods for his parents. Last month, his father asked him to exchange 50 kilograms of rice for coarse grains.
If it weren't for his father and younger brother, he and his family would have been unable to make ends meet.
On the way back, Zhang Laoer walked slowly with his father Zhang behind him. He saw his mother and his eldest brother walking very fast, and they were quite far away.
He whispered to Father Zhang, "Uncle Zuo said that all the universities in the capital have also reduced their food supplies, and even my Uncle Zhou has reduced his supplies quite a bit. Xiaowu's food coupons can no longer be sent back."
Zhang Dad listened and looked at him, then lowered his head and said nothing. He said it lightly. If he hadn't subsidized them with some coarse grain, they would probably have written to the capital for help.
However, the eldest son really couldn't send back any more food coupons. If he had too much on his hands, those daughters-in-law would start to get impatient again. Don't think he didn't know that the eldest daughter-in-law secretly gave her parents ten pounds of cornmeal. If the second daughter-in-law hadn't been watching closely, she would probably have done the same.
Back in the county town, this time, Father Zhang refused to stay with his other two sons. His sons were his, but his two daughters-in-law were outsiders. They avoided their husbands daily, smiling flatteringly at him and his wife, and occasionally complaining about their families' plight, wondering if he knew what they were thinking. He simply didn't bother to pay attention.
Zhang's mother ignored her two sons' pleadings, determined to live on her own. She and her husband could eat whatever they wanted, and they didn't have to think twice about making a good meal for their grandchildren. Her eldest son had left her a lot of things, and she was stupid to suffer like her daughters-in-law.
The old couple stayed in their room and finally wrote a letter after much effort. Well, the old couple was satisfied. It was more convenient to write letters by themselves.
This letter was extremely heavy, carrying the love of Zhang's father and mother, and finally reached Zhang Guoqing's hands ahead of time.
When Zhou Jiao saw the letter from Zhang Laoer and others, she learned that her parents-in-law had gone back home to live on their own again. She thought something had happened again, which made the old couple feel uncomfortable.
This time, the couple did not stop their parents in their reply, but instead sent a letter to their eldest sister, Zhang Meili, asking the three brothers, Ziwen and Xizi, to visit their parents more often. They believed that having children like Xizi and Ziwen would not make their parents lonely, and would also somewhat ease the burden on Zhang Meili's family.
The couple figured out from the clues that the food coupons they sent back would surely make their two sisters-in-law jealous and put their parents in a difficult position. Considering the food reserves in their hometown, the couple followed Zhang's father's instructions and never sent food coupons back again.
Zhang's father was relieved by this behavior. Seeing the appearance of food substitutes and green algae in the textile factory cafeteria, the old couple secretly felt relieved—their son didn't have to save up his food coupons to send back home, so he shouldn't have to eat these things.
His eldest son Zhang Guoqing really doesn't need to eat any substitute foods, but unfortunately the food situation in the school has not improved, but has become increasingly bleak.
Starting from this fall semester, all the flour used is cornmeal, sweet potato chips, sorghum flour, and buckwheat flour. Even the occasional white flour is not the standard 85-grain flour, but the "whole-bran flour" flour without removing the bran.
What does "lian fu dao" mean? It means grinding 100 kilograms of wheat into 100 kilograms of flour. When swallowed, you can clearly feel a sharp pain in your throat. Even this is rare.
The most common dry food on the table is cornmeal and buckwheat flour. The flour looks white, but turns black when it is made into steamed buns.
These coarse grains have been improved many times in the canteen, with a lot of tree leaves, corn cob powder and other miscellaneous things added. The taste is harder and more astringent, with a little bitterness and a hint of sweetness. The most terrible thing is that eating them will cause constipation.
In the past, Zhou Jiao had been confident she could fake the dark, dark steamed bread, vegetable dumplings, and steamed buns, but this time, she was helpless. The ingredients were too complex, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make the finished product look similar.
Soon, in order to keep everyone full, the cafeteria added a lot of new varieties and some substitutes appeared. The most popular one was green algae.
After eating this, my stomach started to churn and burn, and then it became bloated like a drum, and even passing gas became a problem. But at least it relieved my hunger.
In order to get more food, many people braved the wind and snow to go to the countryside, and only returned to school after dark. They handed in the "trophies" they picked up to the cafeteria for weighing in exchange for a few meal coupons.
Fortunately, eating in the cafeteria wasn't mandatory on campus anymore. Zhang Guoqing and his wife would join everyone else unless absolutely necessary, and they wouldn't dare spend even a second in the cafeteria otherwise.
Yi Jiefang and his companions were so hungry that they had to go home every one or two days to bring back some dry food and cook some soup in the house, so that they could barely survive.
Looking at other classmates who had gradually lost weight, everyone tacitly agreed not to bring meat-flavored food back to school again.
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