After introducing himself, Han Lei excitedly led the siblings into the supermarket's office area.
Upon entering the office, Xu Lai partially unwrapped the insulation covering the sweet potato vines, revealing the lush green sweet potato seedlings.
Upon seeing this, several office workers who hadn't seen any green vegetables in a long time immediately gathered around, with one of them even reaching out to take the sweet potato seedlings out to examine them.
"Don't move!"
Seeing this, Han Lei quickly spoke up to stop them: "These sweet potato seedlings are to be delivered to the city's agricultural department; there can't be any problems!"
Upon hearing this, the man withdrew his hand, feeling quite embarrassed.
"Little girl, how many work points do you plan to exchange these things for?"
Han Lei looked at the brother and sister standing side by side. The sister was very opinionated, and the brother was very responsible. From the moment they met, the brother had been carrying all these burdens.
Upon hearing about the exchange of work points, Xu Lai's expression straightened. Her fresh sweet potato seedlings and sweet potatoes were probably unique in City C.
Especially the sweet potato seedlings, which can be planted in suitable soil. When converted into work points, a pound of sweet potato seedlings can never be less than the ten work points her father earns in a day.
However, the specific number of work points to be exchanged depends on how much importance these leaders attach to these fresh sweet potato seedlings and sweet potatoes.
So she passed the buck to Han Lei.
"How about this, I'll give you thirty work points for this pound of sweet potato seedlings and five work points for this pound of sweet potatoes, how about that?"
Han Lei, worried that Xu Lai might think it was too little, patiently explained to her, "In this supermarket, the price of rice and flour is five work points per pound!"
By this calculation, one pound of sweet potato seedlings is equivalent to her father working three days under the scorching sun, or the equivalent of six pounds of rice or flour.
Xu Lai thought for a moment and then nodded in agreement.
Without waiting for Han Lei's instructions, the office staff weighed the two items on the electronic scale.
"The sweet potato vines weigh four and a half pounds, and the sweet potatoes weigh exactly ten pounds!"
Han Lei was a generous man. He waved his hand and said to Xu Lai, "You brought this all the way here and preserved it so well, so I'll charge you five pounds for these sweet potato vines!"
Upon hearing this, Xu Lai quickly thanked him.
Five jin of sweet potato vines are worth 150 work points, and ten jin of sweet potatoes are worth 50 work points, for a total of 200 work points.
This is equivalent to twenty days of her father's work, it's worth it!
Han Lei personally put the two items away and instructed the employees to pay Xu Lai with the work points card.
A work point card is worth five work points, so two hundred work points would require forty work point cards.
In her previous life, after the extreme heat disaster, Xu Lai and her younger brother were controlled by their aunt's family and had no chance to see the public card, which was equivalent to currency.
So this was the first time she had ever seen a work point card.
Xu Lai took a work point card in his hand and examined it carefully. The size of the work point card was about the same as the grain coupons issued in China in the 1950s and 1960s.
However, the craftsmanship is much more exquisite than that of grain coupons.
The number five on the work point card, like the numbers on the old RMB banknotes, changes color depending on the viewing angle.
In addition, the national emblem pattern on the work point card also has a rough, embossed feel when touched.
In general, the production of these work point cards may have been modeled after previous currency production methods to prevent counterfeiting.
However, resources may be limited in various aspects now, and the production methods are not as exquisite as those for currency.
After the staff paid Xu Lai with her work points card, they thoughtfully gave her a small box so she wouldn't have trouble carrying it.
Looking at these work point cards, Xu Lai thought of the sweet potato seedlings and sweet potatoes on that one and a half acres of land in the space, as well as so many potatoes.
She couldn't help but ask Han Lei again, "Uncle Han, we still have some sweet potato seedlings, sweet potatoes, and potatoes at home. Do you want them?"
"What, there's more?"
After Han Lei finished setting up the sweet potato seedlings and sweet potatoes, he couldn't help but raise his voice when he heard Xu Lai's words.
How much do you have left?
Xu Lai thought for a moment and gave a conservative estimate: "We can probably harvest another 30 jin of sweet potato vines, but we also have about 1,000 jin of potatoes and 300 jin of sweet potatoes. Do you want them all?"
"Everyone else is short of food, how come your family still has so much grain stored up?"
Xu Lai saw the shocked look on Han Lei's face.
She pretended to be calm and explained, "Before the natural disaster, my second great-uncle farmed a lot of land in the countryside. After that unknown virus broke out, when my dad went to pick up my second great-uncle, he resolutely refused to sell the harvested grain. My dad had no choice but to hire a truck to transport it to our home in the city!"
Of course, the reason we have sweet potato seedlings at home now is that my second uncle didn't want to be idle and specially went to the suburbs to get soil before the rainstorm, and bought flower pots and buckets to grow them at home.
After hearing Xu Lai's words, Han Lei expressed his admiration for the second uncle Xu Lai mentioned, saying, "No wonder they say that having an elder in the family is like having a treasure!"
"But are you going to sell all your potatoes and sweet potatoes? The weather's unusually hot right now; you should keep some food on hand just in case!"
Hearing the leader's pointed remark, Xu Lai smiled gratefully and said, "Uncle Han, we know. These are all definitely meant to be sold; otherwise, they'll probably spoil if we leave them any longer..."
Han Lei's suggestion was spot on; since the other party had decided to sell, it must have been pre-arranged.
"Alright, since you want to sell, we'll buy it. Whether it's potatoes or sweet potatoes, we'll buy them at five cents per pound!" Han Lei said generously.
Now that the sun is out, those guys in the agricultural department will definitely plant those potato and sweet potato seedlings as soon as possible.
After the next transaction was completed, Xu Lai asked Han Lei somewhat embarrassedly, "Uncle Han, our car was washed away by the flood. Do you have any trucks or anything that we can borrow? I can pay for the fuel with ten kilograms of sweet potato vines!"
Han Lei was a generous person, and he nodded in agreement: "Okay, forget about the gas, but your brother will have to wait at our supermarket!"
Xu Lai understood Han Lei's words. After all, trucks are important assets even under normal circumstances, and it's normal for others to be cautious at this time!
"Okay, Uncle Han!"
And so, Xu Chao was temporarily mortgaged to the government supermarket in Jinxiu Community by his older sister.
Han Lei arranged for a staff member to send a car to Xu Lai.
After getting into the truck's cab, Xu Lai inserted the key, turned it, and drove the truck towards his residential area.
However, she did not return to her own residential area.
Instead, she drove around to a less crowded place, stopped, climbed into the truck bed, and went into her spatial dimension to tell her second uncle, who was still busy cutting sweet potato seedlings and digging sweet potatoes, about the transaction.
"Our Lai Lai is really something, she closed such a big deal!"
Grandpa Xu was overjoyed to hear his granddaughter's good news.
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