Xiao Jiu would occasionally bring a few quail eggs for his grandparents when he came home from work each day.
"Grandma, look! It's in the same spot as last time. I picked up five more today!"
I don't dare to pick them up every day. Giving a few to my grandparents every few days to supplement their nutrition is enough.
Quail eggs were incredibly precious in those days; only high-ranking officials in the city who received government-subsidized grain rations could afford them, and ordinary people couldn't buy them.
And that precious rice—even if they have local rice, can it compare to Northeast rice? Can it compare to Yuanyang rice?
They buy mostly broken rice, which is the rice grits discarded after milling rice. This kind of rice is broken and suitable for making porridge, but not for steaming. Steamed rice will not have a grainy texture and will not taste good.
The large canteen has been open for several months now, and we haven't eaten rice even once, not even rice mixed with sorghum and millet. It's too wasteful of grain. We can only drink rice water occasionally, and it's so thin that you can see your reflection in it. It's thickened with sweet potato starch, otherwise it would be too watery and the commune members would complain about it.
The most common dishes were stewed vegetables with steamed buns, sweet potato porridge, steamed sweet potatoes, stewed potatoes, or thick noodles. The noodles were made from mixed flour, so they were thick and gooey. You would throw some vegetable leaves into them, and it looked like a big bowl with everything, but you would actually get hungry very quickly.
If the canteen initially filled the commune members with hope, then as the food was consumed too quickly, and some people wanted to put on a show by reporting excessive production targets despite not being able to produce enough, this would directly lead to insufficient food supplies and various attempts to make up for it. Who would suffer in the end?
Even a child could figure that out.
This year, there has been no such thing as "one autumn rain brings one chill," because there hasn't been a single rain since the beginning of autumn or even winter.
Grandpa and Grandma were tidying up the cabbages and radishes in the yard when they sighed.
"This year is probably going to be tough. Look at those wheat seedlings, they're so dry. Everyone's trying to find ways to get the villagers to fetch water from the river to help them grow!"
Grandma shook her head, "The little water we get by carrying isn't even enough to keep things going; the wheat seedlings won't have enough to drink."
Without electricity and water pumps, relying solely on manual labor would only lead to exhaustion and wouldn't solve the fundamental problem, especially since each production team had to send people to the neighboring county to repair irrigation canals and dams.
The country spends so much manpower and resources to solve the problem of irrigation for more farmland and even water supply for the people. It's just that the timing is not right, and everything happened at the same time!
Sure enough, once winter arrived and the work in the fields was finished, the production team stopped working in mid-November. The three meals a day that were originally provided were immediately reduced to two. Some people protested, but what good was it? You weren't working, so we still had to feed you. It was already good enough if we gave you two meals a day.
Eat one meal at 10 a.m. and another at 4 p.m., and that's it for the day.
Having gotten used to three meals a day, I almost couldn't even handle a little alcohol at first, and had to secretly eat biscuits to stave off hunger.
Even the grandparents couldn't stand it, so they secretly cooked some vegetable porridge in an earthenware pot and mixed it with their drinks.
If their family is like this, then other families are even more likely to be in the same situation.
Although people no longer have cooking utensils, they still have earthenware pots or wooden kitchen utensils left over from before. If they don't have kitchen knives, they still have sickles or other tools. They can even use their hands to break up vegetables and still make a bowl of soup and rice!
Sometimes when Sister Cuihua comes over and asks about the situation in the village, the stories are all pretty much the same.
“Your fourth sister has always had a big appetite. With winter coming, we’re only letting her eat two meals a day. How can she stand it? So we’ll add an extra meal, which we’ll cook in an earthenware pot or a clay pot. Otherwise, what can we do? She’s so hungry and anxious that she can’t sleep at all. We just put whatever we have in. We planted so many cabbages this year, so we tear them up, put them in the pot, stir in some fried flour paste, and it’s fragrant and tastes pretty good.”
When Cuihua came this time, she also brought a fresh sea fish, which even a fool would guess was taken from Fourth Sister's little warehouse.
These sea fish are huge, each weighing twenty or thirty pounds. To avoid attracting attention, the older sister chopped the fish into pieces.
Grandma would marinate the fish with salt, star anise, and Shaoxing wine. When the weather was nice, she would take it out to dry in the sun. On nights when she stewed cabbage, she would throw a piece of the fish into the stew, so at least it would be a meat dish.
Compared to those of us who stay at home, the food at school is far less satisfying. Even the meals for my parents and my third sister who work are not as good as before. Fortunately, my third sister was officially promoted to a permanent position in September of this year.
She was incredibly lucky to be promoted before the famine.
After becoming a full-time employee, my household registration was transferred to my workplace, my salary increased to 36 yuan, and I received monthly food allowances and receipts. I now have a proper urban household registration.
To help her get a permanent position, her parents actually put in a lot of effort behind the scenes, inviting people to meals and giving them cigarettes, alcohol, and meat. That's how they got the opportunity. Of course, only the Tao family knew about this. The Tang sisters didn't know. If they did, they would probably be very polite to her.
But Xiao Jiu understands everything; she'll repay this debt in the future.
Only the Tang sisters knew that Tang Cuilian had been promoted to a permanent position; to outsiders, she was still a temporary worker, and this would never be told to anyone.
After the busy autumn harvest, the old house was revitalized. With people having more free time, they started looking for things to do.
Tang Cuihua never expected that Li Qingqing from the eldest branch of the family could be so shameless. While they were going to the cafeteria to get food, she actually brought a stranger to block their path. Just by looking at the lewd look in that lame man's eyes, she knew he was no good.
Li Qingqing was ostensibly talking to them, but in reality, she was pulling the lame man along as she introduced herself to them.
It's ridiculous, as if they're so eager to know him.
In front of the villagers, Tang Cuihua gave Li Qingqing a cold laugh.
"Since he's your relative, you should treat him well. Bringing a strange man, especially a disabled one, to us and saying you're introducing us is ridiculous. We don't see anything to do with him. If you're trying to take advantage of us sisters, I advise you to give up on that idea. Otherwise, even if you frame us and force us to marry into your family, we'll fight to the death and someone might even die. We'll take someone down with us if we have to. You can try if you don't believe me!"
These words immediately terrified the lame man, turning his face pale.
Tang Cuihua said to him even more bluntly, "Don't be fooled by them. Their son ruined someone else's daughter, and now that she's pregnant, she's asking for a high dowry. They can't bear to part with their own daughter, so they're targeting their nieces. Don't you know how bad our reputation is? I've separated myself from my sisters and I only take in sons-in-law. I have to choose them myself. You lame man, I don't want you!"
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