Seeing that the old lady was about to leave, the short, fat man, not wanting to miss out on this business, quickly spoke up.
"If you think this kind of pre-made coal is too expensive, I also have loose coal for five cents a pound. However, this coal has a lot of big, hard lumps, so you'll have to break it down and haul it yourself, which is a lot of work. We don't deliver it. Do you want this kind?"
Compared to this, it's no wonder they sell for a higher price; there's definitely a reason why they're expensive.
"Where can I buy the ones that cost five cents a pound? And the ones that cost five cents a piece, are they in the same place?"
"If you need to, you can just trade in the grove of trees up ahead."
You don't care where I am. You're not getting any information out of me.
After thinking it over carefully, Xiao Jiu gave the other party an address.
"How about you deliver a thousand pieces of coal to this place at 5:30 tomorrow morning?"
As he spoke, he paid a 10% deposit in advance.
After thinking it over, I decided to buy the pre-made ones, so she wouldn't have to go through the trouble of mixing, pressing, and drying them.
"Let me make this clear first, if this coal isn't used well, I'll come back to you."
"Oh, ma'am, don't worry. We've been here for so many years, how could we ruin our own business?"
Xiao Jiu then left, and the address she mentioned was right next to the school.
Sure enough, she was waiting there early the next morning. When people arrived, she saw that the metal cart was quite nice.
"Should I sell this?" Since the car was recently purchased, it was eventually sold for eight yuan.
In this way, once the person leaves and there is no one around, Xiao Jiu can simply touch the cart and coal and store them in the warehouse.
The cart was deep and large enough to hold a thousand coal briquettes, and the three men hauling it put in a lot of effort.
Of course, she was also quick and efficient when paying the bill, and the bill was easy to calculate. There were ten in a stack, and a total of one hundred stacks were neatly arranged. You could tell if one was missing.
Actually, buying coal wasn't absolutely necessary. She originally thought that cooking in the space would be more convenient than using firewood, but she accidentally opened the staff rest area and found that there were quite a few small household appliances inside that could be plugged in and run. This excited her immensely.
Unfortunately, by the time we discovered it, the coal had already been bought. Luckily, this stuff can be stored, so it won't feel like a waste no matter when we use it.
Even if the coal at home runs out, she can secretly buy more and mix it in so that it's not noticeable at all.
The last time I went to the black market was in the evening, and there was basically nothing left. I guess I only managed to buy coal because I asked the right person.
She noticed that there weren't many other items for sale either. After all, resources were scarce, and even on the black market, not everything could be obtained.
She had been wandering around inside the warehouse, unable to open the door, but this time when she tried again, she was surprised to find that she could walk outside.
"Does that mean I can go and wander around areas that don't belong to my parents?"
The thought of even more fresh food waiting for her made Xiao Jiu incredibly excited, and she quickly ran outside.
Unfortunately, just twenty meters outside the warehouse, which is within your own property, you are blocked by an invisible wall. You can see the roofs of the entire logistics center, big and small, but you just can't get out.
Also included in the box were employees' electric bikes, bicycles, cars, and delivery vans, but none of them had keys.
"That's fine. At least I can wander around outside. If I need to light a stove in the future, I'll do it outside. Oh, and I'll need to buy a small stove too."
This time, I spent fifty yuan on coal briquettes and eight yuan on a cart, totaling fifty-eight yuan. I saved up for several weeks and finished it all in one go.
Because there are too many uncontrollable factors in using electricity in the space, after using it a few times, she still went to the black market and spent fifteen yuan to buy two stoves and ten yuan to buy a brand new large iron pot with a steamer basket. It was quite sturdy and even came with a kitchen knife. It had three layers of steamer baskets and was absolutely practical.
With that, all the money I had earned during this period was completely spent.
There was nothing she could do; she didn't have any tickets, so she had to buy them on the black market, where they were naturally much more expensive than those from the supply and marketing cooperative.
After she discovered that the sky outside the warehouse was synchronized with the outside world, Xiao Jiu learned how to make dough. After making the dough, she put the large dough bowl outside.
In this kind of cold weather, she usually starts cooking in the morning, and if the weather is good, she can open the oven in the afternoon, so it won't interfere with her steaming buns in the evening.
With this big iron pot, it's not only convenient to steam steamed buns, but also steamed dumplings and rice. She bought about ten lunch boxes, steamed them all at once, and then stored them in the warehouse to keep them warm.
She cooks several batches of stir-fries at a time, then puts them in a container and stores them in the warehouse to keep them fresh. With rice, she can get whatever side dishes she wants, just like a buffet. One batch is enough to feed her for a week without any problem.
The dishes I often make include stir-fried shredded potatoes, seasonal vegetables, cold bean sprouts, Mapo tofu, shredded pork with garlic sauce, eggplant with garlic sauce, braised fish, steamed sea bass, shrimp, and beef stew with tomatoes.
The seasoning area has various pre-made seasoning packets. Even if she doesn't know how to make them, she knows to just put the packets in and let them simmer. They'll look about five or six parts similar to the original.
