While everyone else was talking, Zhu Hongqi remained silent, occasionally pounding her chest and sometimes running outside. Her nausea could be faintly heard.
"What's wrong, Sister Hongqi?"
Xiao Jiu sat up with concern. Zhu Hongqi had just finished vomiting and his face was a little pale.
"You don't have an upset stomach, do you? Why don't you go see the school doctor?"
No. 1 High School is the best key high school in L City, so it is equipped with a school doctor.
"It's nothing, I just... I think I ate something bad. I'll just have some diarrhea and I'll drink some water."
Just as Zhu Hongqi was about to get up to pour water, she suddenly felt dizzy, and Peng Juan, who was closest to her, quickly hugged her.
"Oh my god, Hongqi, are you alright?"
Zhou Shengnan frowned slightly. "She shouldn't faint from an upset stomach, right? When she came this afternoon, she didn't eat with us. She said she had eaten at home, but she wasn't feeling well then. She seemed weak and listless. Do you think she might be... hungry?"
Zhu Hongqi was usually the quietest. She was the best student and the most hardworking in her dormitory, but she also ate the least. Her family had probably exhausted their savings to send her to high school. When her sister brought her here, she was pale and thin, looking like a skeleton, even worse than Zhu Hongqi.
Xiao Jiu quickly looked for Zhu Hongqi's tea mug, but couldn't find it. Then she remembered that she only had one lunchbox. So she immediately found an enamel tea mug that was given away with drinks in the warehouse staff dormitory. Although it might have been used by an employee, she believed that Zhu Hongqi wouldn't mind at this time.
After washing it outside, I went to my cabinet, scooped out two spoonfuls of malted milk powder, and dissolved it in boiling water. Instantly, a sweet aroma filled the dormitory. Xiao Jiu put the remaining malted milk powder on the table.
"Sisters, whoever wants to drink can scoop some, no need to be polite."
But no one touched it. Everyone knew that it wasn't easy for each family to save up this stuff. No matter how good the small restaurant was, it still belonged to them. How could they just take advantage of it?
In just a short while, Peng Juan brought over a handful of peanuts in their shells, Pang Weiwei took out a cornbread, and Gao Mingxia and Zhou Shengnan brought out steamed vegetable buns and pickled vegetables from home.
Xiao Jiu thought for a moment. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching, there were still quite a few places selling mooncakes. Taking out similar pastries at this time would be appropriate...
Is that too much to ask?
The snacks in the small wine warehouse come from both the north and south. Common ones like peach shortbread, sponge cake, glutinous rice strips, and cat ear pastries are all northern specialties. Compared to the roughness of the north, the pastries in the south are very delicate, with various kinds of snow skin, such as water chestnut cake, lotus seed paste, and glutinous rice. Just for breakfast, there may be dozens of kinds. It's no wonder that southerners live a refined life. You can get a glimpse of this from these beautiful pastries.
After looking around, she picked up an old-fashioned five-nut mooncake. It looked similar to the ones sold in supply and marketing cooperatives now, the only difference being the era. The ingredients were actually quite similar.
If Zhu Hongqi's condition was indeed caused by hunger, then she needs to improve her nutrition at this time, as sweets are the best way to replenish energy.
After everyone wiped her face with towels and gently patted her cheeks to wake her up, Zhu Hongqi was stunned for two or three minutes before she came to her senses.
As she tried to sit up, Zhou Shengnan, the eldest sister in her dormitory, pulled her into her arms, and Xiao Jiu promptly handed her a mug of malted milk tea.
"Drink some water to fill your stomach."
Zhu Hongqi looked down, took a deep breath, and looked up in surprise: "This is... the smell of malted milk powder?"
Only Pang Weiwei and Xiao Jiu in the dormitory could afford this stuff, so Gao Mingxia said when she looked at them.
"You've already fainted, don't worry about that. Just drink it, or you'll develop serious health problems from hunger and end up spending a lot of money at the hospital!"
Perhaps this intimidated her, for Zhu Hongqi, with red eyes, obediently lowered her head and drank, until her throat was almost moistened.
A lunchbox full of delicious food was handed to her: "Eat up, eat whatever you want, but don't eat too much at once, chew slowly, it'll make your stomach feel better. Don't eat that dried vegetable you brought, can that stuff keep you full?"
If I hadn't been looking for her lunchbox, I wouldn't have seen a small cloth bag of dried vegetables in her cupboard. There was nothing else there, which meant she hadn't brought back a single grain of food this week.
Seeing her roommate's concerned face, Xiao Hongqi couldn't hold back her tears and burst into tears: "I only found out how hard my family's life is when I went home this week. They even wanted to marry my sister off so the groom's family could send grain to help them out. When I heard that, I thought it meant selling my sister for grain! How could I agree to that? My tuition was paid for by my sister... Waaah, my sister sold her blood to pay for it. How could I possibly do that again..."
The red flag was already black, and now, so thin that you could see the lines between her bones, she looked even weaker and more pitiful, which was truly heartbreaking.
During the famine years, Zhu Hongqi's family situation was not an isolated case; some might even say that if they were so poor, how could they still go to school?