The remaining four or five points were unacceptable, possibly because her knife skills and the order in which she added the ingredients were different, resulting in a poor taste.
But in this day and age, it's already amazing that it tastes like this, and she's quite satisfied with it.
She only dared to eat such good quality meals once a day at noon. She would eat two eggs first thing in the morning, and after morning self-study, she would eat a hard-to-swallow steamed bun with pickled vegetables. In the evening, she would go to the canteen to drink dark and muddy noodles. The canteen usually put whatever it had on hand, and the taste was all kinds of strange. This was definitely a challenge for her, who was used to good food.
She had managed to cope with life's challenges, and she also had her own ideas about her studies. When she told her teachers that she wanted to take the final exams again and be in the third year of junior high, they were stunned: "Do you want to skip a grade?"
"Well, after a few months, I realized I already know all the material from the second year of junior high, so I want to challenge myself. If I do well on the final exams for the third year of junior high, could I go straight to the graduating class for the second semester?"
It's been 60 years. In the spring semester, she went straight to the graduating class. The high school entrance exam was in June. She only planned to attend high school for one year and try to get into university in the fall of 1961. If she wanted to skip a grade in university and graduate as soon as possible, she could only learn her old profession.
She grew up in a relatively good environment, so she rarely had the chance to take action. In fact, it was because she lacked practical experience and dared not try easily. So in this life, if she could graduate early and enter the internship period, even if the position assigned to her was not very good because of her young age, at least she would have a job. It would be better than staying at home and working in the fields, right?
With this in mind, Xiao Jiu decided to take the college entrance examination in 1961, which would require her to spend more time studying in the space.
Previously, she would wait until her roommates fell asleep before sneaking into the corner of the room to study. She was very grateful that after the dormitory supervisor started checking the dormitories, she stopped paying attention to the situation inside. Her roommates were tired and hungry after studying all day and couldn't control their desire to sleep. It was because of this that she was able to study until 11 or 12 o'clock by waiting in the room.
She studies for a few extra hours each day, eats well, and isn't bothered by hunger, so she doesn't get distracted; at most, she just gets sleepy sometimes.
Due to lack of sleep, she would try to take a nap on her desk during breaks between classes.
She should be thankful that there wasn't much knowledge in this era, and students' basic knowledge was generally poor, unlike when she was in school, when elementary school students had endless extracurricular classes, and junior and senior high school students had endless tests and exercises.
Unlike now, where everything is fine once you've mastered the textbook, and whatever you study determines the direction of the exam questions. It's not about the future at all. You might be studying a drop of water, but the exam covers the entire Pacific Ocean, forcing all the kids to enroll in extracurricular tutoring classes. In the end, it's the passing scores that are raised.
If she didn't have this advantage, she wouldn't have been able to learn so easily and skip grades one after another. If this were in their era, even if she were a reincarnated person, she probably wouldn't have been able to learn so easily.
The school accepted Xiaojiu's suggestion because the exams were all on the same day. After the second-year exams were over, the teacher could just bring the third-year exam papers to her to take the test. She wouldn't need to run back and forth and distract other students.
With the teacher's promise, Xiao Jiu would also start looking at the key points and difficult points of the third year of junior high school while reviewing. These were readily available; she had kept the books of her older siblings, and her younger brother had some, and she also had some. Since they attended different schools, the level of the teachers could be seen from these key points and difficult points, as well as the class notes.
Having too many things on your mind can lead to confusion and insomnia.
This week, she couldn't sleep for at least three days. She was so tired, but she just couldn't fall asleep, which was very strange.
Until she saw her father waiting at the school gate after school on the afternoon of January 9th, she suddenly had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, her father rode his bicycle not in the direction of home, but hesitated several times before speaking to her.
"Jiu'er, Dad has something to tell you. Don't get excited right away,"
Xiao Jiuxin jumped up and grabbed Tao Changyi's hand: "Dad, is something wrong with my grandpa and grandma?"
Tao Changyi turned his head, his eyes red, and said, "Your grandma had a stroke a couple of days ago. Although she survived, she's now paralyzed on one side and is still in the hospital. Your sister Cuihua and Cuiju are both there."
"Where's my grandpa? Is he alright?"
Seeing her anxious, Tao Changyi quickly comforted her, "Yes, your grandfather is doing well. He's at the hospital with you. He won't let your mother or me take time off work. He's been busy taking care of things during the day, and your sister takes him home with her at night. Now your sister has moved to our house to look after your grandfather. We're so grateful to your sister this time. If she hadn't come over so often during the day and noticed something was wrong, and if your sisters hadn't taken turns getting your grandmother to the county hospital, we don't know if she would have made it!"
It's cold, I'm old, and I'm malnourished...
She deserves to die; she should have thought of this sooner.
Despite having prepared herself mentally, when she arrived at the hospital and saw her beloved grandmother, who had become even thinner due to the stroke, and saw her drooling when she got excited, she couldn't hold back her tears and they streamed down her face.
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