Perhaps it was because she was so poor, yet someone was still willing to support her education, that she felt even more guilty and distressed.
"Stop talking, eat first, we'll talk about other things after you're full,"
Xiao Jiu's voice choked with sobs, and her other roommates gently comforted her. Finally, in the half hour after lights out, they managed to get her to eat something.
Xiao Jiu discreetly took her pulse and, after confirming that her spleen and stomach were extremely weak, only gave her easily digestible peach shortbread.
Of course, she brought out the peach shortbread again, and said, "You can eat the rest tomorrow when you've recovered."
That night, no one slept peacefully. Jiu'er heard her roommates tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Only after confirming that Zhu Hongqi had started snoring did Zhou Shengnan quietly get out of bed. In the dim light, it could be seen that she scooped some food out of the cupboard. When Xiao Jiu saw this, she quickly went over and held her hand.
"Sister Shengnan, your family isn't well-off either. You can't even feed yourself properly. If you want, why don't you take it back?"
Seeing that Gao Mingxia and Peng Juan were about to get up to scoop up the grain, Xiao Jiu took out five yuan and three jin of grain coupons.
“My dad gave me some money when I came here. I won’t be able to spend it all before October. I’ll lend it to Sister Hongqi first. Anyway, the famine can’t last forever. It will get better eventually.”
"And me too. I don't have much money, but it's more than enough to give her two jin of grain coupons. Here, Xiao Jiu, you can put it under her pillow as well."
Pang Weiwei comes from a dual-income family. Her parents' combined income is about 100 yuan a month. In addition, she is currently a high school student and receives 24 jin of grain allowance every month, which is much better than that of the average family. The two jin of grain coupons she receives are really nothing.
"Five yuan, five jin of grain coupons, two liang per meal, six liang a day, six jin in ten days, let her eat for now, I'll give her some more later."
The money is definitely enough. Don't underestimate five yuan. Three mao a day is enough to eat half full, so five yuan should be enough for her to last until the National Day holiday.
“I’ll give her another dollar, plus a pound of grain coupons, that’s six dollars and six pounds of grain coupons, enough to last her ten days.”
Xiao Jiu added money and tickets, and her roommates looked at her with admiration. She smiled shyly.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm also spoiled by my older brothers and sisters. I can't bear to see her sister go through so much trouble to send her to school. If she has to drop out of school because she's not eating well, how sad would that be! Sister Shengnan, Sister Mingxia, Sister Juanzi, you've all had it tough. Leave this to me and Sister Weiwei. We definitely won't let her go hungry."
Pang Weiwei sniffed. "That's right, so that we two can put in more effort and avoid eating too much and feeling stuffed."
Her half-joking remark drew a glare from Shengnan: "Nonsense! You two are both so skinny, you're still feeling bloated. Alright, I know you mean well. Let's help each other out and get her through this year first. Maybe after next summer's harvest, the famine in various places will ease up?"
Zhou Shengnan was right. The famine did ease after the summer harvest of 1961, and the hardship only lasted for another seven or eight months.
Once everyone was in bed, Xiao Jiu, because she had a mosquito net, was able to enter the warehouse openly.
She counted the money and coupons she had left. Aside from the money she had just given to Zhu Hongqi, she now had seventy-six yuan in cash, twenty-two jin of grain coupons, eight jin and six liang of meat coupons, and a dozen or so other colorful coupons, none of which were worth much, such as industrial coupons, cotton shoe coupons, soap coupons, stool coupons, menstrual belt coupons, and so on.
Good heavens! If she hadn't bought the vegetables, she would never have known there were so many different kinds of things to choose from. She spent them while checking the expiration dates, and quickly bought the ones that were about to expire. As a result, her space now has quite a few daily necessities from this era.
She has already stockpiled more than ten menstrual pads, and she is glad that her period has not started yet, otherwise she would be worried about this.
She also collected cigarette coupons, which she used to buy cigarettes and store in her spatial storage. She now has three cartons. However, her grandfather smokes dry tobacco, while her father does not. Her grandfather grows some dry tobacco in the backyard, enough for him to roll cigarettes every year, so he has never bought any.
As for the three packs of cigarettes she hoarded in her storage space, she'll find a way to give them to her father later. Although he doesn't smoke them himself, he can use them to get things done.
Let's wait until this famine year is over. At this stage, anything you bring out will seem a bit too high-profile.
She didn't have much money or tickets, mainly because she wasn't bold enough to sell them. She decided to wait until it got colder, then she would have a place to store the vegetables in her space.
Actually, if I hadn't bought that bicycle for my older sister before, it might have cost more than a hundred yuan.
The black market is her primary option for getting rich, but she hasn't found a suitable opportunity yet. She'll wait until she meets some easy-going older folks and ask them for advice.
Compared to Y County, L City's black market must be larger and more numerous, which means her opportunities will gradually increase with the surrounding environment.
She was too young to go out before, and thought that as long as she had food and drink, that was enough. Now that she has the opportunity to come to the big city, and her family is not around, it is the time for her to make a name for herself. She always felt that since the warehouse she brought could allow her to go out, she might also have the opportunity to visit the logistics park outside their home.
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